Hampshire, UK: A new study from Juniper Research has found the global number of roaming IoT connections will increase from 300 million in 2022 to 1.8 billion by 2027; representing 500% growth.

Find out more about the full research report: IoT Roaming Strategies: Key Opportunities, Competitor Leaderboard & Market Forecasts 2022-2027

The study ranked Vodafone Business as the leading service provider in the IoT roaming space. On Vodafone Business’ leading position in Juniper Research’s Competitor Leaderboard, Phil Skipper, Head of IoT Strategy and Development for Vodafone Business said: “Vodafone Business is delighted to have been recognised as the leading IoT Roaming vendor in Juniper Research’s Competitor Leaderboard. Our IoT platform, which delivers managed IoT connectivity, device management and application development, enables our roaming partners to actively participate in and monetise the global opportunity for IoT connectivity.”

Juniper Research’s Competitor Leaderboard tool assesses each vendor against a set of key indicators to derive their relative positioning in the matrix. These include a vendor’s capacity and capability, their product positioning, size of their operations, financial performance and the sophistication of their IoT roaming solution.

The Competitor Leaderboard ranked the six leading IoT roaming vendors as follows:

1. Vodafone Business
2. Tata Communications
3. TNS
4. BICS
5. Syniverse
6. iBasis

Vodafone Business has built a scalable IoT product offering; supporting device management, LPWA (Low Power Wide Access) network services and mobile private networks. Juniper Research commended Vodafone for its ‘Application-as-a-Service’ model which will drive IoT roaming service adoption amongst SMEs by lowering the barriers to entry.

Advanced Analytics Capabilities Key to Distinguishing Leading Vendors

The research found that harnessing AI to detect permanent roaming connections is key to distinguishing the services of leading vendors from their competitors. By enabling accurate identification of permanent roaming IoT connections, vendors will support operators in the monetisation of these devices. Operators must move away from the use of punitive measures and adopt a monetisation mindset; drawing parallels with grey route mobile messaging traffic reduction.