Chinese operators top IoT connections in December quarter

During the December quarter, Asia witnessed a 64.2 per cent on-year growth, dominating the cellular IoT connections with a 57.2 per cent share. While China contributed to 81 per cent of Asian connections and grew 75 per cent compared with the year ago period, Japan and South Korea grew 15 per cent and 25 per cent, respectively. Japan holds 5 per cent share and South Korea holds 2 per cent share within Asia, the report said.

According to Research Director Peter Richardson, the growth in IoT cellular connectivity has been modest so far. “But we expect the next half billion IoT cellular connections to be added by 2020,” he added. Cellular IoT operators are well-positioned to become a single and preferred source for IoT solutions by bundling IoT devices, secure connectivity, platform and data management.

“While some operators might lead in offering end-to-end IoT solutions for specific verticals (eg. connected cars or asset tracking), for some verticals, operators will still depend on system integrators and other solution providers to help customers deploy the complete solution,” research director Neil Shah said.

Even as India may not figure in the top IoT markets, there are currently more than 900 startups in the country working on various IoT systems in the areas of agriculture, health, education, smart city development, among various others. Recently, considering the growth of wearable devices — which are one type of IoT devices — the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India set up a working committee to look into the viability of using such gadgets to improve the risk assessments, especially in the health insurance segment.