According to
new report from analyst firm Berg Insight, the number of
cellular network connections used for
machine-to-machine communication will grow from 37.5 million
connections in 2007 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of
37.9% to 186 million connections in 2012.
GSM and legacy technologies currently dominate the market and
accounted for about three-quarters (71%) of the total number of
active connections at the end of 2007. CDMA was the second largest
technology with a strong foothold in North America and parts of
Asia-Pacific. WCDMA has so far primarily been adopted for
machine-to-machine applications in Japan. Elsewhere the adoption is
held back by high component costs and limited network coverage.
Berg Insight believes that current machine-to-machine
applications correspond to between 1–3% of the reported number of
mobile subscribers in developed markets. In Sweden and Finland the
share is closer to 10% due to extensive use of GPRS for meter
reading applications.
However, Berg Insight forecasts that vehicle telematics
applications will dominate the machine-to-machine cellular market
in most parts of the world and account for more than half of all
network connections in 2012.
“Safety and security concerns – manifested either in public
regulations or customer preferences – is tipping the balance in
favour of massive rollouts of
telematics applications by the global automotive industry”,
comments Tobias Ryberg, senior analyst, Berg Insight.
“In North America, OnStar already gives peace of mind to
millions of drivers. Europe is well on the way to introducing the
eCall automatic emergency call system and several Latin American
countries are considering mandatory tracking devices on all new
cars to combat epidemic vehicle crime.”