Global IoT spending to reach $745 billion in 2019, says IDC

Global spending on the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to hit almost $750 billion in 2019, according to the latest figures from IDC. The analyst firm put out its figures as an update to its Worldwide Semiannual Internet of Things Spending Guide. The company’s previous analysis, in June, put the figure at $1.2 trillion by 2022 – which may suggest a huge push this year before slowdown and consolidation in the years to come. Either way, this traditional crystal ball perusal makes for interesting reading when looking at the different sectors. Manufacturing is considered to be the biggest spender according to the research – discrete manufacturing contributing $119 billion with process manufacturing at $78bn, while transportation ($71bn) and utilities ($61bn) are not too far behind. But what does this mean in terms of use cases? Airport facility automation is seen as the most popular case. Yet IDC notes the top five – electric vehicle charging, agriculture field monitoring, bedside telemetry, and in-store contextualised marketing – are all very close together.