The Internet of Things is a topic that’s kind of hard to avoid hearing about lately. That’s because it’s a sector of technology that is growing by leaps and bounds, and is expected to make significant pathways into our daily lives in the coming years.
One of the more popular figures thrown about during these discussions is this idea that by 2020, the world will have some 50 billion IoT devices. It was a number first cited by Ericsson’s former CEO, Hans Vestbur, in a 2010 presentation to shareholders; the next year, Cisco’s Dave Evans referred to the same figure/timeline in a white paper he authored.
While 50 billion devices is certainly the most oft-cited number, it’s not the highest ever predicted. In 2012, IBM forecasted 1 trillion connected devices by 2015.
Now that it’s 2016, we’re a year past IBM’s benchmark, and just past the halfway point for Vestbur’s mark — it’s a good time to reflect and see where the industry is in total connected devices.
In short, the IoT industry is nowhere near either mark. According to the current count by Gartner, it’s estimated to be somewhere around 6.5 billion, though it should be noted that this number does not include devices like smartphones, tablets, and computers. International Data Corporation (IDC) did not include these devices in their study either and came to the conclusion that there are about 9 billion IoT devices on the market.
IHS, meanwhile, did include these devices in their study, and concluded that the number of connected devices is now around 17.5 billion.
Since they first went public with their predictions, both Ericsson and Evans have lowered their expectations, with the latter saying that by 2020, the number of IoT devices will likely be closer to 30 billion, and the former thinking it’ll be 28 billion by 2021.
Research firms appear to be in the same ballpark: IHS Markit projects 30.7 billion devices by 2020, while Gartner expects 20.8 billion, and IDC says 28.1 billion (again, the last two research groups published these figures without including smartphone, tablet, and computer devices).
The fact that the predictions were so far off has less to do with certain individuals in the industry trying to be bold with their predictions and more to do with the relative unknown entity that is the Internet of Things. Take into consideration the fact that there were 18.6 billion microcontrollers shipped out in 2014 and 10.4 billion RFID tags in 2016. These are enormous markets, and yet, the IoT is expected to outdo them all and by a rather large margin. Simply put, there has never been a market like this before.
So what’s the point in even trying to predict the number of devices in an as-yet-to-be-determined industry? It’s for market efficiency purposes — specifically, to help companies make decisions when it comes to things like whether the new industry is worth entering, how much of the company’s budget should be allocated for R&D work, as well as the timing of it all — when should the research begin, and when should a product be expected to hit the market.
More succinctly, these numbers serve as a signal for companies and should not be taken seriously when it comes to their accuracy. Still though, enthusiasm for a flourishing industry should not lead to the over-hyping of unintelligible figures that wind up being off by tens of billions of devices.
There are a lot of questions about IoT devices in general, with usability, adoptability, and security being chief among them. How it’s received by the general consumer and incorporated into daily habits will impact not just how the industry grows, but how it comes to establish itself as its own entity.
What is known is that there are more connected devices now than when the 50 billion devices prediction was first established more than half a decade ago. What’s more, it’s trending upward.
Bottom line — the Internet of Things is happening, but the likelihood that we’ll hit the 50 billion mark is a way’s away, at least for now.
Via IEEE
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