According to 451 Research global cellular Internet of Things (IoT) and machine to machine (M2) connection will grow from 252 million in 2014 to 908m in 2019, a nearly fourfold increase.

A number of factors drive such growth-- dropping hardware and bandwidth costs (allowing nearly every enterprise to benefit from virtualising the physical world), easier to use and more secure cloud-based middleware and data platforms and increasing overall awareness of the potential of IoT/M2M in terms of ROI, competitiveness and potential for new business models.

The analyst says connected passenger vehicles and connected energy will drive connection volume, while emerging solutions such as "pay as you drive" insurance will grow the fastest.

In addition 451 Security points out an opportunity in enterprise wearables-- a survey of US-based IT decision makers has 39% of respondents either using or planning to use wearable solutions within the next 6 months, and 24% plan deployments in the next 12 months.

In addition, 81% planning to deploy wearables in the next 6 months will do so with smartwatches.

“The release of Apple Watch has opened the flood gates governing wearables’ adoption,” the analyst remarks. “But now that the river is running, it’s less about where it will end and more about where-- and when-- to start. We expect wearable technology to deliver a key interface and input into the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Wearables have the potential to become an interface-- if not the interface-- for IIoT access.”

Go 451 Research IoT Service: Wearables Moving from Consumer Niche Interest to the Enterprise