GSMA Sees Fast-Growing IoT Market, Challenges for Carriers

The global IoT market will generate $1.1 trillion in revenue by 2025 “as market value shifts from connectivity to platforms, applications and services,” GSMA reported Wednesday. At that point, there will be more than 25 billion IoT connections, driven by growth in the industrial IoT market, with Asia-Pacific poised to become the largest global IoT region in connections and revenue, GSMA said. Carriers need to figure out how to monetize the growth in the IoT, GSMA said. “Although connectivity revenue will grow over the period, it will only account for 5 per cent of the total IoT revenue opportunity by 2025, underscoring the need for operators to expand their capabilities beyond connectivity in order to capture a greater share of market value,” said a release. “This is a challenge already being addressed by a number of operators, which are creating dedicated IoT business units and service lines.”