Machine to machine technology is powering tomorrow’s world of the Internet of Things. It is the technology behind these connected homes, smart cities, Internet-enabled cars and wearable technology all communicating and interacting with each other. You may have heard about the new iOS and Android functionality in cars, or about the ways you can control your home from your smartphone miles away. That’s just the surface of what’s possible with this new connected era.
Embedded technology – modems, gateways, sensors and more – enables this communication between machines and in turn, these M2M applications. These IoT solutions are only as strong and smart as the technology powering them. Luckily for the industry, developers, companies and technology are getting more and more sophisticated by the day, driving the adoption of M2M technology over the next few years.
Analysts, vendors and service providers all have their own set of predictions for the growth of the M2M industry. Here are some key numbers you should know about the growth of this connected technology:
- 2.8: The percent M2M made up of all global mobile connections at the end of 2013. (GSMA)
- 13: The number of industries that M2M technology has the potential to immediately impact – smart buildings, smart cities, automotive, leisure, consumer electronics, health, utilities, transport and logistics, retail, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and extraction, emergency services and national security. (Machina Research)
- 20: The percent of vehicles sold worldwide in 2015 to include embedded connectivity solutions. (GSMA)
- 50: The expected number of connected devices for the average household with two teenage children by 2022. (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development)
- 67: The percent of overall M2M device connections by 2023 in the utilities sector. (Analysys Mason)
- $500: The average selling price of smart glasses, which will generate the most revenue of wearable technology by 2014. (Deloitte)
- 14 million: The current number of Vodafone (News - Alert) M2M connections, up from three million four years ago. (Vodafone)
- 250 million: The number of global M2M connections by the end of 2014. (GSMA)
- 3.6 billion: The number of Internet users by 2017. (Cisco)
- 10 million: The number of wearable tech units to ship in 2014. (Deloitte)
- 15 billion: The number of connected devices by 2015. (Intel)
- 26 billion: The number of IoT installed devices by 2020. (Gartner)
- 50 billion: The number of Internet-connected devices by 2020. (Cisco)
- 75 billion: The number of Internet-connected devices by 2020. (Morgan Stanley)
- $265 billion: Worldwide smart city spending on the Internet of Things in 2014. (IDC)
- $300 billion: Revenue from the Internet of Things by 2020. (Gartner)
It’s clear this industry is moving and growing, fast. What can you do to prepare? The first step is figuring out how this technology can fit into your business model, and how it can help solve a problem or improve a process. It’s important to not implement machine to machine technology just because it’s a hot topic, but because it helps with your overall business goals and provides value. However, from manufacturing to tracking assets to remotely monitoring and controlling systems and products to gathering big data, it’s very likely M2M will find a place in your business over the next few years.
If you’re looking to get started with M2M and want to embed communications in your products, check out Multi-Tech Systems. The company provides a full portfolio of communications gateways, products and services to help get solutions across multiple industries up and running reliably and efficiently.
Edited by Cassandra Tucker