Predictive Maintenance is one of the leading use cases for the Industrial Internet of Things and Industry 4.0.  Our recent analysis suggests that the market for predictive maintenance applications is poised to grow from $2.2B in 2017 to $10.9B by 2022, a 39% annual growth rate.

In a nutshell, predictive maintenance strategies are based on the combination of traditional condition monitoring enhanced with analytics algorithms, thus enabling the prediction of machine failures before they occur. IoT and advances in analytics are driving market adoption with users of the technology reporting 25%-30% efficiency gains, according to research.

As part of our research, we identified 110 of the technology firms that have worked on Predictive Maintenance implementations in the past, stemming from five different segments:

• Condition Monitoring Hardware
• Industrial Automation Hardware
• Connectivity
• Storage & Platform
• Analytics

We also analyzed startups, most of which offer software solutions for Predictive Maintenance, including platform and analytics.

To better understand how active individual companies are in the domain of Predictive Maintenance, we calculated a company ranking for Predictive Maintenance companies – based on the same methodology as the popular IoT Company Ranking and based on data from 2016.

Disclaimer: The ranking is an indicator how visibly specific companies present themselves regarding this topic. A correlation between the ranking and the marketing budget is likely. A high ranking does not mean that a company has a good Predictive Maintenance solution nor does it give any indication as to how much revenue the company makes on it. Furthermore, the term “Predictive Maintenance” is often used as a buzzword, not every maintenance solution that is claimed to be predictive actually is, as companies also tend to describe their condition-based solutions as predictive. The ranking favors large firms, is based on specific keywords, and is NOT included in the market report.

The Top 5 Predictive Maintenance Companies

1.      IBM

IBM made #1 in the ranking due to its large workforce that indicates it works on the topic and due to the wide media coverage the firm gets. IBM’s Predictive Maintenance and Quality (PMQ) is one of the key solutions enabled by its “cognitive intelligence engine” IBM Watson. It monitors, analyzes, and reports on equipment data, the output mostly being a health-score. Known examples for Predictive Maintenance implementations are Kone’s elevators or DC Water’s Hydrants. Kone recently launched its 24/7 Connected Services, based on the IBM solution.

2.      SAP

The German software giant SAP has been showing how it enables Predictive Maintenance for several years now and has thus established itself as the most searched for company in relation to Predictive Maintenance. Notably, it is one of three German firms in the top 10. SAP has implemented its solution “Predictive Maintenance and Service” for customers such as Kaeser Kompressoren or Siemens and the solution is now part of its newly unveiled SAP Leonardo IoT Portfolio.

3.      Siemens

As an industrial automation specialist, Siemens has a different angle on Predictive Maintenance than SAP and IBM. It is often the automation system of choice in factory settings and industrial equipment that Predictive Maintenance is applied to. Therefore, sitting on large amounts of data, the basis for establishing supervised machine learning algorithms is already given. For the implementation of Predictive Maintenance at the NASA Armstrong Flight Center (cooling systems) for example, Siemens worked with analytics services provided by US-based Azima DLI. In a further project, Siemens launched a 12-month Predictive Maintenance pilot with Deutsche Bahn in October 2016 to monitor the fleet of Series 407 ICE 3 trains.

4.      Microsoft

Microsoft Azure is establishing itself as the public cloud platform of choice for industrial IoT solutions and Predictive Maintenance. The market report shows that more and more applications of Predictive Maintenance are shifting from on-premise to cloud setups – by 2022 about 70% of Predictive Maintenance setups are expected to be cloud-hosted. Besides the cloud infrastructure, Microsoft Azure currently has two “preconfigured solutions” that are aimed at making it easy for anyone to get started quickly e.g., by providing the necessary analytics engines – they are “Predictive Maintenance” and “Remote Monitoring”.

5.      GE

GE has two angles toward Predictive Maintenance: While GE Measurements is established in the condition monitoring hardware field, GE Digital covers the software and analytics part of Predictive Maintenance. GE’s Predix platform is the foundation to Asset Performance Management (APM), which GE itself has claimed to be the first IoT “killer-application”. GE has for example rolled out APM with BPs oil and gas production operations. Furthermore, GE Digital is advancing the concept of digital twin, an important basis to Predictive Maintenance analytics.

Notable Smaller Companies (not mentioned in the ranking)

One should note that a lot of the technological innovation regarding next generation analytics is coming from young and upcoming companies. Many OEMs prefer to works with smaller vendors for various reasons (e.g., cost, data privacy, and flexibility). Out of those that have worked on relevant Predictive Maintenance projects, these are the top 3 companies with the highest funding:

1.      C3 IoT

Thomas Siebel’s C3 IoT – originally C3 Energy – is the company with the highest funding of all Predictive Maintenance related startups (more than $110M). The latest funding round remains undisclosed but the initializing valuation was $1.4B. The C3 Predictive Maintenance Solution is built on the C3 IoT technology platform and employs supervised machine learning algorithms for failure prediction. Known customers – mostly from the utilities segment – include the French utilities company Engie and Italy-based Enel.

2.      Uptake

Founded in 2014, the predictive analytics SaaS platform Uptake was named hottest 2015 startup by Forbes and is the fastest US startup to have reached a $2B valuation after only 2.6 years. The company has a total funding of $85M to date. Uptake’s machine learning algorithms analyze data from equipment sensors or even handwritten maintenance records, learning the normal operation patterns and identifying upcoming failure. Well-known customers include Caterpillar and Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiaries.

3.      SpaceTime Insight

SpaceTime Insight currently hold the third highest total funding in the domain ($50M). Like C3 IoT, customers for the Predictive Maintenance analytics solution mostly stem from the utilities field and cover energy distribution and oil & gas. The company acquired IIoT startup GoFactory in June 2016, thereby broadening its spectrum with capabilities in cloud services, connected assets and mobile applications.

Further Information

As equipment OEMs increasingly make their products smart and factories implement PdM solutions, technology providers need to differentiate their offerings. This article covers only a fraction of the companies offering Predictive Maintenance. A range of sophisticated solutions especially by smaller companies remain undiscussed. The 132-page report provides a more complete company landscape of the 110+ companies, in addition to market numbers, trends, M&A analysis, and many more use cases.

You can find the report here and request a sample.

Contact

Feel free to get in touch with the team at IoT Analytics in case of any inquiries.

Twitter: @AnalyticsIoT

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450 GLOBAL IOT PLATFORM VENDORS MARKS A NEW RECORD

The 2017 list of IoT platform companies contains extensive information on 450 IoT platform vendors, including details on capabilities, revenue, key customers, as well as industry focus.

Hamburg, Germany – June 27, 2017 // IoT Analytics, a leading provider of market insights and strategic business intelligence for Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT), just released its current Global IoT Platform Companies List. The comprehensive database now includes 450 IoT Platform companies worldwide which marks a 25% increase compared to the previous year.

Commenting on the updated list, IoT Analytics Managing Director Knud Lasse Lueth said: “The market for IoT Platforms continues to get more crowded and fragmented. However, the dynamics are shifting: While we continue to witness a constant stream of new startups entering this space, most of the larger vendors seem to have made their bets by now – organic new entrants by multinationals are becoming rare”.

The updated IoT Platform database itemizes the 450 market participants in greater detail across 50 sets of information.

Segment insights: Of the 13 industries analysed, most of the vendors now focus on supporting IoT Solutions in Industrial/Manufacturing (32%), Smart City (21%) and Smart Home verticals (21%). In previous editions of the list, Smart Home had been the leading vertical.

Regional insights: Even though platforms from 40 countries worldwide are represented, more than half of the firms in the list are headquartered in the US.

Technology insight: The majority of platforms have a core focus on Application Enablement (92%). Only 3% of the platforms offer IoT specific cloud storage (IaaS).

Market dynamics insights: More than 30 of the companies included in the 2016 edition of the list have ceased to exist. These companies have either gone out of business or have been acquired and are listed separately in the database.

Apart from general company information, the 2017 IoT Platform database now includes the following NEW insights:

• Ranking of platforms by revenue, number of case studies published and funding
• Information on platform capabilities for each vendor:
  • Application enablement
  • Device management
  • Analytics
  • Cloud storage
  • Connectivity backend

• Valuable business insights for each vendor:
  • Estimated platform revenue
  • Number of case studies available by industry
  • Key customers, if available
  • Link to the companies’ partner ecosystem, if available

• Separate list of in-active IoT platforms
• Separate list of IoT Platform acquisitions

The 2017 List of 450 IoT Platform Companies is available for purchase HERE. A free sample is available.

IoT Platform Companies mentioned (selected vendors only):

Arrayent, Autodesk, AWS, Bosch, C3 IoT, Cisco, Device Insight, Electric Imp, Ericsson, EVRYTHNG, Exosite, GE, Hitachi, Huawei IBM, Microsoft, PTC, Relayr, Samsung Electronics, SAP, Siemens, Sierra Wireless, Software AG, Telit, Zebra Technologies

Database Structure – IoT Platform Companies List 2017

• General Information
  • Case Studies Ranking
  • Revenue Ranking
  • Funding Ranking
  • Company Name
  • Platform Description
  • URL
  • Company Type
  • Platform Name
  • Location (City, State, Country)
• Platform Type
  • Application Enablement
  • Device Management
  • Analytics
  • Cloud Storage
  • Connectivity Backend
• Other IoT Technologies Offered
  • Processors / Semiconductors
  • Sensors
  • Communication Hardware
  • Operating Systems
  • Developer Tools
  • Complete IoT-enabled Products
• Segment Focus
  • Consumer – Home
  • Consumer – Lifestyle
  • Consumer – Health
  • Consumer – Mobility
  • Business – Retail
  • Business – Health
  • Business – Energy
  • Business – Mobility
  • Business – Smart Cities
  • Business – Manufacturing / Industry
  • Business – Supply Chain
  • Business – Public Sector
  • Other business
• Further Information
  • Founded
  • IoT Platform Operating Since
  • Total funding (USD)
  • Ticker Symbol
  • URL for Case Studies
  • Key Customers
  • Partner Ecosystem
  • Estimated Externally Generated IoT Platform Revenue 2016 (USD)
  • Number of Connected Devices

About IoT Analytics

IoT Analytics is the leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0. The specialized data-driven research firm helps more than 40,000 Internet of Things decision-makers understand IoT markets every month. IoT Analytics tracks important data around the IoT ecosystem such as M&A activity, Startup funding, company projects, use cases and latest developments. Product offerings include in-depth market reports, technical whitepapers, sponsored research, regular newsletter, as well as Go2Market and consulting services. As a research pioneer, IoT Analytics combines traditional methods of market research such as interviews and surveys with state-of-the art web-mining tools to generate high-caliber insights.

IoT Analytics is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

For more information, visit www.iot-analytics.com

Twitter: @AnalyticsIoT

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For more information on this press release, please contact the press team at press@iot-analytics.com

Disclaimer: This article does not provide guidance or intend to compare technical features of different IoT platforms. It looks at the market and compares platforms purely on a market meta level.

In the recent update to our IoT Platform Company List for 2017, we compared more than 450 companies that have an IoT Platform in their offering. After including 260 IoT Platforms in our 2015 analysis and 360 in 2016 analysis, the 450 companies assessed in our latest research set a new record. Building on our 2016 article “5 Things to know about the IoT Platform Ecosystem”, this IoT Platform comparison looked at 5 types of different IoT platforms:

• IoT Application Enablement Platforms
• IoT Device Management Platforms
• IoT Cloud Storage Platforms (IaaS)
• IoT Analytics Platforms
• IoT Connectivity Backend (Platforms)

IoT Platform Comparison Insight 1: Market remains fragmented

Although some firms claim billion-dollar revenue streams through IoT, our IoT Platform Comparison continues to show that these claims are mostly pure marketing. In the last year, we followed-up at least two such claims with larger vendors and found that they claimed new “IoT” revenue that had actually been relabelled from previously existing revenue. Furthermore, the sales figures included expensive hardware equipment and only very little software revenue.

“Half of all IoT Platform companies made less than $1M in 2016”We believe, only 7% of the 450 IoT Platform companies generated revenues in excess of $10M with their IoT Platforms in 2016. Furthermore, more than half of all companies made less than $1M, most of them smaller startups. The firms leading the pack are mainly made up of large cloud players, legacy device management and connectivity backend platforms as well as a handful of heavily backed Silicon Valley startups that are scaling faster than most of their counterparts around the world. Successful startup examples include predictive analytics firm Uptake and the open Smart Home Platform SmartThings, acquired by Samsung in 2014 and now acting as their subsidiary.

Note: The IoT Platform Revenue was estimated based on various indicators and public announcements. It only includes software generated sales for real IoT deployments, including merely external solutions and not internal deployments e.g., on a company’s own equipment.

IoT Platform Comparison Insight 2: Leading providers are growing at 50%+

The consensus growth estimate for IoT markets, as provided by various analyst firms, lies between 25% and 40% annual growth for the next 5 years. Many of the IoT Platform Companies, however currently report numbers well above the forecast. A few smaller startups have stated that they are currently doubling revenue each year – but even leading providers recently reported growth rates above 50%. Three examples:

1. C3 IoT, valued at $1.4BN in March 2017, recently announced a revenue increase of 65% year-over-year and bookings that have grown by 600%. The company also claims to have 100M Sensors and devices under management – so far, the highest number publicly announced.
2. Cisco Jasper’s connectivity management platform “Control Center” has grown from 3,500 user companies in March 2016 to more than 9,000 in February 2017, thereby increasing the number of managed connected devices from 17M to 40M.
3. PTC increased its IoT revenue by 52% in 2016. Its core IoT offering is the application enablement Platform Thingworx, which it acquired in 2014.

One note of caution: In our mind, these growth numbers are a reflection of the large amount of pilot projects and POCs happening in the market but do not (yet) indicate the long-awaited IoT breakthrough that would lift this market into the billions.

IoT Platform Comparison Insight 3: One third of platforms cater to the Industrial / manufacturing segment

There are generally more IoT Platform Companies focussing on Business/Enterprise IoT than Consumer IoT. The most popular segment for IoT Platforms lies in manufacturing and industrial solutions. 32% of the IoT Platform Companies offer solutions for this market including industrial automation firms like Siemens, ABB, Schneider or Bosch but also software vendors like IBM, PTC or Microsoft. Typical supported use cases include production performance management, manufacturing analytics, predictive maintenance and remote service.

The IoT Platform Comparison reveals that the other large segments are Smart Cities (22%), Smart Home (21%) and Energy (21%). Customer Health is the least popular segment for IoT Platforms, with only 5% of all IoT Platforms offering solutions. These results concur with our analysis of the top IoT application areas, in which the 4 leading segments were Connected Industry, Smart City, Smart Energy and Connected Car.

IoT Platform Comparison Insight 4: Increasing M&A activity – 17 deals last year

According to our analysis, the number of new IoT Platform startups reached its peak in 2013, with numbers going down ever since. Startups coming to market in 2016 have a different focus than those that started in 2013 or earlier: Back then many of the startups had a horizontal, cross-industry approach to IoT while nowadays there seems to be a higher numbers of niche IoT Platforms that are specialized by vertical, technology or use case. Examples are: Axonize, an IoT platform for System Integrators or Tachyus, an IoT Platform for the Oil & Gas Industry.

Meanwhile the number of acquisitions in the IoT Platform market is on the rise. 2016 was the first year in which the number of newly acquired companies (17) rose higher than the number of startups we identified (13)*. The deal value of the 6 acquisitions that disclosed the purchasing price lies around $11B.

Most of the acquisitions are performed by tech firms that play in the vicinity of IoT but lack IoT platform capabilities. The acquisition of Cumulocity by Software AG earlier in 2017 is a good example for an analytics and enterprise software focused company completing their offering by acquiring a  pure-play IoT Platform vendor.

Our IoT Platform Comparison shows that there are a total of 31 IoT Platform companies, which have been acquired and whose platform is still available today, operating under the original name. Furthermore, there are 21 companies whose platform is no longer available after having been acquired. All acquisitions can be found in a separate tab in our 2017 IoT Platforms Database.

*Note: Many startups only become visible after a few years

IoT Platform Comparison Insight 5: Startup investment remains comparably insignificant

Funding for IoT Platform startups has risen sharply between 2011 and 2016.

“IoT Platform funding is insignificant. Ride sharing platform Uber received 14x more funding in 2016 than all IoT Platforms combined”However, IoT Platform funding is insignificant compared to mature tech topics. Just consider that in 2016, ride sharing platform Uber received 14x more funding than all IoT platforms combined in the same year ($4.9B vs. $338M).

Half of the IoT Platform funding issued in 2017 so far went to two companies (Actility and Uptake). Neither of them are pure-play IoT Platform firms.

Actility, a LPWA solution provider that runs the Thingpark platform which caters mostly to Lora deployments, received funding of $50M in April 2017. Cisco investments is one of the named investors.

Uptake, an analytics platform which was founded in 2014, achieved the impressive funding round of $90M in Series B.

Notable investors in the IoT Platform space besides Cisco Investments (e.g., invested in Actility, Ayla Networks, EVRYTHNG, Relayr, Sensity Systems) include Intel Capital, GE Ventures, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB).

Further information

All information presented in this IoT Platform Comparison is based on our research in the IoT Platforms space. Our most recent product, the IoT Platform Company List 2017 is a structured repository of 450+ companies that are offering Internet of Things platforms. The IoT Platform Companies List 2017 helps executives gain an understanding of the different Internet of Things platforms across various geographies and industry verticals.

You can find the IoT Platform Company List 2017 here and request a free sample here.

Feel free to get in touch with the team at IoT Analytics in case of any inquiries and follow us on social media:

Twitter: @AnalyticsIoT

Newsletter: https://iot-analytics.com/newsletter-sign-up

Linkedin Analyst Community: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13505538

NEW RESEARCH ON IOT SECURITY SHOWS NONE OF THE 150 GLOBAL VENDORS OFFER A HOLISTIC END-TO-END SOLUTION

The 2017 list of IoT security companies contains extensive information on 150 independent IoT security vendors, including classification based on capabilities, revenue, and industry focus.

 
PRESS RELEASE: Hamburg, Germany – July 26, 2017 // IoT Analytics, a leading provider of market insights and strategic business intelligence for Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT), just released its inaugural Global IoT Security Companies List. The comprehensive database, which is the first of its kind on the market, includes 150 IoT Security companies worldwide.

With billions of IoT devices now connected to the internet and many new threats emerging, cybersecurity is evolving quickly into the main concern for businesses and consumers alike. Most of the independent security vendors analyzed have a background in either traditional IT security or in OT security. While all are adapting their security solutions in the IoT context, at this stage no single vendor has an offering that covers all 21 analyzed technology elements of an end-to-end IoT security solution. The most comprehensive vendors cover 12 out of the 21 elements. Many only focus on one or two of the 21 elements (e.g., chip security, or update and patch management).

Commenting on the list, IoT Analytics Managing Director Knud Lasse Lueth said: “The results of the meta-analysis of the list are somewhat alarming: Uncertainty about system security is currently limiting overall IoT market growth. At the same time attacks on IoT systems are on the rise. From an end-user point of view, it can be preferable to work with one vendor that can provide a solution to all or most types of attacks. That vendor does not exist today, probably because the landscape is just too complex. However, I expect that one of the companies on that list will become that go-to IoT Security company in the coming 4-6 years.”

The IoT Security database itemizes the 150 market participants in greater detail across 60 sets of information.

Technology insight: The majority of IoT security companies tend to focus on specific areas of IoT security. Most of the companies focus on unified threat management (41%) and activity monitoring (30%). Many companies partner with other vendors to provide holistic end-to-end security for the overall IoT solution.

Segment insights: Of the 12 industries analyzed, most of the vendors focus on supporting IoT Security Solutions in Industrial/Manufacturing (52%), Government, Public Services, Military & Defense (47%) and Healthcare verticals (47%). Followed by Energy (52%), Connected car (30%) and Retail (29%). Compared to the number of enterprise IoT projects tracked, focus on healthcare security appears to be above average while Smart City Security seems to be underserved by the vendors.

Regional insights: Even though IoT security companies from 17 countries worldwide are represented, more than two thirds of the firms in the list are headquartered in the US.

Market dynamics insights: More than one third of the IoT security companies listed have started operating within the last 5 years. Most funding has been invested in IoT security companies offering infrastructure and endpoint security. Total funding stands at $6.8B but a large part of that has gone into companies mainly focusing on IT security.

