November 12: Gartner, Inc. forecasts that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016, up 30 percent from 2015, and will reach 20.8 billion by 2020. In 2016, 5.5 million new things will get connected every day.

Gartner estimates that the Internet of Things (IoT) will support total services spending of $235 billion in 2016, up 22 percent from 2015. Services are dominated by the professional category (in which businesses contract with external providers in order to design, install and operate IoT systems), however connectivity services (through communications service providers) and consumer services will grow at a faster pace.

"IoT services are the real driver of value in IoT, and increasing attention is being focused on new services by end-user organisations and vendors," said Jim Tully, Vice President and distinguished Analyst at Gartner.

Enterprises to Bolster IoT Revenue

"Aside from connected cars, consumer uses will continue to account for the greatest number of connected things, while enterprise will account for the largest spending," said Tully. Gartner estimates that 4 billion connected things will be in use in the consumer sector in 2016, and will reach 13.5 billion in 2020.

Table 1: Internet of Things Units Installed Base by Category (Millions of Units)
Category	2014	2015	2016
Consumer	2,277	3,023	4,024
Business: Cross-Industry	632	815	1,092
Business: Vertical-Specific	898	1,065	1,276
Grand Total	3,807	4,902	6,392

In terms of hardware spending, consumer applications will amount to $546 billion in 2016, while the use of connected things in the enterprise will drive $868 billion in 2016.

Table 2: Internet of Things Endpoint Spending by Category (Billions of Dollars)
Category	2014	2015	2016
Consumer	257	416	546
Business: Cross-Industry	115	155	201
Business: Vertical-Specific	567	612	667
Grand Total	939	1,183	1,414