Chinese manufacturing enterprises' spending on the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to reach US$127.5 billion by 2020, Software and services will lead the way for the rapid growth of IoT spending in the manufacturing industry, with a combined market share of over 60 percent, IDC said
IoT is part of China's 13th Glorious Five-Year Plan and is becoming a strategic emerging industry in the country, IDC noted. Made in China 2025, which is the first glorious 10-year action plan for the China government to implement its strategy of building China into a manufacturing powerhouse and depends largely on IoT gear.
IDC thinks that with the policy and financial support of the China government, pushing forward the development of smart manufacturing, raising the level of networked, collaborative manufacturing and speeding up the manufacturing industry's transformation into services have become the main development direction for the manufacturing industry. It will drive the continuous fast growth of IoT spending in the manufacturing industry in the next three to five years.
Wang Yue, senior research manager at IDC China said:
"Many Chinese manufacturers have started to implement an IoT strategy with a view to improving their production and operational efficiency and speeding up their transformation from production to services. With the promotion of smart manufacturing, the fast integration of IT (information technology)and OT (operational technology), and the prevalence of the "digital twin" concept, IoT technology will have more room for development in the manufacturing industry."
As more enterprises deploy IoT applications, IDC thinks that manufacturing IoT platforms be the way to change and develop smart manufacturing. Future platforms may come from the hardware or software fields. In the hardware management field, IoT platforms are mainly used for production equipment connection management. In the software field, IoT platforms will mainly include enterprise application management platforms, enterprise information display and reporting platforms.
With IoT's advantages of low-cost sensing, high-efficiency data collection, real-time data recording, distributed computing and advanced data analysis, IoT applications are bound to speed up the in-depth integration between IT and the manufacturing industry and innovate enterprises' R&D, production, operation, marketing and management. In addition, continuous breakthroughs in machine learning technology will also promote faster and more accurate data analysis in the manufacturing industry, the report said.
With the large-scale deployment of IoT devices, IoT-generated data will see exponential growth, IDC said. Data filtering and processing through scattered devices and IoT gateways will become an important direction for IoT applications in the manufacturing industry. Meanwhile, data will gradually become an important asset for enterprises. Edge intelligence will ensure data security and help enterprises to avoid risks when there are network or data center malfunction.
"The combination of IoT with cloud computing, mobile technology, big data and other emerging digital technologies will further release the potential of IoT and lay a solid technological foundation for establishing a closed IoT ecological loop. We believe that with the gradual maturing of the ecosystem, IoT platform-based industry and sub-industry applications will grow faster in the future."