Note: The list only considers those that offer independent IoT security products, not those that secure their own IoT platform or IoT solution in-house.

Apart from general company information, the 2017 IoT Security database includes the following insights:

• Ranking of platforms by revenue
• Information on security capabilities for each vendor across four layers:
  • Device
  • Communication
  • Cloud
  • Lifecycle Management

• Valuable business insights for each vendor:
  • Estimated company revenue
  • Security company classification by industry
  • Funding information such as funding, investors, acquisitions (if available)
  • Link to the companies’ IoT security product example

• Separate charts highlighting key IoT Security takeaways
  • Breakdown by industry
  • Breakdown by technology
  • Breakdown by country
  • Breakdown by operating region

The 2017 List of 150 IoT Platform Companies is available for PURCHASE HERE and a FREE SAMPLE is also available.

For more on IoT security from our research stream, look out for our IoT Security Market Report 2017-2022 to be released in August 2017.

IoT Security Companies mentioned (selected vendors only):

ARM, Bayshore Networks, Cisco, Device Authority, Dell, Endian, Forescout Technologies, Gemalto, HPE, IBM, Infineon Technologies, Intel, Juniper, Kaspersky Labs, Lightcyber, Microsoft, Mocana, NXP, Palo Alto, Risucre, Symantec, Thales e-Security, Utimaco, Venafi, Wurldtech, ZingBox

Database Structure – IoT Security Companies List 2017

• General Information
  • Company Name
  • Company Description
  • URL
  • IoT Security Product Strategy (Horizontal, Vertical, No specific)
  • Operating Geographic Presence (North America, EMEA, APAC, Latin America)
  • Headquarters Location (City, State, Country)
• Technology Focus Area
  • Device layer (Physical security, Data at Rest, Chip security, Secure Boot, Device authentication, Device Identity Management)
  • Communication layer (Access Management, Network firewall / IPS / IDS, E2E encryption)
  • Cloud layer (Data at Rest & Data Loss Protection, Cloud Platform Security & Application Integrity, Unified threat management)
  • Lifecycle management (Update & Patch management, Risk assessment, Policy Enforcement & Auditing, Vendor Control, Activity Monitoring, Secure decommissioning, User Awareness Assessment & training)
  • Other (Consulting, Prof. Services, Testing, Training, Other technology)
• Segment Focus
  • Connected car
  • B2C – Wearables and other Consumer IoT
  • Government, Public Services, Defense & Military
  • Energy, Power, Oil & Gas
  • Healthcare / Medical devices
  • Industrial / Manufacturing
  • Retail / Hospitality
  • Smart Cities, Smart Buildings
  • B2C – Smart Home
  • Supply Chain, Logistics
  • Transportation, Rail, Avionics, Aerospace
  • Other
• Financing Information (if available)
  • Total Funding
  • Number Of Funding Rounds
  • Lead investor
  • Investments / acquisitions
• Further Information (if available)
  • Founded
  • Founders
  • Employees
  • Email
  • Telephone
  • License Model
  • Deployment Model
  • Key capabilities
  • Other Business Focus Areas
  • IoT Security Revenue Estimate (USD$M)
  • Acquired / Subsidary Comment
  • Notable IoT security partnerships
  • IoT Security Product Example

About IoT Analytics

IoT Analytics is the leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0. The specialized data-driven research firm helps more than 40,000 Internet of Things decision-makers understand IoT markets every month. IoT Analytics tracks important data around the IoT ecosystem such as M&A activity, Startup funding, company projects, use cases and latest developments. Product offerings include in-depth market reports, technical whitepapers, sponsored research, regular newsletter, as well as Go2Market and consulting services. As a research pioneer, IoT Analytics combines traditional methods of market research such as interviews and surveys with state-of-the art web-mining tools to generate high-caliber insights.

IoT Analytics is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

For more information, visit www.iot-analytics.com

Twitter: @AnalyticsIoT

Linkedin

Contact

For more information on this press release, please contact the press team at press@iot-analytics.com

PRESS RELEASE: Hamburg, Germany – 06 September 2017 //

IoT security has become a major focus area for businesses, consumers and regulators. This focus is driven by the increasing number of IoT devices being connected to the internet and the new threats and attack vectors emerging almost on a daily basis.

IoT Analytics, a leading provider of market insights and strategic business intelligence for Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT), today published a 294-page report focusing on sizing the opportunity of the IoT security market for the period 2017 to 2022.

The report provide insights from the analysis done by the IoT Analytics analyst team who researched over 150 companies that offer IoT security technology solutions, reviewed 40+ implemented IoT security projects, undertook 25+ targeted industry interviews and attended several related conferences as part of the process.

Preview of some insights from the IoT security report

1. Global spending on IoT security is currently estimated at $703M for 2017 and forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 44% over the six-year period to become a $4.4B market opportunity by 2022 (Forecasts are based on the IoT security related revenue of leading technology companies in the field, across 12 industries and 21 technology areas).

2. The IoT security market is an aggregation of innovative startups and established firms such as global chip manufacturers, infrastructure providers, as well as cloud and enterprise software companies.

3. Cisco is the current market leader in the fragmented IoT security market with an estimated market share of 7%. The top 10 providers account for over 40% of the IoT security market.

What does the IoT security report contain?

1. The IoT security report contains a detailed breakdown of the market by solution type (software, hardware, services), by segment (12 industries), by solution provider (top 10 vendors), by technology (21 technology areas), and by region (7 regions).

2. The IoT security report also includes detailed company profiles of 10 large companies and 5 innovative smaller firms outlining their IoT security solutions, as well as an analysis of strategic partnerships and M&A activities.

3. An extensive IoT security segmentation is provided across 4 layers (device, communication, cloud, and lifecycle management) and 21 technology areas.

4. Five key implementation considerations are outlined for building secure IoT solutions, together with common best practices, an IoT security checklist and 8 detailed IoT security use cases presented in depth.

5. The IoT security report presents a comprehensive history of cyber security viruses (IT), cyber physical attacks (OT), IoT attacks and an evolution of cyber security solutions. Furthermore, today’s common threats in IoT are identified together with 5 types of IoT attackers and their motivation.

6. The report also includes a detailed excel database of 150 independent IoT Security vendors with extensive classification based on the vendor’s capabilities, estimated revenue, and industry focus across 60 sets of information.

The IoT Security Report 2017-2022 is available for PURCHASE HERE or download a FREE SAMPLE HERE. The IoT security market report is also available through our SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE giving members access to all content in our research stream.

For more on IoT security, check out our dedicated IOT SECURITY PAGE.

IoT Security Report – Companies mentioned (selected vendors only):

ARM, Atmel, Airbus Defence, Barracuda, Bastille Networks, Bayshore Networks, Cisco, ClearBlade, Comarch Technologies, Darktrace, Digicert, Device Authority, Dell, Endian, Forescout Technologies, Fortinet, Gemalto, HPE, IBM, Infineon Technologies, Intel, Juniper, Kaspersky Labs, Lightcyber, McAfee, Microsoft, Mocana, NXP, Palo Alto, Risucre, Rohde & Schwarz, SAP, Symantec, Thales e-Security, Utimaco, Venafi, WISeKey, Wurldtech (GE), ZingBox

IoT Security Report – Market Definition

For this market report, IoT security is defined as any element that protects Internet of Things solutions against virtual or physical damage on one or several of the following layers: device, communication, cloud and lifecycle management. For vendor analysis, the report only considers companies that offer independent IoT security products, not those that secure their own IoT platform or IoT solution in-house. To calculate the market size and individual company revenue, the report considers the revenues generated from the sales of security solutions including hardware, software, and services. Services is made up of professional services, consulting, implementation related services and managed services provided by the vendors. One should note, this report only looks at independent IoT security offerings available on the market and does not consider hobby developers/programmers that create their own security solutions.

Table of Contents – IoT Security Report

PREFACE: Current state of IoT security attacks
Executive Summary

1 IoT Security Overview

• 1.1. IoT Introduction
• 1.1.1 The 4 Major Layers of an IoT Solution
• 1.2. History of Cyber Security Viruses and Important Cyber Physical Breaches
• 1.2.1. Evolution of cyber security viruses (IT)
• 1.2.2. History of cyber physical attacks (OT)
• 1.2.3. History of IoT security attacks (IoT)
• 1.3. The History Evolution of Cyber Security Solutions
• 1.4. Today’s IoT Security Threats
• 1.4.1. General IoT attack surface
• 1.4.2. Common IoT threats
• 1.4.3. Types of IoT attackers
• 1.4.4. IoT attackers’ motivation

2 IoT Security Technology

• 2.1. Secure Device (Hardware)
• 2.1.1 Physical Security
• 2.1.2 Data at Rest (Device)
• 2.1.3 Chip Security
• 2.1.4 Secure Booting
• 2.1.5 Device Authentication
• 2.1.6 Device Identity Management
• 2.1.7 Further Principles for Device Security
• 2.2. Secure Communications (Network)
• 2.2.1 Access Management
• 2.2.2 Firewall / IPS / IDS
• 2.2.3 End-2-End Encryption
• 2.2.4 Further Principles for Secure Communication
• 2.3. Secure Cloud (Backend)
• 2.3.1 Data at Rest (Cloud) / DLP
• 2.3.2 Platform and Application Integrity Verification
• 2.3.3 Unified threat management
• 2.3.4 Further Principles for Secure Clouds
• 2.4. Secure Lifecycle Management
• 2.4.1 Risk Assessment
• 2.4.2 Policies & Auditing
• 2.4.3 Activity Monitoring
• 2.4.4 Updates & Patches
• 2.4.5 Vendor Control
• 2.4.6 User awareness assessment & training
• 2.4.7 Secure decommissioning
• 2.4.8 Further Principles for Secure Lifecycle Management
• 2.5. Constrained devices and the security implications

3 Market Analysis

• 3.1. Overall Market
• 3.2. Market Deep-Dives
• 3.2.1 By Solution Type
• 3.2.2 By Segment
• 3.2.3 By Solution Provider
• 3.2.4 By Technology
• 3.2.5 By Region

4 Competitive Landscape

• 4.1. Overview
• 4.2. 10 Large Vendors
• 4.3. 5 Innovative Smaller firms
• 4.4. Mergers and Acquisitions
• 4.5. Partnerships and Collaborations
• 4.6. 135 Selected Other Market Participants

5 Implementation Considerations

• 5.1. Assess IoT security gaps in the organization
• 5.2. Determine main responsibility for IoT security
• 5.3. Evaluate relevant standards, initiatives & guidelines
• 5.3.1. Global Security Initiatives
• 5.3.2. Industrial Focused Security Initiatives
• 5.3.3. Governmental Security Initiatives
• 5.4. Review the IoT environment security requirements
• 5.4.1. Secure technology stack
• 5.4.2. Security priorities
• 5.4.3. Secure data growth
• 5.4.4. Secure patching
• 5.5. Learn from existing IoT implementations
• 5.5.1. Security by design best practices and checklist
• 5.5.2. 8 Implementation projects

6 Market Trends

• 6.1. Market trends shaping IoT security (6)

Appendix

Target Audience

The focus of this IoT Security report is on industrial environments but the lessons learned can be leveraged by any organization looking to implement IoT Security. The IoT Security report may be most beneficial to OEMs looking into how to develop secure IoT solutions, technology vendors in the IoT & cyber security space. Also relevant for companies looking into M&A targets in the IoT Security area, as many Startups are mentioned.

About IoT Analytics

IoT Analytics is the leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0. The specialized data-driven research firm helps more than 40,000 Internet of Things decision-makers understand IoT markets every month. IoT Analytics tracks important data around the IoT ecosystem such as M&A activity, Startup funding, company projects, use cases and latest developments. Product offerings include in-depth market reports, technical whitepapers, sponsored research, regular newsletter, as well as Go2Market and consulting services. As a research pioneer, IoT Analytics combines traditional methods of market research such as interviews and surveys with state-of-the art web-mining tools to generate high-caliber insights.

IoT Analytics is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

For more information, visit www.iot-analytics.com

Contact

For further comments or more information on this press release or the IoT Security report, please contact Stephanie Baumann, Public Relations Manager at IoT Analytics by emailing: press@iot-analytics.com

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) don’t possess the same options as large and multinational corporations when it comes to innovating with IoT technology. They generally do not have sufficient human, financial or development resources to create these new digital and IoT-based solutions by themselves.

IoT Analytics published a new report called Guide to IoT Innovation, which helps SMEs find a suitable model for digitalization and navigate the options for innovation in the age of the Internet of Things. The report was sponsored by Berlin-based company builder NBT.

SMEs partner in order to accelerate time-to-market

Included in the paper are the survey results of 50 professionals, who work at SMEs that either already offer IoT-based products and services or are currently in the process of developing these. The results show that, unfortunately, many small and medium sized companies lack a comprehensive vision of where IoT will take them in their industry. Very few firms seem to have a clear concept on how to tackle IoT innovation. The companies that are not completely inactive, often test a variety of models for external innovation. The #1 benefit of such partnerships: Accelerated time to market. 59% of respondents claim that it is the main reason for them to partner in IoT solution development.

The most common innovation model: Working with 3rd party service providers

There is a plethora of choices of external IoT innovation from building corporate ventures to using company builders all the way to accelerators. Out of the nine options analyzed in the IoT Innovation Guide, engaging with third party full service providers was highlighted as the most common model (44% of respondents), followed by corporate venturing (36%) and working with company builders (36%).

9 ways for external IoT Innovation ranked (by occurrence)

Not all models are equally successful

But which of the 9 models appear to be the most successful?
The report provides an indication on the success rates of these 9 models and highlights pros and cons as well as real-life IoT innovation examples for each. It furthermore gives recommendations for SMEs that plan to innovate in IoT.

The report is available for FREE, thanks to the paper sponsor.

Download

As we go into 2018 the IoT Analytics team has again evaluated the main IoT developments of the past year in the global “Internet of Things” arena. This article highlights some general observations as well as our top 10 stories from 2017. (For your reference, here is our 2016 IoT year in review article.)

A. General IoT 2017 observations

More connected IoT devices than smartphones and PCs

IoT 2017 goes down as the year in which there were more connected IoT devices then connected non-IoT devices. That means that there are now more connected cars, meters, machines, wearable devices and similar IoT endpoints than there are PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Exact numbers and estimates vary but the consensus is that there are now close to 8bn IoT devices in use and around 7bn non-IoT connected devices.

Stable overall interest in IoT

The general interest in IoT technology seems to approach its peak. The Google Trend graph showed a sharp increase throughout 2015, another increase in the year 2016 but a fairly flat line for IoT 2017 (see red line in the picture below). Other (related) technology terms such as Blockchain, AI, or Autonomous Driving stole the show in 2017. In our view, the stable, high interest in IoT shows the topic has gained global relevance. However, IoT was not able to produce as many new revolutionary concepts in 2017 like some of the other above-mentioned technologies did – which is why overall interest did not explode further.

B. Top 10 IoT 2017 Stories

Throughout 2017, we monitored major developments around IoT technology. For us at IoT Analytics, these are the top 10 stories of IoT 2017 (in chronological order):

1.  Largest startup funding: Uptake

Chicago-based Uptake is on an extremely fast investment track. The startup closed two funding rounds in 2017 for a total of $207M: A $90M Series C in April followed by a $117M Series D in November. Founded in 2014, the startup is now valued at around $2B and employs close to 1,000 employees. Most of these employees are young data scientists and software engineers that the firm hopes will turn Uptake into the data analytics hub for the industrial Internet of Things.

The company has seen some negative press lately, though: Some experts see similarities with the rise and fall of Groupon, which Uptake CEO Brad Keywell co-founded in 2007. The main issue at this point: Uptake does not appear to have a killer product that could be scaled across organizations – something one would expect from a tech firm valued at $2B after 3 years of existence. Early minority investor and customer Caterpillar, ended its investment in November and announced to refocus “its areas of cooperation with Uptake”. Caterpillar did not comment further on the reasons for its move.

A second firm with a similar growth story is Japanese-based Preferred Networks. The firm, also focuses on Analytics/AI for IoT and, like Uptake, was also founded in 2014. In 2017, Preferred Networks received a combined funding of $172M, led by the industrial giants Toyota Motor Corporation and Mitsui&Co.

Other notable IoT startup funding rounds during IoT 2017:

• View ($200M – Series G – Smart Intelligent Windows)
• Ring ($109M – Series D – Smart Home Security)
• Forgerock ($88M – Series D – IoT Security)
• Actility ($75M – Series D – LPWA/IoT platform)
• Ayla Networks ($60M – Series D – IoT Platform)

2.   Most influential publication: Cisco IoT survey

A key theme for us at IoT Analytics back in 2016 was the move from “hype to reality”, i.e. the industry realized that the actual number of successful IoT implementations is much lower than initially thought. In IoT 2017, a hotly debated study further validated that observation: In May 2017, Cisco published the results of a comprehensive survey that found that “close to 75% of IoT projects are failing”.

The study sheds light onto what we, at IoT Analytics, call the “big 4 IoT inhibitors to massive IoT adoption”: Missing interoperability, lack of comprehensive security, unclear privacy, and uncertain ROI. For IoT to enjoy much larger adoption we will need to see advances in all four of those areas.

It is therefore perhaps not a surprise that some IoT initiatives also came to an end in 2017. Mozilla, for example, killed the idea of developing an IoT operating system in February 2017,

3.    Most essential technology development: IoT Cloud

Cloud backends (IaaS) are crucial for IoT deployments. That is why both Amazon and Microsoft added a number of new features to their IoT cloud offerings in 2017. Microsoft for example launched Microsoft “Azure IoT Edge” that allows for small devices to run cloud services even when not connected to the cloud. In a similar move, Amazon announced further device management and device security features at their re:event show in November 2017.

A new giant joined the party in 2017: Google. In a much anticipated move, Google launched its “Cloud IoT Core” service in May 2017, allowing for easier registration of IoT devices to the cloud as well as a “protocol bridge” that natively supports typical IoT protocols. While Google’s IoT feature set seems to be smaller than that of Amazon and Microsoft at this point, Google’s move into “IoT cloud” is a sign that all major providers of cloud infrastructure have now realized that IoT operations require a different set of tools & services compared to their legacy cloud offerings.

4.    Most important connectivity initiative: NB-IoT roll-out

IoT 2017 saw the beginning of a new connectivity technology roll-out: Narrow-Band IoT (NB-IoT). The technology is the regulated (licensed) answer to unlicensed LPWA technology such as Sigfox or Lora. Like those unlicensed technologies, NB-IoT is a new connectivity standard tailored to remote devices that require a battery. NB-IoT is backed by many large telecom operators around the world which is why a large scale adoption is almost inevitable.

In June 2017, Deutsche Telekom emerged as one of the first operators to officially launch their NB-IoT service (in Germany and the Netherlands). The starter package costs 199€ (~$240) and allows for the use of 25 SIM cards for half a year with a maximum of 500kB data throughput.

It was Samsung, however, that launched the first consumer device that runs on NB-IoT in October 2017. The IoT-connected tag can be traced indoor and outdoor. While NB-IoT technology generally promises battery life for connected devices of up to 10 years, this tag is not quite there yet as it allows a maximum of just 7 days without charge.

5.    Most important government initiative: US IoT Cybersecurity Act

Our #1 story in last year’s review was the IoT cybersecurity attack on Dyn servers. Following that (and other) attacks, governments around the world have been looking at IoT Security legislation but are struggling to find suitable laws that can make IoT devices safer and more secure.

One of the few legislative advances for IoT in 2017 is the “Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act”, that Senator Mark Warner introduced in August 2017 to the United States Senate. The bill aims for a bare minimum of security standards for connected devices e.g., the ability to patch devices and a general ban of hard-coded passwords. Unfortunately, the bill is still in its early stages, is not guaranteed to pass the house and would initially only apply to government owned IoT devices. Nevertheless, if passed, the bill could have an important lighthouse character for IoT globally as it tackles one of the most important issues both businesses and consumers face with IoT devices: Lack of trust in IoT security. (One of the 4 main IoT inhibitors)

6.    Most discussed new trend: Blockchain

Cryptocurrencies were undoubtedly one of the technology highlights of 2017 with the biggest one, Bitcoin, rising around 15,000% in 2017. With the rise of digital currencies, the corresponding underlying technology, blockchain, also entered the spotlight. Apart from applications in payment, distributed cloud storage, and contract administration, the technology has been linked to the Internet of Things. There are some scenarios in which smart contracts between devices and a distributed source of trust makes sense. Most notably in IoT security and in supply chain applications. A few cryptocurrencies emerged in 2017 that just focus on IoT e.g., IOTA, IoT Chain, IoT Coin.

