Shanghai, July 13, 2015: A new report made public at the Mobile World Congress in Shanghai has highlighted China’s leadership in the worldwide machine-to-machine (M2M) market.
According to the GSMA report – ‘How China Is Scaling the IoT’ – China was the world’s largest M2M market with 74 million M2M connections, and had now become the global leader in the deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT).
A press statement said the in-depth report included insights from the country’s major mobile operators China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, as well as leading industry experts, and cites the combination of a strong economy, far-sighted government investment and international cross-sector partnerships as key factors in enabling the IoT to quickly reach scale.
The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting nearly 800 operators with more than 250 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset and device makers, software companies, equipment providers and Internet companies, as well as organisations in adjacent industry sectors.
The GSMA Innovation City at the Mobile World Congress Shanghai offers visitors the opportunity to explore a real life city environment packed with “intelligent” mobile-connected products and services that demonstrate how mobile technology is positively impacting the personal and professional lives of citizens around the globe.
The Congress also has interactive demonstrations from partners including Huawei, KT Corporation, Peel, Pittasoft, Oral-B, Qualcomm Incorporated, Thinfilm and Visa, as well as from the GSMA’s key industry programmes including Connected Living, Digital Commerce, Personal Data and Network 2020.
“Connectivity is boosting major industries such as logistics, manufacturing and energy in terms of increased efficiency, but it has also created a new consumer market in areas such as connected vehicles, home appliances and wearables, putting China at the forefront of IoT deployment.”
“Clearly, China’s size offers economies of scale unavailable to other countries, but it’s been the government’s focused strategy, emphasis on common specifications and cross-sector collaboration that has allowed the Internet of Things to scale, delivering positive benefits to businesses and consumer alike,” commented Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA.
Machina Research had earlier forecast that the number of connected devices such as vehicle platforms providing services within the connected car sector would increase from 16 million in 2015 to 67.8 billion in 2020 and to 130 billion by 2024, making China the world’s largest connected car market after Russia. Backed by government support, sectors such as transportation, energy, logistics, utilities and manufacturing had benefited from the real time information provided by mobile connectivity to increase efficiency, lower costs and manage infrastructure. However, the consumer market had also experienced incredible growth, with millions of Chinese consumers now owning multiple connected devices and experiencing the IoT in their daily lives.
The wearables market in particular was a hotbed of innovation, with thousands of products available at accessible prices, including smartwatches, tracking devices and fitness bands with built-in connectivity. The connected car market was also growing apace, driven by the increasing availability of 4G network coverage which was providing a range of in-car services such as entertainment, navigation, safety and vehicle diagnostics.
China, said the statement, had also benefited from proactive government support in the development of the IoT with funding allocated as part of the country’s 12th Five-Year Development Plans and additional funding made available for research and development. China has also led in the development of standards, establishing an IoT standards association and promoting Chinese-developed standards internationally. Adoption of essential industry specifications and guidelines, such as the GSMA Embedded SIM Specification and the IoT Device Connection Efficiency Guidelines, would enable further growth and scale.
What was more, the central government had selected 202 cities, including Beijing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Shanghai, to pilot smart city projects to collect, store and analyse information related to transportation, electricity, public safety and environmental factors.
The GSMA report had highlighted the fact that China’s leading mobile operators, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, were at the vanguard in the development of the IoT and were moving from a business-to-business focus to offering more sophisticated consumer-oriented propositions via partnerships with other companies such as automotive makers and wearables companies. They were also forging both domestic and international partnerships with vendors and manufacturers to bring the benefits of connectivity to a wide range of machines, vehicles and devices. Beyond the supply of ubiquitous, high-performance connectivity, operators were working to standardise platforms, simplify business processes and to provide value-added services such as security, authentication and billing.
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Image Credit: GSMA
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