IoT Analytics, a global provider of market insights and competitive intelligence for the Internet of Things and Industry 4.0, this month launched an in-depth cellular IoT module market tracker that provides a quarterly look at the revenues and shipments of 33 companies providing cellular connectivity hardware modules for IoT deployments.
According to the report, “With 4.5 billion cellular IoT connections expected by 2025, the market for cellular IoT modules is in a long-term cyclical uptrend, which was disrupted in 2020 by COVID-19. Every connected device that makes use of a cellular connection like 2G, 3G, 4G, or 5G, uses either a cellular IoT module or a cellular chipset embedded directly into the printed circuit board of a device or a piece of equipment.
The data analysis performed by IoT Analytics showed that the global cellular IoT module market took a strong hit in 2020, due to COVID-19, with global revenues declining eight per cent year-over-year to $3.1 billion. The situation, according to the report, was however different in China, where Cellular IoT module shipment in grew 14 per cent YoY in 2020, while cellular IoT module shipment in the rest of the world declined.
Outside of China, LTE-Cat 1 penetration was much stronger than, for example, narrowband -IoT penetration. LTE-Cat 1 makes up 23 per cent of the market outside of China but only 12 per cent in China.