An important organization to look at will be the ‘Trusted IoT Alliance’ that launched in September 2017 with the vision to foster the development of a blockchain-enabled, trusted Internet of Things (IoT). Focusing on securing the Internet of Things, the Alliance is led by large firms such as Bosch, BNY Mellon, Cisco, Gemalto, and the U.S. Bank. Make no mistake though, according to the official roadmap a dozen of industrial Proof-of-concept projects are expected to conclude in 2020. It seems we will have to wait for results for another 2 years.

7.    Largest M&A Deals: Itron / Silver Spring Networks & Thales / Gemalto

Overall, IoT-related deal volume in 2017 was much lower than in 2016. Mega-acquisitions like Softbank and ARM ($32B) or Qualcomm and NXP ($39B) that we saw in 2016 did not happen in 2017.

In September 2017, US-based energy technology firm Itron, a leader in Smart Meter deployments, announced it would buy Silver Spring Networks, a specialists for mesh connectivity technology, at a price tag of $830M. While investors celebrated potential cost and sales synergies, there was likely also an IoT technology rationale: Silver Springs had seen some momentum around its RF mesh connectivity technology, a competing technology to Itron’s Zigbee-based meters. The two companies together now control more than 90M endpoints.

Other notable acquisitions and mergers during IoT 2017:

• Cisco/Viptela ($610M – Network Virtualization)
• Nokia/Comptel ($347M – Software-based data communications solutions)
• Dialog Semiconductor/Silego ($306M – Semiconductors)
• Sierra Wireless / Numerex ($107M – Managed IoT solutions)
• Software AG / Cumulocity (undisclosed – IoT device management)

UPDATE: After we wrote this article, French electronics supplier Thales acquired one of the leading IoT Security firms, Gemalto for €4.8M making it the largest deal in IoT 2017.

8.    Most important technology shift: Edge analytics

There are a lot of trending topics within IoT that get widespread attention such as Security-by-design, blockchain, machines-as-a-service, 5G, IT/OT convergence. Among these trending topics we feel that “edge analytics” is the one that is evolving the quickest.

Edge analytics describes a technology architecture where intelligent decisions are performed locally rather than in the cloud. This can happen on the gateway, on the device-itself or even on the sensor. Edge analytics can describe mere data stream filtering to ensure only relevant data gets sent to the cloud but it can also describe local decision-making and machine learning in real-time.

In October 2017, US technology giant Dell announced that it would invest $1B into distributed edge intelligence for the IoT. Dell CEO Michael Dell believes that there will be a “Distributed Core model of computing where edge devices and systems need to respond in real time to operate effectively”. The firm has subsequently created a new organizational unit called “IoT solutions division” and has been a lead investor into startups that focus on this topic, most notably Mountain View-based Foghorn, which received a total of $33M in funding in 2017. Dell is also one of more than 50 contributors to the new open-source project “Edge X Foundry” that was launched in April 2017.

Will we see “the end of cloud computing” as the world is moving towards “distributed edge intelligence”? It is a provoking claim that Peter Levine of Andreesen Horowitz raised.

We, at IoT Analytics, believe that we will mostly see a hybrid design (edge and cloud intelligence) in the foreseeable future. Edge analytics will play an important role in low bandwidth and/or low latency environments such as oil rigs, mines, or factories. It will gain in further importance over time, as Moore’s law drives local storage and compute capabilities further up. However, the critical element will be the interplay between device and cloud, in which the cloud performs many of the non-critical tasks and large-scale data storage. One technology to look out for in this context: 5G. With the 5G communications technology likely becoming widely available after 2021, cloud may regain in importance due to the incredible high throughput and low latency that the technology promises.

9.    Most amazing implementation of IoT-based analytics: Google Waymo

IoT 2017 saw the first (non-driver assisted) fully self-driving car on a normal road. The company that made it happen: Google. The location: Phoenix, Arizona. In our view this is the most amazing implementation of IoT-based advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). It is also an excellent example of edge analytics in which machine learning functions have been moved to the camera (edge) so that the car can react instantly.

Since November 2017, Google Waymo is now running a ride-sharing fleet of autonomous minivans (Chrysler Pacifica) that residents in Phoenix, Arizona can use. So far, no crashes have been reported but it should be noted that Google’s cars seem to shy away from highways at this point (perhaps because the impact of a potential accident is seen as too risky). Nonetheless, Google has reached a major milestone in the autonomous driving revolution.

How did Google make it happen? Through a set of proprietary hardware and a novel simulation and testing approach. On the hardware side, Google’s engineers developed two new categories of LiDAR sensors: a short range and a long range LiDAR. On top of that, Google is manufacturing all of this hardware in-house.

On the software side, Google is running an Area 51 like lab in the middle of nowhere in California which acts as a testing and algorithm training ground for the vehicles. People have reported that streets with driveways on the side as well as suburban intersections have been built just for testing purposes. The amazing development, however, is that Google has found a way to simulate car behavior on a computer, rather than on the street only. At any time, there are now 25,000 virtual self-driving cars making their way through fully modeled versions of Austin, Mountain View, and Phoenix, as well as test-track scenarios. This technology makes it possible to understand and optimize car behavior for any kind of scenario.

Google may have just changed the rules of business. Through Waymo, the company has developed proprietary self-learning artificial intelligence based on IoT data that nobody may be able to copy. If that is the case, then we could see the first instance of a company controlling a market through proprietary algorithms.

10.    Biggest Consumer IoT Success: Voice-enabled home gateways

The Smart Home saga continues. At least for Amazon and Google. Our data for December 2017 suggests that Amazon Alexa was the #1 consumer IoT gift this Christmas. Amazon’s sales of Echo had already exploded last year (see our 2016 in review article). In the US alone, the sales of the smart speaker more than doubled again (compared to last Christmas).

Amazon and Google are achieving something that many other firms had struggled with for years: Becoming the hub for the smart home of the future. In 2018, we will see a number of other firms that want to fight for that spot in the home. Most notably, Apple with the HomePod and Samsung with Bixby. Smart speaker manufacturers such as Harman Kardon Invoke and Sonos One are also joining the fight.

Both Amazon and Google are trying to hold on to their early leads – Amazon introduced new devices with screens in 2017 (Amazon Echo Show, Amazon Echo Spot) and Google added new features such as free landline calling, a TV interface, and proactive notifications.

C. Further information:

Building on what happened in IoT 2017, you may also find our IoT predictions for 2018 interesting. If you are interested in a deeper look at current IoT markets, you may find the State of the IoT 2017 report helpful which was published in December 2017 (subscriber-only content).

Our IoT coverage in 2017: For continued coverage and updates, you may subscribe to our newsletter. In 2018, we will keep our focus on important IoT topics such as IoT Platforms, Security, LPWA and Industry 4.0 with plenty of new reports due in the first half of the year. For a complete enterprise IoT coverage contact us for a subscription to our IoT research stream and paid content.

Much success for 2018 from our IoT Analytics Team to yours!

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After highlighting the top 10 stories of IoT in 2017, the IoT Analytics team looks back at the IoT predictions they made a year ago and ventures a prognosis on the 10 things that seem likely for IoT in 2018.

Evaluation of our 2017 IoT Predictions

Last year, we at IoT Analytics, made 4 IoT predictions (as part of the 2016 in review article) of which we believe most did turn into reality (Except IoT prediction #3).

IoT Prediction 1: War for IoT platform leadership

• The 2017 view: We predicted that many large IoT platform providers would be gearing up for a war for IoT (platform) leadership.
• The 2018 view: The war did intensify in 2017 with price cuts and new entrants. A year later we can already see first winners of that war (Microsoft and Amazon).

IoT Prediction 2: War for IoT connectivity leadership

• The 2017 view: New telco-backed low-power standards would go head-to-head with existing LPWAN technology such as Sigfox or LoRa.
• The 2018 view: Many TelCo firms announced new NB-IoT / LTE-M roll-outs that compete with Sigfox and Lora in 2017. There are no winners just yet but the heat is clearly on.

IoT Prediction 3: AR/VR becoming mainstream

• The 2017 view: We expected the first real-life case studies for industrial Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in 2017.
• The 2018 view: IoT Analytics was too bullish on this topic. Real-life use cases were extremely limited in 2017 with much less activity than anticipated.

IoT Prediction 4: Even more reality and less hype

• The 2017 view: We predicted that the IoT hype would cool off and attention would shift from vendor/infrastructure topics such as what the next generation of platforms or connectivity standards will look like towards actual implementations and case studies.
• The 2018 view: The hype did cool off: In 2017, Gartner cut its outlook for number of connected devices as Blockchain and AI became “hotter” topics than IoT. Reality kicked in: Cisco published a report that highlighted that almost 3 out of 4 IoT projects are failing.

10 IoT predictions for 2018

These are our 10 IoT predictions for 2018:

IoT Prediction 1: The war for IoT platform leadership will shift to a “vertical vs. horizontal” theme

Horizontal platforms have been the early winners of the IoT platform wars. The horizontal cloud platforms of Amazon and Microsoft are growing at exuberant rates and enjoy tremendous acceptance in the industrial IoT developer community. Vertical IoT platforms have so far been playing second fiddle. Even though a number of startups initially focused successfully on specific use cases and verticals, very few of them still do. Most of them now market themselves as a universal IoT platform (e.g., C3IoT initially focused on predictive maintenance in the energy vertical and now markets itself as a general AI&IoT Platform, thethings.io started as a Smart City IoT platform and now markets itself as an IoT platform to monetize all kind of devices). It seems that, right now, the value of being able to provide a complete tech stack offering and the ability to scale quickly outweighs domain expertise. We see a potential that this may change and the IoT world gets separated into those that believe in the “horizontal” approach and those that believe in the “vertical” approach. Vertical platforms may prevail for two reasons: a.) Their digital twins and data models are contextualized for specific uses cases so they become the only ones that can really make use of the power of analytics and AI  b.) They manage to build up industry specific app stores that supply a domain with various critical applications that they require for operations (e.g., in the case of manufacturing industries they may not only provide new predictive maintenance applications but also offer next-generation MES and asset management systems that replace existing ones). Some people cite “domain specific device interoperability” as a third reason. This advantage is, however, vanishing. By now, most horizontal platforms support all major protocols in various industries or otherwise cooperate with gateway manufacturers who do the job in each vertical.

IoT Prediction 2: IT organizations refine their IoT cloud and data lake creation strategy

Some firms have already moved a significant portion of their operations to the cloud and many others will follow. Cloud environments provide a number of benefits such as cheap storage, compute performance and (by now) security. The question remains which part of the organizational and IoT data should move to private cloud environments and which can go into a public environment. The answer is mostly a mix of both (hybrid). Rather than focusing on solving the enterprise backend for individual IoT use cases, many IT departments understand that it requires a holistic data and cloud strategy to get organizations ready for the age of massive IoT data. Developing IoT solutions often means that firms require data they previously didn’t consider to be important (e.g., Predictive Maintenance algorithms improve the longer one can look back into past equipment failures) On top of that, most data scientists complain that a large portion of their job is to aggregate and prepare data. That is why many firms in 2018 will engage in the creation of a unified “data lake” in the cloud that aggregates all IoT and non-IoT data and lays the foundation for future IoT & digital initiatives.

IoT Prediction 3: China emerges as a leading IoT adopter

Over the last 50 odd years, China has made a transition from being known as a low-cost low-quality manufacturing hub towards becoming a global technology power. Recently, Apple and Samsung have continuously lost market share to Chinese smartphone incumbents. In other high-tech industries, China has already achieved world dominance, most notably in solar panels. China was also the first country to announce widespread government support for the Internet of Things (March 2011 as part of the “12^th five year plan”) which included specific funding and a set of IoT application demonstration projects between 2014 and 2016. It has since been complemented by China’s new “Made in China 2025” manufacturing strategy. The cities of Wuxi and Shenzhen especially have conducted a large part of these pilot projects with application such as environmental monitoring, anti-theft bicycle systems, home security, and agriculture product traceability. Non-Chinese firms like AstraZeneca have also started IoT healthcare pilots. The technologies developed in closed environments are now hitting mass market and are met by actual customer demand. Chinese people desperately look for solutions to fight city pollution levels or enable urban mobility. IoT-enabled payment solutions and smart bike locks are just two solutions that currently enjoy fast adoption all over China on the back of a very quick roll-out of IoT infrastructure (e.g., New communication technologies by China Unicom and China Telecom and cloud backends supplied by Alibaba and Huawei).  We believe that in 2018, 7 years after the government first set its foot on IoT, some of the early investments will start to pay off and we will see a number of further IoT projects rolled-out in China and possibly beyond.

IoT Prediction 4: Few new IoT success stories as the big 4 IoT adoption barriers remain

When will the IoT market explode? Not yet. In 2018, enterprise IoT will remain a market made up mainly of pilot projects and tests. Even though we have seen individual success stories in the past years, especially in applications like metering, fleet management, connected industrial equipment, and connected cars the amount of new large scale roll-outs will remain a fraction of the many pilot projects and tests. The four big IoT adoption barriers: 1. Missing interoperability; 2. Security issues; 3. Unsolved privacy & data ownership; 4. Limited ROI for use cases; will take at least another 18 months to make an impact on the overall IoT market. At the same time, the amount of firms just getting started on their “IoT journey” will increase further, likely resulting in more pilot projects and small tests for IoT solution providers. These tests are often performed in conjunction with the end-user’s “build vs buy” and “platform selection” process. Don’t be fooled though, as in the last years, there will be success stories we do not hear about. Some firms achieve tremendous value from IoT that they keep to themselves in order to preserve their competitive advantage (e.g., some firms have started to master the combination of IoT and Analytics for process control in the manufacturing of specific goods)

IoT Prediction 5: More connectivity options for IoT device makers

For remote IoT devices there have never been as many connectivity options as today. For years, cellular has been the safe option for connected infrastructure, containers, meters, pipelines, vehicles and much more. But there are now plenty of new technologies that promise much longer battery life in the LPWA space. 2018 will show how device makers and end-users adopt NB-IoT and LTE-M, following the network roll-out of several large carriers and whether Sigfox and Lora are able to sustain their momentum on their low-power area networks (LPWA). It seems likely that most carriers will end up adopting both 3GPP standards given the only partial overlap on IoT use cases between the two technologies and the low investment to upgrade their LTE network to both (On average a cost increment of only around 20% compared to upgrading to just one). Some operators are already adopting a mixed strategy with high-end 3GPP standards and low-end unlicensed technologies to further increase their market flexibility. At the same time, the entrance of new players joining the market with other technologies such as mesh, satellite as well as 5G (beyond 2018), is likely going to give device makers that are developing new IoT devices a plethora of choices they have not seen before.

IoT Prediction 6: Applications make increased use of the power of Analytics & AI

IoT is the enabler for large scale data analytics and AI. However, so far, very few applications go beyond simple rule management and statistics. There are first exceptions. A railway operator for example is using complex neural networks that scan through past data sets and are able to predict rail occupancy with a striking accuracy. Robots are trained to behave autonomously rather than following a set script. Our IoT prediction in 2018 is that we will see more of these trials employing real AI capabilities. One dominant theme is companies moving from rule-based condition-based maintenance to machine-learning based predictive maintenance.

IoT Prediction 7: Certain consumer IoT devices will violate the new GDPR rules

In May 2018, the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will go into effect. The regulation presents a step change in data protection law as it intends to strengthen and unify data protection for all individuals within the European Union. The law targets “personal” information that firms may get from their customers. Consumer IoT devices such as health trackers and smart home devices and connected cars are especially affected. Among other things, manufacturers will have to obtain data processing consent from their users through a clear affirmative act, report data breaches, demonstrate “privacy by design” rules and pay special attention in case personal data of children gets processed. All firms selling in the EU will have to comply, including American and Asian manufacturers. However, for some of them, complying with GDPR has so far not been of utmost importance. We predict that some consumer IoT manufacturers will not comply with GDPR in May 2018 and that it is quite likely that we may even see individual lawsuits against some “non-compliant” firms.

IoT Prediction 8: IoT firms get “real” about blockchain

A year ago, few people knew about blockchain, the distributed ledger technology. Things have changed and at the beginning of 2018 the value of all cryptocurrencies using blockchain technology is nearing $1trillion with Bitcoin leading the charge. The hype about the technology has also sparked enthusiasm about its use in conjunction with IoT. Most notably, the “Trusted IoT Alliance” formed in 2017 with the goal to secure IoT products with blockchain. A few cryptocurrencies that want to manage smart contracts between IoT devices also emerged. What is lacking are real success stories of IoT blockchain applications. In 2018 we will hear about more initial trials (for example from the IOTA foundation) so that we know how feasible the technology really is for IoT and how far out we may be from mainstream adoption. At this point, we believe that it could easily take 5+ years before the technology gets used to secure individual end-2-end IoT applications in the field or before a significant number of devices autonomously engage in a smart contracts-based data exchange.

IoT Prediction 9: “IoT for sustainability” will become a new theme

Internet of Things is unique in the sense that it reaches people and objects that technology could previously not reach. It enables us to better monitor pollution levels, traffic flows, and food chains. At the same time it helps us to optimize water supply, energy usage, and health treatment. All of these contribute to a better world and in 2018 organizations around the world may wake up and understand that there is more to IoT technology than just economic impact – there is a real social impact. Organizations such as the World Economic Forum or the International Telecommunication Union are already at the forefront of exploring this theme and bringing it to the boardroom. One should note that IoT has already seen individual projects centered on sustainability themes such as environmental monitoring or food supply. However many of these projects have primarily commercial goals. We predict that in 2018 we will see first corporations that commit to using IoT technology in order to advance global sustainability – driven by the currently heated debates around climate change, income inequality and poverty.

IoT Prediction 10: Blockchain-based artificial edge intelligence (BAEI) hits the mainstream

It actually won’t. We just wanted to come up with the most hyped term as part of our IoT predictions, to tell you that when you read things like this you can sit back, relax, take a sip from your coffee mug and laugh at all the companies that load up their marketing slogans with such buzzwords. There are great developments on edge analytics, on artificial intelligence and on blockchain but not jointly and certainly not anywhere close to hitting mainstream.

Further information:

If you are interested in a deeper look at current IoT markets beyond our IoT predictions 2018, you may find the State of the IoT 2017 report helpful which was published in December 2017 (enterprise subscriber-only content).

For continued coverage and updates throughout 2018, you may subscribe to our newsletter. In 2018, we will keep our focus on important IoT topics such as IoT Platforms, IoT Security, LPWA, Smart Cities and Industry 4.0 with plenty of new reports due out in the first half of the year. Get in touch for our complete enterprise coverage including access to all reports, research notes, as well as personal analyst time.

The next report due out will be the 2018 List of IoT Projects (Out: Jan 2018)

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Technology has driven global prosperity for centuries. Unfortunately, it has brought severe side effects. Some of today’s most pressing challenges have been partially caused by technology advances.

Consider three examples:

1. CO2 emissions. The invention of the steam engine in the 18th century laid the ground for today’s fuel-powered motors and generators. These are causing man-made CO2 emissions, which are the likely cause of global warming.
2. Water pollution. Numerous chemicals invented in the 19th and 20th centuries are responsible for the rise in water pollution levels.
3. Poor mental health. With suicide rates at record levels and younger generations increasingly unhappy with life, recent studies indicate that the use of smartphones and similar devices is largely to blame for deteriorating mental health.

Using technology for the better

Over the last four decades, the world has witnessed an interesting new trend. Technologies have been invented and employed solely to make the world a better place. Entire industries have developed around clean energy such as wind and solar. In 2013, wind energy in the US avoided the use of an estimated 95.6 million tons of CO2 – the equivalent of 16.9 million cars on the road – estimates The American Wind Energy Association.

Nowadays, entire organizations exist aiming to make the world a better place. American car manufacturer Tesla’s main mission is “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy”. Its founder Elon Musk emphasises that CO2 reduction is a key goal. He has built a loyal workforce excited to join his mission. Although other firms may be less bold in embracing sustainability, it has become common practice to create a Chief Sustainability Officer role, or to audit suppliers based on sustainability guidelines.

