The enterprise and automotive Internet of Things market will grow to 5.8 billion endpoints by 2020, Gartner has predicted. This will be a potential 21% increase from this year.

The research advisory company also predicts that by the end of 2019, 4.8 billion endpoints will be in use, which is a 21.5% increase from 2018.

The highest user of IoT endpoints, Gartner forecasts, will be the utilities sector, with it using around 1.17 billion by the end of 2019 and 1.37 billion by 2020.

Peter Middleton, senior research director at Gartner says, “Electricity smart metering, both residential and commercial will boost the adoption of IoT among utilities,”

“Physical security, where building intruder detection and indoor surveillance use cases will drive volume, will be the second largest user of IoT endpoints in 2020.” He continued.

Growth in the market

The area that is expected to experience the biggest growth rate by 42% is thought to be building automation, driven by connected lighting devices. This is followed by automation, which is presumed to grow by 31%. Gartner suggests that cars implanted with IoT connectivity will be the driving force behind the rise in the market.

Following closely behind the growth in automotive is healthcare, which is estimated to have a 29% increase in the market due to chronic condition monitoring.

Integrating IoT

“Overall, end users will need to prepare to address an environment where the business units will increasingly buy IoT-enabled assets without policies for support, data ownership or integration into existing business applications,” said Alfonso Velosa, research vice president at Gartner.

“Product managers will need to deliver but also to clearly and loudly communicate their IoT-based business value to specific verticals and their business processes, if they are to succeed in this crowded arena,” added Velosa.

Gartner believes that globally, governments will increase the use of IoT to focus on public safety.