Expansion of high end internet networks including the IoT or what is called the Internet of Things is still slow in India but some sectors such as consumer healthcare are catching up and a series of initiatives to launch smart cities in India are a boon for this technology, a key industry official has said.
The Internet of Things is a scenario in which objects, animals or people are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.
“I expect more companies to start looking for ways to leverage it,” said Charles Reed Anderson, Associate Vice President and Head for Mobility and IoT for Asia-Pacific at the International Data Corporation (IDC). Consumer goods and healthcare sectors will be the key verticals to drive IoT in India. Prospects are very bullish for the healthcare sector, he said. IDC will start to leverage IoT solutions, such as tele-health to bring healthcare to Asia’s middle class population of more than one billion people, he said at the recent IoT Asia conference in Singapore.
However, in the foreseeable future, in terms of maturity and connections per capita, India will continue to lag behind the rest of Asia-Pacific. Only a fraction of the size of the other large populations such China will be able to access IoT in India, Anderson said.
The IoT industry will continue its strong growth in Asia-Pacific, with the number of units, or “things”, connected to this ever expanding network to increase to 8.6 billion by 2020 from the current level of 3.1 billion. Over this same period, the size of the total Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, or APeJ market will increase to $583 billion from $250 billion.
“The IoT industry has matured considerably over the past year, with a large number of government initiatives across APeJ in general and China in particular being the main driving force for demand,” said Anderson.
IDC’s market forecast shows that not only will China continue to dominate IoT in the Asia-Pacific region, accounting for 59% of the APeJ market by 2020, but also be one of the leading markets globally. Nearly 1 out of every 5 units connected to IoT by 2020 will be in China.
However, market size is not the same as market maturity. “While the market opportunity in China dwarfs the other leading countries such as South Korea, India, Indonesia and Australia in terms of dollar value, that doesn’t mean it is the most mature one,” added Anderson .
To assess the maturity of a market, IDC compares the total number of things connected to the overall population to get a connections per capita figure. Based on this calculation, the corporation discovered that amid the 13 APeJ Countries, the top most mature markets were South Korea, Australia and New Zealand while China was a distant sixth.
The market forecast also looked at industries and sectors that are leading the way with IoT. Not surprisingly, the Government sector leads the way, as national, regional and city governments aggressively try to leverage IoT solutions to develop new streams of revenue, reduce costs and enhance citizen services as part of their Smart Government initiatives. Other leading industries include Utilities, Discrete Manufacturing, Healthcare and Retail.
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