Transforma Insights recently published its report ‘Global IoT Forecast Report, 2024-2034’ which provides the industry benchmark of the status of the global Internet of Things market.
The key highlights from the report are as follows:
- At the end of 2024 there were 17.7 billion active IoT devices, a figure which will grow to 40.6 billion in 2034, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9%. Annual device sales will grow from 4.3 billion in 2024 to 9.0 billion (a CAGR of 8%)
- Short range technologies will dominate connections, accounting for 76% in 2034, a slight reduction compared to the 79% they account for today
- Cellular connections will grow from 2.1 billion at end 2024 to 6.7 billion at end 2034. By 2034 total ‘5G’ including mMTC will be 4.9 billion, but just 1.2 billion will be ‘full’ 5G New Radio (NR). The remainder will be mMTC technologies such as NB-IoT and LTE-M. Substantially the biggest 5G non-mMTC use case is vehicle head units, accounting for 48% of connected in 2034
- Other Low Power Wide Area technologies such as LoRaWAN will collectively grow from 439 million in 2024 to approaching 1.8 billion in 2034
- In revenue terms, the total IoT market (defined as including connectivity modules, value added connectivity, and core associated applications) in 2024 was worth USD369 billion, a figure which will rise to USD908 billion in 2034. Value Added Connectivity will account for 8% of spend in 2034, with the connectivity modules accounting for a further 4%
- In 2034 the consumer sector will account for 65% of all device shipments. Of the enterprise segment in 2034, 33% of shipments will be accounted for by ‘cross-vertical’ use cases such as generic track-and-trace, office equipment and fleet vehicles, 17% by utilities, most prominently smart meters, 15% by retail/wholesale (predominantly payment processing devices and electronic shelf labels), 7% by transport and logistics, and 6% by government
- Geographically, China, Europe, and North America dominate, accounting for 31%, 21% and 20% respectively of total IoT connections in 2034
“Despite the rising trade tensions and inconsistent consumer sentiment that have characterised the year so far, the IoT market continues to grow at the steady pace we expected,” said Matt Arnott, Principal Analyst, Transforma Insights. “As always, the consistent growth of the IoT market obscures the erratic movements of the thousands of micro-markets that it encompasses. Over the past year, rising sales of cellular devices in India have transformed it from a market with potential into a major demand centre. Similarly, the looming arrival of non-terrestrial cellular networks has created greater potential in the most remote parts of the world, and for the most underrepresented use cases. In order to forecast the future of the IoT, it is crucial to understand how these small components build the greater whole.”
The report provides a summary of the data within Transforma Insights’ ultra-granular IoT Forecast Database and associated Forecast Insight reports, which together provide application-by-application analysis of the market.
“Transforma Insights analysts have been forecasting the Internet of Things market opportunity for over 15 years. Today our team continues to provide the most detailed, extensive and deeply researched forecasts of the IoT, making ours the benchmark against which all predictions of IoT market growth should be compared. As a company, we continue to enhance our forecast databases having recently published forecasts for converged AIoT propositions with the same level of granularity as for our IoT forecasts,” said Jim Morrish, Founding Partner, Transforma Insights.
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