Vodafone obviously has a vested interest in talking up the success of M2M: it wants to sell SIMs to potential new customers, and it has been one of the most aggressive MNOs in pursuing the corporate side of this market.
But there is real growth there - while the M2M (machine-to-machine) sector currently only accounts for around 2% of its total revenue, it is growing at 25% as module costs plummet and awareness grows. Vodafone's M2M Barometer is a pretty useful tool to track the progress of M2M, and it's worth taking a deeper dive into it.
The report polled 650 businesses, and found that 76% had heard of M2M, up from 61% in 2014. In addition, 90% said M2M was relevant to their organization, up slightly from 86% the year before. On top of that, 27% said they had an M2M project in place, rising from 22% in 2014, with an additional 37% reporting that they had M2M projects ready to go live within the next two years.