Mobile Experts slices up the IoT pie

Mobile Experts released the most comprehensive analysis ever published on the Internet of Things market space. The new report, titled IoT: The Big Picture 2016 takes a very broad look at 36 different technologies and mapping 26 applications of the Internet of Things.

Mobile Experts LLC has taken a Darwinian approach to the IoT market, analyzing key companies in each technology space to understand their ability to survive competition with very different technologies. The result is a quantitative five-year forecast of how much share each technology can capture.

"Multiple IoT suppliers are counting on the same applications for success, and investing heavily without fully understanding the alternative technologies which address the same requirements. Not everybody can win this game," explained Joe Madden, Principal Analyst at Mobile Experts. "Our unbiased analysis looks closely at the investment in each technology, to predict which companies can survive the war. This report can help each vendor avoid stepping on a tripwire."

Using a wide lens, Mobile Experts broke up the IoT market according to seven primary differentiators: Cost, Mobility, Range, Data rate, Battery Life, Latency, and Reliability. With so many competing priorities, it's clear that multiple technologies will coexist. Mobile Experts uses these seven key differentiators in a systematic way, to downselect the market--from 36 options to about 20 primary options that can survive.

"Mobile Experts has seen the lofty expectations set by the industry: 20 billion devices in 2020," commented Principal Analyst Joe Madden. "Instead of simply accepting these numbers, we have broken down the panoramic market view into bite-size chunks that are more easily understood. In this report, we illustrate how the business model will take shape, and how billions of devices will actually be bought and used."

Contrary to popular hype, Madden claims that IoT is not a brand-new market, but rather an evolving one. For example, this report examines Asset Tracking by first analyzing the 8-10 billion RFID tags used annually, then investigating how the existing Asset Tracking market will move up to higher cost, longer range options. In other words, the analysis does not simply assume a standard growth curve for new technology.

Twenty-six different application areas are investigated, within an extensive array of categories ranging from Agriculture to Asset Tracking, Automotive, Healthcare, Industrial, Security, Home Automation, Smart City, and Utility Metering. The next step in the Mobile Experts IoT Research Series will be to analyze the leading application areas in a deep-dive study, revealing details on business models, pricing, and key differentiators.

Technology Areas Covered: