ABI Research – WireUp

Physical Instantly Issued Payment Cards Will Surge to over 470 million Shipments by 2027

May 11, 2023 Published by Roboticulized.com

Many regions worldwide are seeing a sharp rise in instant issuance activity from a physical and digital perspective, from both traditional and neo and challenger banks. Customers increasingly demand instant access to banking services, with physical instant issuance enabling them to leave their branch equipped with a ready-to-go payment card. According to a new report by global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, the worldwide market for instantly issued physical payment cards will increase from 243.2 million shipments in 2022 to a forecast of 471.1 million in 2027.

“Critically, instant issuance of payment cards is no longer limited to the physical. Indeed, the growing digitization of payments, increasing data security, shifting nature of business spending patterns stemming from the pandemic, and educating around their advantages is causing instantly issued digital-first payment cards to gain traction in both consumer and business sectors rapidly,” says Sam Gazeley, Digital Payment Technologies Analyst at ABI Research. “New neobanks are providing an agile and flexible approach to banking by offering compelling and innovative digital-first solutions.”

The payments market is converging with other smart card verticals related to ticketing and access control in markets like retail, travel, and education. “This is driving new entrants into the payments market by players for which instant issuance experience is already common. However, ABI Research believes that neither the physical nor the digital side of the market is taking share from the other at this point, and they are not expected to become competitive over the forecast period ending in 2027,” Gazeley explains.

Phygital banking is a clear and emerging payment and banking trend. Combining the separate physical and digital offerings into an interconnection of incumbent and digital business services opens an experience that places the customer at the top of mind. The resulting customer journey across various banking channels, both physical and digital, enables financial institutions to future-proof their relationships with their users and, as it relates to traditional banks, can remain in competition against neo and challenger banks through their respective customer acquisition strategies.

These findings are from ABI Research’s Physical and Digital Instant Issuance: Migrating to a “Phygital” Experience application analysis report. This report is part of the company’s Digital Payment Technologies research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, Application Analysis reports present in-depth analysis on key market trends and factors for a specific technology.

SCADA/HMI Software Market to Grow to US$11.3 billion in 2033 as Manufacturers Face Ongoing Market Pressures and Seek to Drive Digital Transformation

April 5, 2023 Published by Roboticulized.com

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and Human Machine Interface (HMI) software is at the core of modern manufacturing operations. According to analysis by global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, investment in SCADA/HMI software will reach US$11.3 billion in 2033 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.2%, up from US$6.17 billion in 2023, as manufacturers face ongoing margin pressures and seek to drive digital transformation.

“The top spending manufacturing markets on SCADA/HMI software are computer and electronic manufacturing, machinery manufacturing, and other transport manufacturing (which includes aerospace, ship, and railroad manufacturing),” says James Prestwood, Industrial and Manufacturing Technologies Research Analyst at ABI Research.

The SCADA/HMI software market is not incredibly expansive, with large vendors holding a significant proportion of the market share, and while there are pure-play software vendors, they have less market impact than compared to those within the MES market. The largest market shares are held by Emerson, Siemens, and Mitsubishi Electric, with 17.3%, 12.1%, and 11.6% respectively. Other notable players within the market are Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, and Honeywell.

Modularity and integration are the two main design elements being championed by technology vendors for their SCADA/HMI offerings, with software being designed with open standards that allow for easy operability with manufacturer’s pre-existing production processes. “These vendors are designing their solutions to meet both modular and holistic frameworks, designing end-to-end portfolios that can be deployed holistically, or used to fill gaps in pre-existing systems. Siemens’ Xcelerator, GE Digital‘s Proficy, and Mitsubishi Electronics’ ICONICS suite are primary examples,” concludes Prestwood.

These findings are from ABI Research’s Industrial Automation Software market data report. This report is part of the company’s Industrial and Manufacturing Technologies service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights. Market Data spreadsheets are composed of deep data, market share analysis, and highly segmented, service-specific forecasts to provide detailed insight where opportunities lie.

Headline: 5G Provides Competitive Alternative to Wired Broadband and Will Account for 35% of Overall Fixed Wireless Subscriptions in 2027

March 23, 2023 Published by Roboticulized.com

5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) allows Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to provide Quality of Service (QoS) offerings with higher speeds and unlimited data, creating a demand for 5G FWA, which will continue to grow over the next few years. Global technology intelligence firm ABI Research forecasts that 5G FWA subscriptions will reach 72 million by 2027, representing 35% of the total FWA market in 2027.

