APAC will house over 11 billion connected devices by 2020, nearly half of the world's total, creating a $447 billion revenue opportunity for the region's mobile operators, the GSMA claims.
The industry group forecasts that 5.6 billion of these devices will be “mobile” connected devices – they will have a space for a SIM card.
The APAC market is set to dwarf closest rival Europe by both devices and mobile revenues, according to a GSMA report.
The report estimates that by 2020, Europe will have 19.1% of the world's connected devices and addressable revenues from the segment will be $305 billion.
China alone should have close to 5 billion connected devices by this time, making it the largest market in the world, worth a projected $180 billion.
But consumers in the more mature markets of Japan and South Korea are set to have the highest share of connected devices per capita, with consumers from these nations set to own an average of 11 devices each.
The GSMA announced the findings of its report at this year's Mobile Asia Congress.