A new report from the IoT market research study company Berg Insight states that the global variety of cellular IoT customers increased by 12 percent during 2020 to reach 1.74 billion.
The local markets Western Europe and North America tape-recorded the highest development rates at over 15 percent. By 2025, Berg Insight now forecasts that there will be 3.74 billion IoT devices linked to cellular networks worldwide.
The top ten mobile operators reported a combined active base of 1.49 billion cellular IoT connections at the end of 2020, representing 86 percent of overall connections. China Mobile is the worlds largest provider of cellular IoT connectivity services with an approximated 658 million cellular IoT connections. China Unicom and China Telecom ranked 2nd and third with 240 million and 238 million connections respectively.
Fredrik Stalbrand, Senior Analyst at Berg Insight, states:
” The year 2020 marked the first year because the early 2010s that cellular IoT connections grew slower in China compared to the global average, as the biggest gamer China Mobile reported a negative modification in its IoT subscriber base.”
Following China Mobiles choice to stop adding brand-new IoT connections to its 2G network in the very first half of 2020, it has embarked on a programme to migrate 2G users to NB-IoT and 4G LTE Cat-1 services.
Vodafone ranked initially amongst the Western operators and fourth total with 118 million connections, followed by AT&T with 81 million in 5th place. Verizon, Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica had in the range 26– 48 million cellular IoT connections.

IoT connection services account for around 1 percent of overall incomes for the majority of operator groups. Berg Insights analysis of the IoT organization KPIs released by mobile operators in various parts of the world suggests that international IoT connection revenues increased by around 6 percent throughout 2020, while the regular monthly APRU visited 16 percent to EUR 0.39.