Although LTE FWA services have already been widely deployed worldwide, they often cannot provide the speed needed to compete with wired broadband connections. 5G FWA is set to offer data rates rivaling the range of fiber, making it a competitive alternative to wired broadband solutions. “FWA is one of the few use cases that utilize 5G Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (mMIMO) networks to their full extent, with a typical monthly utilization that could be as high as 1TB per subscriber. Many MNOs that have launched 5G are expected to offer FWA services, driving 5G FWA market growth,” explains Fei Liu, 5G and Mobile Network Infrastructure Industry Analyst at ABI Research.

Both developed and emerging markets benefit from 5G FWA. North America, Western Europe, and Asia Pacific are driving 5G FWA deployments. In North America and Western Europe, MNOs are using 5G FWA to compete with DSL broadband services. Major U.S. operators, like T-Mobile, see a huge opportunity with 5G FWA because two-thirds of its residential customers living in urban and suburban areas are dissatisfied cable customers, making up a significant amount of its 5G FWA customers. In Western Europe, EE UK launched 5G FWA in 2019 and plans to cover 90% of the UK with 5G by 2028. Fastweb in Italy launched 5G FWA in 2020 and plans to cover 12.5 million homes and businesses by 2025. There is growing interest in the Asia Pacific as Reliance Jio eyes 100 million homes through 5G FWA.

“MNOs should launch 5G FWA to utilize their network capacity to make additional revenue. However, they need to be vigilant on how many FWA subscribers they can support, and which type of service they wish to offer (best effort or QoS). In the long term, MNOs need to apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques such as Machine Learning (ML) to evaluate their network resource, network capacity, and spectrum to ensure a steady 5G FWA growth,” Liu recommends. “When the 5G FWA service starts to challenge their network capacity, these MNOs may have to deploy millimeter wave (mmWave) to guarantee the quality of their FWA services and overall network capacity,” Liu concludes.

These findings are from ABI Research’s Fixed Wireless Access market data report. This market data is part of the company’s 5G & Mobile Network Infrastructure research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights. Market Data spreadsheets comprise deep data, market share analysis, and highly segmented, service-specific forecasts to provide detailed insight into where opportunities lie.

Smart Labels will Help IoT Become ‘Massive’ with 581 Million Labels Shipped in 2028

March 22, 2023 Published by Roboticulized.com

Smart labels based on flexible printed electronic designs are starting to move beyond the design phase into large-scale commercial production, according to ABI Research, a global technology intelligence firm. As a new tool in the IoT toolbox, these devices promise a significant expansion in the use cases and corresponding value that can be generated – initially in the supply chain market, but with significant opportunities beyond.

“Over the past 15 years, the printed electronics market for asset tracking has been driven by RFID. This will continue to remain a dominant technology, but the evolution of low-power IoT technologies from Bluetooth all the way through to cellular and non-cellular LPWAN technologies is making possible the creation of RF labels with enhanced capabilities,” explains Tancred Taylor, Industry Analyst at ABI Research. “The cost, simplicity, and enhanced features of these devices – including range, lifespan, and data throughput – will enable enterprises to address entirely new use cases which have previously not been possible.”

Bluetooth labels by the likes of Wiliot and Reelables have driven awareness around the emerging possibilities from printed IoT, and these are already seeing very large volumes of adoption thanks to the maturity of the technology using very low-power chip designs. In contrast, the market for WAN labels has been more complicated due to a higher engineering burden. The alignment of printable batteries, connectivity protocols, reel-to-reel printing, and device provisioning has proven a significant obstacle in the past three years.

While some impressive initiatives have been successful, particularly in China, it is only in the second half of 2022 that significant progress has been made on major LPWAN protocols. Announcements by Sigfox operators and partners, SODAQ (most recently with Qualcomm), NNNCo, and a number of others have shown that products are nearing readiness for major adoption. Behind the scenes, numerous vendors across the value chain are working on bringing to market their own designs.

