M2M market to reach 400 million units by 2017

A new study from Juniper Research has found that the telematics and consumer electronics sectors are rapidly becoming the two anchor industries for the M2M market, challenging the position of smart metering. The report forecasts that the market for M2M and embedded devices will reach 400 million by the end of 2017, up from a little over 110 million at present.

Juniper explained that while the e-reader has single-handedly enhanced the prospects of embedded devices in the consumer electronics industry, the promise of increased driver efficiency and cost management will drive the success in telematics.

“The automotive market is potentially easier to address than other sectors as it contains fewer players,” said Anthony Cox, Associate Analyst at Juniper Research and the report’s author.

Further findings from the M2M & Embedded Strategies report include:

• Almost without exception, mobile network operators have embraced M2M as an industry sector, tailoring services and approaches to the industry.
• APIs from M2M specialists are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with tailored solutions for individual M2M customers now common.
• Hardware manufacturers are providing increased support for their products, including API and industry-specific modules.
• 4G chipsets, while shipping in very low volumes at present, will find their market in the automotive industry and specific applications such as live video monitoring.

The report also finds that the price of M2M modules will continue to reduce, particularly for 3G modules, as automotive and consumer electronics use cases require improved bandwidth and latency, and as 2G infrastructure is retired in some markets.

The report includes a comprehensive analysis of the current state of play in the embedded mobile and M2M market and contains five-year forecasts for M2M devices, service revenues, connectivity enablement revenues and the value of the hardware market.

The white paper ‘M2M~Building a Connected World’ is available to download from the Juniper website together with further details of the study ‘M2M & Embedded Strategies: Telematics, Smart CE, Meters and Buildings 2012-2017’.