Next year there will be 4.9 billion connected “things” – that is connected semiconductors with IP (internet protocol) connectivity.
But this is only the beginning, according to research from the Gartner Group. It said that there will be 25 billion such devices in 2020 and next year’s figure of 4.9 billion is up 30 percent from this year.
Jim Tully, a VP at Gartner, said: “The digital shift instigated by the nexus of forces such as cloud, mobile, social and information, and boosed by the internet of things (IoT) threatens many existing businesses. They have no choice but to pursue IoT, like they’ve done with the consumerisation of IT.”
Gartner estimates that the IoT will support $69.5 billion of service revenues in 2015 and a staggering $263 billion by 2020.
Tully estimates that the automotive industry will show the highest growth rate at 96 percent in 2015. This table shows how it believes things will pan out up to 2020.
There are security implications here. Gartner thinks that by the end of 2017, over 20 percent of organisations will have digital security services protecting devices and services in the internet of things.
