5G and IoT: The Future of Cellular and Connected Devices is Coming
Two of the biggest “buzzterms” (a word I just invented along the lines of “buzzwords”) within and on the periphery of the tech industry are IoT (the “Internet of Things” for the uninitiated) and 5G. It’s easy to draw a line between the two – the proliferation of IoT-enabled devices is widely expected to accelerate once the world upgrades to the next generation of cellular connectivity -- the question is by how much? In a recent forecast by Strategy Analytics, the market research and analytics firm posits that sales of IoT cellular devices will reach approximately 350 million units per year by 2025, with the impending rollout of 5G acting as the primary catalyst for sales growth.
The forecast goes on to predict that worldwide sales of 5G modules will slowly accelerate until 2023, when 5G module shipments will finally overtake sales of their 4G predecessors. Among the industries expected to primarily drive the proliferation of IoT and 5G are the automotive and “smarthome” markets. The automotive vertical market is expected to become the largest patron of IoT cellular modules over the forecast period, and will substantially increase its market share position by 2025, according to the report.
Photo courtesy of Bloor Research
“The low latency benefits of 5G will allow IoT use cases where near-instantaneous communications are required, such as platooning of trucks, autonomous driving, low latency and quality of service in manufacturing and areas like remote surgery in healthcare,” according to Andrew Brown, Executive Director of Enterprise and IoT Research at Strategy Analytics.
In a similar report published by Navigant Research, the annual revenue from the sales of “multi-family” IoT devices is forecasted to reach as much as 35.6 billion dollars by 2028, at a CAGR of 23.8%. The report theorizes that builders and property management companies will become enamored of building-wide smarthome/smartbuilding technology in mult-unit residential housing communities. Even home furniture retail giant IKEA is getting into the act, with the company planning on launching a new “IKEA Home Smart” business division in early 2020. The unit’s raison d’etre is to help develop new smarthome devices and technologies for the company’s 780 million annual visitors across its stores worldwide.
At times, it feels like we’ve been collectively waiting a long time for 5G (can you even remember the days before 4G anymore?), but it appears the wait is almost over. The Strategic Analytics report referenced earlier cited 2023 as an inflection point for the proliferation of 5G cellular devices, with sales spurred on by heavy adoption of 5G here at home and abroad, particularly in China. The answer to the question “where do 5G and IoT go from here?” is, seemingly, “everywhere.” Like death and taxes, 5G is an inevitability, which is good news for the IoT market as well. The low-latency attributes of 5G make it an optimal connectivity solution for IoT devices in cars, homes, office buildings and public spaces. Connecting the dots, the futures of these two technologies seem at least tangentially intertwined – we’ll be watching as they continue to grow together like two vines climbing the same trellis.