IoT predictions for 2020 are unrealistic and there are wide variations: Morgan Stanley has 75B, Cisco pegs it at 50B, as did Ericsson, but in June they brought it down to 26B. Proof that these figures are nothing more than guesstimates. They’ve driven IoT to the peak of inflated expectations in Gartner’s Hype Cycle, so now it would seem that it is going to descend and enter the trough of disillusionment, says the independent M2M writer and analyst, Bob Emmerson.
I’m not an analyst, but I assume that these figures come from unrealistic assumptions, for example, that if the average home has half-a-dozen devices that could be connected then they will be connected. Just because it can be done doesn’t mean that it will be done. There has to be a business case: in fact there have to be zillions if the IoT is going to produce “trillions of dollars in new revenue by 2025.”
The italicised text comes from Beecham Research, an analyst and consulting firm that has specialised in the M2M and IoT markets for 15 years and they are warning companies planning to get into the Internet of Things not to believe all the hype andover optimistic predictions. CEO Robin Duke-Woolley points out that these forecasts are not onlyunrealistic, but that they are potentially damaging to the industry if companies are building their business plans and funding expectations on these figures.
It’s refreshing to see an analyst outfit that isn’t simply trotting out the usual hyped up nonsense. Instead Beecham Research spells out the flaws. For example: “excluding mobile phones and general purpose devices like tablets, there are significantly less than 1 billion connected devices worldwide. To suggest that growth rates exceeding 50% per annum are credible when the long-term growth in this market has been consistently in the range 20-30% per annum prompts the question – why and what is likely to accelerate the overall growth rate so spectacularly?”
The author of this blog is the independent M2M writer and analyst, Bob Emmerson.
He can be contacted at: bob.emmerson@melisgs.nl
