It will probably be a much bigger market than the one for consumers. China has millions of factories with billions of machines and it also makes most of the world’s electronics, including many of the sensors and other electronic devices that would form the backbone of such a network. Moreover, the government is keen to upgrade the country’s manufacturing base.
There are already more things connected to each other in China than in any country, with the numbers set to skyrocket further. IDC, a research firm, forecasts that the overall market for IoT kit of various forms in China will rise from $193bn last year to $361bn in 2020. Accenture, a consultancy, reckons embracing IoT in manufacturing could add up to $736bn to China’s GDP by 2030.
