Kaleido Intelligence’s IoT Roaming: Market Strategies & Forecasts 2022 report predicts a 27% average annual growth in permanent roaming IoT connections between 2021 and 2026, as market demand for sensing, monitoring and telemetry applications grows following on from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many of these connections are likely to be supported by LPWAN technologies such as NB-IoT and LTE-M, following on from key headway made during 2021 to support roaming for LPWAN, with NB-IoT seeing critical growth in the number of international roaming agreements.

LTE-based technologies to dominate IoT until well past 2026

While 5G has been touted as the technology that will support massive loT deployments, Kaleido found that growth in 5G loT connections has been relatively slow, with roaming 5G loT even more so.

by 2026, Kaleido estimates that only 43 million IoT connections will be roaming on 5G networks. Much of the current 5G loT activity is focused on Private Network support, where few customers require either national or international roaming onto public networks. Meanwhile, services that are expected to drive 5G loT roaming demand, such as network slicing, remain at a very nascent stage.

Steffen Sorrell, Research Lead at Kaleido Intelligence added: “5G IoT will surpass LTE-based technologies, although this will only occur after 2026. Present hardware availability, pricing and services and network support remain very early in their development. Meanwhile, the vast majority of IoT applications can be addressed via current LTE technologies”.

Outbound IoT Roaming Revenue to Exceed $21 Billion in 2026  

Kaleido’s report found that retail revenues from outbound IoT roaming connections will exceed $21 billion in 2026, growing at 29% CAGR between 2021 and 2026. This growth highlights that the market offers a potentially lucrative channel for a large range of players, particularly in the MVNO and service provider segment.

By marrying virtualised core network infrastructure with partnerships to gain access to roaming agreements and local IMSI ranges, there is a significant opportunity to compete for market share by combining a high level of flexibility with inherent strengths in customer service and the ability to cater to specific market segments.