Mobile M2M connections set to rocket

Cellular machine-to-machine connections are set to rise by a compound annual growth rate of over a third in the next four years, analyst firm Berg Insight has predicted, driven by rollouts of vehicle telematics.

The number of mobile network connections used for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications will grow from 37.5 million in 2007 to 186 million in 2012, according to the analyst firm.

However, Berg Insight predicted vehicle telematics — also known as wireless vehicle communications technology — apps will dominate the M2M cellular market in most parts of the world, accounting for more than half of all network connections by 2012.

Tobias Ryberg, senior analyst at Berg Insight, said safety and security concerns are driving the automative industry towards "massive rollouts of telematics".

Ryberg said in a statement: "In North America, OnStar already gives peace of mind to millions of drivers. Europe is well on the way to introducing the eCall automatic emergency call system and several Latin American countries are considering mandatory tracking devices on all new cars to combat epidemic vehicle crime."

Berg Insight said GSM and legacy technologies currently dominate the market, accounting for about 71 percent of the total number of active connections at the end of 2007. CDMA was the second most prevalent technology — strong in North America and parts of Asia-Pacific — while WCDMA has so far primarily been adopted for M2M apps in Japan.