According to a report by Berg Insight, yearly shipments of cellular internet of things (IoT) modules fell to 423 million units in 2023, marking a 3 per cent year-on-year (YoY) decrease. Correspondingly, annual revenues for cellular IoT modules declined by 9 per cent to $5.9 billion.
The report stated that the top five cellular module vendors – Quectel, Fibocom, Telit Cinterion, Semtech, and u-blox, accounted for 72 per cent of market revenues.
The report noted that leading the supply of cellular IoT chipsets are Qualcomm, UNISOC, and ASR Microelectronics, with other key providers including Eigencomm, MediaTek, Sony, and Xinyi Information Technology. Meanwhile, the cellular IoT landscape is dominated by 4G long term evolution (LTE) technologies optimised for IoT, such as LTE Cat-1/LTE Cat-1 bis, narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), and LTE for machines (LTE-M), which are replacing older 2G and 3G technologies in the low to mid-market segments.
Higher-speed IoT devices still primarily use LTE Cat-4 and higher Cat LTE advanced (LTE-A) technologies but are gradually transitioning to 5G as network coverage and pricing improve. Currently, 5G IoT devices are mainly found in fixed wireless access (FWA) customer premises equipment (CPEs), IoT routers, and advanced automotive applications. 5G reduced capability (RedCap) modules are becoming available, promising a wider array of 5G IoT use cases, though their adoption is expected to be slow in the short term due to cost and 5G standalone (SA) network coverage requirements.
The report highlighted that despite the recent downturn, the cellular IoT module market is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.2 per cent, reaching 786 million units by 2028.
As per the report, long range (LoRa) technology is increasingly recognised as a global connectivity platform for IoT devices. The installed base of LoRa end nodes reached 350 million, with approximately 20 per cent connected to public networks.
The report further added that the LoRa and long range wide area network (LoRaWAN) ecosystems will continue to be dominated by private networks, with significant applications in smart gas and water metering due to LoRa’s low power consumption, which supports long-life battery operations. LoRa is also gaining traction in urban and local area IoT deployments for smart sensors and tracking devices in cities, industrial plants, and commercial buildings. The smart home sector is expected to become a major application area, driven by Amazon’s sidewalk network in the U.S.
Berg Insight estimates that 50 million LoRa devices were shipped in 2023, with annual shipments projected to grow at a CAGR of 16.2 per cent, reaching 106 million units by 2028.
The report further added that Berg Insight forecasts that Sigfox device shipments will grow at a remarkable CAGR of 33.6 per cent, from 1.6 million units in 2023 to 6.6 million units by 2028.
