IoT Report 2026: 39 Billion Connected Devices by 2030

IoT Market at a Glance

GSMA Intelligence forecasts that there will be 38.7B IoT connections by 2030, while Ericsson expects cellular IoT connections to reach 4.5B by the end of 2025 and approach ~8B by 2031. IoT’s upside is in captured value, with an estimated USD 5.5-12.6 trillion of potential annual value by 2030.

Our platform tracks 94 040+ IoT companies, including 10.1K+ startups, alongside 257.3K+ patents from 97.2K applicants. This volume typically correlates with the fast commoditization of devices and connectivity and differentiation shifting into software, lifecycle tooling, and verticalized outcomes.

IoT’s Demand Baseline: Enterprise IoT at USD 324B in 2025

Ericsson estimates that total cellular IoT connections were around 4.5 billion in 2025 and forecasts a 10% CAGR through 2031 to approach 8 billion by the end of 2031.

This explains why device management, SIM/eSIM orchestration, and cross-border connectivity economics show up as recurring themes in enterprise IoT scaling.

For LPWAN-scale deployments that sit alongside cellular and Wi-Fi, the LoRa Alliance reports that over 350 million end nodes and 6.9 million gateways with LoRa ICs have been deployed worldwide as of June 2024. It also references an Omdia projection that LoRaWAN will drive LPWAN connections beyond 3.5 billion by 2030.

These are strong numbers that justify why massive IoT is increasingly about low-power economics and long-lived assets (metering, buildings, cities), not just high-throughput industrial endpoints.

The IoT industry demonstrates both scale and steady expansion across key indicators. StartUs Insights Discovery Platform’s database captures 10 100+ startups within a broader ecosystem of 94 040+ companies.

The industry is expected to grow from USD 76.97 billion in 2025 to USD 356.23 billion by 2034, at a CAGR of 18.56% from 2025 to 2034.

The IoT sector expands at a steady pace as our dataset records a 4.88% yearly industry growth rate. This momentum is reinforced by an entrepreneurial base, with 10.1K startups actively building solutions across hardware, connectivity, platforms, and analytics.

The 4G/5G declared patents are distributed across key cellular IoT standards. LTE-M and NB-IoT exhibit a balanced spread, with many patent families declared under both 4G and 5G. In contrast, LTE-Cat 1 filings are concentrated primarily in 4G, while vehicle-to-everything (V2X) declarations are predominantly associated with 5G.

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Hermes and Soteria enables Real-time Subsurface Monitoring

Australian startup Hermes and Soteria offers Overwatch, an IoT-enabled subsurface monitoring system. It provides continuous, real-time visibility into the structural health of tailings storage facilities.

The system deploys rugged underground probes equipped with 6 sensor types that track 9 indicators. These include seismic movement, positive and negative pore pressure, pH, salinity, soil moisture, and temperature. It then transmits this data through a self-powered surface network built for remote industrial environments.

The workflow begins with a geophysical subsurface assessment that identifies optimal probe locations, followed by installation through standard drilling methods and configuration of the cloud platform to establish operational thresholds, role-based access, and automated alerts.

Once active, the IoT network streams live measurements to a centralized dashboard. This allows operators to detect early shifts in geotechnical conditions, validate risk levels, and trigger intervention before instability escalates.

iYo-T Technologies builds a Remote Aquaculture Monitoring Device

Indian startup iYo-T Technologies develops an IoT-based remote aquaculture monitoring device that collects real-time measurements through rugged, wireless sensors. The measurements include pH, dissolved oxygen, ammonia, electrical conductivity (EC), temperature, humidity, and soil moisture.

These readings are available in a cloud dashboard that visualizes trends, alerts users to abnormal conditions, and supports data-driven decisions that improve crop performance, stabilize water quality, and reduce production costs. The platform also integrates into existing farm infrastructure, whether monitoring a single pond or a distributed network of sites, and supports custom configurations for industrial and agricultural projects.

By enabling remote access, automated analytics, and scalable deployments, iYo-T Technologies optimizes resource use, strengthens operational oversight, and achieves higher yields while minimizing waste.

Anedya offers Cloud-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service

Indian startup Anedya provides an IoT cloud platform that connects, manages, and analyzes data from distributed devices. It streamlines onboarding by enabling users to create device nodes, bind hardware through secure keys, and begin transmitting data.

The platform offers high-performance data aggregation APIs that compute averages, trends, and other metrics across large datasets in real time to support fast queries and efficient analysis without custom backend development.

Once the devices are connected, the platform handles ingestion, normalization, storage, and access control, and allows developers to retrieve telemetry, monitor fleets, and build applications through a clean API interface.

