5G and eSIM drive increased enterprise IoT growth

New research reveals that enterprises around the world are broadly optimistic about the prospects presented by IoT and are harnessing the latest technologies to exploit them.

Analyst firm Omdia polled hundreds of enterprise professionals across eight verticals in a global survey designed to establish their attitudes and strategies towards IoT (Internet of Things). On the whole, respondents were, somewhat surprisingly, bullish about the commercial prospects for IoT, with 95% of them expecting to see measurable benefits from it within two years of deployment. Furthermore, 90% of respondents said existing IoT projects have met or exceeded their expectations.

Across the survey report was a general pattern of steady growth with, for example, the proportion of enterprises spending over $5 million on IoT doubling in the past two years. Perhaps the most pertinent data points for the telecoms industry concern technologies used. Over 70% of enterprises are planning to use 5G connectivity for IoT, while, eSIM/iSIM technology has already been or will be adopted by nearly 90% of enterprises over the next two years.

“While some tech giants have scaled back their IoT efforts, enterprises are embracing IoT and seeing remarkable results,” said John Canali, IoT Principal Analyst at Omdia and author of the report. “In fact, enterprises are very forward looking in incorporating new technologies like 5G, fixed wireless access (FWA), and eSIM/iSIM technology.”

“Our survey suggests that there are a multitude of opportunities ranging from hardware, software, connectivity, services,” said Andrew Brown, IoT Practice Lead at Omdia. “However, security remains at the forefront of enterprise concerns and vendors must be able to not only offer secure products and services but also be able to effectively integrate into broader solutions. Vendors that fail to deliver secure solutions will find themselves locked out of this growing market.”

These findings come at an interesting time for IoT. The buzzword has been around for at least a decade but the feeling is that it has been slow to take off. However, the 5G era is defined by a greatly expanded B2B communications services offering, so maybe IoT’s time has finally come. Future deep dives into IoT revenue trends, both for enterprise and telcos, would be illuminating.

Get the latest news straight to your inbox. Register for the Telecoms.com newsletter here.