Global Spending On IoT Forecast To Return To Double-Digit Growth In 2021

Market research firm IDC has forecast that worldwide spending on the Internet of Things (IoT) will slow moderately to 8.2% in 2020 to $742 million.

In late 2019 IDC estimated IoT growth to stand at 14.9%, but as a result of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, this has since been revised down.

Nevertheless, IDC expects the industry to return to double-digit growth next year, predicting it will achieve a compound annual growth rate of 11.3% over 2020-24.

In 2020, consumer-driven smart home spending is expected to be the largest area of IoT spending, and is set to grow 14.4% this year. The use cases that will see the fastest spending growth in 2020 include electric vehicle charging, bedside telemetry, and remote health monitoring.

“Although the current pandemic forced many organisations to pause some innovative IoT deployments, IoT will be a key ‘return to growth’ accelerator with selected use cases being safe bets for end users to focus on in order to reach a new level of automation, remote everywhere experience, and hyper-connectivity,” said Andrea Siviero, Associate Research Director with IDC’s Customer Insights and Analysis group.