The “Internet of Things (IoT),” which excludes PCs, tablets and smartphones, will grow to 26 billion units installed in 2020 representing an almost 30-fold increase from 0.9 billion in 2009.
Research firm Gartner said that IoT product and service suppliers will generate incremental revenue exceeding $300 billion, mostly in services, in 2020. It will result in $1.9 trillion in global economic value-add through sales into diverse end markets.
The IoT is the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate and sense or interact with their internal states or the external environment.
Peter Middleton, research director at Gartner, said “The growth in IoT will far exceed that of other connected devices.”
“By 2020, the number of smartphones, tablets and PCs in use will reach about 7.3 billion units. In contrast, the IoT will have expanded at a much faster rate, resulting in a population of about 26 billion units at that time,” the analyst said.
Due to the low cost of adding IoT capability to consumer products, Gartner predicted that “ghost” devices with unused connectivity will be common. This will be a combination of products that have the capability built in but require software to “activate” it and products with IoT functionality that customers do not actively leverage.
In addition, enterprises will make extensive use of IoT technology, and there will be a wide range of products sold into various markets, such as advanced medical devices; factory automation sensors and applications in industrial robotics; sensor motes for increased agricultural yield; and automotive sensors and infrastructure integrity monitoring systems for diverse areas, such as road and railway transportation, water distribution and electrical transmission.
The IoT encompasses hardware (the things themselves), embedded software, communications services and information services associated with the things. Gartner refers to the companies that provide the hardware, software and services as IoT suppliers.
The incremental IoT supplier revenue contribution from IoT in 2020 is estimated at $309 billion.