The cellular machine-to-machine (M2M) market has been “challenging” over the past 18 months, but bottomed out last year and is now on the upswing, ABI Research says. From this year onwards, the market will enjoy a more normal growth pattern, and will be worth $3.8 billion by 2015, the research firm adds.

According to ABI Research, 2007 was the cellular M2M market's last "good year," as the research firm documented at the time, but 2008 saw both unit shipments and revenues decrease as a result of the global economic crisis. However, it's said, 4Q 2008 and 1Q 2009 represented the bottom of the market.

ABI says most cellular M2M vendors — whose ranks include AnyData, Cinterion, Enfora, Huawei, iWow, Motorola, Sagemcom, Sierra Wireless, SimCom, Telit, and U-blox — reported a "dramatic improvement" in shipments in 4Q 2009 compared to 1Q 2009. From 2010 onwards, the market will "resume a more normal growth pattern," the firm adds.

Stated ABI Research Practice Director Sam Lucero, "In 2009, the cellular M2M module market grew somewhat in terms of unit shipment volume, although rapidly declining module prices meant that 2009 revenue was still below that of 2007. Despite its difficulties, however, this market is on an upward path."

Falling prices are said to be the result of increasing commoditization of an already crowded market, being squeezed further by the entrance of new vendors, particularly from the Asia-Pacific region. This means that even with continuing modest growth in shipments, 2010 revenue levels will remain lower than those of 2007, ABI Research says.

The market has also experienced some significant mergers and acquisitions, Lucero pointed out. For example, in 2009 Sierra Wireless acquired Wavecom; and more recently, Gemalto acquired Cinterion, a move which, Lucero says, "is likely to lead to positive results for the company, provided that Gemalto focuses on differentiating the Cinterion market offer with an end-to-end platform."

The predictions cited earlier were released to promote ABI Research's latest Cellular Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Markets report. It's said this document discusses market trends, analyzes cellular M2M module vendor strategic responses, provides vendor market share data for the period 2003-2009, and forecasts cellular M2M module shipment and revenue growth for the period from 2007 through 2015, segmented by region, application, and air interface standard.

According to ABI Research, its 82-page document has 17 charts, 218 tables, and four figures, and answers questions such as the following:

• How was the market impacted by the global economic crisis?
• What is the cellular M2M module market size, in shipments and revenue, segmented by region, application, and air interface standard?
• What is the cellular M2M module market forecast, by shipment and revenue, segmented by region, application, and air interface standard?
• What are the major strategic market forces impacting the cellular M2M market for module vendors?
• What are the strategic responses of cellular M2M module vendors to market forces and resulting market trends?

In a separate report last January, Juniper Research predicted that the number of wireless M2M (machine to machine) embedded devices will rise to almost 412 million by 2014. The fast growth will be led by utility metering, followed by mobile connected buildings, telematics, and automated retail and banking connections, the company said at the time.

Juniper noted that new and expected restrictions on carbon footprint and energy use are increasing the demand for smart meters, which are designed to wirelessly communicate with central utility servers. In many cases, these devices also communicate with a new class of local, GUI-enabled monitoring and control devices,

Further information

More details of Cellular Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Markets, whose pricing was not disclosed, may be found on the ABI Research website, here.

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