Cellular IoT connectivity market powers on

Putting behind a few years of relatively weak demand, the cellular internet of things (IoT) market is firing again, and a study from IoT market research firm Berg Insight says global IoT connectivity revenues increased 5% to reach €14.5bn in 2025, with the global number of cellular IoT connections increasing by 11% to reach 4.2 billion at the end of 2025, corresponding to just over a third of all mobile subscriptions.

The global M2M/IoT communications market report analysed the latest trends and developments in cellular IoT and low-power wireless networking. It focused on in-depth developments and the mobile operator perspective on the global machine-to-machine (M2M) and IoT communications market.

In total, the study found that IoT managed service providers had more than 250 million cellular IoT connections under management at the end of 2025, and around €1.9bn in annual revenues. However, monthly ARPU dropped 7% to €0.31, and IoT connectivity revenues accounted for 1-4% of service revenues for the largest mobile operator groups.

Going forward, Berg Insight projects that by 2030, there will be 6.5 billion IoT devices connected to cellular networks worldwide, generating annual connectivity revenues of €21bn.

The report highlighted China Mobile as the world’s largest provider of cellular IoT connectivity services, benefiting from its position as the state-controlled mobile incumbent in the largest IoT market. At the end of 2025, the operator reported 1.48 billion cellular IoT connections and a year-on-year growth rate of 5%.

Rivals China Telecom and China Unicom ranked second and third, with 746 million and 723 million connections, respectively.

North America and Western Europe rank as the second and third largest markets for IoT connectivity, with 321 million and 313 million IoT connections, respectively, at the end of 2025. In contrast to China, developments in these regions are largely driven by commercial interests.

Among the Western operators, Vodafone ranked first and fourth overall with 234 million connections, followed by AT&T with 160 million in fifth place.

Airtel in India recorded the highest yearly growth rate, with IoT connections increasing 115% to 69 million. Verizon and Deutsche Telekom had in the range of 62-69 million cellular IoT connections each. Telefónica and KDDI Orange were the last players in the top 10, with about 59 million and 58 million connections, respectively.

The connected car is currently one of the strongest use cases, with more than 90% of new cars sold featuring embedded cellular connectivity in the regions. Other key application areas are fleet management of commercial vehicles, smart utility metering and monitored alarm systems.

Berg also noted that IoT managed service providers are playing a key role in the ecosystem. While it stressed that the distinction between mobile operators’ IoT businesses and IoT managed service providers is becoming less clear, it observed that the latter benefit their network-agnostic positioning and ability to aggregate multiple mobile networks through roaming agreements, sponsored international mobile subscriber identity and embedded subscriber identity module profiles.

The report also highlighted how, due to the nature of their business, managed service players are becoming increasingly international, supporting customers in many parts of the world.

So-called “important” players in this category include 1Global, 1NCE, 1oT, Aeris, Airnity, Bics, CSL Group, Cubic, Emnify, Eseye, FloLive, Giesecke+Devrient, Hologram, Kajeet, Kore, Lenovo Connect, Monogoto, Onomondo, Pelion, Semtech, Soracom, Tata Communications, Teal, Telit Cinterion, Velos IoT and Wireless Logic.