by SAVIOUS KWINIKA
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – LOCAL developers and the industry have the technology at their fingertips to develop African solutions to African problems.
That is according to an industry expert, Sudipto Moitra, who cited the MTN Business Internet of Things (IoT) Conference.
Moitra is the General Manager: ICT at MTN SA Business.
“Recent trends indicate that this wave of growth is already catching on and will continue to accelerate,” Moitra said.
IoT revenue is expected to more than double in the Middle East and Africa by 2023, according to GlobalData.
The report notes that stakeholders are exploring and identifying key areas of growth despite IoT still being in early stages of uptake.
Africa and the Middle East are expected to become the second-fastest growing region for IoT revenue, second behind the Asia-Pacific.
It is forecast the utilities, government and manufacturing verticals will be driving this revenue, having accounted for more than half of the total IoT opportunity in the area in 2018.
Moitra said this opportunity is also reflected in the latest GSMA Mobile Economy 2020 report, which holds that IoT connections are set to reach almost 25 billion globally by 2025, up from 12 billion in 2019.
The report points out that the business case for IoT is shifting from just connecting devices to addressing specific problems or needs with solutions to collect, process and integrate data from multiple sources.
Notably, enterprise IoT connections will overtake consumer connections in 2024, and will almost triple between 2019 and 2025 to reach 13,3 billion.
This will account for just over half of all IoT connections in 2025.
“At MTN Business, we realise the urgent need to provide these pathways towards growth by harnessing our network,” Moitra said.
“We are ensuring that the billions of things connected to the African IoT have a fast, secure, and cost-effective network available across the continent.”
IoT describes the network of physical objects that are embedded with sensors, software and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the internet.
– CAJ News