The IoT is growing exponentially, that much is clear. Although knowing exactly how much it will grow and when is more the province of Miss Cleo than sure thing, research firms are chasing the statistical trends and making ever more compelling cases for incredible expansion.
This week, IDC announced that its newest research indicates that the worldwide IoT market will grow from $655.8 billion last year to $1.7 trillion in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 16.9 percent.
Devices, connectivity, and IT services will make up the majority of the IoT market by 2020, said IDC. Altogether, those sectors are estimated to account for over two-thirds of the global market in 2020, with devices alone representing 31.8 percent of the total. IDC said it expects that IoT purpose-built platforms, application software, and “as a service” offerings will capture larger percentages of revenue between now and then.
“While wearable devices are the consumer face of the Internet of Things, and where recognition of IoT appears to begin, the real opportunity remains in the enterprise and public sector markets,” said Vernon Turner, SVP and IoT research fellow, Enterprise Systems, IDC. “The ripple effect of IoT is driving traditional business models from IT-enabled business processes to IT-enabled services and finally to IT-enabled products, which is beginning to disrupt the IT status quo.”
The new forecast is one of three recently completed reports defining the IoT market: Worldwide Internet of Things Taxonomy, Worldwide Internet of Things Forecast and the Worldwide IoT Spending Guide by Vertical. The taxonomy report includes a view to the horizontal technology stack of hardware, software, services, and connectivity. The forecast includes the installed base by region and revenue projections from both a regional and technology perspective. The Spending Guide focuses on 25 of the fastest growing IoT use cases in 11 verticals.
“IDC's Internet of Things taxonomy is intended to provide a framework to categorize and relate technology and industry-specific aspects of this burgeoning market,” said Carrie MacGillivray, program VP, IoT and Mobile research, IDC. “For 2015, the taxonomy includes a view to the horizontal technology stack of hardware, software, services, and connectivity as well as a vertical view to the industries and use cases that IDC is forecasting in the IoT market.”
As the IoT grows and evolves there will always be too many moving parts for any one company to keep track of. That’s why we’re inviting the entire industry to join us at Caesars in Las Vegas for the IoT Evolution Expo, where the entire industry can get together to share ideas, make deals and learn new tools to build a better, faster IoT.
