The market size of the Internet of Things (IoT) is set to grow, said IDC.
IDC expects the technology and services revenue to expand from $4.8 trillion in 2012 to $7.3 trillion by 2017 at an 8.8 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), with the greatest opportunity initially in the consumer, discrete manufacturing, and government vertical industries.
The IoT/M2M market is growing quickly, but the development of this market will not be consistent across all vertical markets. Industries that already understand IoT will see the most immediate growth, such as industrial production/automotive, transportation, and energy/utilities. However, all verticals will reflect great opportunity.
IDC said IoT is a derivative market containing many elements, including horizontal IT components as well as vertical and industry-specific IT elements. It is these vertical components where IT vendors will have to distinguish themselves to address industry-specific IoT needs.
IoT opens up many IT vendors to the consumer market, providing B2B2C services to connect and run homes and automobiles – all the places that electronic devices will have a networking capability.
According to the report, the first step to understand how vendors can position themselves will be to understand the components of the IoT/M2M IT ecosphere. Because this is a derivative market, there are many opportunities for vendors to offer parts or product suites that cover the needed IoT IT set.
IDC said vendors will have incentive to do so due to rapid growth, which will occur as industries see the convenience, productivity, and efficiency that IoT brings to business processes. Accordingly, while horizontal-focused IT vendors will look to offer IoT solutions that appeal to many industries, there will also be impetus to offer vertical-focused solutions that make IoT tangible for both industries applications (M2M) and consumer needs (B2B2C).
