Global M2M growth, in terms of connections, is increasing rapidly. Ovum forecasted early this year that M2M revenues will reach US$44.8bn in the next 5 years, with more than a third of this revenue coming from the Asia-Pacific. In its report, it said that total global M2M connections will more than treble from 106.4 million in 2012 to 360.9 million in 2018, at a CAGR of 22.6 percent and revenues in Asia-Pacific will be fastest growing, reaching to almost US$15bn, at a CAGR of 26.5 percent, between 2012 and 2018. Among the key industry verticals in 2018 will be healthcare, manufacturing, and energy & utilities, which are forecast to generate revenues of US$7.9bn, US$7.1bn, and US$7bn respectively by 2018.
Globe Telecom, in conjunction with the recent Asia M2M Business Platform Conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, one of the region’s leading conferences addressing issues facing technology adoption, echoed Ovum's earlier prediction, saying that Asia Pacific M2M connections will reach 116 million by 2015 and over 2B globally in 2021. According to Globe, most countries in the region, including Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia foresee huge business gains among their banking, utility, logistics, and other enterprise clients. Globe said that industries in this region are able to make huge productivity gains, for example, in the transport sector, where the use of fleet management solution delivers:
trip optimization
improvement of service level
increased protection against theft and pilferage.
Non-transport sectors such as local manufacturing, trading, and banking sectors are also seeing huge returns from M2M investments which improve productivity via predictive maintenance and increase efficiency gains by eliminating on-site maintenance and inspections. Globe also highlighted how as a service provider, it is actively promoting the adoption of M2M solutions and that the Asia M2M Business Platform is a timely initiative given that the high speed data coverage is growing rapidly in the region, and M2M solutions and technologies have matured for various industry applications.
Details of the adoption of M2M solutions across industry verticals was covered in a recently published Vodafone's 'M2M Adoption Barometer' report, showing that the consumer electronics industry being the top for adopting M2M solutions with a rate of 29%, followed closely by energy and utilities and automotive with a rate of 28% each. Other major industries adopting M2M solutions are manufacturing, healthcare/lifesciences, transport and logistics and retail with the adoption rates of 20%, 19%, 17% and 17% respectively. Additionally, PCC Mobile Broadband also published the Connected Car infographic to illlustrate how service providers can drive revenues in the retail M2M segment, namely via connected car services offered in passenger cars.
"Despite reports of a decrease in global productivity in the past years, connected devices are steadily transforming businesses and opening up new services. With huge improvements on M2M infrastructure, applications, devices, hardware and software vendors, prime movers of M2M are poised to greatly contribute to productivity gains by organizations and the global economy in general. In the Philippines, Globe Telecom has been helping logistics and delivery firms improve their productivity and gain efficiencies by as much as 30 percent by employing M2M for tracking and monitoring delivery trucks."
Reynaldo Lugtu Jr. ,Head of IG, Globe Telecom
