SINGAPORE-based Industry Platform Pte. Ltd. expects spending on Internet of Things (IoT) in the Philippines would hit nearly P36.5 billion ($766.8 million) by 2020.
The company said this forecast is based on its view that governments and telecommunication operators in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia are actively exploring opportunities offered by the IoT and Machine to Machine (M2M) technologies in the region.
“The Philippines recently posted a GDP growth of 6.3 percent, as well as a sustained IT [information technology] spending growth of 10.1 percent,” the company said in a statement. The firm may be referring to the GDP in the fourth quarter of 2015.
The company quoted Gil B. Genio, COO of Globe Telecom Inc., as saying the IoT’s potential in the country “is substantially driven by the technology, media, and telecommunications [TMT] sectors, while mobile network operators [MNOs] will continue to be relevant with their existing network customer base, sales channels, billing and support systems.”
Similarly, we will see more than 400 million connected devices in four to five years’ time in Thailand alone, according to Sigvart Von Eriksen, chief marketing officer of DTAC (Total Access Communication Public Co. Ltd)—“while we are still below 1 million right now.”
“The IoT market in Thailand will explode in near future, which should not come as a surprise given the active role government is playing,” Von Eriksen added.
Industry Platform’s forecast runs counter to that of Accenture’s, which said “while there has been a lot of momentum in enterprise IoT innovation and commercial solutions are relatively easy to visualize, the industry has not delivered well-articulated consumer solutions thus far.”
The Accenture report, titled “Igniting Growth in Consumer Technology,” pointed to three main roadblocks preventing greater adoption of IoT: price, security concerns and ease of use.
“Consumers report that price is the top barrier to the purchase of IoT devices, with 62 percent believing these devices are too expensive,” the Accenture report said. “This perception is almost consistent across age groups and countries—with mature markets only slightly less concerned about the price than emerging markets.”
Accenture’s research said the Philippines is one of three countries that “report the highest share of consumers stating price is a barrier.”
1 comment
At Asia IoT Business Platform, in which we work closely with governments and telcos, our information gathered was mainly focused on IoT adoption within the business and public sectors. The statistics shown was also picked up from the Frost & Sullivan report dated August 4, 2015: “Exploring opportunities in the South East Asian IoT market”.
As per presented by Accenture in terms of consumer tech/wearables, we understand that it might be a different story and this bears further discussions.