A new report from 451 Research (www.451research.com), an information technology research and advisory company, says cellular Internet of Things (IoT) and machine to machine (M2M) connections will increase nearly fourfold globally from 252 million in 2014 to 908 million in 2019. A monumental increase in active cellular IoT/M2M connections will be driven by a number of key factors, according to 451 Research.

First, hardware and bandwidth costs have dropped to a point where nearly every enterprise can reap the benefits of virtualizing the physical world. Second, cloud-based middleware and data platforms are making it easier to securely generate insights from machine data at greater scale than ever before possible. Last, the buzz around this topic is generating overall awareness of the transformational potential of IoT/M2M in terms of return-on-investment, competitiveness and support of completely new business models. 

The building excitement about what is possible has generated a massive amount of M&A activity to support position taking for the next decade of IoT-driven business transformation. The latest 451 Research data report shows that connected passenger vehicles and connected energy will pace the market in terms of connection volume while emerging solutions such as 'pay as you drive' insurance will grow the fastest. 

"We continue to be bullish that ultimately the hype of IoT will be proven to be warranted back on business impact," says Brian Partridge, research vice president, 451 Research. "Over the forecast period we expect that M2M/IoT solution suppliers will find fertile ground in vertical markets such as retail and government that will adopt IoT/M2M to enable strategic digitization strategies such as smart cities and the use of digital signage, mobile point of sale, and connected kiosks to drive the transformation from brick and mortar to ʻclick and mortarʼ."