Streamlining global efforts until 2030

In September 2015, the UN General Assembly’s 194 countries adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. It includes 17 sustainable development goals, which member countries can use to measure progress.

In this context, the vision of the World Economic Forum’s Digital Economy and Society System Initiative is ensuring our digital future is inclusive, trustworthy and sustainable too. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a key focus. It is one of the three most impactful technological advancements we will see before 2030, according to McKinsey. By 2025, the IoT’s economic impact will be around $11.1 trillion – 14% of today’s global GDP – the firm projects.

Looking beyond the IoT’s economic impact, the Forum is researching its effect on society and on the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). Here are two results from this research, followed by an example case.

Result 1: The Internet of Things could be a game-changer for sustainability

Most current IoT projects can contribute to achieving both the SDGs and the UN’s 2030 mission. An analysis of more than 640 IoT deployments, conducted in a collaboration between IoT Analytics and the World Economic Forum, showed that 84% of existing IoT deployments can address the SDGs.

Interestingly, 75% of these projects concentrate on five SDGs:

#9 Industry, innovation, and infrastructure (25%)
#11 Smart cities and communities (19%)
#7 Affordable and clean energy (19%)
#3 Good health and well-being (7%)
#12 Responsible production and consumption (5%)

Why is the impact of IoT so large? At its core, IoT is about measuring and remotely controlling previously unconnected “things”. It reaches people and objects that older technology could not.

Examples include a remote water-monitoring solution that ensures clean water in regions with an indigenous population, and smart lighting initiatives in Chinese cities that halve total power output.

Result 2: Scaling current success stories is a key challenge

Of the analysed IoT deployments, 95% are small or medium scale. Only a very small portion are large or macro-sized.

Why are most projects so small? The IoT market is still in its infancy. The reasons why projects haven’t yet scaled to a large size – defined as affecting at least one million people, involving several industries and being rolled out across a continent – are various.

On the technical front, interoperability challenges with equipment slow down scalability, as do different IT back-ends. On the commercial front, the budgets for sustainable IoT implementations are currently extremely limited, because they mostly come from company funds related to “innovation and digital projects”. It will be some time before mainstream business P&L budgets – which are substantially larger – can convert these small implementations into large-scale deployments.

Example: An IoT for sustainable development project

The Smart Green Infrastructure Monitoring project in Chicago helps reduce urban flooding and prevents property damage, using better informed capital planning for infrastructure investments. It was developed by City Digital in Chicago.

It has a fairly high IoT sustainability impact due to its clear focus on vulnerable groups and its scalability. The project was scored against 5 KPIs: scale of projects; SDG target penetration; influence on SDG targets; scalability and replicability potential; and focus on vulnerable groups. The results and other inspiring case studies can be found at http:/wef.ch/IoT4D

Capitalizing on the opportunities: Where to go from here?

IoT projects which main priority is to address sustainable development challenges are crucial, but an even greater impact could be achieved by prioritizing sustainability goals within commercially driven projects. A significant number of the executives we interviewed leading these projects don’t necessarily see a direct link between their projects and sustainable development goals. However, 84% of IoT deployments – 70% of which were driven by the private sector – are addressing the SDGs, the research showed.

Additionally, 75% of these concentrate on the five goals that correspond to some of the most profitable industry applications. This suggests that these projects’ significant impact on sustainability is almost unintended, or at least not their main driver.

Takeaways for stakeholders designing IoT deployments

Embracing a sustainability awareness culture is essential. Not only to maximize sustainability impact, but to build on commercial opportunities. Of the projects analysed, 95% are small or medium in scale. A significant number of them are successful, at least in the five areas of highest concentration within some of the most commercially viable industries. This presents an opportunity to scale up some of these projects to a large or macro size.

Identifying sustainability goals and adopting an impact measurement framework will reveal opportunities for replicating successful solutions across untapped areas.

There are fewer IoT deployments focusing on SDGs like SDG 2 “zero hunger”, SDG 4 “education”, SDG 15 “life on land” or SDG14 “life below water”, according to the research. Some successful IoT deployments which focus on the top five SDGs could be replicated to deliver social impact in areas with fewer concentration of IoT solutions. This would generate new business opportunities.

We need to foster a new mentality in IoT stakeholders, and particularly within the private sector, which prioritizes sustainability goals as part of commercial project design. Sustainability is not only the prerogative of CSR departments. It is an essential pillar of business, investment and cooperation. It maximizes social impact while still delivering – and potentially increasing – commercial value.

Additional information

For more information on the IoT sustainability initiative, please visit the interactive research page.

Building on the research results. To accelerate the adoption of sustainable IoT, the Forum has published a set of IoT Guidelines for Sustainability that will be discussed at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2018 in Davos, 23-26 January. These address some of the most pressing issues today, including collaboration models, infrastructure investments and innovative business models.

This article was written by:

Rodrigo Arias, Content Lead, Technology, Media & Digital Industry, Global Leadership Fellow, World Economic Forum LLC

Knud Lasse Lueth, CEO, IoT Analytics

Abhay Rastogi, VP Strategy, Business Development & Partnerships, IoT Analytics

The 2018 database of Enterprise IoT projects contains extensive information on 1,600 real IoT use cases, including details on project location, industry, end-user as well as key vendors involved in each project.

Hamburg, Germany – 25 JAN 2018 //

IoT Analytics, a leading provider of market insights and strategic business intelligence for Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT), today published a comprehensive IoT project database, focusing on non-consumer IoT use cases.

The new project database itemizes 1,600 publicly announced IoT case studies in greater detail across 10 major segments covering applications in 70+ countries worldwide. More than 760 IoT vendors are identified as either hardware, software, or connectivity providers for these projects.

IoT case studies which are part of Smart City initiatives make up the largest part of identified projects (23%), followed by projects implemented in Industrial settings (17%) and projects evolving around Connected Buildings (12%).

Most identified projects are set in North America (43%), however, Europe (35%) and Asia Pacific (16%) also play an important role.

The database entails only Internet of Things use cases which have in fact been realized or are currently being completed. In the majority of projects, the end-user can be identified by name and a link to an online project description is available. All information is presented in a structured form, allowing for a wide range of further analyses and deep-dives.

In conjunction with the list, IoT Analytics also published a 32-page research summary document, detailing the most important findings of the IoT project research and contrasting the numbers to a similar study performed in 2016.

Commenting on the findings, IoT Analytics Managing Director Knud Lasse Lueth said: “The total number of IoT projects, that our research team could identify, has surged from 640 to 1,600 in just 18 months. We believe the list provides a candid overview on where the Internet of Things as a whole stands today. New IoT projects are emerging across the board, however we have noted that projects centered on the themes of Smart City and Smart Building have increased more than others. Make no mistake though, less than one fifth of these projects have been identified as large-scale deployments. Many of the projects are small to medium size in nature with some just in pilot or PoC stage.”

The List of 1,600 Enterprise IoT Projects is available to purchase HERE.

About IoT Analytics

IoT Analytics is a leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0. Headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, IoT Analytics provides industry market research in the form of analyst reports and bespoke research projects. Research publications such as this one can be purchased in the online store. Companies subscribed to the IoT Analytics Membership program get unlimited access to all published reports.

For more information, visit www.iot-analytics.com

Database Structure – IoT use case list 2018

The IoT use case database is structured along the following 5 dimensions

• IoT Use Case Detail – General information about the IoT use case (description, industry, location and link to more information).
• End user /company IoT solution – Information about the company employing IoT (description, industry, homepage and location) and type (end user or IoT solution vendor).
• Value proposition of IoT deployment for the company (e.g., classified as revenue, cost, safety, other and description of results, if available).
• IoT infrastructure – name of vendor(s) involved in the project (e.g., companies providing hardware, software, connectivity and other for respective project) and type of connectivity.
• IoT use case classification – differentiating between 10 distinct IoT types (e.g. Smart City or Connected Industry) and a set of 56 subtypes.
• Additional info – Basic project info including start date (year) of the project, the project phase (e.g., pilot or full deployment), the project size and generic contact details (e.g., email, telephone, name).

IoT vendors mentioned (selected vendors only):

ABB, Accenture, Advantech, Aeris, Amazon, Arrayent, AT&T, Ayla Networks, Autodesk, Blip Systems, Bosch, Carriots, C3 IoT, Cisco Jasper, Dell, Digi International, Deutsche Telekom, Echelon, Ericsson, Eurotech, Evrythng, eWON, GE, Geotab, Gemalto, Google, HMS Industrial Networks, Huawei, IBM, Impinj, Intel, Kore Telematics, Libelium, LoRA, Microsoft, Numerex, Oracle, Qualcomm, PTC, Relayr, Rockwell Automation, Samsung, SAP, Schneider Electric, Semtech, Siemens, Sierra Wireless, SIGFOX, Silver Spring Networks, Software AG, Telefonica, Telit Communications, Verizon, Vodafone.

Contact

For further comments or more information on this press release, please contact: Thomas Meier, Market Analyst, IoT Analytics thomas.meier@iot-analytics.com

It’s that time again to cut through the clutter of marketing messages and explore some real-world implementations for the Internet of Things! As part of our continued effort to track the IoT ecosystem, we once again set out (mining thousands of homepages) to assemble, verify, and classify 1,600 actual enterprise IoT projects in a structured easy-to-use database.

The latest 2018 update of the database is the basis for the 2018 ranking of Top IoT Segments and contains a vast number of further insights hidden in the data, some of which we would like to share with you in this article. (For a comparison, you may look at the 2016 ranking of Top IoT Applications)

Overall ranking: Most IoT projects in Smart City

Most of the IoT projects we identified are in Smart City (367 projects), followed by industrial settings (265) and Connected Building IoT projects (193). The Americas make up most of those projects (45%), followed by Europe (35%), and Asia (16%). There are large differences when looking at individual IoT segments and regions. The majority of Smart City projects are located in Europe (45%), while the Americas, particularly North America, are strong in Connected Health (55%) and Connected Car (54%). The Asia / Pacific region is particularly strong in the area of Smart Agriculture projects (31%). In comparison to our 2016 ranking, Smart City (driven by government and municipality-led initiatives) has surpassed Connected Industry as the number one IoT segment of identified projects while Connected Building (driven by widespread uptake of building automation solutions that increase operational efficiency and reduce costs) has climbed four places to become the third biggest IoT segment.

1.   Smart City: Traffic management and utilities driving Smart City IoT use cases

Smart City is now the largest IoT segment in terms of number of IoT projects identified (23%), taking over the 2016 number one IoT application area from Connected Industry. The growth has been driven by hundreds of recent Smart City initiatives started by governments and municipalities around the world. Prominent examples include Singapore and the City of Barcelona. The most popular Smart City application is Smart Traffic including projects such as parking systems, traffic monitoring&control, bike sharing, smart bus lanes, but also more exotic applications such as smart ferry systems or smart bus shelters. Other Smart City initiatives evolve around utilities, lighting, environmental monitoring and public safety. Europe accounts for the greatest number of Smart City projects identified (164).

2.   Connected Industry: Strong IoT project footprint in non-factory environments

17% of all identified IoT projects are Connected industry related. This segment covers a wide range of connected “things” both inside and outside the factory. The most popular Connected industry applications were equipment monitoring in non-factory environments. Typical non-factory projects include asset monitoring and remote control of connected machinery such as cranes, forklifts, drills, or even entire mines and oil fields (e.g., Cisco’s connected mining operations for Rio Tinto in Western Australia). “Smart Factory” automation and control projects were the second most popular application in Connected Industry including holistic solutions with numerous elements such as production floor monitoring, wearables on the shop-floor, remote PLC control, or automated quality control systems (e.g., Varroc, an automotive component manufacturer, is using digital factory solutions from Altizon to connect industrial machines in the manufacturing environment). The Americas lead the way for Connected Industry projects (45%).

3.   Connected Building: Largest segment increase in number of projects since 2016

Of all segments, connected building has experienced the largest increase of IoT projects compared to the 2016 study (7 percentage point increase). 61% of Connected Building projects identified involved facility-automation to reduce energy costs (e.g., the Marriott hotel chain in China is implementing building automation solutions resulting in savings of 10-15% on energy costs). 39% of projects are related to building security and 31% to HVAC/Heating/Cooling.

4.   Connected Cars: Leading applications are vehicle diagnostics and fleet management

The number of Connected Car projects identified has more than doubled since the 2016 IoT projects list, with most focusing on vehicle diagnostics (77%) and fleet management solutions (57%). For example, TracknStop, a remote-control software company in Ireland is enabling vehicle diagnostic solutions including real-time tracking, monitoring of sensor readings, and remote control of vehicles.

5.   Other notable findings

• Low-power (LPWAN) connectivity technology coming up quickly.

7% of all identified IoT projects make use of the new and upcoming LPWA connectivity technology. An overwhelming 64% of those projects identified focus on Smart City, with others focusing on Smart Agriculture and Smart Energy. LoRa technology accounts for 37% of those projects followed by SigFox (21%) and NB-IoT (19%).

• Most enterprise IoT projects focus on cost-reduction.

The main value driver for most IoT enterprise projects is cost savings (54%). Only 35% of IoT projects are used to increase revenue (e.g., by offering new IoT-connected products and services). 24% of projects also increase overall safety (e.g., by offering enhanced monitoring systems with real-time alerts and notifications).

• The number of IoT enterprise employments is growing – yet most are small deployments

While the list of 1,600 IoT Projects is certainly not complete, our analysis leads us to conclude that the total number of globally announced and published IoT projects is still limited. Triangulating the list with a number of other data points, we believe the total number of IoT enterprise projects (including all unannounced projects) is in the range 10,000 – 30,000 projects. This range is well in line with our overall market model and our observation that the market has not yet exploded but is growing steadily at 30-40% on the back of many pilot projects and small roll-outs – with some verticals seeing above average growth such as Smart City. This steady growth is forecast to continue for the remainder of 2018.

6.   Fun stuff

Finally, for the fun of it, here are more unusual IoT projects that we identified during our research:

• A really cool preservation project in Scotland is using smart telemetry tags with NB-IoT technology to track and monitor the movement of seals
• On the other side of the world in North America, tornado monitoring solutions are saving lives with predictive alerts for residents in the danger zones.
• As climate change is currently a hot topic we are big fans of the “Smogmobile” in London which contains sensors that can measure greenhouse gases such as CO2, methane as well as Ozone, nitrogen dioxide and small particulate pollutants that are known to have a detrimental impact on health.
• And finally, NASA are using connected Robonauts for air quality testing in space.

7.    Methodology

During a period of 3 months, our team spent hundreds of hours researching enterprise IoT projects and verifying them. In a first step, we mined the websites of all major IoT vendors in regard to publicly documented IoT use cases. The vendors were mainly identified from the List of 450+ IoT Platforms and the previous 2016 IoT projects list, as well as from expert interviews and additional desktop research for new players developing solutions for the Internet of Things. Furthermore, we carried out a comprehensive and systematic key word search in order to eliminate potential biases and add to the existing repository from 2016.

Scope: We focused on enterprise IoT solutions that are either directly employed by enterprises or sold to enterprises, thus excluding consumer-only cases such as wearables or home automation.

In order to be included, the enterprise IoT projects needed to fulfill the following criteria:

• Matching our IoT definition as defined here
• Sufficient documentation in publicly available sources (i.e. all considered projects are documented with a link to a webpage or a document)
• Both the IoT Customer and at least one IoT vendor must be known for each project

If you want to find out more about our research or the List of 1,600 Enterprise IoT Projects feel free to reach out! You can download a sample of the project list (in EXCEL) as well as a sample of the metadata analysis (in PDF) . We believe the list is a highly valuable reference point for anyone working in IoT and we are planning to update the list and analysis in 2019.

Please note: A project is only included in the list if sufficient information is publicly available, on the source link provided, to explain what type of project it is, who the end-user involved is, who the IoT solution provider involved is and additional benefits of implementing the IoT solution. For example, if a solution provider states they have the capability to offer a specific enterprise IoT solution but do not mention an end-user or more details on a real deployment, then this is NOT included in the list. It is our understanding that many more projects exist however this list represents the best sample we could ascertain following months of intense research.

IoT Analytics forecasts Connected Streetlights Market Revenues To Reach $3.6B by 2023.

PRESS RELEASE: Hamburg, Germany 21 June 2018 //

IoT Analytics, a leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0, today published a comprehensive Market Report, focusing on sizing the quickly developing market for Connected Streetlights during the period 2018 to 2023. It is estimated that there will be 41 million IoT connected Streetlights installed globally by 2023. The overall streetlights market will surpass US$3.6B in 2023, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 21% from 2018. Deployment of connected streetlights is gaining traction globally as the technology is one of the key pillars for Smart City initiatives. The growth is fueled by government policies and increasing awareness on the benefits of connected Streetlights which go beyond energy savings.

Sample Case Study Highlighted as Part of the Report:

In 2016, the governing body in Los Angeles, United States, embarked on a connected streetlight project. Through the installation of 110,000 units, the city managed to reduce annual costs by over US$9M in terms of energy savings resulting from 63% reduced energy consumption annually. In addition, the city also managed to reduce annual maintenance costs by over US$ 3M. Overall CO2 emission reduced by 61,000 tonnes, thanks to the initiative.

• For more information on this case study and for other similar examples please click here

Overall Report Insights

In addition to a comprehensive view of the streetlights market, the technology and various ongoing and completed projects, the report also looks at the competitive landscape of streetlight vendors, including key benefits, drivers, barriers and considerations influencing the deployment of connected streetlights. Telensa and Itron (formerly Silver Spring Networks) are ranked as the market leaders in terms of penetration in the global installed base.

“One of the new trends in streetlights is the use of remote diagnostics and machine learning that enable municipalities to reduce maintenance costs and optimize overall infrastructure uptime.” says Raquel Artes, Senior Analyst at IoT Analytics and main author of the report.

Interestingly, Asia Pacific (APAC) is emerging as the leading adopter of Connected Streetlights. India, China, and Australia are forecasted to have the highest number of deployments in the region.

Besides sizing the streetlights market across regions (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World), the report examines Connected Streetlight initiatives of municipalities across the world – as such, deployments of Connected Streetlights in 86 cities around the globe have been ranked – some are profiled in depth as case studies. Small and medium sized cities seem to be as innovative as some larger cities. The City of Providence, Rhode Island with 16,000 deployed connected streetlights, for example, ranks #1 in the deployment of connected Streetlights for small cities in North America.

Furthermore, the publication discusses disruptive trends that stakeholders need to watch out for in the Connected Streetlights space and discusses which connectivity technologies will gain traction in the streetlights market in the next 5 years.

Commenting on the findings, IoT Analytics Managing Director Knud Lasse Lueth says: “Smart City initiatives around the globe are quickly gaining traction and IoT-enabled streetlights are an important pillar for most municipalities. The cities at the forefront of implementing such technologies are also realizing that in addition to its core functionalities, connected streetlights play a vital role in acting as a multi-application gateway and will be a central pillar for hosting other IoT applications such as environmental sensors and ultimately will be crucial for the roll-out of future 5G networks.”

The Connected Streetlights Market Report is part of a larger effort of mapping Smart City efforts such as smart mobility, smart parking, smart waste management, citizen engagement, and others.

• The Market Report is available for purchase HERE. A sample can be requested HERE.

About IoT Analytics

IoT Analytics is the leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0. The boutique research firm helps more than 40,000 Internet of Things decision-makers understand IoT markets every month. IoT Analytics tracks important data around the IoT ecosystem such as market developments, M&A activity, startup funding, company projects, use cases and latest news. Product offerings include in-depth market reports as well as bespoke research and consulting services. As a research pioneer, IoT Analytics combines traditional methods of market research such as interviews and surveys with state-of-the art web-mining tools to generate high-calibre insights.

