Vodafone: IoT Has 'Entered the Mainstream' in America

A new study points to the increasing prevalence of the Internet of Things (IoT) in everyday business.

The majority of IoT adopters are seeing gains and increased investments as a result of the technology, according to a survey conducted by Circle Research and published by Vodafone.

More than three-quarters (76 percent) of respondents said IoT technologies will prove critical to their future business success. The report also found that nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of businesses that bought into IoT have seen a significant return on investment – a tick up from 59 percent last year.

And the investments continue to increase, with nearly nine in 10 (89 percent) of IoT adopters saying they have increased their budgets during the last year. More interestingly, IoT funding in the average IT budget equaled money allotted for cloud computing and data analytics.

Vodafone IoT Director Erik Brenneis declared that the technology has finally “entered the mainstream.” Perhaps more telling was the fact that his company changed the name of the fourth annual study from the M2M Barometer Report to the IoT Barometer Report.{ad}

“Three-quarters of the companies we interviewed now recognize that the Internet of Things is a new industrial revolution that will change how people work and live forever, and almost half the companies surveyed across multiple countries and sectors told us they’re already planning to bring connected network intelligence to millions of devices and processes over the next two years,” he said.

The survey also found that more and more companies are using IoT in “mainstream” areas of their business. For example, more than half (52 percent) of electronics businesses said they are making IoT the foundation for connected home applications. Almost half of the companies (46 percent) said they will create new IoT offerings in the next two years.

The study involved approximately than 1,100 companies that have adopted IoT.

Plenty of big channel players – including AT&T – have made a point of emphasizing their IoT presence in recent weeks.