Enfarm provides Soil Nutrient Monitoring Solutions

Singaporean startup Enfarm leverages AI and IoT to offer real-time soil intelligence and tailored crop guidance solutions. Enfarm Transponder is a handheld device that wirelessly sends sensor readings to the companion mobile app for on-site monitoring. The company’s sensor collects soil and environmental data and transmits it to the transponder or gateway for processing.

A gateway acts as the communication bridge to receive sensor data and upload it to the cloud for remote monitoring. The sensor station is an integrated unit that gathers multi-point soil and environmental data and sends it to the gateway and cloud for visualization and farm management insights.

These devices continuously measure key soil parameters, including pH, N-P-K nutrients, temperature, moisture, and electrical conductivity. The readings are then transmitted to a mobile app or centralized dashboard to offer an instant picture of field conditions and enable precise fertilizer and irrigation decisions.

Hydrotwin simplifies Underwater Sound Monitoring

Portuguese startup Hydrotwin offers an IoT-enabled platform that monitors, analyzes, and interprets underwater acoustics in real time. For this, it combines connected hydrophone systems with edge computing, AI models, and cloud-based visualization tools.

Its sensors stream acoustic data to embedded processing units that classify sound sources and measure noise levels directly at the edge. This reduces latency and ensures that critical events are detected without relying on remote servers.

The platform then synchronizes processed data to the cloud. Here, users access a unified dashboard for viewing soundscape trends to review classified events and compare recordings across locations.

In addition to live monitoring, Hydrotwin supports post-processing of existing datasets through its analytical models. This enables researchers and operators to extract new insights from archived recordings.

Designed for flexible deployment, it integrates with a range of underwater hardware configurations and supports services such as model training, mooring design, sensor integration, and field maintenance.

Edge, Wearables & IIoT are the Key Trends

The industry grows at an annual rate of 4.88%, supported by a substantial innovation base of 257.3K patents. It also sustains a sizable global workforce of 7.6 million people, with 2.4K new employees added in the last year.

Discover the emerging trends in the IoT market along with their firmographic details:

Edge Computing

Edge Computing remains one of the most significant domains, with 117 240+ companies operating in the space. It supports a global workforce of 7.5 million employees, including 2300 new hires added over the past year. The trend’s 6.29% annual growth rate reflects its rising importance in reducing latency, improving data sovereignty, and enabling real-time analytics.

Wearables

The wearables segment represents a large workforce footprint, with 129 950+ companies employing 9.4 million people. The addition of 2400 new employees showcases ongoing diversification beyond traditional consumer devices into health monitoring, enterprise productivity, and safety applications. The 1.03% yearly growth rate indicates continued adoption across sectors.

Industrial IoT (IIoT)

The IIoT domain remains a strong pillar for digital transformation in manufacturing, logistics, and energy. It comprises 43 910+ companies with 3.5 million employees, including 860+ workers added in the last year. Its 0.70% annual growth rate reflects stable but persistent investment as enterprises modernize operations, integrate sensor-driven automation, and strengthen predictive maintenance capabilities.

Capital Context: USD 469B Global VC in 2025

The IoT market is supported by a broad and diverse investor base of more than 31 300 investors participating in the sector that range from venture funds and corporates to private equity and strategic industry players.

A major 2026 deal is Texas Instruments’ agreement to acquire Silicon Labs for USD 7.5 billion at USD 231 per share in cash, with expected close in H1 2027. The company plans to expand its presence in wireless connectivity chips used in industrial and consumer applications.

Cisco’s completed acquisition of Splunk is an example of platform-layer M&A that signals observability and security convergence. Cisco closed its USD 28 billion Splunk acquisition and positioned integration across observability and security portfolios.

In an IoT context, this supports the point that telemetry volumes and asset visibility are pushing buyers toward integrated monitoring and detection stacks rather than point tools.

In total, the industry has seen over 44.9K funding rounds closed with investments reaching more than 11 540 companies.

The combined value invested by top investors exceeds USD 20.9 billion, showing concentrated capital deployment across major IoT innovators.

Data Inputs and Filtering

This IoT market outlook utilizes the StartUs Insights Discovery Platform to analyze 9M+ companies, 25K+ technologies and trends, and 190M+ patents, news articles, and market reports. The analysis focuses on deployable IoT value chains – device and sensor systems, connectivity layers (LPWAN/cellular/5G), edge compute and gateways, device management and OTA lifecycle, cybersecurity-by-design, and vertical IoT applications.

Using five years of data, it tracks how edge-first architectures, fleet-scale operations, interoperability standards, and compliance-driven security requirements are moving from pilot programs into repeatable rollouts in industrial, infrastructure, healthcare, and consumer ecosystems.