Just one in 12 UK resellers active in IoT, study finds
IoT still high risk because it is relatively new to market, claims compuBase report
Only eight per cent of channel firms in the UK and across EMEA are active in the Internet of Things (IoT) market, a report by IT channel database firm compuBase has found.
The market watcher's research contains feedback from 109,395 resellers across EMEA, out of which only 8,724, or eight per cent, claimed to resell, or have skills in IoT technology. The figures for the UK specifically were similar, with 1,163 of the 14,075 channel firms questioned (8.3 per cent), active in IoT.
The German channel is home to the highest volume of IoT adopters in EMEA, finds the report. Out of 22,582 German resellers surveyed, 2,261, or 10 per cent, said their business includes an IoT offering.
While the survey shows that Germany boasts the highest number of IoT resellers, Denmark came out on top on a proportional basis. Out of 1,500 Danish resellers surveyed, 257, or 17.1 per cent, claimed to have dealings with IoT.
The report found the Spanish and Italian channel to have the lowest adoption of IoT in Europe proportio Only eight per cent of EMEA nally. Out of 7,526 Spanish resellers surveyed, only 529, or seven per cent, claimed to provide an IoT offering, while only 565 or 6.9 per cent of Italian resellers surveyed out of a total 8,216 are offering the emerging technology.
A correlation between annual turnover and IoT adoption also emerged through compuBase's report. Almost half of the resellers surveyed with an IoT offering had global annual revenues between €500,000 and €3m, while 1,400, or 23 per cent, of resellers claimed to generate revenues in excess of €15m. Furthermore, 21 per cent of active IoT resellers claimed to employ more than 500 people.
The report read: "Though IoT is currently a popular buzzword, it is still relatively new to the market and therefore involves higher risks when implementing a go-to-market strategy. We can see that at this point in time the IoT adventure is being taken by larger companies which have the resources to create, develop and bring the IoT solutions to market."
Channel firms that label themselves as telecom and network infrastructure integrators represent the highest proportional adoption in IoT resale and skill sets. Sixteen per cent, or 701 out of 4,371 surveyed, claimed to have developed an IoT offering. Out of the 18,518 that describe themselves as hardware, software and services resellers for enterprise customers, only 709, or 3.8 per cent, claimed to be offering IoT resale or skills to customers.
Despite a relatively tame reception in the EMEA channel, vendor giants have been making enormous investments to boost IoT offerings, and encouraging channel partners to follow suit. IBM spent $200m (€186.02m) on a new IoT headquarters in Munich, while Samsung parted with $8m when it acquired connected cars firm Harman. Cisco's CEO Chuck Robbins meanwhile used the firm's San Francisco Partner Summit in November last year to rally partners around opportunites in IoT.