Wearables in the enterprise driving huge market growth

Cellular connected IoT/M2M devices will increase nearly fourfold from 252 million in 2014 to 908 million in 2019, driven largely by the uptake of wearables in the enterprise, according to 451 Mobility Research.

451 Research finds the increase in active cellular IoT/M2M connections comes down to various key factors.

First, hardware and bandwidth costs have dropped to a point where nearly every enterprise can reap the benefits of virtualising the physical world.

Second, cloud-based middleware and data platforms are making it easier to securely generate insights from machine data at greater scale than ever before possible.

Last, the buzz around this topic is generating overall awareness of the transformational potential of IoT/M2M in terms of ROI, competitiveness and support of completely new business models.

Furthermore, the building excitement about what is possible has generated a massive amount of mergers and acquisitions (M-A) activity, as organisations work to be number one in the decade of IoT-driven business transformation, says 451 Research.

"We continue to be bullish that ultimately the hype of IoT will be proven to be warranted back on business impact," says Brian Partridge, 451 Research vice president.

"Over the forecast period we expect that M2M/IoT solution suppliers will find fertile ground in vertical markets such as retail and government that will adopt IoT/M2M to enable strategic digitisation strategies such as smart cities and the use of digital signage, mobile point of sale, and connected kiosks to drive the transformation from brick and mortar to ʻclick and mortarʼ," he says.

Key findings from 451 Research shows 39% of IT decision-makers at companies that use or plan to use wearable technologies will deploy solutions in the next six months, and 24% plan to deploy in the next 12 months.

In addition, 81% of IT decision-makers who say their company plans to deploy wearables in the next six months will favour smart watches.

"The release of Apple Watch has opened the flood gates governing wearables' adoption," says Ryan Martin, Analyst IoT and wearable technologies.

Wearables have the potential to become an interface - if not the interface - for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) access, according to 451 Research.

"Now that the river is running, it's less about where it will end and more about where - and when - to start.

"We expect wearable technology to deliver a key interface and input into the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT),"  says Martin.