Mobile network operators don’t breakout cellular IoT service revenue. They keep the numbers confidential and report only the number of connections. China Mobile broke away from this practice becoming one of the very few that publicly reports this number. It announced cellular IoT service revenue of RMB 5.2 billion (USD 736 m) in the first half of 2019. This is under 2% of mobile revenue (personal and corporate). At this rate, China Mobile is around 2x the industry average.
China Mobile reported a world leading 693 million connected IoT devices. This results in about RMB 15/device on annual basis. That’s about $2/device/year.
China has been actively encouraging MNOs to deploy IoT services. In 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) set targets for NB-IoT deployment:
- By end of 2017: Cover all major cities 400,000 base stations, >20 m devices.
- By 2020: Nationwide coverage; 1.5 m base stations, >600 m devices.
Regulators seeking to stimulate the deployment of IoT services need to look at China. Government policy mandates domestic milestones and stimulates a strong IoT ecosystem. In parallel, China takes active international role through standards organizations and regulatory institutions. In contrast, the approach by countries such as the US, is based on a ‘light-touch’ where market forces dictate the pace of deployments. Regulators in this case act when “consumer interest is at risk.”
For additional information on how different regulators approach IoT see here.