Relevant Adoption of M2M Solutions drives South African Market

During the AfricanCon 2012 held in Cape Town, keynote speaker Alan Knott-Craig, CEO of Cell C, and Mark Newman, Chief Research Officer at Informa Telecoms & Media, said the evolution from connected to broadband and IP services, that characterizes the African communications landscape, represents a $65 billion industry in terms of end user revenue. This represents a 65% penetration rate with only one of out of four people in Africa is connected by mobile phone, whilst 22 million subscribe to mobile broadband.

However, the new market research shows that M2M technology may change this landscape as the market grows exponentially internationally and across South Africa. Research and Markets has recently added a report on "M2M Market Opportunities in South Africa - Vertical Focus", with an overview of the South African M2M market specifically focused on rapidly growing markets such as automotive, retail and finance, and utilities. These are verticals said to have dominated the adoption of M2M technology both enterprise-wide and consumer-base.

Local telecoms in South Africa are reported to have taken the trends critically, prompting some of the major players to offer a variety of M2M solutions for telemetry and customizing SIMs that can be attached to devices. MTN, a GSM cellular network operator delivering service in South Africa and other African countries, said that machine-to-machine technology is the key component in the growth of the mobile communications market in the region.

Although, some hurdles in the African market have been identified. One is the issue of reliability in terms of delivering uninterrupted connection as M2M primarily requires uninterrupted connectivity. And while this can be assured across South Africa, unfortunately, the rest of Africa does show the same reliability. Another is the gap in using GSM networks which still require a redundancy plan.

However, major players such as LeadingQuest and Parlacom Brazil, believe that the actual M2M market is big, and where there is anything that can be connected to something, the possibilities are endless. It's CEO, Clovis Lacerda said that this is just the beginning and the M2M Market is expected to grow even more, not just in Europe and the US. He said that as the market study trends show, M2M is now used to downturn old word technology and eventually, there will be more connected devices worldwide than we can imagine. This not just limited to industrial and manufacturing industries but also mHealth and wearable technology. And with the upcoming M2M African Summit in June, this event opens more doors for potential development, investments and revenue.