Vodafone survey charts progress of IoT

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The percentage of companies with more than 50,000 IoT connected devices has doubled over the last year, and energy and utility companies are at the forefront of the largest IoT projects worldwide, according to the latest annual IoT survey published by Vodafone.

The IoT Barometer brings together findings from almost 1300 responses from 13 countries. Based on the survey, Vodafone says IoT will be critical for future success in every industry and that adoption of IoT has increased across every sector in the past five years, with an increase in the energy and utilities sector from 13% in 2013 to 35% this year.

Headline figures revealed by the research include that 84% of IoT adopters say their use of IoT has grown over the last year, 51% if IoT adopters say that the technology is increasing revenues or opening up new revenue streams, and 66% of all companies agree that digital transformation is impossible without IoT.

The survey highlighted on-going shifts regarding connectivity. Mobile and Wi-Fi are the two most popular for large scale projects, but Vodafone says there is increasing interest in newer technologies such as Narrowband IoT, with 28% of all companies now considering it and other low power wide area network (LP-WAN) options for new IoT projects.

Vodofone highlights applications such as smart metering and pipeline monitoring among the uses by energy and utility companies. The company also says the research reveals that security remains the biggest barrier for organisations regarding wider deployment, but with only 7% of companies with 10,000 or more connected devices placing this as their top concern.

In a statement released by the company, director of IoT Erik Brenneis comments: ‘Over the five years of this report we have seen the number of companies that have adopted IoT double, and projects have grown from small pilots to global rollouts of tens of thousands of connected devices. IoT is clearly here to stay and the future looks exciting as 79% of adopters are saying that IoT will have an enormous impact on the whole economy in the next five years. I believe we can now say that IoT has come of age and is proving itself across all industries and geographies.’

For more information, see: www.vodafone.com/business/iot/iotbarometer

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  • Vodafone, IoT