Cost is only one of the many aspects of smart labels that make them attractive. “Smart labels are already evolving in numerous directions from features and form-factor perspectives, which will entirely change how enterprises gather data on their assets, which will be the greatest driver of value. Initially, the use cases that present themselves most clearly are in the supply chain; but opportunities exist in retail and industrial management markets, and even in B2C markets in the not-so-distant future,” concludes Taylor. “The key is for companies to target the right use cases, to understand how smart labels will function alongside the rest of IoT, and to position themselves actively within the value chain to take advantage of this fast-developing market.”

These findings are from ABI Research’s Smart Labels: Technologies and Market Opportunities Analysis application analysis report. This report is part of the company’s IoT Markets research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, Application Analysis reports present in-depth analysis on key market trends and factors for a specific technology.

Distributed mMIMO, Radio Stripes, HBF Antennas, and pCells Among the Revolutionary Technologies for Indoor Networks

January 27, 2023 Published by Roboticulized.com

With the majority of 5G networks being deployed using the 3.5 Gigahertz (GHz) bands, it is very likely to suffer indoor environments because outside-in does not provide adequate indoor coverage in the mid and high bands, 3.5 GHz and Millimeter Wave (mmWave). In-building wireless solutions are critical for 5G’s success in the consumer and enterprise markets. However, traditional solutions such as Distributed Antenna Systems (DASs) do not support frequencies above 3 GHz and require major reconstructive engineering work to increase their capacity. The ever-growing need to increase network capacity and costly on-site infrastructure upgrades motivate infrastructure vendors to invest in other innovative technologies. According to a new report from global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, some revolutionary technologies include Distributed massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (mMIMO), Radio Stripes, Holographic Beam Forming (HBF) antennas, pCell technology, Open Radio Access Network (RAN) DASs, and Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs).

Among the technologies, Distributed mMIMO, HBF, and pCell are already available and expected to be deployed on a larger scale in 2023. “Distributed mMIMO integrates mMIMO into indoor systems to enable gigabit connectivity and sustainable network capacity expansion. HBF antennas are tailored for mmWave and software-defined antennas to employ the lowest possible architecture in terms of Size, Weight, Power, and Cost (SWaP-C), which is acknowledged to be an important consideration by network operators in denser 5G networks. pCell technology exploits interference in wireless networks through large-scale coordination among distributed transceivers and synthesizes a cell for each user. It multiplies the spectrum capacity with uniform and high data rates in the entire coverage area,” explains Fei Liu, 5G and Mobile Network Infrastructure Industry Analyst at ABI Research.

“Moving toward 5.5G Open RAN DASs could be another technology where there are open interfaces between the Radio Units (RUs) and Virtualized RAN (vRAN) functions operating on cloud infrastructure, resulting in a reduction of the number of transmitter elements and, thus, the related power consumption, addressing one of the major issues that network operators face. In the longer term, RIS and Radio Stripes are viewed as promising for enhancing indoor coverage,” Liu adds. A RIS is nearly passive, does not have power amplifiers, and does not transmit new waves. Hence, the power consumption is much lower. A radio stripe is another technology expected to improve network quality and performance while enabling easy network deployments.

“Academic research on RISs has been going on for several years, and now is the time for industry players, including vendors and network operators, to be heavily involved and provide clearer feedback on which directions to prioritize,” Liu recommends. “A RIS requires time and experience to build up as a revolutionary technology.”

These findings are from ABI Research’s Revolutionary Technologies for Indoor Cellular Networks application analysis report. This report is part of the company’s 5G & Mobile Network Infrastructure research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, Application Analysis reports present an in-depth analysis of key market trends and factors for a specific technology.

Households with One Electric Vehicle Could Consume 37% More Daily Energy – Underscoring the Need for Load-Balancing Technologies

November 3, 2022 Published by Roboticulized.com

Governments are setting aggressive goals to ban sales of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles, and there has been a growing commitment by carmakers to achieve net zero goals. However, little attention has been given to developing a smart and flexible energy system. According to global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, households with one Electric Vehicle (EV) could consume 37% more daily energy. Most importantly, EVs will shift peak demand in households from 4-8 kWh to 11 kWh, creating new loads, shapes, and peaks not previously considered in resource plans. Combined with the increasing use of intermittent renewable energy, higher EV adoption will increase the risks of electricity outages in peak periods because the available energy supply will be insufficient to satisfy the demand. On the upside, a wide range of load-balancing solutions can promptly provide the required grid flexibility to support vehicle electrification.

