Despite the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the IoT market still experienced growth, though at a slower rate than in previous year, IDC said. The consultancy firm  said it expects this growth to continue in 2021 in various sectors as operations, projects, and employees start to return to normal.

In 2021, the largest portion of spending in the IoT sector is expected to remain within the hardware (modules and sensors) category, followed by the services category, as an important area of spending for enterprises, driven by the need to evaluate, design, and deploy the physical devices and to support ongoing operation of the devices . The software category, especially application software for IoT used to organize and access a range of structured and unstructured information, will be the fastest-growing technology in the next few years, according to IDC.

However, IDC’s report  noted that COVID-19, and the uncertainty that has come with it, will continue to have an effect over the next few years in some industries, creating a mixed industry performance tied to the role of IoT use cases in the transition to the next normal.

The report also pointed out that the consumer sector will be the largest industry for European IoT spending in 2021. This will be driven by home automation solutions that enhance the living experience and streamline everyday interactions to create a connected home environment in which consumers can remotely monitor and control, through apps or websites, their home systems and home preferences/consumption. The second largest industry, manufacturing, was one of the most impacted industries in 2020 but it has leveraged IoT solutions to remotely track, monitor, and maintain industrial manufacturing devices that are part of the production value chain by assessing equipment conditions and remotely diagnosing equipment failures before they happen by analyzing the live stream of data produced by the machine.

该报告还指出，随着家庭自动化解决方案的日益普及，消费行业将成为2021年欧洲物联网支出最大的行业。这些解决方案可以提升生活体验，简化日常互动，创造一个互联的家庭环境。在这样的环境中，消费者可以通过移动应用程序或网站，远程监控和控制他们的家庭系统和家庭偏好/消费。第二大行业是制造业。虽然是2020年受影响最严重的行业之一，但借助于物联网解决方案，制造业能够在设备故障发生前，通过分析机器产生的实时数据流，评估机器的状况和进行远程事故诊断，从而跟踪、监测和维护作为生产价值链一部分的工业制造设备。

Also, remote health monitoring solutions that use IoT technology to improve the quality of life and care through accurate and focused medical home monitoring will make healthcare the fastest-growing industry in the next couple of years, IDC added.

“Even with COVID-19 changing the investment plans of many European enterprises, the IoT market continues to be attractive for many industries such as healthcare and retail, where IoT can support evolving multichannel retail strategies to provide a seamless consumer experience through any shopping channel,” said Alexandra Rotaru, research analyst at IDC Customer Insights & Analysis. “However, other verticals such as construction and personal and consumer services will see less demand and will develop more slowly in the coming years, focusing on supporting other business priorities in the post-crisis recovery process.”

“即便COVID-19改变了许多欧洲企业的投资计划，但物联网市场对许多行业仍具有吸引力，例如：医疗保健和零售业，因为就这些行业而言，物联网可以支持不断发展的多渠道零售战略，无论通过任何购物渠道，都能提供无缝的消费体验”，IDC客户洞察与分析部研究分析师Alexandra Rotaru表示，“但是，其他垂直行业，例如建筑业以及个人和消费者服务，将在未来几年面临需求减少的境遇，且发展速度也将变慢，因为他们必须重点关注在危机后恢复的过程中优先支持其他业务”。

SenRa has built an Internet of Things network and provides deployments in 74 cities throughout the country, with plans to build out across all other major cities and into second- and third-tier cities and villages, for solutions ranging from utility meters to transportation and environmental condition monitoring.