Coming soon: 60 million connected machines

Connected machines are on the rise in Europe, says analyst house Berg Insight, and are predicted to number almost 60 million in five years' time.

Cars, smart energy meters, security alarms and point of sale (POS) terminals are just some of the devices that are being connected to mobile networks.

The analyst says the number of machines connected to mobile networks will grow by more than a third (34.2 per cent) in 2008 to reach 14.1 million by the end of the year, and 58.6 million by 2013.

Vehicles are expected to double their share of the installed base from just under a third (30 per cent) in 2008 to 60 per cent in 2013, Berg Insight added.

With such potential for growth, the analyst said mobile operators should become more actively involved in the machine comms market - in order to "position themselves for the future".

Tobias Ryberg, senior analyst at Berg Insight, said in a statement: "The total number of mobile network connections used by machines now equal that of a medium-sized European country. While the market for personal communication has reached its saturation point, the machine communication market will continue to grow for many years to come."

Berg Insight said Scandinavian countries currently have a very high proportion of smart energy meters; Germany and Italy are dominated by motor vehicle applications of machine comms; and Spain is focused on security alarms and POS-terminals.

The UK has "a more diversified market landscape" when it comes to machine comms applications, it added.