The Western European industries leading the way in IoT investments are manufacturing, at $28.7 billion in 2016, followed by utilities and transportation at nearly $18.0 billion and $17.5 billion, respectively. Consumer IoT revenues are expected to reach $17.6 billion this year. The IoT use cases receiving the greatest levels of investment from WE organizations across these four market segments are:
- Manufacturing Operations, which support digitally-executed manufacturing, or how manufacturers use intelligent and interconnected I/O (input output) tools, such as sensors, actuators, drives, and vision/video equipment, to enable the different components in the manufacturing field, such as machine tools, robots, and conveyor belts, to autonomously exchange information, trigger actions, and control each other.
- Smart Grid (Electricity), where non-smart meter field devices owned by the electricity utility are used to control and optimize power flow to ensure efficient, safe and reliable service. The devices used throughout the electricity distribution grid for tasks including line sensing, substation automation, feeder & line equipment control and optimization. Utility owned in-home devices (such as smart meters) are included in this category when used for grid operations.
- Freight Monitoring, which uses radio frequency identification (RFID), global positioning systems (GPS), GPRS, and GIS technologies to create an intelligent, Internet-connected transportation system. This system carries out the intelligent recognition, location, tracking and monitoring of freight and cargo through exchanging information and real-time communications via wireless, satellite or other channels, paving the way to the multimodal transportation system that is characterizing the evolution of the sector in Europe.
- Smart Home utilizes IoT technology to enable environmental (temperature, humidity), consumption (energy, water), and home system (lighting, heater, conditioner, window shutters, door locks) monitoring and enablement via mobile apps or Web sites. Utilities' smart meter investments are not included in this use case, nor are home entertainment or gaming systems.
"Companies will invest significant amounts on IoT solutions – making the market potential significant for vendors. Those who have the clearest message for buyers but also a clear understanding of the role they want to play themselves in IoT, and that filled in by their partner ecosystem will emerge as early leaders," said Lionel Lamy, IDC European IoT practice co-lead.
While manufacturing will lead the way in terms of Western European IoT investments, the insurance and retail industries will see IoT spending levels increase by 138% and 130%, respectively, over the forecast period, representing the two fastest growing WE business sectors. Nevertheless, consumer will represent the true fastest vertical sector, with spending for consumer IoT solutions forecast to increase nearly 160% between 2016 and 2020.
"IoT adoption and use cases vary strongly across industry sectors, with flourishing opportunities on both the business and consumer sides," said Andrea Siviero, IDC European practice co-lead. "All industries are now familiar with the IoT concept and there has been an explosion of industry-specific pilots in recent months, the next step for adopters is to understand how to make IoT have a deeper impact on their business activities and extrapolating bang for the buck from their IoT investments."
More information on the Western European Internet of Things Market Forecast can be found in IDC's new report Western European Internet of Things Forecast Update, 2015-2020 (IDC #EMEA40968916).
The Worldwide Semiannual Internet of Things Spending Guide forecasts IoT revenues for 12 technologies and 47 use cases across 20 vertical industries in eight regions and 52 countries. Unlike any other research in the industry, the comprehensive spending guide was designed to help vendors clearly understand the industry-specific opportunity for IoT technologies today.
About IDC Spending Guides
IDC's Spending Guides provide a granular view of key technology markets from a regional, vertical industry, use case, buyer, and technology perspective. The spending guides are delivered via pivot table format or custom query tool, allowing the user to easily extract meaningful information about each market by viewing data trends and relationships.
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