A report from IoT market research firm Berg Insight staes that global IoT connectivity revenues increased 5 per cent to reach €14.5 billion in 2025. The monthly ARPU dropped 7 per cent to € 0.31. IoT connectivity revenues account for 1–4 per cent of service revenues for the largest mobile operator groups. The global number of cellular IoT connections increased by 11 per cent to reach 4.2 billion at year-end 2025 – corresponding to around 32 per cent of all mobile subscriptions.

By 2030, Berg Insight projects that there will be 6.5 billion IoT devices connected to cellular networks worldwide, generating annual connectivity revenues of € 21.5 billion.

China Mobile is the world’s largest provider of cellular IoT connectivity services, benefiting from its position as the state-controlled mobile incumbent in the largest IoT market. At the end of 2025, the operator reported 1.48 billion cellular IoT connections and a year-on-year growth rate of 5 per cent. China Telecom and China Unicom ranked second and third with 746 million and 723 million connections respectively.

Vodafone ranked first among the Western operators and fourth overall with 234 million connections, followed by AT&T with 160 million in fifth place. Airtel in India recorded the highest yearly growth rate, with IoT connections increasing 115 percent to 69 million. Verizon and Deutsche Telekom had in the range of 62–69 million cellular IoT connections each. Telefónica and KDDI Orange were the last players in the top ten with about 59 million and 58 million connections respectively. The installed bases of the largest IoT connectivity providers grew at a rate of 5–115 per cent annually.

IoT managed service providers play a key role in the ecosystem. While the distinction between mobile operators’ IoT businesses and IoT managed service providers is becoming less clear, the latter benefit their network-agnostic positioning and ability to aggregate multiple mobile networks through roaming agreements, sponsored IMSIs and eSIM profiles. Due to the nature of their business, the players are becoming increasingly international, supporting customers in many parts of the world. Important players in this category include 1GLOBAL, 1NCE, 1oT, Aeris, Airnity, BICS, CSL Group, Cubic, emnify, Eseye, floLIVE, Giesecke+Devrient, Hologram, Kajeet, KORE, Lenovo Connect, Monogoto, Onomondo, Pelion, Semtech, Soracom, Tata Communications, Teal, Telit Cinterion, Velos IoT and Wireless Logic.

In total, IoT managed service providers had more than 250 million cellular IoT connections under management at the end of 2025 and around €1.9 billion in annual revenues.

Other posts by :

1. Arianespace trims ambitions for rocket update
2. Forecast: $5tn annual SpaceX revenues
3. Human AI; Access, Influence
4. Who else was eyeing Globalstar?
5. Analyst: Unrealistic expectations at SpaceX
6. Rocket Lab: “We will out-innovate SpaceX”
7. S&P ranks Arqiva’s debt as BBB+
8. AST SpaceMobile to make D2C progress this winter
9. EchoStar to put Hughes Network into bankruptcy

Categories: Articles, IoT, Markets, Mobile, Research

Tags: Berg Insight, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, semtech, Vodafone