“While many regions have enough electrical energy available to meet the future EV demand, energy supply is not always available when needed. Places like Texas, California, and China are already facing grid imbalances caused by increased electricity usage in peak times. California, for example, witnessed an all-time electrical grid peak load record in 2022, reaching 55,061 Megawatts (MW). That is 6,155 Kilowatts (kW) above the average peak over the past 20 years and enough to power 4.6 million houses,” explains James Hodgson, Smart Mobility and Automotive Principal Analyst at ABI Research. “In the face of these facts, OEMs, end consumers, governments, grid operators, utilities, and other energy supply and distribution stakeholders must work together to enable a smooth transition from ICE to EVs.”

Because re-energizing the existing electrical infrastructure is resource and time intensive, the industry is exploring alternative solutions with a quicker turnaround. Smart charging is, by far, the least complex and most effective tool. Provided chargers are connected to charging operators, strategies such as dynamic power sharing – the ability to control the energy available to plugged-in EVs preventing sites from exceeding their maximum energy capacity – and dynamic pricing – the ability to influence customer behavior by altering price per kWh based on utilization – can easily be deployed with significant results. When chargers and vehicles are connected to the grid, users can sign up for demand response programs and get energy bill rebates or other financial incentives by shifting charging time from peak to off-peak hours or allowing utilities to remotely control the time and rate that plugged EVs are charged. According to OVO Energy, residential flexibility can generate US$6.8 billion in cost savings for the whole system in the UK.

Combining smart charging approaches with bidirectional energy flow opens the possibility of V2G applications, in which EV batteries store excess energy during off-peak times and become energy resources during peak times. Activities by companies like Nuvve show that V2G has a clear ROI for commercial vehicle fleets, especially school buses, but the business model in the consumer segment is still weak. Nevertheless, Kaluza reports that end consumers enrolled in its V2G trial earned an average of £420 a year by selling surplus energy back to the grid. Other effective EV charging optimization solutions include battery-buffered chargers such as ADS-TEC Energy‘s ChargeBox, energy storage, microgrids, charging hubs, and swappable batteries like NIO‘s.

“As EV adoption continues to grow, so will the reliance on electrical energy, and the significant peak consumption increase is worrying. Therefore, ecosystem players must collaborate to deploy tools to balance the grid and develop and adopt standards to make these tools widely available to end consumers,” Hodgson concludes.

These findings are from ABI Research’s Electric Vehicle Smart Charging Platforms application analysis report. This report is part of the company’s Smart Mobility & Automotive research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, Application Analysis reports present in-depth analysis on key market trends and factors for a specific technology.

The Steel Industry Will Be Investing US$6 Billion Per Annum in Digital Transformation by 2030

June 16, 2022 Published by Roboticulized.com

The steel industry generates contrasting views. For some it is a vital component for the construction and transportation industries, while for others is somewhat of a pariah as steelmaking requires large quantities of coke and coal for the blast furnaces. According to a new analysis by global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, steel manufacturer’s investment into digital transformation will grow at a CAGR of 10.9% between 2022 and 2031, reaching US$5.9 billion. Investment into data analytics to optimize the steel production process will to worth up to US$2.9 billion in 2031. Bolstering the data flows will be investment into industrial device and applications, fortified by security expenditures, both seeing fair growth by CAGR 5.9% and 8.4% respectively.

“For the industry and technology suppliers, safety, sustainability, and productivity are the three north stars. Technology suppliers should aim to align their solutions to assist steelmakers with at least two of these priorities. For example, providers of manufacturing execution systems helping customers’ productivity as well as improve the sustainability of their operations. Artificial Intelligence (AI) to monitor quality levels to reduce scrap and optimizing equipment performance. And, digital twins should encompass the three perspectives,” explains Michael Larner, Industrial and Manufacturing Research Director at ABI Research.

Technology suppliers providing software to the industry include those that specialize in helping producers optimize their processes (Falkonry, RealSteel, Smart Steel Technologies, and Samotics), keep track of information (KnowIT ERP and SteelTrace), and keep workers safe (Everguard.ai).

“Individual steel plants produce dozens different steel products (e.g., plates, coils bars, etc.) to exacting quality grades. This requires firms to effectively manage product changeovers so that output remains within quality thresholds. Analyzing quality levels in real time will be an investment priority over the rest of the decade,” Larner concludes.

