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Shipments of cellular M2M modules are forecast to rise from 76 million in 2012 to 104 million next year, according to new research from Strategy Analytics.
The market-research company says the usage of M2M in areas like smart metering and passenger vehicle crash protection is being driven by new legislation, including the European Energy Efficiency Directive and eCall.
Ultimately, it reckons regulatory changes will boost the number of modules in operation from millions to billions by 2020.
“Annual module shipments tend to show relatively modest growth annually, given that the lifecycle of many M2M devices is far in excess of five years and that many trials to deployments happen in phases,” said Andrew Brown, director of M2M research at Strategy Analytics. “Once an M2M module is deployed, it will remain in place for many years, which supports the growing emphasis on module software to link existing modules to connectivity (CDPs) and service platforms (SDPs).”
The company says the smart-metering sector is driving most of the growth. Debate over whether services should be delivered over smartphones or embedded modules appears to be holding up the development of the telematics industry, say report authors.
“Smart grid projects are ramping in many regions, from the US and China to Europe, providing a major impetus to M2M growth,” said David Kerr, vice president of the global wireless practice at Strategy Analytics. “Delays to eCall and continued debate around whether service delivery should happen via embedded modules or smartphones in the vehicle will limit growth for telematics in the immediate term but not affect a good prognosis for growth in the longer term.”
