In 2018, Gartner estimated that there were around 3.96 billion endpoints. In 2019, this increased to 4.81 billion. And in 2020, Gartner predicted that there would be a 21% increase on these figures to reach a hefty 5.8 billion, and these figures are just for enterprise and automotive Internet of Things. Utilities, building automation, manufacturing, healthcare, retail, transport and government all show equally impressive increases that indicate a very healthy IoT market indeed. In spite of the collapsing chaos of 2020, it seems that IoT is on track to deliver a far more immediate impact to business and industry than ever before.

This is a view shared by Forrester. In its recent report, revealingly entitled ‘Predictions 2020: The Internet of Things’, the research company said that IoT is likely to push smart displays, 5G, supply chains and new business models and will be used by organisations to transform products and services.