How connected will you be this year?
dubai — Consumers and businesses around the world are ready to embrace a more connected future, with experts noting that total spending on Internet of Things (IoT) services is on pace to reach $273 billion in 2017.
Gartner forecasts that 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017, up 31 per cent from 2016, and will reach 20.4 billion by 2020. Total spending on endpoints and services will reach almost $2 trillion in 2017.
“IoT services are central to the rise in IoT devices,” said Denise Rueb, research director at Gartner. “Services are dominated by the professional IoT-operational technology category in which providers assist businesses in designing, implementing and operating IoT systems. However, connectivity services and consumer services will grow at a faster pace. Consumer IoT services are newer and growing off a small base. Similarly, connectivity services are growing robustly as costs drop, and new applications emerge.”
Regionally, Greater China, North America and Western Europe are driving the use of connected things and the three regions together will represent 67 per cent of the overall IoT installed base in 2017.
The consumer segment is the largest user of connected things with 5.2 billion units in 2017, which represents 63 per cent of the overall number of applications in use. Businesses are on pace to employ 3.1 billion connected things in 2017. While consumers purchase more devices, businesses spend more. In 2017, in terms of hardware spending, the use of connected things among businesses will drive $964 billion. Consumer applications will amount to $725 billion in 2017. By 2020, hardware spending from both segments will reach almost $3 trillion.
— rohma@khaleejtimes.com