GSMA estimates that IoT connections will rise to 24.6 billion by 2025

1^st June 2021: Three, Ireland’s Speedtest Award™ Winner for fastest mobile network speed by Ookla®*, is celebrating its 1 millionth IoT connection. Three has the highest IoT market share in Ireland at 55.8%, a position it has held since the second quarter of 2020.

Today’s announcement comes as GSMA calculates that there are 12 billion devices connected via IoT and that figure will rise to 24.6 billion by 2025. Research from Amárach recently found that consumers and households will drive a big part of the growth, but the bigger contributor will be the adoption of IoT by businesses: including smart buildings, smart energy, smart manufacturing and other applications.

Last year, the IoT market grew by 365,000 connections and Three delivered 81% of the growth, providing 300,000 connections in the Irish market. Three Ireland’s IoT customers span a variety of sectors including manufacturing, agriculture, energy and motoring.

Eóin MacManus, Chief Business Officer at Three Ireland said: “We are delighted to have reached this milestone. IoT is continuously evolving, and we continue to invest in our products and our solutions that are locally developed and supported here in Ireland. If we look to Ireland’s economic recovery, technology and connectivity will continue to play a leading role in terms of jobs, connected lifestyles, and the transformation of many industries such as energy management, medicine, transportation and security. From reaching this milestone, we are confident that we will continue to grow rapidly helping businesses and sectors across the country reap the benefits of IoT. We take pride in our customer relationships and partnering with them is important to us. Our customers look to us to assist them in developing solutions to make their processes better and smarter. As Ireland’s fastest network and now with our nationwide 5G footprint in every county, alongside our 99% 4G coverage, we are best placed to assist them with these solutions.

Speaking about some of Three’s work with clients, he continued: “We are proud of the work we’ve done in this regard to date, as diverse as solutions in the Agri sector, we have developed silo monitoring solutions to help optimise their costs; in others  we provide our 3Locate service to allow them track and monitor their vehicles in Ireland and in other countries for safety and insurance purposes. We will continue to build on what we have achieved so far, the adoption of IoT and Smart Services means we have to stay ahead of the curve, to keep investing and improving. Having seen what 5G can do and the potential it provides, I am excited to see the economic developments and opportunities this brings to Ireland as we strive to compete in a global environment where connectivity is crucial.”