Digital Oxygen is a management consultancy focusing on digital transformation and digital product development. Each year, the company publishes an IoT Mobile Connectivity Landscape. This year, Oasis Smart SIM ranks in IoT Mobile Connectivity Landscape 2022, as Connectivity Management (Subscription Management: SM-DP l SM-SR l eSIM IoT Remote Manager) and eUICC manufacturers. Our majority shareholder Tata Communications is ranked Connectivity Management (Specialized IoT Connectivity Providers and Connectivity Management Platform).
Courtesy of Digital Oxygen, we are resharing their article. The full article can be found here.
" This is the second release of Digital Oxygen’s IoT Mobile Connectivity Landscape. Two years have passed since our last update. This seems to be quite some time in this market as a lot has changed.
Our Main Observations
First, it is getting crowded in the IoT connectivity world - more and more vendors are entering the market.
Second, besides from the ever-growing number of billions of connected devices, nobody is dominating the market and there is no holy grail to monetize these connections.
Third, IoT connectivity is still a solution business showing no signs of consolidation.
Overview of company logos in the field of IoT Mobile Connectivity, clustered in the categories "IoT Enablement Platform", "Data Management", "Device Lifecycle", "Specialized IoT Connectivity Providers", "Connectivity Management Platform, "Subscription Management", "Chipsets", "Gateys, Cellular Modems and Routers", "eUICC Manufacturers", "Device Operating System", and "Middleware".
Struggling MNOs
From 19 of the most relevant MNOs in the world, only 5 report numbers on IoT connections. Only 2 are reporting revenues - and the revenues are in the range of just 1% of their total business. This supports our hypothesis that IoT is still a solution business, and big MNOs are not yet geared towards selling highly customized solutions. Instead, the whole organization is usually specialized in selling predefined packages to the mass markets. This is, among others, one reason we are only covering “Specialized IoT Connectivity Providers” and not an exhaustive set of MNOs selling of-the-shelf IoT data packages and SIM cards.
More Complexity Incoming
Another typical sign of a strong solution business market is the continuously growing number of vendors covering every tiny niche of the market. There is no sign of consolidation so far - this would require a certain level of standardization beyond the pure radio connectivity. And even here, the market is getting more complex with new IoT-specific standards like LTE-M and NB-IoT. Unfortunately, these standards are not yet available in every network and roaming is still not widely supported, especially for NB-IoT.
The same applies for subscription management beyond simple SIM cards. More countries like Brazil und Turkey are prohibiting permanent roaming. A remote subscription management solution supporting the eSIM would be a good option to manage subscriptions in these countries. Unfortunately, countries like Turkey require a local subscription management solution - rendering its advantages almost obsolete.
Moreover, a third option to manage the subscription is about to be standardized: first vendors are offering the “eSIM IoT remote manager” feature - which is basically a combination of consumer and M2M features, allowing a local connectivity management engine on the device to pull or change a consumer-based subscription depending on local demands.
The industry is getting further away from a simple, worldwide available and manageable solution for mobile IoT connectivity.
So, the industry is getting further away from a simple, worldwide available and manageable solution. Hence, there is a growing number of vendors, especially in the Subscription Management, Connectivity Management, and Specialized IoT Connectivity Provider categories who are trying to solve the problem for the specific customer demands.
What Else?
The Device Lifecycle as well as IoT Enablement Platform categories have grown less. Some big names seem to gain more and more market share. This is driven by the limited number of prominent device operating systems which makes it much easier to interact with a much broader share of devices in the market.
And last but not least, data management: We found this category almost impossible to capture in its totality, given the endless number of vendors, service providers, data management and analytics companies. So we cover only the most important vendors in that market.
So What?
If you are looking to enable your devices with connectivity: You have the choice. In fact, an overwhelming choice of solutions and vendors. Finding the right partner will be time consuming and requires a lot of expertise.
If you are looking to cash in on the growing number of billion connected devices: Think twice. Think about your value proposition to differentiate in that landscape and think about the size of the market you can capture with this proposition. "
Written by Axel Meiling
Axel is Partner at Digital Oxygen, leading their telco practice. He is driving the connectivity strategies and processes for international MNOs. He works on the Consumer IoT business model for M(V)NOs, OEMs, retail intermediaries, IoT vendors and telco investors, the architecture of all customer related touchpoints, and the right organisation to transform legacy infrastructures.