IoT Analytics is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. For more information, visit www.iot-analytics.com

Report Structure – Connected Streetlights & Smart Cities Market Report 2018-2023

1. Methodology
2. Summary & Conclusion
3. Overview on Smart Cities
   • Global IoT Project Implementations: Smart City is Leading
   • Key Themes for Smart Cities
   • Overview of Smart City Top
4. Key Benefits of Connected Streetlights
5. Technology Stack
6. Market Size & Outlook
   • Global Streetlight Market – Installed Base & Penetration Rate – Units & Percentage
   • Global LED Streetlight Market – Installed Base By Region – Units
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – General Overview
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Installed Base By Region – Units
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Installed Base By Connectivity – Units
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Installed Base Penetration Rate by Region – Percentage
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Revenue By Region – USD
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Revenue By Product – USD
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Shipment By Region – Units
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Shipment By Product – Units
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Shipment By Connectivity Technology Used – Units
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Overall Market Share – Percentage
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – North America – General Overview
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – North America – Market Share – Percentage
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – North America – Smartest Cities
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Europe – General Overview
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Europe – Market Share – Percentage
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Europe – Smartest Cities
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – APAC – General Overview
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – APAC – Market Share – Percentage
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – APAC – Smartest Cities
   • Global Connected Streetlight Market – Initiatives/Regulations
7. Case Studies
   • Case Studies
   • List of further Smart Streetlight Implementations
8. Trends & Challenges
   • Key Trends
   • Key Barriers to Adoption of Connected Streetlights
   • Key Considerations To Deploy Connected Streetlights

Companies Mentioned (selected):

SilverSpring Networks (Itron), Signify (formerly Philips Lighting), Telensa, Echelon, Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, Current Powered by GE, Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Vodafone, Smart City Bhopal, Bharti Infratel Limited, Wireless Broadband Alliance, Ajuntament de Barcelona, Schneider Electric, Chordant, PTC.

Next Actions

Direct Purchase/Request a Sample

• The Market Report is available for purchase HERE. A sample can be requested HERE.

Bespoke Research on the topic

• If you are considering a project of a similar nature or require related research services, get in contact with our bespoke research team to see how we could assist you. Contact Abhay Rastogi: research@iot-analytics.com
• If you are already in the process of implementing a project of this nature, check out our supporting documents website: iot-analytics.com

Sales & Marketing

• For all other sales, marketing or partnership related inquiries please contact our Head of Sales, Leon Whyte: sales@iot-analytics.com

Public Relations

• For further comments or more information on this press release, please contact: Stephanie Baumann press@iot-analytics.com

The post Connected Streetlights Market: APAC to emerge as the leading adopter appeared first on IoT Analytics.

PRESS RELEASE: Hamburg, Germany – 26 June 2018 //

IoT Analytics, a leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0, today published two comprehensive market report updates on IoT Platforms:

• A. A 193-page report titled IoT Platforms Market Report 2018-2023
• B. A 450 page in-depth analysis of 20 leading vendors, titled IoT Platforms Vendor Comparison 2018

The research uncovers that the IoT Platform market is accelerating in 2018 as more and more businesses prioritize their transformation into IoT data-driven companies. Spending on IoT Platform-related software and services for connected business solutions is forecasted to grow at a rate of 39% per year until 2023. The vendor landscape remains fragmented but first winners are emerging.

Report Insight: How customers select their IoT Platforms?

Among other things, the report highlights several examples of how customers select their IoT platforms.

One example, an automotive OEM in Germany pre-selected ten IoT platform vendors and invited them to perform 2-day Proof-of-Concepts in a real production setting. Vendors were assessed using a number of testing criteria in connecting equipment on the factory floor such as infrastructure, network, IoT, analytics, managed services, security, usability, and partner ecosystem (which each may have up to 10 weighted sub-criteria). Following this, two of the best vendors were selected for 3-month PoCs and were further ranked on their capabilities. Finally, recommendations by the IoT team involved in the PoCs were made to the steering committee and the head of plant automation made the final decision.

For more information on this case study and for other similar examples please click here.

Report Content Overview

A. IoT Platforms Market Report 2018-2023

The IoT Platforms report forecasts a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for IoT Platforms of 39% over the time frame of 2018-2023, with annual spending surpassing US$22 Billion by 2023. These numbers are based on the IoT Platforms related revenue of the leading companies in the field, across 11 industry segments (Agriculture, Connected Buildings, Connected Car, Energy, Health, Manufacturing, Public services, Retail, Smart supply chain, Transportation, and Other). The market is broken down into 7 regions (Asia, Europe, North America, MEA, South America, Oceania, Rest of World), 5 platform types (cloud platforms, application enablement platforms, device management platforms, connectivity platforms, advanced analytics platforms), 4 deployment types (on-premise, hosted private cloud, hybrid cloud, public cloud), and 2 revenue types (platform software sales vs services sales).

In developing the 193-page report, the analyst team at IoT Analytics studied over 450 technology companies that offer IoT platform technology elements and reviewed 1,600 implemented enterprise IoT platform projects. Further input to the report included 20 completed surveys from leading IoT platform providers, 27 completed surveys from IoT platform end-users, 20+ industry interviews and numerous expert discussions at 10+ leading IoT conferences.

The report analyzes the competitive landscape of the IoT platforms market estimating the 2017 market share of leading vendors.

Microsoft and PTC are identified as the leading vendors in terms of market share in their respective platform types, cloud and AEP.

The role of certain industries (e.g., Telecommunications, Industrial Automation, System Integrators), open source vendors/communities, market funding/investment activity and M&A deals are also described.

IoT platform business models are examined in the report describing selected market strategies, the sales approach, how to bring an IoT platform to market, platform collaboration and the differences between closed and open platforms. The IoT platform report also calls out 4 major industry trends as well as various challenges, adoption barriers for technology providers, the needs and perspective of customers, and lists over 30 use cases enabled by IoT platforms.

B. IoT Platform Vendor Comparison 2018

To supplement the market report and to help end-users decide which platform to choose from, IoT Analytics is simultaneously releasing an IoT Platforms Vendor Comparison 2018. The 450-page document provides an in-depth comparison of 21 popular IoT Platforms.

The document focusses on 6 major customer decision criteria: IoT Platform Building Blocks, Business & Pricing, Market Segmentation, Partner Ecosystem, Customers & Marketing, Case Studies. These decision criteria are further broken down into 23 sub-topics.

In general, the report provides answers to the following questions:

• Which building blocks are included in the different IoT Platforms offering?
• Which pricing options do the platform vendors offer?
• Which market segments do they cater to?
• In which regions are the vendors mainly active?
• How are the partner ecosystems structured?
• Who are the main customers of the platforms and what are some customers’ opinions on strengths and weaknesses?

On a detailed level, some of the dimensions analysed include Application Enablement and Device Management building blocks by vendor, IoT application marketplace sizes by vendor or supported communication standards by vendor. The majority of IoT Platform vendors cover 60-100% of all analysed platform building blocks.

The IoT Analytics IoT Platform Vendor Comparison also uncovers that most platforms have rather strong partner ecosystems. 16 of 21 analyzed companies have their own partner program and 20 of those are also involved in IoT consortia and standardization organizations. The highest number of those partnerships are with system integrators (30%).

The List of analysed IoT Platform Vendors includes: Accenture, ADAMOS, Amazon Web Services, Bosch, C3 IoT, Device Insight, GE, Hitachi, Huawei, IBM, Kaa IoT, Microsoft, Mnubo, PTC, SAP, Schneider Electric, Seluxit, Siemens, Sierra Wireless, Software AG, Telit.

The information put together in the IoT Platform Vendor Comparison was mainly collected through surveys that were filled out by platform vendors themselves. The information was enhanced with information from 25 interviews (45-60 mins) with: IoT Platform companies, members of IoT communities, system integrators and IoT Platform customers. Furthermore, IoT Analytics conducted extensive desktop research and screened 300+ relevant presentations and websites. IoT Analytics compiled a market model, upon which revenue estimations for all IoT Platforms included in the report are based.

Commenting on the findings of both reports, IoT Analytics Managing Director Knud Lasse Lueth said: “It has been fascinating to cover the highly-dynamic IoT Platforms market for the last 4 years. Initially the platform vendors had to educate the market and convince customers that it was more economic than do-it-yourself. Finding first reference customers was difficult but now, in 2018, customers see the benefits and are actively approaching platform vendors for their IoT projects. Over the years, about 500 platforms flooded the market – in 2018 first winners are emerging. We are currently witnessing a clear market acceleration on the back of maturing platform offerings – many of those platforms are growing >50%. At the same time the majority of IoT implementations enabled by these platforms are still in a pilot phase and there are still some inhibitors to a market explosion such as lack of confidence in cybersecurity – The potential that this market is likely to unlock in the coming years is enormous.”

The Market Report is available to download HERE and the Vendor Comparison is available to download HERE. Note: There is a significant discount if both reports are purchased together.
A sample of the market report can be downloaded HERE and the vendor comparison HERE.

About IoT Analytics

IoT Analytics is the leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0. The specialized data-driven research firm helps more than 40,000 Internet of Things decision-makers understand IoT markets every month. IoT Analytics tracks important data around the IoT ecosystem such as M&A activity, Startup funding, company projects, use cases and latest developments. Product offerings include in-depth market reports, technical whitepapers, sponsored research, regular newsletter, as well as Go2Market and consulting services. As a research pioneer, IoT Analytics combines traditional methods of market research such as interviews and surveys with state-of-the art web-mining tools to generate high-caliber insights. IoT Analytics is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

IoT Platforms Market Report Structure

Executive summary
2016-2018 IoT developments

1. Introduction to IoT platforms

1.1 Role of IoT platforms in the IoT
1.2 Definition of IoT platforms

2. Technical overview

2.1 Technology segmentation
2.2 Hosting environment
2.3 Application deployment architecture
2.4 Security elements of the platform
2.5 Role of edge computing
2.6 Role of digital twins
2.7 Role of interoperability and standardization

3. Market analysis

3.1 Market characteristics overview
3.2 Overall market
3.3 Market by segment
3.4 Market by technology
3.5 Market by region
3.6 Market share by solution provider

4. Competitive landscape

4.1 Overview
4.2 General vendor landscape
4.3 Role of open source vendors/communities
4.4 Role of open certain industries
4.5 Funding/investment activity
4.6 M&A activity

5. IoT platform business models

5.1 Overview
5.2 Selected market strategies
5.3 Bringing an IoT platform to market
5.4 Closed vs. open platforms
5.5 Platform collaboration
5.6 Sales approach
5.7 IoT implementation and consulting services

6. Market trends

6.1 Trends for IoT platforms
6.2 Customer perspective and needs
6.3 Challenges / adoption barriers

7 Appendix
About IoT Analytics

IoT Platforms Vendor Comparison 2018 Report Structure

1. Introduction

1.1 Report Overview
1.2 The 6 major Dimensions of the Analysis
1.3 Definition: IoT Platform Building Blocks
1.4 IoT Analytics IoT Platform Publications
1.5 Methodology

2. Overview of platforms and dimensions

2.1 Overview of analyzed platforms
2.2. Not included: Further notable IoT Platforms
2.3 Not included: Notable IoT Platform StartUps
2.4 Dimensions used for vendor analysis

3. Comparison of Vendors

3.1 Executive Summary of Vendor Comparison
3.2 Coverage of Building Blocks by Vendor
3.2.1 Device Management Capabilities by vendor
3.2.2 Cloud backend / IaaS Capabilities by Vendor
3.2.3 Application Enablement Capabilities by Vendor
3.2.4 Advanced Analytics Capabilities by Vendor
3.2.5 General & Selected Security Capabilities by Vendor
3.2.6 IoT Application Marketplace Comparison
3.3. IoT Platforms Revenue by Vendor
3.3.1 Percentage of Revenue by Hosting Type

3.4 Business KPIs by Vendor
3.4.1 Publicly available Case Studies by Vendor and Industry
3.5 Pricing Model by Vendor
3.6 Market Channels by Vendor
3.7 Served Segments by Vendor
3.8 Membership Programs and Consortia by Vendor
3.9 Supported Standards by Vendor
3.10 Partner Ecosystem Size by Vendor
3.11 Partner Ecosystem Split by Vendor
3.12 Top Partners by Category
3.13 Connectivity Partnerships by Vendor
3.14 Hardware Partnerships by Vendor
3.15 System Integration Partnerships by Vendor
3.16 Cloud & Data Analytics Partnerships by Vendor
3.17 Security Partners by Vendor
3.18 Key Customers by Vendor
3.19 Marketing Message by Vendor
3.20 Vendor Opinion – Strengths & Weaknesses/Challenges
3.21 Customer Opinion – Strengths & Weaknesses/Challenges
3.22 Positioning on Security – by Vendor
3.23 Positioning on Scalability – by Vendor
3.24 Positioning on Usability – by Vendor
3.25 Positioning on Interoperability – by Vendor
3.26 Positioning on Modularity – by Vendor
3.27 Positioning on Open Source – by Vendor
3.28 Positioning on Edge Capabilities – by Vendor
3.29 Positioning on Multi-Cloud by Vendor
3.29.1 Positioning on Data Migration to other Platforms – by Vendor
3.30 Positioning on Preconfigured Solutions by Vendor

4. Vendor Profiles

4.1 Accenture
4.2 ADAMOS
4.3 Amazon Web Services
4.4 Bosch
4.5 C3 IoT
4.6 Device Insight
4.7 General Electric
4.8 Hitachi
4.9 Huawei
4.10 IBM
4.11 Kaa IoT
4.12 Microsoft
4.13 Mnubo
4.14 PTC
4.15 SAP
4.16 Schneider Electric
4.17 Seluxit
4.18 Siemens
4.19 Sierra Wireless
4.20 Software AG
4.21 Telit

5. Appendix

Companies Mentioned (selection from the IoT Platforms report)

Accenture, Actility, Aeris, Alibaba, Amazon, AT&T, Ayla Networks, Bosch, C3 IoT, Carriots, Cisco Jasper, Davra, Ericsson, Evrythng, Fujitsu, GE, Gemalto, Google, Huawei, IBM, Kore Wireless, Microsoft, Mnubo, myDevices, Nokia, Oracle, PTC, Relayr, Salesforce, Schneider Electric, SAP, Siemens, Sierra Wireless, Software AG, TCS, Telit, Tencent, Uptake, Verizon.

Next Actions

Direct Purchase/Request a Sample

• The Market Report is available to download HERE and the Vendor Comparison is available to download HERE. Note: There is a significant discount if both reports are purchased together.
  A sample of the market report can be downloaded HERE and the vendor comparison HERE.

Bespoke Research on the topic

• If you are considering a project of a similar nature or require related research services, get in contact with our bespoke research team to see how we could assist you. Contact Abhay Rastogi: research@iot-analytics.com
• If you are already in the process of implementing a project of this nature, check out our supporting documents website: iot-analytics.com

Sales & Marketing

• For all other sales, marketing or partnership related inquiries please contact our Head of Sales, Leon Whyte: sales@iot-analytics.com

Public Relations

• For further comments or more information on this press release, please contact: Stephanie Baumann press@iot-analytics.com

The post Microsoft and PTC named leading IoT Platform vendors for Cloud and AEP, respectively, as growth in the IoT Platforms Market accelerates to 39% appeared first on IoT Analytics.

Smart city initiatives are being increasingly rolled out around the world to tackle increased urbanization, meet environmental targets and reduce energy consumption of cities. Converting legacy streetlights into connected LED or connected solid-state lighting has become an important ingredient of digital transformation strategies for many cities. In this post the current state of global smart city development based on deployment of connected streetlights is examined.

As part of this research, 111 cities were analyzed based on their deployment of connected streetlights across North America (36 cities), Europe (35 cities), APAC (33 cities) and Rest of the World (7 cities).

The ranking is based on the level of deployment of connected streetlights as of 2017. The ranking shows which cities are at the forefront in embracing digital transformation in the management of streetlights, and how other cities can learn from these initiatives.

Smartest Cities Based on Deployment of Connected Streetlights

1. Miami, Florida, United States (500,000 connected streetlights)

Miami is the world’s number 1 city when it comes to rolling out connected streetlights. The city council is committed to achieve a carbon dioxide emission reduction of 25% by 2020 (compared to 2006 levels) as indicated in the MiPlan, Miami’s Climate Action Plan. The conversion of legacy streetlights into smart LED streetlights is one of the strategies enabling city governing bodies to reduce energy consumption, which in turn, reduces carbon dioxide emissions within their jurisdiction. The roll-out in Miami was performed by the technology firm Itron and the utility company Florida Power & Light. The nearly 500,000 units of connected streetlights utilize the IEEE 802.15.4g wireless RF mesh architecture, supported by the Wi-SUN Alliance.

2. Paris, France (280,000 connected streetlights)

Itron retrofitted IPv6-based LED streetlights across the city. The connected streetlights utilize IEEE 802.15.4g wireless RF mesh architecture supported by the Wi-SUN Alliance. By leveraging Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) deployments to connect streetlight devices and applications the city was able to reduce CAPEX and OPEX. Moreover, connected streetlights generated 70% savings on annual streetlight energy costs for the city.

3. Madrid, Spain (225,000 connected streetlights)

Signify (formerly Philips Lighting) retrofitted 225,000 connected streetlights comprising of 84,000 locally manufactured Philips LED lamps and luminaires and 141,000 non-LED lighting solutions provided by Philips in Madrid. The connected streetlights are remotely controlled and monitored in a command center, including remotely controlling light intensity when and where it is needed. The city benefits from annual energy savings of 44% on previous costs for legacy streetlights.

4. Los Angeles, California, United States (165,000 connected streetlights)

Connected streetlights in LA are being positioned to provide the backbone support to host other IoT applications. The city governing body in Los Angeles collaborated with Signify to deploy 110,000 units of licensed wireless technology based connected streetlights. Each connected streetlight is installed with a Vodafone M2M SIM card and utilizes Vodafone’s M2M wireless network to connect individual smart light poles to the Interact IoT platform via licensed wireless technologies. The streetlights in LA also act a Smart City Hub. For example, noise-sensing microphone modules were mounted on connected streetlights to monitor environment noise including gunshot sounds on a pilot test. Leveraging machine learning, the system will trigger an alert if it detects gunshot sounds or a motor vehicle collision. Additionally, EV Charging points were mounted on connected poles. Furthermore, Signify, Ericsson and the city governing body collaborated and deployed 100 units of Smart Poles utilizing 4G LTE.

5. Jakarta, Indonesia (140,000 connected streetlights)

Signify deployed licensed wireless technology enabled connected LED streetlights in 2016. This enables city authorities to remotely monitor streetlight infrastructure, identify faulty lights and remotely control the lights. Each connected streetlight is equipped with a Vodafone M2M SIM card and utilizes Vodafone’s M2M wireless network to connect individual smart light poles to the Interact IoT platform (formerly Philips CityTouch) via licensed wireless technologies (e.g. 2G, 3G, 4G and soon 5G). Jakarta benefits from 70% annual energy savings and improved public lighting services. Meanwhile, Gridcomm, Siklon Energy Nusantara and the city governing body in Jakarta are collaborating to deploy more PLC based connected streetlights in the city.

On a global level, IoT Analytics estimates that the connected streetlights market will surpass US$3.6 billion in 2023, and will grow with a CAGR of 21%. The growth is fueled by government policies to reduce carbon dioxide emission, declining cost of technologies, smart city initiatives, and increasing awareness on the benefits of connected streetlights which go beyond energy savings. On a regional level:

• APAC emerges as the leading adopter of Connected Streetlights in 2017. The APAC market is likely to grow with a CAGR of 25%, and penetration rate is forecast to reach 15% by 2023. India, China and AU/NZ lead the deployment of connected streetlights. In India, the streetlighting National Programme of EESL targets to replace 14 million conventional streetlights with LEDs by 2019. Australia targets full deployment of connected and LED streetlights by 2027 across 2.3 million light poles
• Deployment of Connected streetlights in North America will likely surpass Europe by 2023. IoT Analytics estimates that installations of connected streetlights in North America will reach 14.4 million by 2023 with highest deployment in the United States. Shipment of connected streetlight hardware devices (e.g. LED lighting fixtures, controllers, communication nodes, gateways, IoT Edge Routers) is expected to grow with a CAGR of 22% and surpass 9 million units in 2023. The penetration rate in North America is expected to increase by 21 percentage points from 7% in 2018 to 28% by 2023. The growth is driven by US government initiatives to deploy 18 million connected streetlights by 2025 in the US.
• Connected streetlight market in Europe is expected to grow with a CAGR of 6% in the next 5 years. The European market is expected to be valued at US$439 million in 2023 and penetration rate is likely to reach 12% by 2023, as the European Commission targets to deploy 10 million connected streetlights by 2025.

