Dive Brief:

• Spending on hardware, software, services and connectivity that enable the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to grow 16.7% globally year-over-year in 2017, making IoT a $800 billion market, according to new data from International Data Corporation (IDC). By 2021, IDC predicts global IoT spending will reach almost $1.4 trillion.

• Hardware, especially modules and sensors that connect end points to networks, will be the largest IoT spending category for the first few years, after which the services category will overtake it, according to an IDC press release.

• Asia/Pacific will be the IoT investment leader with spending expected to reach $455 billion in 2021, followed closely by the United States and Western Europe.

Dive Insight:

The IoT market is on the brink of major growth, and it all has to do with ROI. Using IoT to gather data points can help businesses run more effectively and efficiently, boosting the bottom line. And because the cost of IoT hardware and software is relatively low, companies are investing at a rapid pace, a phenomenon that’s caused the IoT to accelerate in recent months.

Recently, Gartner predicted that 21 billion IoT devices will be used globally by 2020, outnumbering laptops, smartphone and tablets. That's because IoT devices don't necessarily require a lot of computing power. Instead, IoT collects data at the edge, pooling information to help drive analytic insights. 

But business leaders also need to ensure they think IoT investments through carefully. Implementing IoT without a strategy in place is a recipe for waste. According to a study revealed by Cisco, nearly 60% of IoT initiatives stall at the Proof of Concept stage and only 26% of companies have had an IoT initiative that they considered a complete success.