Cellular IoT market value to cross $61 bn globally by 2026

Driven by 5G and low-power solutions, the global cellular Internet of things (IoT) market will reach $61 billion by 2026, doubling from $31 billion in 2022, a new report showed on Tuesday.

The 5G IoT services will generate $9 billion of revenue by 2026, rising from $800 million in 2021.

According to Juniper Research, this represents a growth of 1,000 per cent over the next five years as 5G coverage expands and operators benefit from the increased number of 5G IoT connections.

"Operators must educate users on the suitability of LPWA (Low-power Wide Area) as a replacement technology for legacy networks. However, many IoT networks cannot solely rely on LPWA technologies," said research co-author Charles Bowman.

More comprehensive technologies, such as 5G, must underpin IoT network architectures and work in tandem with LPWA technologies to maximise the value of IoT services, he added.

To capitalise on this growth, operators should offer value-added services, such as network slicing and edge computing, to IoT users to maximise the value of 5G adoption, the report mentioned.


The report urged operators to migrate IoT connections on legacy networks to networks that support LPWA technologies.

It anticipated that demand from enterprises for low-cost monitoring technologies, enabled by LPWA networks, will increase as these legacy networks are shut off over the next four years. - IANS