Along with remote monitoring, tracking/tracing applications are a bedrock of the IoT. The ability to find assets, to track them as part of a logistical operation or even to just monitor where people or animals are is a fundamental requirement.
As shown in Figure 1, the number of mobile assets being tracked worldwide at end 2017 was in the region of 50m units of which over 90% were vehicles, followed by trailers, containers, personal trackers and a long tail of others. Yet the total addressable market for mobile assets is huge. About 1bn vehicles worldwide and about 10bn pallets, let alone the potential for tracking people for a variety of needs, tracking livestock and pets and even luggage.
Figure 1: Mobile asset tracking market
As these figures show, in spite of rapidly-evolving cellular and other wide area wireless technologies over the last 30 years, the number of mobile assets currently being tracked over a long range is just a small fraction of the total number that we would expect to be connected in a truly connected world. Why is that?
Read a brand new report specifically for ‘IoT for Tracking‘, that delves into this and more, available now.