These findings are from ABI Research’s Industry 4.0 in the Steel Industry application analysis report. This report is part of the company’s Industrial and Manufacturing research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, Application Analysis reports present in-depth analysis on key market trends and factors for a specific technology.

AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Redefining Telecoms Commercial Models

June 14, 2022 Published by Roboticulized.com

5G is the first ‘G’ in cellular technologies that paves the way for Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to operate in the software layer. Software represents a departure from transactional model characteristic of telecom equipment manufacturing. Software points toward a recurring revenue model that is more consistent and predictable akin to that of hyperscalers. According to global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, that has implications on the commercial models that underpin the industry.

“With a growing importance of software, the commercial imperative from a vendor’s perspective is stark: depart from a finite supply of (3G and 4G) equipment, characterised by scarcity, to monetization models based on (5G) software where the supply is essentially infinite,” states Don Alusha, Senior Analyst 5G Core & Edge Networks at ABI Research.

With 3G and 4G networks, commercial arrangements revolve around a CAPEX purchase model. CSPs pay a specific price to own an asset. It could be hardware (cellular antennas) or software predicated on perpetual licensing. The value can be paid in cash, financed, or leased. But what is most relevant, however, is that there is a set price. Once the deal is agreed, Network Equipment Vendors (NEVs) like Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, and ZTE are guaranteed an upfront payment at the point of signing a contract. In a CAPEX model, NEVs have one stress point: winning the deal. The risk of implementing the purchased technology falls to CSPs. A key point to note is that, in general, by the time a product is adopted and used, the bulk of the budget has already been spent upfront for the installation, integration, and other professional services needed to get the product operational.

By contrast, in a 5G ecosystem, and by extension, cloud and software world, there may not be a ‘product’ sale. Technology suppliers still need to channel the required Research and Development (R&D) to build the technology and win a deal. They need to invest in marketing, execute the sales cycle in the hope they win the deal. In that respect, there is not much difference from the CAPEX model. The difference lies in the fact that OPEX models are associated with recurring (micro-) transactions—extra compute, more storage, more modules, etc. “Further, businesses built on OPEX models typically invest a significant amount of capital upfront and then try to make up with volume because of a superior cost structure that is associated with software; the marginal cost of producing an extra copy is very small. That underpins hyperscaler’s (Amazon, Google, and Microsoft) business model and strategy,” Alusha explains.

Though very subtle, there is an increasing consumerization of telecom technologies because of a growing adoption of cloud and software. The software business is a scale economic business. A considerable investment is made upfront to develop a software product and then the marginal cost of producing each one is very small. The fundamental difference between building software and manufacturing equipment is that the latter entails the creation and transfer of ownership of a product, while the former is much more intangible. There are advantages from a balance sheet perspective, as now CSPs pay for software in a rough approximation for their usage over time—an operational expense—as opposed to a fixed-cost basis in a CAPEX-centric world. This improves their Return-on-Invested Capital (ROIC) measurements.

In the new world of cloud and software, in addition to selling a transaction, NEVs must also make a material and positive impact on the recipient of the service to create value. “This enables the industry to explore new business models that look beyond where the money is in the value chain, to where it will be in the years to come. Cloudification of telecom equipment offers unprecedented opportunities (e.g., innovation, better economics, business agility, etc.) but it inherently constitutes new technologies for the industry and there is a risk attached. There will be challenges, given the lack of maturity and many unknowns around performance, best practices, and control of technology assets. But operators that rise to these challenges first may well gain a competitive market advantage,” Alusha concludes.

These findings are from ABI Research’s Cloudification of Telecom Technologies and Equipment application analysis report. This report is part of the company’s 5G Core & Edge Networks research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, Application Analysis reports present in-depth analysis on key market trends and factors for a specific technology.

IoT Partner Programs Making the Move Toward Renewable Energy Verticals

May 18, 2022 Published by Roboticulized.com

In the recent analysis ranking 665 companies on their IoT service capabilities and partner programs, global technology intelligence firm ABI Research finds that not only parents of partner programs are continuing their long history of partnering with system integrators, OEMs, and professional services providers to enable full-scale end-to-end IoT solutions, but also are now branching out into renewable energy verticals.

