< Key Hightlight >

The Internet of Things, or IoT, describes the use of connected sensors and actuators to control and monitor the environment, the things that move within it, and the people that act within it. Use cases include the automated home, the connected car, wearable technology, the automated home, smart cities, and predictive maintenance for industrial machinery.

Scope

This report provides an overview of the Internet of Things (IoT) theme. 

It identifies the key trends impacting growth of the theme over the next 12 to 24 months, split into three categories: technology trends, macroeconomic trends, and regulatory trends. 

It contains a comprehensive industry analysis, including market size and growth forecasts for both enterprise and consumer IoT, details of M&A deals driven by the IoT theme, and analysis of patent trends. 

The detailed value chain shows comprises five layers: devices, connectivity, data, apps, and services. Leading and challenging vendors are identified across each of the five layers.

Key Highlights

For IoT technology to become truly pervasive, two things need to happen: latency levels need to drop to allow real-time decision making, and IoT deployments need to operate more autonomously. Advances in data center technology are already pushing more intelligence to the edge of data networks, reducing latency, while Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) technology is gradually reducing the role of human decision-making in many IoT ecosystems. 

Pervasive IoT will become closer to reality as AIoT and edge computing – both nascent technologies – mature, perhaps in a decade or so for markets such as autonomous trucks. 

From a wearable fitness tracker to a smart speaker at home, from a connected car to a smart building, and from advanced automation to asset tracking, IoT plays a role in every aspect of life in every industry. COVID-19 has highlighted the crucial role the IoT has come to play in our lives. Many traditional use-cases like smart city projects were put on hold as businesses coped with the pandemic-driven economic slowdown and governments reprioritized budgets in response to the health crisis. By contrast, several IoT use cases saw growing adoption during the pandemic, such as using connected thermal cameras to detect potential COVID-19 infections and sensors for monitoring office occupancy levels. The demand for technologies that can help the workforce get safely back to work is rising and will likely continue to grow. IoT applications such as contact tracing devices and health-monitoring wearables provide critical data to help fight the pandemic. 

Historically, much of the actual value of IoT came from industrial applications. This is not the flashy multicolored world of the automated home. It’s the domain of grimy factory machines. Currently, the consumer IoT market is beginning to take off. More than 5 billion consumers own a smartphone. We expect spending on wearable technology to increase from $59bn in 2020 to $156bn by 2024. Penetration of automated home technology is rising too, with our forecasts for spending on the automated home rising from $66bn in 2020 to $93bn by 2024. 

The next phase of IoT has the potential to transform how we live and work. As IoT penetration extends to the point of being pervasive, entirely new business models will emerge. IoT networks will even do business with one another, providing services resulting from autonomous, or near-autonomous, collaboration. IoT enabled factories could operate with far greater efficiency and flexibility. Farms could increase productivity and improve sustainability. Cities could optimize their use of resources and offer residents all kinds of new services at a lower cost. To make these new IoT ecosystems more intelligent and communicative and reduce the human-machine gap, connected things will be embedded with AI capabilities.

Reasons to buy

We forecast the global IoT market to reach $1.1 trillion in revenue by 2024. Enterprise IoT will account for 73% of market revenue by 2024, down from 76% in 2020, while the consumer segment will make up 27% in 2024, up from 24% in 2020, with significant growth coming from wearables. In a post-COVID-19 world, we expect a new wave of digital transformation to fuel higher growth across all IoT markets. 

This report includes a comprehensive technology briefing, which identifies five major IoT markets (automated home, connected car, wearable technology, smart cities, and Industrial Internet). It also discusses key enabling technologies for IoT, including AI, cloud computing, 5G, and cybersecurity, and analyzes the four stages of IoT development. 

As well as market forecasts for the global IoT market, this report also includes forecasts to 2024 for consumer and enterprise IoT, and the five major IoT markets. 

The value chain identifies leading vendors and notable challengers across all layers, including devices, connectivity, data, and apps.

Companies mentioned

AAC Technologies 

Accenture 

Accton 

Actifio 

ADT 

Akamai 

Alarm.com 

Alibaba 

Alphabet 

Alps Electric 

Alteryx 

Altibase 

Amazon 

Ambarella 

AMD 

AMS 

Analog Devices 

Apple 

Arcadia Data 

Arista Networks 

Arm 

Armis 

Arup 

AT&T 

Atkins 

Atos 

Attivio 

Audi 

BAE Systems 

Baidu 

Bentley Systems 

Bharti Airtel 

BigPanda 

Black & Veatch 

BMC Software 

BMW 

Boeing 

Bosch 

Broadcom 

BT Group 

C3.ai 

Canon 

Capgemini 

Celestica 

Check Point Software 

Chicony 

China Mobile 

China Telecom 

China Unicom 

Ciena 

Cisco 

Citrix Systems 

Cloudera 

Cognex 

Cognizant 

Comcast 

Continental 

Control4 

Couchbase 

CrowdStrike 

Daimler 

Darktrace 

Dassault Systèmes 

Data Virtuality 

Dataiku 

Datameer 

DataRobot 

DataStax 

DataTorrent 

DataVirtuality 

Dell Technologies 

Deloitte 

Delphix 

Denodo Technologies 

Denso 

Deutsche Telekom 

Didi Chuxing 

DJI 

Domo 

Dundas 

DXC Technologies 

EnterpriseDB 

Equinix 

Ericsson 

Exago 

Exasol 

Exeros Technologies 

Extreme Networks 

F5 Networks 

Facebook 

FICO 

FireEye 

Floow 

Fortinet 

Fujifilm 

Fujitsu 

Gafcon 

Garmin 

GE 

Geely 

Genpact 

Geotab 

Goertek 

Google 

GoPro 

HCL Technologies 

Here Technologies 

Hikvision 

Hitachi 

Hitachi Vantara 

Holitech Technology 

HollySys 

Honeywell 

HPE 

HTC 

Huawei 

IBM 

iFlytek 

InetSoft 

Infineon 

Infor 

Informatica 

Information Builders 

Infosys 

INRIX 

Inspur 

Intel 

JD.com 

Juniper Networks 

Kakao 

Kanematsu 

KDDI 

Keboola 

Keyence 

KNIME 

Knowles 

Konica Minolta 

KT 

Kyvos 

Largan Precision 

Leadspace 

Lenovo 

LG Electronics 

LG Innotek 

Libelium 

Link Labs 

Lite-On 

Lockheed Martin 

Lumen Technologies 

Lytx 

MapR (HPE) 

MarkLogic 

McAfee 

McKinsey 

MediaTek 

Microchip 

Microsoft 

MicroStrategy 

MiTAC 

Mix Telematics 

Mobileye 

Mobvoi 

MongoDB 

Mott McDonald