The global spending on the Internet of Things (IoT) will grow at a CAGR of 17.0% from $698.6 billion in 2015 to nearly $1.3 trillion in 2019, according to IDC. On a geographic basis, Asia/Pacific is the clear leader when it comes to IoT spending with more than 40% of the worldwide total coming from this region this year, says the market research firm. Asia/Pacific is followed by North America and Western Europe which are the second and third largest regions with combined spending of more than $250 billion.
IDC forecasts that Latin America will experience the fastest growth in IoT spending over the five-year forecast period at a CAGR of 26.5%, followed by Western Europe, and Central and Eastern Europe.
Other key findings from the research are as follows:
Manufacturing and Transportation led the way in worldwide IoT spending with 2015 totals of $165.6 billion and $78.7 billion, respectively.
In Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Middle East & Africa (MEA), the fastest growing IoT category is smart buildings.
In Latin America, the fastest growing IoT category is maintenance & field service.
In Asia/Pacific, insurance telematics is being used to monitor driver behavior through a vehicle-mounted device and the data is rapidly being employed as means of determining insurance policies and rates.
In North America, in-store contextual marketing is growing rapidly as retailers seek to capture continuous, real-time streams of data from mobile devices, online customer activity, in-store Wi-Fi routers/beacons, and video cameras in order to gain insight into customer behavior and desires.
In addition, emergency, infotainment, security, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), and vehicle-to-infrastructure V2I) applications were among the fastest growing use cases across five of the six geographic regions.
Marcus Torchia , Research Manager, Internet of Things
The Asia/Pacific region’s robust IoT spending outlook builds on three dynamics: developing countries’ technology investment needs are not fully met with traditional IT, which is allowing IoT investments to accelerate; government investments in infrastructure development and local business modernization.
Vernon Turner, Senior VP & IoT Research Fellow
Manufacturing and Transportation are both a good fit for IoT deployments. Both industries have been connecting their supply chains, products, customers, and even workers for some time now, and really embrace the value of business outcomes.