The new edition of the report overviews 665 companies, of which 223 suppliers are serving the utility market across the IoT value chain. “Of those companies, 61% are serving the energy and utility market powered by renewable energy sources, such as, but not limited to, wind, solar, hydro, thermal, and nuclear power generation,” says Kateryna Dubrova, IoT Markets Research Analyst at ABI Research. The vendors present in the renewable energy and utility domain show that 108 out of 223 vendors have a high level of technology maturity. Over 57% of those are providing hardware enabled IoT solutions and services. The IoT sensitization and device connectivity services traditionally have the highest maturity and have a well-established partnership with Dell, Intel, PTC ThingWorx, and Oracle.

There is a clear shift in the role of IoT in renewable energy production and distribution transmission. Both are poised to bring value to existing infrastructure to provide value-added components. “ABI Research also observed an increasing number of partnerships with IoT companies targeting renewable energy monitoring, alerting, data processing, and analytics service segments,” Dubrova adds.

Therefore, in 2022, there will be an increasing number of IoT edge-cloud and big data suppliers partnering with the partner program parents, such as AWS, Cisco, SAP, IBM, and Microsoft, in the renewable energy and utility sector. Dubrova explains, “This indicates a departure from the traditional hardware-based offering to the emergence of value-added high margin data-enabled services in the IoT ecosystem.”

Ultimately, partnership programs continue to be a strategic priority for some dominant brands serving the IoT market. “Fundamentally, these programs allow enterprises to benefit from end-to-end solutions with greater ecosystem interoperability and enable technology vendors to penetrate new markets and verticals,” Dubrova concludes.

These findings are from ABI Research’s SI/VAR and Partner Program IoT Ecosystem market data report. This report is part of the company’s IoT Markets research service, including research, data, and analyst insights. Market Data spreadsheets are composed of in-depth data, market share analysis, and highly segmented, service-specific forecasts to provide detailed insight where opportunities lie.

IoT Device Management Services to Reach US$36.8 Billion in Revenues by 2026

April 20, 2022 Published by Roboticulized.com

Device management services are evolving in response to greater breadth of device technologies such as edge intelligence and connectivity technologies, as well as to customer pain points like scalability and security of IoT deployments. But forward-looking suppliers are also preparing for a world where 41.3% of the connected devices will be using some form of LPWA technologies by 2026. Since IoT customers increasingly need to manage a larger fleet of connected devices, Global technology intelligence firm ABI Research forecasts that IoT device management services will top US$36.8 billion in revenues by 2026.

Standardization is beginning to play a bigger role in device management services, as more connected devices use LPWA technologies. Standardization is best exemplified by growth in adoption of LwM2M. This standard was embraced by the telcos but is now also embraced by the module, chipset, and gateway suppliers. The flip side of standardization is that it will increase commoditization of device management services. “Implementing a common standard such as LwM2M can complicate a device management vendor’s product differentiation strategy, but standards do address customer reservations of ‘lock-in’ to a proprietary platform,” says Abdullah Haider, IoT Network and Services Research Analyst at ABI Research.

Partnerships and collaborations between device management vendors will continue to accelerate. Device management vendors can partner with system integrators (SIs) who build an end-to-end solution. Device management suppliers can also partner with other players in the value chain “Companies recognize that a strategic partnership can facilitate both sales and product support channels. Co-operating with another vendor’s device management service is beneficial for a cloud hyper-scaler selling data storage and analytics, and for a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) selling connectivity or application enablement services as IoT device management platforms integrate with these other systems,” Haider explains.

Device management vendors from large hyper-scalers, (e.g., AWS and Microsoft Azure), established incumbent players (e.g., Eurotech, Telit, and Sierra Wireless), MNOs (e.g., Vodafone, Verizon, and Deutsche Telekom) and startups (e.g., EdgeIQ, Memfault, and 1nce) are all looking to disrupt the IoT device management ecosystem. “One key insight is that while competition breeds commoditization, companies are still keen to differentiate their device management services. Often this entails providing security services like device attestation, and mutual authentication while other players are considering remote hardware configurability in application segments like asset tracking, telematics, and condition-based monitoring. In general, more and more suppliers are adding device management services to differentiate their IoT solution suite and capture more IoT solution revenues,” Haider concludes.

These findings are from ABI Research’s IoT Device Management: Evolution of Technologies and Supplier Trends application analysis report. This report is part of the company’s IoT Network & Services research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, Application Analysis reports present in-depth analysis on key market trends and factors for a specific technology.

Tag: ABI Research