Ericsson Mobility Report June 2022 has some interesting data and predictions on IoT.
Ericsson is primarily interested in, and reporting on medium and long range IoT technologies. Currently these are legacy 2G and 3G plus cellular NB-IoT and Cat-M and broadband IoT via 4G and 5G. They have projected these technologies to move from 1.9 billion connections worldwide in 2021 to 5.5 billion in 2027. Connections on legacy 2G and 3G are declining. These are moving to NB-IoT Cat-M1 and LTE and 5G and new services are going onto these newer networks as shown on graph below
85% of IoT connections are currently on short range technologies Zigbee, Z Wave, Bluetooth, and WiFi. Ericsson predict that this will reduce to 80% by 2027 with some migration to new longer range and increasingly competent cellular networks. Ericsson have also predicted growth from a lower base for competing wide area IoT technologies such as LoRaWAN and Sigfox.
An earlier forecast had total IoT connections reaching 30Bn by 2025 with a similar mix of technologies. CAGR growth of between 15 and 20% looks likely.
