Have you seen an increased demand for this technology among your customers?
MK The market has grown exponentially over the last few years, with the GSM Association predicting that global M2M connections will reach 250 million by the end of this year - a staggering increase when compared to the 195 million in 2013.
AT&T's M2M business customers have tripled in the past year with 17.23 million connected devices on our network and AT&T certifying more than 1,800 types of connected devices as of year-end 2013. We have also registered a 61% increase in the number of new M2M connected devices in the first quarter of this year, comparing to the same period last year. International M2M deployments also jumped 27 percent in 2012 and 33 percent in 2013.
What are AT&T's M2M business goals and key focus over the next few years?
MK Our goal is to introduce wireless capabilities into a wide variety of devices – beyond the traditional handsets, with the aim to help businesses reduce their overheads and increase revenue. We are achieving this goal by investing in our ground-breaking innovation center, the M2M AT&T Foundry, located in Plano Texas, further advancing solutions that connect machines in the utilities space, track assets in industries like airline and fleet management, embed communications in industrial machinery, and capture performance data for heavy equipment.
What's in store for M2M technology over the next five years?
MK Over the next five years we will see a sharp increase in M2M revenues. According to global analyst firm, Ovum, the M2M market is set to treble over the next few years with M2M service revenues set to grow to $44.8bn in 2018, from the $13.6bn figure recorded in 2012. Also, by 2019 we are set to see three key industry verticals invest heavily in the technology: energy & utilities, healthcare and manufacturing.
What M2M trends that AT&T is currently coming across?
MK We are increasingly seeing a larger number of enterprises paying more attention to security as opposed to just their ROI and financial figures;
There is also a growing demand in big data analysis. Organisations want to use this data to enable them to achieve better business results, subsequently M2M devices are playing a key role in this data mining process;
We are seeing more and more organisations become key market participants with various automotive manufacturers, such as, GE providing M2M solutions for their customers;
M2M is becoming the hot topic within the business community with an increasing number of technicians and global business leaders taking a keen interest in this topic.
