Pointers at Glance
- Berg Insight says that the global cellular IoT connections grew by 22 percent in 2021. The connections reached 2.1 billion.
- As the world recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic, there was an increase in regional markets of China, North America, and Western Europe. China leads the way for IoT connections, and China Mobile remains the largest provider of cellular IoT connectivity services worldwide.
- Among the western operators, Vodafone stood out on top with 142 million IoT connections.
- It is predicted that 4.3 billion IoT devices will be connected to cellular networks globally by the year 2026.
Global IoT connections increased by 22% in 2021, as per Berg Insight. According to the analysts of the company, Last year, Global cellular IoT connections reached 2.1 billion.
There is no specific region that stood out for growth. As the world recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, the major regional markets of China, North America, and Western Europe grew similarly during the year. However, China continues to lead the path for cellular IoT connections.
Global Cellular IoT Connections Stats
China Mobile continues to be the world’s largest provider of IoT connectivity services, with approximately 801 million IoT connections. China Unicom ranked second with 300 million IoT connections while China Telecom ranked third with 297 million connections.
Vodafone comes out on top with 142 million connections among the western operators, followed by AT&T with 95 million.
Verizon and Deutsche Telekom had in the range of 45-55 million IoT connections each (when counting T-Mobile USA’s customers as part of DT’s IoT subscriber base.)
Telefónica, KDDI, and Orange round off the top ten with around 31 million, 23 million, and 20 million connections, respectively.
Berg Insight now predicts that 4.3 billion IoT devices will be connected to cellular networks globally by the year 2026.
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