Further information

This article builds on information from the Connected Streetlights 2018-2023 Market Report. The 96- page report examines worldwide deployment, revenue and shipment of connected streetlights, with segmentation analysis by region, technology, and product.

Additionally, the report examines the market landscape, including a market share analysis, and identifies the 111 smartest cities in terms of deployment of connected streetlights by region and country.

You can download the report and request a sample:

Get Sample

Feel free to get in touch with the author in case of any inquiries.

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The post The Top 10 Cities Implementing Connected Streetlights: Miami, Paris and Madrid on top appeared first on IoT Analytics.

IoT Platform selection: The importance of getting it right

Several thousands of enterprises are currently performing their first IoT projects – whether its smart factory, connected car, or smart energy – most of them now consider using a modular IoT software platform to manage the data flows, support application development and provide basic analytics. This promises lower cost, faster time to market and more professional support. The IoT Platform selection process is not easy, however. There are hundreds of platforms to choose from with prominent examples being Microsoft Azure IoT, Amazon AWS IoT, PTC Thingworx, Siemens Mindsphere, GE Predix, Software AG Cumulocity IoT, or C3 IoT Platform.

“Some IoT platforms do not live up to the task”

However, several instances have now been reported where the IoT Platform did not live up to the task. In one instance, the platforms data model proved to be limited to one industry specific scenario and could not be scaled to other use cases for the same company. In another instance, support for multi-cloud backends was not available and hindered the end-user to exchange important data sets between different platforms.

It is becoming crucial, for most companies even strategic, to ensure they are choosing the right IoT Platform that will seamlessly manage their IoT data flows. Not only for one use case but for most, if not all, of the planned use cases in the years to come.

IoT Analytics recently performed research and interviewed a number of customers of IoT Platforms on how they choose their platform. These are 3 of the best practices that emerged from the analysis:

Best practice 1: Pre-select platform vendors based on qualitative criteria

Almost all of the customers interviewed use some kind of criteria catalogue for pre-selecting vendors. In one extreme instance a customer used a catalogue of 130 different dimensions.

“17 selection criteria are common across all organizations”

Most interviewed customers used a combination of 17 distinct criteria.

8 of these can be classified as customer-specific (These are criteria that every customer rates differently based on their own needs and perception).

The other 9 criteria are platform-specific (These are criteria that are independent of the customers needs and are directly related to the overall performance of the platform)

  A.      8 customer-specific purchasing criteria

Some of the customer-specific criteria are common for any technology decision-making in a large organization (e.g., Value for money, previous experience). Others are specific to the nature of the Internet of Things (e.g., Support availability – because the IoT setup can be extremely complex, Strength of Partnership ecosystem – because IoT requires a lot of different systems to work together)

  B.      9 platform-specific purchasing criteria

Vendors can have a greater influence on the 9 Platform specific purchasing criteria (listed in Table 2) as these aspects are directly linked to the IoT platform’s capabilities. These Platform specific criteria have been ranked by customers regarding their importance in the IoT Platform selection process (based on our interviews).

The three top criteria are:

1. End-2-end security (i.e. how secure the platform is including the data exchange and user and device authentification)
2. Scalability (i.e. how easy it is to go from 100 to 100,000 connected endpoints)
3. Usability (i.e. how user friendly the interface is)

  C.      The pre-selection process

It is worth noting, that the pre-selection process can differ on a company by company basis ranging from assessing a handful of vendors to tens of vendors. For example, while some customers mentioned they only looked at 2 vendors, one specific customer even had 50 IoT Platform providers on their initial list of potential platforms.

Clearly, available budget and timing playing a major factor here in the decision process as not all customers have the resources to assess 50 platforms. In any case, the aim is to narrow the options to a few chosen vendors before completing a proof of concept.

It is somewhat surprising to see that the selection criteria vary so much between different companies. For example, one company put a heavy emphasis on open source while another company totally neglected that aspect but instead focused heavily on end-to-end security.

Best Practice 2: Set up a real-world Proof-of-Concept (PoC) testbed

After short-listing a number of platform vendors, most companies run real-life PoCs to test the platform performance and capabilities using different technical criteria (e.g. amount and quality of functionalities, tools and services, usability, security, interoperability, etc.). Often, other factors like cost and platform ecosystem are taken into account in this step.

“It is essential to test the platform capabilities with real data sets”

Instead of asking vendors to present some hypothetical capabilities, IoT platform customers oftentimes setup a real-world testbed which resembles their actual product or production process and contains actual data sets from their products or factories.

One manufacturing customer revealed “We’re essentially at the beginning of our digital journey, so we don’t want to commit to a specific platform from the start – instead we’re trying out different platforms before committing to one or more for a long time”. In essence, many customers are using PoCs to explore and “play” with the platforms to see how they work and what advantages they can get from them based on real usage scenarios, while keeping their eyes open for other options.

The number of PoCs undertaken with different vendors can depend on the customer resources (e.g., financial) available. However, PoCs are a common denominator with all vendor selections. Two respondents shared an in-depth perspective of how they went through the IoT Platform selection process:

EXAMPLE 1: Machinery manufacturer

The following example presents the IoT platform selection and evaluation process of a machinery manufacturer in Germany looking to build a Smart Factory.

Fourthly, the company selected 3 vendors to run PoCs onsite. Based on the PoC outcomes, recommendations were made to the board by a large evaluation team, and then the board (including the CEO) made the final decision on IoT platform selection.

EXAMPLE 2: Automotive OEM

The following example presents the IoT platform selection and evaluation process of an Automotive OEM looking for a smart factory platform (not a connected car platform).

Best Practice 3: Ensure the CEO signs off on the final platform decision.

As choosing an IoT platform is an important strategic decision for any organization, in most cases, the final decision is taken by the CEO and a management team or a board of directors including the CEO.

“CEOs that sign off on the platform also drive its adoption”

One might think that the reason for involving the CEO is that IoT platform-based solutions are a large investment for any organization and should thus be signed-off from the top. This, however, is not the main reason. As one interviewee put it: “Moving from an analogue to the digital world is a major undertaking. Our CEO understood that the IoT Platform is an important elements to becoming a truly digital champion. Therefore he prioritized the IoT Platform selection and now drives its adoption across the organization.”

The CEO and board will be well informed following recommendations made by a team of technical experts, often based on the implemented tests and PoCs. Results from respondents are presented in Table 1 where participants were asked who is the final decision maker on IoT platform selection:

Conclusion

Customers are challenged to choose the right IoT platform for their needs that is fit-for-purpose now and future-proof in-line with their technology roadmap. Learning from others and following these 3 best practices can help choose the most appropriate IoT platform.

“Some firms reach different conclusions on the same purchasing criteria”

It is surprising to see that even if the criteria are somewhat similar, the outcomes are different for different companies.

Example 1: One company chose to go with a vendor stating that “even though there were gaps in their product portfolio, they seemed to be the most believable firm to close those gaps and be serious about a future partnerships”. Another firm, kicked out the same vendor early-on in the selection process due to “lack of performance”.

Example 2: One company raved about the capabilities of an IoT cloud platform while another one lamented the lack of domain knowledge this provider would bring along.

Using several different platforms in the exploratory phases can help customers compare and understand which platform works best for their needs. In some cases, companies even build up a test lab with real data – then invite the shortlisted platform vendors to connect their platforms and show what they can do. But ultimately, it’s a management decision and the CEO typically has the final say – so choose wisely.

Further Reading & Exchange of opinions

“Contact IoT Analytics if you are selecting an IoT platform”

Are you in the middle of an IoT platform selection process or have just completed one? In that case we would like to hear from you. IoT Analytics has been monitoring the topic of IoT Platforms since 2015 and our analysts would love to share our perception and in exchange hear about your point of views and best practices.

Are you interested in further reading? If you want to understand more about the IoT platform selection process or the IoT platform market in general (e.g., What do customers say about individual vendors? What building blocks do each of the platforms offer? Which market share do individual platforms have? And much more) check out the IoT Platforms Market Report 2018-2023 & Vendor Comparison 2018. These reports, published in June 2018, offer more in-depth insights on the IoT platforms market (193 pages) and competitive landscape (450 pages).

In case of questions you can contact the author HERE.

You may also find these articles interesting:

• 5 things to know about the IoT Platform ecosystem
• IoT Platform Comparison: How the 450 providers stack up
• How to stand out as an IoT Platform
• White Paper: Guide to IoT Solution Development

The post Selecting the right IoT Platform: 3 best practices you should adopt appeared first on IoT Analytics.

Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWAN or LPWA networks) are a new disruptive connectivity technology. In recent years, LPWAN technologies have emerged as an upcoming viable alternative that is set to replace traditional wireless technologies such as 2G or 3G for many Internet of Things implementations. LPWAN technologies provide low-cost power-efficient communication – just what is needed for many IoT use cases. Cellular Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) such as AT&T, Vodafone or China Telecom have realized both the potential as well as the threat that this technology poses – however their LPWAN strategies vary, as this analysis shows.

State of the LPWAN Market

As part of our effort to track the IoT connectivity landscape, IoT Analytics recently published a 260-page market study which investigated the current status and future outlook of the LPWAN market and LPWAN technologies.

“LPWAN is the fastest growing IoT connectivity technology”

IoT Analytics predicts that LPWANs will be the fastest growing IoT connectivity technology in the next 5 years. The number of LPWAN connections is forecasted to grow 109% per year and should exceed the 1B mark in 2023. Currently, the market is still at an early phase and characterized by a high degree of technological fragmentation. IoT Analytics investigated 16 LPWAN technologies and found that their network footprint is mostly far from being global.

“The market is quickly consolidating”

However, the market estimates show the market is quickly consolidating around a few of these LPWAN technologies, specifically Sigfox and LoRa in the unlicensed portion of the radio spectrum, and NB-IoT and LTE-M in the licensed spectrum. The amount and speed of public network roll-outs that involves these 4 technologies has been unprecedented over the last couple of years, both by incumbent telecom operators and by smaller network providers.

State of LPWA network roll-outs

In order to achieve widespread, global coverage for each of these technologies, a good set of local mobile network operators (MNOs) is required. MNOs are providers of wireless communication services that own or control the complete telecom infrastructure necessary to sell and deliver services to their subscribed mobile users. Note that in this article, we make a distinction between cellular MNOs, i.e. companies that already operate a cellular network (2G, 3G or 4G), and non-cellular MNOs.

“There are around 200 LPWA networks around the world right now”

By the time this article was written (October 2018), IoT Analytics counted 199 public LPWA networks that were commercially deployed and that operate on one of these 4 technologies. Each of these networks have been deployed by a different MNO either on a national, regional or city-wide scale, but there may actually be more networks than we are not aware of. If you are reading this in a major city, chances are that a LoRaWAN, Sigfox, NB-IoT, or LTE-M network is available at your current location right now.

Leading LPWAN technologies (by number of operators)

#1: LoRaWAN (83 operators globally). According to the LoRa Alliance, by October 2018 there were 83 operators that have rolled-out a public LoRaWAN network, providing coverage in 49 countries. If we also count the open-source community of the Things Network and a few other entities that have deployed private LoRaWAN networks, the number of countries with LoRaWAN deployments grows to 95. The majority of these LoRaWAN public networks are built and managed by small non-cellular operators and have a limited geographical footprint (often on a city-wide or regional scale). Some of these operators are new companies that were formed specifically to be a LoRaWAN operator, but there are also many players coming from other IoT or telecom related businesses, such as wired broadband internet and telephony providers, radio and television broadcasters, as well as providers of various other telecommunication services and IoT end-to-end solutions. Lora operator examples include ZTE, Tata Communications, Orange, and KPN. Overall, the range of LoRaWAN operators is the most heterogenous when compared to other LPWAN technologies.

#2: Sigfox (57 operators globally). According to Sigfox, by October 2018 their LPWAN network was present in 57 different countries worldwide. In December 2017, the company claimed to have coverage in over 45 countries, while in November 2016 Sigfox was present in 26 countries. Thus, the number of countries with Sigfox coverage has more than doubled over the past two years. A look at the Sigfox coverage map shows that nation-wide coverage is provided only in Western European countries, while in the rest of the world the network coverage is rather spotty and limited to a few major cities and high-traffic areas. In terms of network operators, Sigfox provides exclusive rights to deploy its network to one operator per country. None of the Sigfox operators are cellular MNOs, and many of them are actually new actors in this space. Notable examples include Sigfox itself, that acts as a network operator in a few countries, such as France, Spain, Germany and USA, and WND, that has national subsidiaries in UK and in several countries in Latin America, all acting as independent Sigfox operators.

#3: NB-IoT (46 operators globally). According to GSMA, by September 2018 there were 46 commercially launched NB-IoT networks over 28 different countries (17 in Europe, 8 in APAC, 3 in Middle East and Africa). The operators deploying these networks are all cellular MNOs with an LTE network already in place such as Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, Telefonica, and the three major Chinese operators (China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom). For them, rolling-out a NB-IoT network is quite straightforward, as they can re-use their existing LTE infrastructure, and in many cases, they are only required to firmware upgrade their LTE base stations to enable NB-IoT support. Note that in our count, we considered national MNOs, i.e. one MNO for each nation-wide network. For example, Vodafone as a global company has deployed 9 NB-IoT networks over 9 countries, but in this blog post it was counted as 9 different MNOs since it has a national subsidiary in each country.

#4: LTE-M (13 operators globally). According to GSMA, by September 2018 there were 13 commercially launched LTE-M networks in 12 countries (6 in Asia Pacific, 2 in Europe, 1 in North America, 1 in Latin America, 2 in Middle East and Africa). As for NB-IoT, these are all cellular MNOS such as AT&T, Verizon, KPN and Orange, that in many cases only need to upgrade their LTE base stations to provide LTE-M coverage. Also in this case we considered in the count one different MNO for each nation-wide network even if these are national subsidiaries of the same global MNO. For example, AT&T has deployed two nation-wide LTE-M networks in USA and Mexico respectively, and it was counted twice since these are national subsidiaries of the same company.

Cellular MNO strategies for LPWAN technologies

“Only 7% of cellular MNOs have deployed LPWAN networks”

Out of the over 750 cellular MNOs currently operating worldwide (according to GSMA), only 52 have deployed commercial LPWAN networks up to date, which is less than 7%.

If we look at how these MNOs are reacting to the emergence of LPWAN technologies, we can distinguish 4 different strategies.

Strategy 1: Ignoring LPWAN technologies (or no clear strategy yet)

We have heard that some operators (particularly small ones) don’t believe LPWAN is particularly relevant for their business and are thus not planning to adopt any of these technologies, at least in the near future. Others, especially in the less developed countries, either have no LTE infrastructure in place or this has a poor coverage, while they are still seeing a lot of traction for their GSM networks. For them, investing in LPWAN would be too expensive when compared to the expected additional revenues from LPWAN connectivity, and they will likely wait for a consolidation in the 5G standard before making additional investments in their infrastructure.

Strategy 2: Focus on one licensed LPWAN technology only

Among the cellular operators that have jumped on the LPWAN bandwagon, the majority are betting on only one licensed technology (either NB-IoT or LTE-M), specifically the one they believe is stronger and would have the highest market traction within their local markets. Currently we count 42 national MNOs who have already launched a commercial LPWAN based on only one licensed technology, but some more are currently rolling-out an LPWAN or have announced plans to do so in the near future.

Strategy 3: Focus on two licensed LPWAN technologies

A minority of the MNOs deploying LPWANs are betting on both NB-IoT and LTE-M at the same time. According to the information from GSMA, by September 2018 there were 8 national MNOs that have launched commercial LPWA networks based on both licensed technologies within the same country, with some more that have announced their plans to do so in the near future, the majority of which are in the Asia Pacific region. These are:

• AIS (Thailand)
• APTG (Taiwan)
• Dialog Axiata (Sri Lanka)
• Etisalat (UAE)
• Orange (Belgium)
• SingTel (Singapore)
• Telstra (Australia)
• Turkcell (Turkey)

Strategy 4: Focus on licensed and unlicensed LPWAN technologies

While still a minority, a small number of cellular MNOs have either deployed or shown interest in both licensed and unlicensed LPWANs, specifically LoRaWAN.

At the moment, IoT Analytics is only aware of two operators that have already done that:

• KPN in the Netherlands
• SK Telekom in South Korea

Both have nation-wide LTE-M and LoRaWAN networks. French MNO, Orange, has deployed NB-IoT and LTE-M networks in Belgium, while in France it has a LoRaWAN network. Other cellular operators, including Swisscom, Proximus, SoftBank and Bouygues Telecom (through its subsidiary Objenious) have joined the LoRa Alliance and have already deployed a LoRaWAN network. While they made no announcements regarding licensed technologies, it is safe to assume that they may complement their LoRaWAN offering with either NB-IoT or LTE-M in the future, if not both.

Trend: Adoption of multiple LPWAN technologies

We see a trend towards strategies 3 and 4, i.e. cellular MNOs betting on more than one LPWAN technology. This is motivated both by technical and by strategic reasons.

• Technical rationale: Combining multiple technologies allows the operator to address a larger spectrum of IoT use cases and requirements, given the complementarity of the different technologies. While the complementarity of LTE-M and NB-IoT is well known, with the former more suited for higher-end applications with higher data transmission needs, a few LoRa suppliers have recently highlighted how LoRaWAN can be used in conjunction with licensed technologies. A possible model of collaboration between LoRaWAN and licensed technologies would be to use LoRaWAN to improve the coverage in areas at the edge of the licensed networks or to provide it in areas previously uncovered at a low cost, thus expanding the coverage beyond the LTE infrastructure.
• Strategic rationale: Betting on more than one technology typically requires a small additional cost for the network infrastructure – in the case of LTE-M and NB-IoT, upgrading to both at the same time should cost only 20% more than upgrading to just one – but it allows an operator to differentiate its investment and reduce the risks. While some technologies like LoRa and NB-IoT are gaining more and more acceptance and are likely here to stay, most LPWAN technologies still have an uncertain future and may not experience the device volumes that were initially anticipated. What happened in USA with LTE-M is just one example. There, AT&T and Verizon had initially bet on LTE-M only to address the demand for IoT connectivity, and network roll-outs were completed in 2017, but following the low market traction of the technology and the high customer demand for NB-IoT, both operators have recently announced their plans to deploy nation-wide NB-IoT networks within 2019.

This trend should not come as a surprise to industry experts. For a few years, some of them had already highlighted how no single LPWAN technology that can cover all use cases. In the end, we believe that a multi-technological strategy will be key for the success of this market, and it seems that operators have come to the same conclusion and are getting ready to do that.

Further Reading

If you want to understand more about LPWAN operator strategies (e.g., a list of which major operator is associated with which LPWAN technology) or the LPWAN market in general (e.g., How do the different LPWAN technologies compare to each other in terms of technical features, business model, ecosystem? What are the key use cases targeted by LPWAN and how well different LPWANs address their requirements? Which LPWAN technologies are leading the market growth, and what are their market shares? And much more) check out the LPWAN Market Report 2018-2023. This report, published in September 2018, offers many further in-depth insights on the LPWAN market (260 pages).

In case of questions you can contact the author HERE.

The post LPWAN technologies: How cellular MNOs are placing their bets appeared first on IoT Analytics.

The Industry 4.0 & Smart Manufacturing 2018-2023 report details the $310B market opportunity

PRESS RELEASE: Hamburg, Germany – 14 November 2018 //

IoT Analytics, a leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0, today published a comprehensive 375-page market report titled Industry 4.0 & Smart Manufacturing 2018-2023. The report, which was compiled over the course of 18+ months, is a holistic compendium that analyzes 350+ related product offerings, details 38 case studies, and describes a total of 79 trends. It serves as a strategic guideline and strong foundation for any company aiming to make sense of what is happening at the intersection of digitalization and the manufacturing sector today and in the coming 5 years.

The term Industry 4.0 (I4.0) has become a global term to describe the 4th industrial revolution. Unlike the prior industrial revolutions, this revolution is not built around a single technology, but rather the combination of multiple technologies that forward-thinking manufacturers are implementing to realize key use cases that are improving efficiencies, creating new revenue streams, and reducing risks.

The market for Industry 4.0 products and services is expected to grow to $310B by 2023. These numbers are based on the state of I4.0 adoption across manufacturing verticals and the analysis of two distinct technological subsets of the I4.0 market: the connected industry building blocks and other I4.0 supporting technologies.

