5G RedCap is poised to become the dominant technology brand for cellular IoT but not until commercial devices are widely available from 2026 onwards. This growth will be at the expense of 2G as that approaches its sunset in various markets, and the various 4G IoT protocols will still account for the majority of connections for the next few years.
5G RedCap’s two variants, standard RedCap and extended RedCap (eRedCap) are projected to account for almost one third of cellular IoT connections by 2030, at 30.17%. Even then the 4G variants will still dominate the field between them at 68.71% connections, but both 2G and 3G will have virtually disappeared from the scene.
Other RedCap reports have failed to distinguish between full RedCap and eRedCap, which we consider a serious deficit because they address different use cases, and different branches of the IoT. Since RedCap is being pitched as a unifying brand for cellular IoT, it is quite possible it will in future also subsume the lower bit rate NB-IoT, which competes with LoRa and Sigfox in the LP (Low Power) RAN arena, for less demanding applications such as smart metering where power efficiency and range are critical. But this is not on the table as yet. Our forecast therefore plots NB-IoT as a distinct category throughout the forecast period running up to 2030.
Our forecast also stands out by breaking out revenues per device and aggregating these by connection type and regions, to yield geographical and global totals.
This forecast includes a 39 page PDF report and accompanying XLS dataset. For more information or to discuss a purchase, please contact roz@rethinkresearch.biz
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