The number of connected devices in the Nordic markets will exceed the 100 million mark in the next three years and TeliaSonera is determined to take a big slice of the revenues that those connections will bring.
There will be 102 million connected things across Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland by 2018, according to a new study carried out by TeliaSonera and Arthur D. Little. That is more than double last year’s total of 45 million.
The figures mean "people are having four devices [per head] on average by 2018," said Helene Barnekow, TeliaSonera’s chief commercial officer, presenting the report at an event at Mobile World Congress earlier this week.
The report also showed that the Internet of Things (IoT) market across the four countries will grow at a CAGR of 23% to €9.1 billion by 2018, having generated revenues just shy of €4 billion last year. Based on 2014 numbers, Sweden is the biggest market in the region, valued at €1.3 billion in 2014.
The growth will be driven by the connected cars, smart homes and healthcare markets.
"We have a very aggressive growth plan for M2M," Barnekow said, predicting the sector will grow to be "a 1 billion-kronor business for us by 2018," up from SEK300 million in 2014.
But TeliaSonera is not looking solely at its home markets. The Global M2M Association (GMA) – which comprises Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Bell Canada and Softbank, as well as TeliaSonera – recently launched the Multi-Domestic Service, which is designed to make it easier for telcos to manage M2M implementations across multiple countries.
The Multi-Domestic Service is primarily geared towards the automotive and consumer electronics markets. It gives enterprise customers a single M2M management platform from Ericsson that includes subscription management and the localisation of SIM cards provided by Gemalto.
"You can’t use roaming for these kinds of services," explained Hans Dahlberg, head of global M2M services at TeliaSonera.
TeliaSonera has already rolled out the platform, as have Orange and Bell Canada.
"This is exactly the type of initiative that we believe will simplify the process of connecting devices around the world to the benefit of both enterprises and end-users, ultimately supporting the rapid growth rates that we anticipate in the IoT market," said Matt Hatton, founder and CEO at Machina Research.