The connected industry building blocks subset of the I4.0 market is further broken down into the 6 building blocks (hardware, connectivity, cloud platform & analytics, applications, cybersecurity, system integration), and 7 regions (North America, Europe, Asia, Middle East & Africa, Oceania, South America, Other). The I4.0 supporting technologies subset of the I4.0 market is further broken down into the 6 supporting technologies (additive manufacturing [3D printing], augmented and virtual reality [AR & VR], collaborative robots, connected machine vision, drones / UAVs, self-driving vehicles [SDVs]).

Every connected industry building block and supporting technology is explored in-depth, and an Excel database of 350+ companies categorized by I4.0 offering is included with the enterprise version of the report.

Key findings from the report include 9 disruptive trends that have the potential to fundamentally change existing industrial network architectures, business models, and technology stacks. Three of the nine disruptive trends relate to the traditional 5-layer automation pyramid. One such trend is for I/O and PLC hardware to bypass the traditional automation pyramid and instead connect to the cloud either directly or via industrial gateways.

The report also ranks and analyzes the 12 most popular I4.0 use cases, the largest of which is advanced digital product development.

Each use case is accompanied by at least 2 detailed case studies, for a total of 38 detailed case studies featuring 50+ end users and I4.0 suppliers.

Matthew Wopata, main author of the report and IoT Analytics’ lead expert for Industrial IoT said:
“Advanced digital product development emerged as the largest use case for I4.0 technologies as companies are using additive manufacturing, AR/VR, and digital twin technologies to reduce product development costs and time to market. Other large use cases such as data-driven quality control, predictive maintenance, and data-driven asset/plant performance optimization will continue to grow in popularity as manufacturers use I4.0 technologies to improve their operational KPIs, such as OEE. The leading vendors of I4.0 solutions are hyper-focused on customer pain points / use cases and ensure that the data-driven insights generated from I4.0 solutions lead to measurable improvements and tangible ROIs.”

The report also analyzes the I4.0 adoption strategies of 3 types of companies that are affected by I4.0: OEMs, factories, and industrial automation suppliers. The OEM adoption strategy analysis explores the relative maturity of IoT projects in 29 different industries. The factory adoption strategy analysis, among other things, highlights the “smart factory” strategies of 5 different companies/institutions. Another part of the I4.0 adoption strategies section includes an analysis of 13 leading industrial automation suppliers, of which 5 of the largest suppliers are ranked based on their overall I4.0 readiness, which considers investments and product offerings in I4.0 technologies.

In developing the 375-page report, the analyst team studied over 350 companies that offer I4.0 products and services and attended 25+ leading IoT and I4.0 conferences (e.g., Hannover Messe, SPS IPC Drives, IoT Solutions World Congress, IOTHINGS, Bosch ConnectedWorld, Industry of Things World, Internet of Manufacturing, IoT Tech Expo, IoT World, Hitachi NEXT, PTC Liveworx, Siemens Analyst Day, etc.). Further insights for the report were gleaned from interviews of 100+ experts covering a variety of I4.0 technologies and industries.

Commenting on the findings, IoT Analytics Managing Director Knud Lasse Lueth said:
“It is exciting to see that the 4th industrial revolution is well underway. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of confusion in the market regarding use cases, technologies and strategic priorities going forward. We have taken quite some time to provide a holistic view and identify the leading use cases, technologies, and trends. Whether it is the virtualization of PLCs, the evolving components of the smart factory of the future, or the developing IoT software landscape – it is fascinating to just see the sheer number of different developments that are happening right now.”

The Market Report is available to download HERE, and a sample of the market report can be downloaded HERE.

About IoT Analytics

IoT Analytics is the leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0. The specialized data-driven research firm helps more than 40,000 Internet of Things decision-makers understand IoT markets every month. IoT Analytics tracks important data around the IoT ecosystem such as M&A activity, Startup funding, company projects, use cases and latest developments. Product offerings include in-depth market reports, technical whitepapers, sponsored research, regular newsletter, as well as Go2Market and consulting services. As a research pioneer, IoT Analytics combines traditional methods of market research such as interviews and surveys with state-of-the art web-mining tools to generate high-caliber insights. IoT Analytics is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

Industry 4.0 & Smart Manufacturing 2018-2023 Market Report Structure

1 Executive Summary

1.1 Overall Highlights
1.2 Market Analysis
1.3 Key Use Case Analysis
1.4 Nine Disruptive Trends
1.5 I4.0 Adoption Strategies

2 Introduction

2.1 History of Industry 4.0
2.2 Elements of Industry 4.0

3 Industry 4.0 Market Analysis 2018-2023

3.1 Overall I4.0 Market
3.2 Connected Industry Building Blocks Market
3.2.1 By Connected Industry Building Block
3.2.2 By Region
3.2.3 Regional deep-dive: North America
3.2.4 Regional deep-dive: Europe
3.2.5 Regional deep-dive: Asia
3.2.6 Regional deep-dive: Other
3.3 Supporting Technologies Market

4 Connected Industry Building Blocks

4.1 Hardware
4.1.1 Microchips
4.1.2 Sensors
4.1.3 Connectivity Hardware
4.2 Connectivity
4.2.1 Network Protocols
4.2.2 M2M/Network Services
4.3 Cloud, Platform, & Analytics
4.3.1 Hosting Environment
4.3.2 IoT Platforms
4.3.3 Data Analytics & AI
4.4 Applications
4.4.1 Application Development and AEPs
4.4.2 Industrial App Store & Distribution Methods
4.5 System Integration
4.6 Cyber Security
4.6.1 IT vs. OT Security
4.6.2 Overview of IoT Attack Surfaces
4.6.3 Common IoT Threats
4.6.4 Recent I4.0 Related Attacks
4.6.5 Industry 4.0 Trends
4.6.6 Leading Suppliers

5 Disruptive Trends

5.1 Trends Disrupting the 5-Layer Automation Pyramid
5.1.1 Trend 1: xx
5.1.2 Trend 2: xx
5.1.3 Trend 3: xx
5.2 Other Disruptive Trends
5.2.1 Trend 4: xx
5.2.2 Trend 5: xx
5.2.3 Trend 6: xx
5.2.4 Trend 7: xx
5.2.5 Trend 8: xx
5.2.6 Trend 9: xx

6 Supporting Technologies

6.1 Additive Manufacturing (AM)
6.1.1 Overview
6.1.2 I4.0 Applications
6.1.3 Market Size and Growth
6.1.4 Disrupted Industries
6.1.5 Trends
6.1.6 Leading Suppliers
6.2 Augmented and Virtual Reality
6.2.1 Overview
6.2.2 I4.0 Applications
6.2.3 Market Size and Growth
6.2.4 Disrupted Industries
6.2.5 Trends
6.2.6 Leading Suppliers
6.3 Collaborative Robotics
6.3.1 Overview
6.3.2 I4.0 Applications
6.3.3 Market Size and Growth
6.3.4 Disrupted Industries
6.3.5 Trends
6.3.6 Leading Suppliers
6.4 Connected Machine Vision
6.4.1 Overview
6.4.2 I4.0 Applications
6.4.3 Market Size and Growth
6.4.4 Disrupted Industries
6.4.5 Trends
6.4.6 Leading Suppliers
6.5 Drones/UAVs
6.5.1 Overview
6.5.2 I4.0 Applications
6.5.3 Market Size and Growth
6.5.4 Disrupted Industries
6.5.5 Trends
6.5.6 Leading Suppliers
6.6 Self-Driving Vehicles (SDVs)
6.6.1 Overview
6.6.2 I4.0 Applications
6.6.3 Market Size and Growth
6.6.4 Disrupted Industries
6.6.5 Trends
6.6.6 Leading Suppliers

7 Key Use Cases

7.1 Additive Production
7.1.1 Case Study: xx
7.1.2 Case Study: xx
7.1.3 Case Study: xx
7.2 Advanced Digital Product Engineering
7.2.1 Case Study: xx
7.2.2 Case Study: xx
7.2.3 Case Study: xx
7.2.4 Case Study: xx
7.3.1 Case Study: xx
7.3.2 Case Study: xx
7.4 Data-Driven Asset/Plant Performance Optimization
7.4.1 Case Study: xx
7.4.2 Case Study: xx
7.4.3 Case Study: xx
7.4.5 Case Study: xx
7.5 Data-Driven Inventory Optimization
7.5.1 Case Study: xx
7.5.2 Case Study: xx
7.6.1 Case Study: xx
7.6.2 Case Study: xx
7.6.3 Case Study: xx
7.6.4 Case Study: xx
7.7 Everything-as-a-Service Business Models
7.7.1 Case Study: xx
7.7.2 Case Study: xx
7.7.3 Case Study: xx
7.8 Human-Robot Collaboration
7.8.1 Case Study: xx
7.8.3 Case Study: xx
7.8.4 Case Study: xx
7.9 Predictive Maintenance
7.9.1 Case Study: xx
7.9.2 Case Study: xx
7.9.3 Case Study: xx
7.10 Remote Asset Testing/Inspection/Certification 280
7.10.1 Case Study: xx
7.10.2 Case Study: xx
7.10.3 Case Study: xx
7.11 Remote Service
7.11.1 Case Study: xx
7.11.2 Case Study: xx
7.11.3 Case Study: xx
7.12 Virtual Training
7.12.1 Case Study: xx
7.12.2 Case Study: xx
7.13 Other use cases
7.14 Use Case Appendix
7.14.1 Advanced Digital Product Engineering: Definition of Digital Twins
7.14.2 Data-Driven Inventory Optimization:
Definition of Multi-Echelon Inventory Optimization

8 I4.0 Adoption Strategies

8.1 OEMs
8.1.1 Overview
8.1.2 Case Study: xx
8.1.3 Case Study: xx
8.1.4 Case Study: xx
8.1.5 Case Study: xx
8.1.6 Adoption Strategy Comparison: OEMs from Different Industries
8.1.7 Adoption Strategy Deep-Dive: Elevator OEMs
8.2 Smart Factories
8.2.1 Overview
8.2.2 TRUMPF Smart Factory
8.2.3 GE Brilliant Factory
8.2.4 Audi Smart Factory
8.2.5 SmartFactoryKL
8.2.6 SmartFactory OWL
8.2.7 Other Smart Factories
8.2.8 Deep-dive: Lean Manufacturing and Industry 4.0
8.3 Industrial Automation Suppliers
8.3.1 Overview
8.3.2 I4.0 Readiness Assessments of Top 5 Industrial Automation Vendors
8.3.3 Others Large Vendors ($3B+ I4.0 Related Revenue)
8.3.4 Smaller Vendors (<$3B I4.0 Related Revenue)

9 Associations, Foundations, Committees to watch

9.1 Labs Network Industrie 4.0
9.2 Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC)
9.3 OPC Foundation
9.4 Industrial Data Space Association
9.5 CyberValley of Baden Württemberg
9.6 Center for the Development and Application of Internet of Things Technologies
9.7 Manufacturing USA

10 Appendix

10.1 Market definition, sizing, and methodology
10.1.1 Industry 4.0 definition:
10.1.2 IoT definition:
10.1.3 IIoT and Connected Industry definition:
10.1.4 Connected Industry building blocks definition:
10.1.5 Market Sizing:
10.1.6 Methodology:
10.2 List of Acronyms
10.3 List of Exhibits
10.4 List of Tables

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Companies Mentioned (selection from report)

ABB, Accenture, ADLink, Alluvium, Amazon, Atos, Audi, Baylo, Bechtle AG, Bosch, Bühler, C3, Cisco, CODESYS, Cognex, Cyberhawk, Daimler, DMG-Mori, Emerson, EOS, Ericsson, ESI Group, Fanuc, Fero Labs, Festo, Ford, General Electric, GOM GMBH, Heidelberg, Heller, Hilscher, Hitachi, Honeywell, IBM, Inductive Automation, Itizzimo, Kaeser Compressors, Kemppi, KPMG, Kuka, Mercedes-Benz (Daimler), Mevea, Microsoft, Mitsubishi Electric, Oculus, Omron, Opel AG, Pepperl+Fuchs, Protolabs, PTC, Rockwell Automation, SAP, Schneider Electric, Seat, Seeq, Sepasoft, Siemens, Sky Futures, SparkCognition, Standard Motor Products, Stanley Black & Decker, Stratasys, TE Connectivity, Teledyne Dalsa, Thyssenkrupp, TRUMPF, Universal Robotics, Volvo, WiPro, Xometry, Yaskawa, Yokogawa

Next Actions

Direct Purchase/Request a Sample

• The Market Report is available to download HERE

  A sample of the market report can be downloaded HERE

Bespoke Research on the topic

• If you are considering a project of a similar nature or require related research services, get in contact with our bespoke research team to see how we could assist you. Contact IoT Analytics: research@iot-analytics.com
• If you are already in the process of implementing a project of this nature, check out our supporting documents website: iot-analytics.com

Sales & Marketing

• For all other sales, marketing or partnership related inquiries please contact our Head of Sales, Leon Whyte: sales@iot-analytics.com

Public Relations

• For further comments or more information on this press release, please contact: Stephanie Baumann press@iot-analytics.com

The post New market report uncovers 9 disruptive trends and ranks 12 key use cases transforming smart manufacturing appeared first on IoT Analytics.

The Smart Parking Market Report 2019 forecasts $3.8B spending on Smart Parking Solutions by 2023

PRESS RELEASE: Hamburg, Germany – 19 December 2018 //

IoT Analytics, a leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0, today published a comprehensive 116-page market report titled Smart Parking Market Report 2019-2023:

Smart Parking Market Report 2019-2023

The report, which is part of the IoT Analytics Smart Cities series, was compiled over the course of 6 months and is a holistic overview that analyzes a range of smart parking product and service offerings, presents detailed findings in 35+ analysis charts and 20+ market data tables, highlights 10 case studies and vendor profiles, outlines 9 business models, and describes 7 trending topics and challenges. It serves as a strategic guideline and strong foundation for any company, organization, or city aiming to make sense of what is happening in the smart parking sector today and in the coming 5 years.

Smart parking technology enables parking operators to remotely and automatically monitor parking occupancy rate on a real-time basis. There are various levels of smart parking solutions that make up a complete end-to-end smart parking solution such as deployments comprising of vehicle detection sensors and cameras with automated vehicle license plate recognition technology, smart parking meters, smart payment for parking, and parking assistance by digital signage and navigation apps.

However, the real innovation of smart parking solutions is beyond the obvious. The real value lies in the parking data generated, that when combined with other stakeholders’ (e.g., merchants, city agencies, delivery firms) data, processes and systems yields real innovation in smart city settings. Understanding driver patterns and behavior can help city planners optimize the flow of traffic and reduce congestion. For example, adapting parking fees accordingly can promote or discourage motorists from certain areas (e.g. city center) at peak times (e.g. Christmas).

Market spending for smart parking products and services is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14% and surpass $3.8B by 2023. These numbers are based on growing smart parking adoption across all regions and the analysis of distinct technological subsets of the smart parking market: the sensors, smart meters, digital signage, navigation and smart payment platforms. The penetration rate of “smart” parking spaces in the public domain (on-street and off-street) reached 11% in 2018 and is expected to reach 16% by 2023.

The smart parking market is further broken down into detailed data on installed base, shipment, and spending across 4 regions; North America, Europe, APAC, and Rest of World. A competitive landscape introduces the leading vendors globally and highlights the regional differences in the market.

The report includes a list of 90+ real-world smart parking implementations and has a detailed deep-dive on 10 specific case studies from cities around the world. A technology segmentation and key drivers of adoption are outlined in the report which also discusses 7 trending topics and challenges in detail. In developing the 116-page report, the analyst team studied over 50 companies that offer smart parking products and services and attended several leading industry conferences. Further insights for the report were gleaned from interviews of 20+ experts covering a variety of smart parking technologies and deployments.

Commenting on the findings, IoT Analytics Managing Director Knud Lasse Lueth said:
“Parking is an area where IoT sensor technology is making a tremendous difference – both for the user experience as well as for parking space management and enforcement. Whether you look at New York, San Francisco, Berlin or London, most major cities especially in Europe and in the US, have started to deploy various new Smart Parking Solutions in the last 5 years. Most of these installations now use a combination of vehicle detection sensors, pay-by-app options and in some cases navigation assistance. Our research shows that the penetration rate of these smart parking spaces is still quite low but solutions are popping up in most major cities now – another proof of how pervasive and important IoT technology has become.””

The smart parking market report is available to download here:

Smart Parking Market Report 2019-2023

A sample of the report can be downloaded here:

Request sample

About IoT Analytics

IoT Analytics is the leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0. The specialized data-driven research firm helps more than 40,000 Internet of Things decision-makers understand IoT markets every month. IoT Analytics tracks important data around the IoT ecosystem such as M&A activity, Startup funding, company projects, use cases and latest developments. Product offerings include in-depth market reports, technical whitepapers, sponsored research, regular newsletter, as well as Go2Market and consulting services. As a research pioneer, IoT Analytics combines traditional methods of market research such as interviews and surveys with state-of-the art web-mining tools to generate high-caliber insights. IoT Analytics is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

Smart Parking Market Report 2019-2023 Structure

1 Methodology

1.1 Definition of Smart Parking

2 Executive Summary

3 Introduction to Smart Parking

3.1 Overview

3.2 Type of Parking Site & Smart Parking Systems

3.3 Drivers of Adoption

4 Technology Stack

4.1 Overview

4.2 Hardware

4.3 Connectivity

4.4 Middleware

4.5 Application

5 Market Size & Outlook

5.1 Overview

5.2 Global Revenue Smart Parking

5.3 Smart Parking Spaces by Region

5.4 Smart Parking Installed base by Region

5.5 Revenue by region

5.6 Revenue by product

5.7 Shipment by product

5.8 Shipment by connectivity type

5.9 Overall market share by company

6 Business Models

6.1 Overview

6.2 9 Business model types

6.2 Vendor Profiles

7 Case studies

7.1 Overview

7.2 10 Smart Parking Case studies

8 Trends & challenges

8.1 Trends

8.2 Challenges

About

Companies Mentioned (selection from report)

Amano McGann, China Telecom, CivicSmart, Conduent, Chordant, Cleverciti, Flowbird, Huawei, IPS Group, Itron, Kerlink, Libelium, Nokia, Nwave, ParkMobile, Parkopedia, Sigfox, Telensa, World Sensing, among others.

Direct Purchase/Request a Sample

• The Market Report is available to download HERE

  A sample of the market report can be downloaded HERE

Bespoke Research on the topic

• If you are considering a project of a similar nature or require related research services, get in contact with our bespoke research team to see how we could assist you. Contact IoT Analytics: research@iot-analytics.com
• If you are already in the process of implementing a project of this nature, check out our supporting documents website: iot-analytics.com

Sales & Marketing

• For all other sales, marketing or partnership related inquiries please contact our Head of Sales, Leon Whyte: sales@iot-analytics.com

Public Relations

• For further comments or more information on this press release, please contact: Stephanie Baumann press@iot-analytics.com

The post 11% of global public parking spaces are now “smart” – New report finds appeared first on IoT Analytics.

As we go into 2019 the IoT Analytics team has again evaluated the main IoT developments of the past year in the global “Internet of Things” arena. This article highlights some general observations as well as our top 10 stories from 2018. (For your reference, here is our 2017 IoT year in review article.)

A. General IoT 2018 observations

18bn connected devices – thereof 7bn IoT devices

According to IoT Analytics estimates, there are roughly 7 billion connected IoT devices at the end of 2018. Most of those devices are connected via short range protocols (WPAN or WLAN). The number of total connected IoT devices is expected to reach 22B by 2025, in part driven by new low-power wide-area (LPWAN) standards as well as 5G.

Stable interest, strong overall growth but general economic risks

Throughout 2018, the team of analysts at IoT Analytics revised the general mid-term forecast for IoT spending for the next 2 years from 36% to 39% annual growth . This revision came on the back of extremely strong business reports and outlook from leading IoT firms across the entire stack (semiconductor, connectivity, software, cloud).

Cloud and platform firms were especially strong, with some reporting growth rates near 100% for their IoT business. The Google trend graph showed strong and steady interest for “IoT” in the public domain (see red line in the picture below). Going forward, the proliferation of new connectivity standards (mostly LPWAN, 5G), the maturation of technologies (platforms, edge, digital twins) and the increased focus on solving customer problems (vs. technical problems) will continue to drive the market. However, the recent global economic slowdown and international trade tensions are expected to somewhat dampen the bright and positive picture of IoT 2018.

