This report provides Transforma Insights’ views on the Beacons market. This segment comprises stationary beacons which are deployed at retail stores and other commercial establishments.
Beacons are small wireless Bluetooth devices that transmit a signal to other Bluetooth devices such as smartphones. There are many applications for beacons. Retailers use them to send personalised offers to shoppers, airports implement them for indoor navigation, and hospitals use them for patient tracking and asset management. Beacons can also play a crucial role in smart cities, industrial automation, and event management, helping organisations streamline operations and enhance user experiences. However, the impact of these devices hasn’t reached the heights of early expectations due to challenges such as limited range and accuracy, battery requirements, privacy concerns, and low consumer engagement. The availability of alternative options such as NFC tags and cameras has also inhibited the usage and deployment of these devices.
The report provides a detailed definition of the sector, analysis of market development and profiles of the key vendors in the space. It also provides a summary of the current status of adoption and Transforma Insights’ ten-year forecasts for the market. The forecasts include analysis of the number of IoT connections by geography, the technologies used and revenue.
A full set of forecast data, including country-level forecasts, sector breakdowns and public/private network splits, is available through the IoT Forecast tool.
The report examines key factors that are influencing the development of the market, including:
This section of the report first defines what beacons are and then explains their benefits over traditional GNSS and how the use cases for beacons are limited due to their capability of only one-way communication. It then explores the range of applications in which beacons play a crucial role, like in retail, airports, hospitals, smart cities, industrial automation, and event management.
Then it describes the two types of beacon protocols (the ‘iBeacon’ protocol and the Eddystone) and then expounds upon their features and benefits. For instance, the ‘iBeacon’ protocol, which was released by Apple in 2013, can communicate with both iOS and Android phones. The protocol uses Bluetooth Low Energy beacons to transmit a unique user ID, allowing operators to track devices or send location-based actions.
This section of the report focuses on the variance in costs and capabilities of beacons. It explains how the battery life of beacons (which typically hovers between 18 months to 4 years) is one of the most crucial considerations for an operator, as battery replacement is often the costliest aspect of using beacons. It then charts the communication technologies which dominate the beacons market (Bluetooth and Ultra-Wideband) and explains the benefits and drawbacks of each of them. For instance, the low cost of Bluetooth makes it suitable for small businesses and in situations where accuracy isn’t that vital.
By providing examples of real deployments, this section of the report explains how beacons are deployed across multiple industries for a wide range of use cases and applications. Case in point, Levi’s Stadium in the US installed beacons that provide navigation and positioning services and allow customers to order food directly to their seats, leading to a significant increase in concession revenues. It also argues that beacons can be deployed for a range of niche use cases, like in public safety during emergencies. To substantiate this argument, it gives the example of 1,000 beacons being deployed in Columbus (USA), which allows the city’s police to detect the exact location of any user who tries to contact them.
In a tabular format, the report then charts the benefits of deploying beacons in various use cases, including proximity marketing, tourist information, device calibration, entertainment, indoor navigation, public transport notifications, and location tracking. For example, bacons provide updates to travellers regarding schedules, delays, and the imminent arrival of buses and other modes of transportation and the city of Luxembourg has deployed beacons at its bus stops to alert passengers about the arrival of buses.
This section of the report charts the challenges that beacons face, which have limited their adoption in the market. For instance, while beacons are cheap and can be easily installed anywhere, the cost of replacing their batteries can be prohibitive from a financial and administrative perspective. Moreover, most of the beacons have a standard coverage of about 70 metres, which has limited their applications and usage to indoor locations. Moreover, there is a range of alternative technologies, which can be used instead of beacons for tracking and proximity-based applications. For example, cameras can be deployed to track people and specific assets in a factory or a warehouse. It then provides a few examples of relevant IoT deployments in this application, such as Navigine collaborating with MOKOSmart to deploy connected beacons in its logistics facility and DriveQuant partnering with Kontkat.io to improve a car dealership’s relationship with customers and provide improved after-sales support.
The key vendors section lists some of the main providers of products and services related to the market such as Kontakt.io, Estimote Beacons, Infillion, Sensoro, HID Global, MOKOSmart, and Minew. The report provides profiles of the various vendors including aspects most relevant to this Application Group, such as product offerings, pricing, financial results, and technology.
In the market forecasts section, we provide a summary of the forecasts from the Transforma Insights IoT Forecast Database:
The report charts the growth in the number of beacons, which will grow from 92.9 million in 2024 to 143.9 million in 2034.
Transforma Insights forecasts are compiled on a country-by-country basis. This report includes a regional summary, showing splits between Australasia, Greater China, North America, Europe, Japan, Latin America, MENA, Russia & Central Asia, South East Asia, South Korea, India & South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Transforma Insights’ IoT forecasts include splits between the various connectivity technologies as follows: 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G mMTC, 5G non-mMTC, LPWA (non-mMTC), Satellite, Short Range, and Other.
This section discusses which technologies will be used in the Beacons application group.
This part of the report discusses the market growth in terms of revenue (module revenue, service wrap revenue, and VAC revenue). Transforma Insights estimates that the revenue in the Beacons Application Group will grow at a CAGR of 5%.
