A new report from global IoT connectivity specialist Eseye indicates that organisations are struggling to reap the benefits of IoT in both the UK and USA.
According to Eseye’s ‘State of IoT Adoption’ report, 76% of UK respondents said their IoT project was “at best” only somewhat successful; however, 91% still plan to invest in their IoT initiatives.
Undeterred by the lack of success in deploying the technology, 85% of UK respondents said IoT is still a priority for their business, with 54% reporting they are planning further projects in the next two to three years.
41% said they plan to boost spending by between 51 and 100%, with 99% stating that the pandemic had an impact on their plans.
Just 19% of UK respondents had cancelled IoT initiatives due to the pandemic, compared to 33% in the USA.
Despite this, 28% had accelerated the development of their IoT initiative, and 30% said they had increased investment plans.
41% reported that cellular connectivity was their biggest hurdle, while for 36% said it was deployment and rollout.
“This is likely down to the fact that UK respondents are more multi-region with deployments than the USA, where deployments still tend to be national and focused on the domestic market,” said Nick Earle (pictured), CEO of Eseye.
“Is IoT finally coming of age here in the UK? Certainly, our results indicate that there is a level of maturity and an eagerness to fuel adoption plans here in the UK. Surveyed UK companies see IoT as a way to increase profit and reduce costs as well as disrupt business models and introduce new product lines,” he added.
Overall, 81% of all UK respondents either somewhat or strongly agree with this statement that intelligent connectivity is going to be critical to fuel the adoption of IoT.
Cloud and remote access were cited as the top technology drivers by 48% of UK respondents, while 5G was the second highest technology driver for UK respondents with 42%, compared to 35% in the USA.
“5G is definitely more on the radar here in the UK than the USA, which isn’t surprising as the UK was one of the earliest countries to officially commercialise 5G,” said Earle.
However, cellular IoT deployments have still not reached anywhere near critical mass. Most UK respondents (90%) had deployed less than 10,000 devices.
Out of the 250 UK respondents, only 8% had deployed between 10,001 to 100,000 devices in the field and only 2% had deployed more than 100,000 devices, the report found.
The findings from the report comes after Eseye and Armis partnered earlier this year to secure global IoT access on any cellular network.