B. Top 10 IoT 2018 Stories

Throughout 2018, we monitored major developments around IoT technology. In our opinion, these are the top 10 stories of IoT 2018 (in chronological order):

1. Biggest IoT commitment: Microsoft

Since announcing the Azure IoT Suite in 2015, Microsoft has established itself as a major player in the IoT space with its Azure cloud offering and related IoT Platform-as-a-service.

In April 2018, Microsoft doubled down and announced a further $5 billion investment into IoT technologies over 4 years. The majority of those investments are expected to flow into cloud services, IoT operating systems and analytics. After announcing services such as “Azure IoT edge” and “IoT central” in 2017, the two standout IoT services announced by Microsoft in 2018 were Azure Sphere and Azure Digital Twins. Azure Sphere is Microsoft’s highly secured end-to-end solution for connected microcontroller powered devices. Azure Digital Twins is a service that allows developers to build digital replicas of physical assets – an essential tool to scale analytics and other elements of an IoT solution across thousands of devices.

2. Consumer IoT story of the year: Sonos IPO

Last year, IoT Analytics called out voice-enabled home gateways, like Amazon Echo, as the biggest consumer IoT success of 2017.

In IoT 2018, another true success story made its debut on NASDAQ: Speaker manufacturer Sonos. Sonos went public on August 1, 2018, which was 14 years and $450M in funding after the Santa Barbara-based company first introduced their revolutionary wireless speakers at CES in 2004. Sonos was one of the first entrants in the smart speaker market, and it has created high-quality products that consumers love and that consistently receive great reviews. The company has sold 19 million products to date, and with more than 1 billion households in the world and the average household currently purchasing roughly 3 Sonos products at once, Sonos has yet to address more than 99% of the global market.

The Sonos post-IPO share price, however, tells a different story. The stock has fallen roughly 40% (as of Dec 27, 2018) since its IPO in August 2018 over fears that the big smart home giants (Google, Amazon, or Apple) might eventually stop partnering with Sonos and instead take over the smart speaker market themselves.

The other consumer IoT IPO of 2018, smart home camera manufacturer Arlo Technologies, had an even worse introduction to the public markets; the stock is down roughly 50% since the IPO.

Both companies want to avoid becoming another Fitbit – one of the biggest failed IPOs in IoT history. The Fitbit stock is down more than 70% since its IPO in mid-2016 while the NASDAQ index is up >30+%.

3. Most discussed partnership: Rockwell Automation – PTC

Industrial automation powerhouse Rockwell Automation in June announced a $1 billion equity investment in IoT Platform, PLM and CAD software leader PTC. The announcement was heavily discussed in the industrial IoT community as people had wondered how Rockwell would respond to the strong IoT Platform push of its main competitor, Siemens.

Later in 2018, Rockwell showed how the company now relies on PTC to supply IoT Platform components as part of the newly announced “Innovation Suite powered by PTC”. Both companies aim to further build out their software components into an integrated industrial digitalization solution.

4. Most controversial market: China

One of the 10 IoT Analytics predictions for 2018 was that China would become a leading IoT adopter, and China has indeed made headlines in many ways throughout 2018.

Perhaps one of the clearest signs of the power that China wields can be inferred from the failed Qualcomm-NXP merger. In October 2016, US-based chipmaker Qualcomm announced it would buy the leader in connected car chips NXP for $44B, making it the biggest-ever deal in the semiconductor industry. However, that merger never happened. The reason: China. The takeover had been approved in eight jurisdictions, including the European Union and South Korea – but as the global trade dispute between the US and China heated up in 2018, the Chinese regulator did not approve of the deal.

There were several other global disputes with Chinese IoT companies. Most notably several countries and telecommunications firms banned Huawei and ZTE out of fear of being spied upon.

At the same time, many companies looked to further strengthen their ties with China. Intel, Siemens, Renesas and myDevices, for example, all partnered with Alibaba Cloud to bring their products to China and work on joint innovation projects. Microsoft also expanded its Chinese cloud infrastructure, doubling the number of local Azure regions. Funding of Chinese IoT startups also increased significantly (see #10 “Largest startup funding” below).

5. Biggest rollercoaster ride: General Electric

On July 30, 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that General Electric, the pioneer of the “Industrial Internet” was looking to sell GE Digital and with it its IoT Platform Predix.

The news came on the back of a series of negative events that had rattled the company in the preceding months. This included the layoff of thousands of workers, financial troubles of its subsidiary GE Capital as well as its shares being dropped from the Dow Jones industrial average.

Just two years earlier, the company had announced ambitious plans to become “a $15B software business by 2020”, including $4B in sales from Predix alone.

In December 2018, GE management finally decided on a different approach. The company sold its majority stake in the field services management software ServiceMax but decided to give GE Digital (and with it Predix) a fresh new start by spinning it out as a new separate entity. 2019 will give us more insight into the details of this new entity and whether it can separate itself from some of the negative coverage that GE has received over the past few years.

6. Most influential publication: Bain&Co – Unlocking IoT Opportunities

In August, Bain & Company published a study called “Unlocking Opportunities in the Internet of Things”. The publication provided a comprehensive overview of the priorities, viewpoints and challenges of more than 600 IoT end-users and 180 IoT vendors. It also compared the results to a similar survey taken in 2016. Among other things, Bain found that:

• IoT adoption has increased, but expectations regarding the number of PoCs (Proofs of Concept) and implementations have dampened for the coming 2 years
• Cloud service providers have emerged as influential providers of IoT analytics and services
• Security remains the top barrier of adoption
• Vendors now generally focus on fewer industries compared to 2 years ago
• Remote monitoring is called out as one of the top use cases

Bain provided additional insights in a follow-up webinar in which it was shown that especially industrial customers are much clearer about ROI from IoT initiatives compared to 2016 and that “Quality Control” was marked both by customers and vendors as one of their key use cases.

7. Most important government initiative: California Cybersecurity Law

After several failed attempts to introduce an IoT cybersecurity bill to the US senate, California jumped ahead in late August 2018 and became the first state to pass an IoT cybersecurity law.

Starting on January 1st, 2020, any manufacturer of a device that connects “directly or indirectly” to the internet must equip it with “reasonable” security features, designed to prevent unauthorized access, modification, or information disclosure.

While many acknowledge this law to be a much overdue first step, most experts criticized it for being too superficial and vague. Ruth Artzi, Senior Product Marketing Manager at IoT security firm VDOO, for example, wrote: “The law requirement for a unique password is a good progress but unfortunately, it is not enough. [] The law should be defined in a more specific manner, as the requirement for an ‘appropriate’ security procedure, depending on the device nature and function, is too ambiguous with no real mechanism to verify that the vendor took the appropriate steps.“

8. Most important connectivity initiative: 5G networks

5G was one of the most discussed tech trends of 2018 as it promises a step change in speed and latency. 2018 was also the year that the first 5G networks were switched on.

June 2018 marked the preliminary (“early drop”) completion of the 5G standard, although some functional revisions are still expected until March 2019 or even later.

In October 2018, Verizon Communications became the first operator in the world to officially launch a 5G network in 4 US cities (Los Angeles, Houston, Indianapolis, Sacramento). Verizon now claims to be “first in 5G”, although it has been criticized by its competition for basing their network on a proprietary 5G TF standard and not on the official 5G standard (as standardized by 3GPP).

In December 2018, three Korean operators simultaneously switched on their commercial 5G networks. Unlike Verizon’s 5G network, their networks seem to be based on the 3GPP standard and also offer Fixed Wireless Access services (to enterprise customers).

9. Largest M&A Deal: IBM / Red Hat

IoT 2018 saw one IoT-related mega-deal. In November, IBM announced its intention to purchase Red Hat in a deal valued at $34B – the largest software deal ever, according to some sources. The deal promises IBM to gain a better position in the cloud market in which its competitors AWS, Microsoft and Google have been edging ahead. With Red Hat, IBM now has its own container-solution, a strong cloud software stack and the ability to play much better in hybrid cloud setups, allowing to transfer data across multiple cloud environments. IoT Analytics expects that hybrid and multi-cloud setups will play an increasingly important role for IoT data storage in the coming years.

Other notable large deals of 2018 (with relevance for IoT) included:

10. Largest startup funding: View

The largest startup funding in IoT 2018 may be a surprise to many. For the first time, a startup that neither builds IoT infrastructure/backend services nor has a prime focus on consumer markets, topped the list of most funded startups. View, a US-based company that builds IoT-based building windows received $1.1B in Series H funding in November 2018. The technology allows the owner of a building to adjust how much light and glare a window lets in. The massive funding round was led by the Softbank Vision Fund, an investment vehicle that received a lot of media coverage in 2018 due to its $45B backing by Saudi Arabian money.

Besides the aforementioned trend towards increased funding of IoT-based end-user applications, a second trend is the sudden increase in IoT-based funding rounds in China. China witnessed several Series A/B funding rounds with a total volume of approximately $100M – rather high numbers considering the early stage of the funded ventures.

Other notable investment rounds of 2018 (with relevance for IoT) included:

C. Further information:

For a deeper look at current trends in IoT markets, check out our semi-annual “State of the IoT” market update (note: this is Enterprise subscription-only content).

Our IoT coverage in 2019: 

If you like what you read, subscribe to our newsletter for continued coverage and updates (such as this one).

In 2019, we will keep our focus on important IoT topics such as IoT Platforms, 5G, LPWA, Industry 4.0, and blockchain with plenty of new reports due in the first half of the year.

For complete enterprise IoT coverage (Enterprise subscription) with access to all of IoT Analytics’ paid content & reports including dedicated analyst time, contact us now and tell us what you are specifically interested in.

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The post IoT 2018 in Review: The 10 Most Relevant IoT Developments of the Year appeared first on IoT Analytics.

Vendor Map of leading Industry 4.0 companies

While conducting research for the recently released Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing Market Report, IoT Analytics identified 300+ leading Industry 4.0 companies that supply cutting edge products and services that are driving the fourth industrial revolution. The leading Industry 4.0 companies were selected based on a number of criteria (case studies, product offerings, estimated market share, etc.) and were categorized based on what type of Industry 4.0 product or service they supplied. IoT Analytics breaks up the Industry 4.0 market into two main segments:

1. Connected Industry Building Blocks (left-hand side of the vendor map): suppliers of building blocks that are used to create Connected Industry solutions.
2. Other Industry 4.0 Supporting Technologies (right-hand side of the vendor map): suppliers of other technologies which can be deployed independently or alongside Connected Industry Building Blocks in order to realize Industry 4.0 use cases.

Industry 4.0 companies that stand out in each category

1.      Hosting: Microsoft

Building on its long history of supporting industrial automation companies, Microsoft has emerged as the hosting partner of choice for many Industry 4.0 companies. Both end users (manufacturing facilities) and suppliers (OEMs, industrial automation companies, etc.) have partnered with Microsoft to develop and run mission-critical on-premise SCADA and MES applications for decades. Microsoft’s deep domain knowledge and technical capabilities (especially with respect to hybrid cloud solutions) have helped it become a leading provider of hosting services for major manufacturing end users and suppliers such as Siemens, PTC, GE, and Emerson.

2.      Industrial IoT Platforms: Microsoft, GE, PTC, and Siemens

IoT platforms come in many shapes and sizes (see our IoT platforms report for more information); however, two main categories of industrial IoT platforms have emerged in the market:

1. Industrial IoT platforms that are tightly coupled with infrastructure (IaaS + PaaS platforms). These IoT platforms that are tightly coupled with a cloud provider’s IaaS backend. Microsoft has emerged as the clear leader in this space with respect to Industrial IoT offerings, with Amazon, IBM, and Google also providing IaaS + PaaS platform offerings for industrial companies.
2. Infrastructure agnostic industrial IoT platforms. These IoT platforms include many of the components of the IoT platform stack but are intentionally vendor-agnostic when it comes to the IaaS / cloud backend layer. Industrial automation companies like Siemens, GE, and PTC are leading the way in this category, which provides more flexibility for hosting in multi-cloud environments and on-premise.

3.      Analytics: Uptake

The much-hyped US-based industrial analytics start-up Uptake started off 2018 with momentum from a November 2017 investment of $117M that valued the company at $2.3B. In April 2018, Uptake acquired Asset Performance Technologies (APT), a SaaS company that provides failure mode information for 800+ industrial asset types. Uptake planned on using the APT database to enhance its predictive maintenance solutions and accelerate its growth, but by the end of 2018, the growth had yet to materialize. In fact (according to LinkedIn) Uptake’s total employee count (as of December 2018) had fallen to ~550 employees from its January 2018 high of ~800 (-25% YOY). Adding insult to injury, General Electric filed a lawsuit against Uptake in December 2018, claiming Uptake engaged in a “ruthless scheme to poach” GE executives who “will inevitably disclose GE’s trade secret information”. Despite its recent struggles, Uptake has secured a number of name-brand customers (including Rolls-Royce and Caterpillar). Uptake’s veteran (if not callused) leadership team of former GE executives will look to turn Uptake around in 2019 and avoid following in GE’s footsteps.

4.      Microchips: Nvidia

Nvidia has emerged as the clear leader in AI training hardware and software among the chipmakers due in large part to its investment in its CUDA Deep Neural Network software library (cuDNN). This software library provides superior AI training performance for Nvidia GPUs, and it is particularly relevant for Industry 4.0 companies with offerings in collaborative robots, drones / UAVs, and connected machine vision. One example of Nvidia’s market presence can be seen in the connected machine vision market: the Cognex ViDi system (discussed later in this article) lists “CUDA enabled NVIDIA GPUs” as one of the recommended hardware requirements for its machine learning software used for factory machine vision applications.

5.      Sensors: Festo

Festo is a German supplier of electrical, pneumatic, and drive control technology serving customers in both process and discrete industries all over the world. Festo is one of the leading Industry 4.0 companies due in part to its active participation in a number of Industry 4.0 working groups and focus on developing communication standards (OPC-UA, RAMI, AutomationML, etc.) that insure vendor interoperability. A number of products from Festo (such as the YXMx handling system and the Festo Motion Terminal, among others) include the CODESYS runtime control system which enables direct connectivity to multiple industrial IoT platforms in accordance with the VDMA 24582 standard.

6.      Connectivity Hardware: HMS

Since its acquisition of eWON in 2016, HMS has become a leading Industry 4.0 company specializing in industrial IoT connectivity. Originally designed as a remote access solution for controls engineers and OEMs seeking to remotely monitor and program PLCs, eWON’s product line has evolved into a suite of industrial connectivity. The eWON Flexy 205’s unique combination of remote connectivity, industrial protocol conversion, and industrial IoT platform integration make it a powerful and flexible tool that can be used for number of different tasks including remote PLC programming and/or remote condition monitoring via a 3^rd party industrial IoT platforms like Microsoft Azure, GE Predix, and Siemens MindSphere.

7.      Cybersecurity: Claroty

A number of industrial cybersecurity start-ups have popped up over the past ~5 years, however few have garnered as much attention from as many highly strategic investors as Claroty. With investments from Schneider Electric, Siemens, and Rockwell Automation, Claroty has created a diverse cast of highly strategic investors that should help Claroty grow its business. Claroty’s suite of industrial remote access and threat detection solutions help mitigate the ever-increasing cost and risk of industrial cyberattacks as more and more valuable industrial assets are connected to IP-based networks.

8.      Systems Integrators: Accenture

A leading thought-leader on digital transformation and creator of the phrase “Industry X.0”, Accenture has established itself as a leading Industry 4.0 strategy and implementation consulting firm. The acquisition of Cimation in 2015 gave Accenture a strong foothold in IIoT within the process industries, and it has formed strong partnerships with a number of the large industrial automation vendors (such as Schneider Electric and Siemens).

9.      Additive Manufacturing: General Electric

General Electric’s “GE Additive” division has made a number of noteworthy acquisitions and investments in industrial additive manufacturing companies. Acquisitions of note include Arcam (a leading provider of Electron Beam Melting technology) and Concept Laser (a leading provider of metal laser melting technologies). GE has also invested in Xometry, a marketplace that connects contract manufacturers (many of which have 3D printers) with customers needing low volumes of manufactured parts.

10.     Augmented and Virtual Reality: Upskill

Upskill is an augmented reality start-up that helps manufacturers improve operations. According to Upskill, their customers (which includes companies like Boeing, GE, Jabil, and Toyota) see an average worker performance improvement of 32% after implementing Upskill’s Skylight platform. Upskill is venture-backed by the likes of Cisco and Accenture and is well-positioned to leverage AR/VR technologies to help manufacturers improve operations.

11.      Collaborative Robots: ABB

Industrial automation and robotics giant ABB is one of the largest companies to offer a line of collaborative robots. The Yumi product-line, which includes both single and dual arm collaborative robots, offers potential customers a lower cost and more flexible alternative to ABB’s traditional line of industrial robots. Building on its strong existing robotics business and recent acquisition of discrete industrial automation supplier B&R, ABB is well-positioned to take advantage of the growing demand for collaborate robots as manufacturers look for more flexible and affordable ways to automate production processes.

12.      Connected Machine Vision: Cognex

Established in 1981 and widely regarded as the industry leader in machine vision solutions, the Cognex product line includes a wide variety of machine vision hardware and software solutions. Cognex’s VisionPro ViDi is a deep learning based image analysis software package designed specifically for factories. Machine vision systems will continue to grow in importance as manufacturers look to achieve higher quality yields and more flexible production, and Cognex stands to capture this growth and build on its already impressive customer base (which includes companies like Apple, BMW, and Thyssenkrupp).

13.      Drones / UAVs: PINC

PINC is a leading provider of yard and inventory management solutions that use drones to help automate the labor-intensive process of inventory checks. The PINC AIR (Aerial Inventory Robots) solution combines drone, RFID, and barcode scanning technologies to help companies improve the operational effectiveness and efficiency of warehouse inventory cycle counts.

14.      Self-Driving (material transport) Vehicles: Clearpath Robotics

Founded in 2009, Clearpath Robotics is a Canadian company that provides self-driving vehicle technology and services. OTTO Motors, a division within Clearpath Robotics, provides a number of self-driving vehicles specifically designed for inventory transportation in manufacturing facilities. Manufacturers will gradually move away from traditional fixed-path inventory transport systems in favor of more flexible self-driving systems, and Clearpath Robotics (via its OTTO Motors division) is well-positioned to take advantage of this trend.

Further reading

Are you an Industry 4.0 company that would like to be included in our list of companies? The Industry 4.0 Vendor Map 2019 was developed from a database of 375+ Industry 4.0 companies that is included in the enterprise license of our Industry 4.0 & Smart Manufacturing Market Report. The “leading companies” were selected based on a number of factors including product offerings, market traction, case studies, and company size, but inevitably we missed a few of the leading players. If you think we missed a notable company, please contact us with the company information and related offering and we will look into updating our database and vendor map.

Are you interested in learning more about the market, trends, and technologies shaping the 4^th industrial revolution? To learn more about the companies offering Industry 4.0 solutions and the Industry 4.0 market in general (e.g., How big is the Industry 4.0 market and how fast is it growing? How are leading manufacturers leveraging I4.0 technologies to win market share and improve operations? What industries are at risk of being disrupted by I4.0 technologies? etc.) check out the Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing 2018-2023 report. This report, published in November 2018, offers more in-depth insights on the Industry 4.0 market (375 pages).

Are you interested in continued IoT coverage and updates? Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to stay up-to-date on the latest trends shaping the IoT markets. For complete enterprise IoT coverage (Enterprise subscription) with access to all of IoT Analytics’ paid content & reports including dedicated analyst time, contact us now and tell us what you are specifically interested in.

About IoT Analytics

IoT Analytics is the leading provider of market insights & competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0. The specialized data-driven research firm helps more than 40,000 Internet of Things decision-makers understand IoT markets every month. IoT Analytics tracks important data around the IoT ecosystem such as M&A activity, Startup funding, company projects, use cases and latest developments. Product offerings include in-depth market reports, technical whitepapers, sponsored research, regular newsletter, as well as Go2Market and consulting services. As a research pioneer, IoT Analytics combines traditional methods of market research such as interviews and surveys with state-of-the art web-mining tools to generate high-caliber insights. IoT Analytics is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

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