The volumes of cellular-based IoT connections being sold in China dwarf that of the rest of the world, with the three mobile operators China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom claiming the top three spots as the world’s biggest IoT Communications Service Providers (CSPs), at least by volume of connections. And that is despite doing very little business outside of China.
Every year, Transforma Insights produces its Communications Service Provider IoT Peer Benchmarking 2023 report, looking at the capabilities of CSPs in addressing the global IoT opportunity. That report this year included 23 MNOs and MVNOs but excluded the three Chinese market leaders. Typically the Chinese players have been almost exclusively focused on the domestic market, meaning that they don’t come onto the radar for the global report. However, their sheer scale, and the importance of the Chinese market, mean that we cannot ignore them.
In this report we assess the capabilities of the three major CSPs in China in addressing IoT, including assessment of their organisational structure, networks, middleware platforms, data analytics, vertical solutions and overall approach to the market. We also assess their performance relative to CSPs in other parts of the world.
