Market potential of US$731bil in ‘connected living’ by 2020: Frost

• Connected city, work and home offer opportunities for ICT vendors and telcos
• Cloud, big data, mobility and low cost sensors driving IoT and connected industry

MASSIVE technology-led disruption across all industries is moving everyone and everything globally towards a state of ‘connected everything’ where into the 2020s, tens of millions of people will be connected by trillions of things and applications as a result of connected industries, according to Frost & Sullivan.

This evolution has been since the 1970s that had specialised activities driven by proprietary equipment and mainframes, then increased productivity in the 1990s propelled by the advent of PCs and the Internet, followed by bursts of disruption and innovation in 2010 onwards through cloud and mobility, the consultancy firm said in a statement.

Connected Living is defined as a world in which consumers use many different devices to experience compelling new services that integrate video, voice, and data services to provide access and ubiquitous connectivity anytime and anywhere.

“Mobility and cloud computing are two pillars of growth that has brought about significant changes in the ICT industry,” said Audrey William(pic), head of research, ICT Practice, ANZ Frost & Sullivan.
 
“Cloud computing, big data, mobility and low cost sensors are driving the Internet of Things (IoT) and connected industries, and the Internet of Things is forcing transformation and innovation across the connected home, connected workplace and connected city,” she added.

Connected home incorporates home automation, smart meters and smart thermostats, intelligent lighting, remote monitoring and control as well as home health – i.e. remote diagnostics and wearable health devices.
 
Connected work encompasses mobility (mobile email, enterprise mobile apps, people locator, bring your own device or BYOD), communication (unified messaging, remote desktop access) and networking (web-based project collaboration tools, cloud-based file sharing services).
 
Connected city comprises e-governance, e-citizens, smart transportation cards, e-learning, mobile banking and digital classrooms, remote education services as well as digital libraries.

Frost & Sullivan forecasts the total connected living market to reach US$731.7 billion by 2020 as the importance of the Internet and digital solutions grows in the overall economy.
 
Connected city will contribute the largest percentage at 54%, equating to an estimated market potential of US$392.94 billion, with smart governance and education services making up 50% of growth in this segment.
 
Connected work will comprise 31%, contributing US$228.44 billion. Connected home competes the remaining 15% at US$111 billion.

Frost & Sullivan predicts that by 2025, the rise of connected living will see 3.7 billion smartphones, 700 million tablets, 520 million wearable health-related devices and 410 million smart appliances in the connected person world. The connected worker world will see 90 million IP (Internet Protocol) telephones, 400 million laptops and over 60 million unified communication platforms.

“Frost & Sullivan expects that nearly 80% of US enterprises will adopt BYOD, 30% of populations will access office networks remotely, and 90% of organisations will offer mobility to workers,” said William.

Meanwhile, the connected citizen will have access to 15 million interactive kiosks enabled by 25 million cloud servers servicing around one billion smart government and ID cards.
 
Around 500 million smart transportation cards and 50 million contact-less payment cards will be issued and there will be an estimated 35 billion subscribed location based services (LBS) devices by 2020.

The value chain of smart solutions to service all the components of connected living is extremely fragmented with no clear ‘one-stop shop’ solution provider providing end-to-end solutions.
 
There are many players, ranging from module/ component providers to device vendors to network and platform providers to system integrators. Within these groups are big name players such as Sendum, Gemalto, Apple, Samsung, Telefonica, AT&T, Cisco, SAP, Oracle, IBM and Accenture.

“While the ecosystem of players is complex, there is no denying that collectively, the market potential is huge and presents immense opportunities for the telecom operators and ICT vendors,” said William.

Frost & Sullivan’s analyst briefing on The Rise in Connected Living and What It Means For ICT was presented by William on May 15 in a podcast that is available here.
 
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