A woman walks past a billboard of China Mobile, one of China's top three telecom operators. (Photo : Getty Images)
State-owned China Mobile Communications Corp. is cashing in on the rising adoption of Internet of Things as it eyes to grow its IoT-related revenue to 100 billion yuan or $15 billion over the next four years, China Daily reported.
China Mobile, the biggest telecom operator by subscribers, said that IoT will be one of the company's biggest revenue drivers as it transforms slowly to becoming a digital service provider.
According to China Daily, the company mans the largest 4G network in the world, thanks to its 1.3 million 4G bases stationed across the country. China Mobile has more than 400 million 4G subscribers as of May, exceeding the combined figures of Telecommunications Corp. and China United Telecommunications Corp. Ltd.
But as the voice and text business has taken a different turn globally, China Mobile is looking at IoT as a new cash cow.
"If everyone can link 10 items online, China will have at least 10 billion Internet-enabled connections by 2020. This is a huge opportunity," Li said at the 2016 World Mobile Congress in Shanghai, as quoted by China Daily.
The upgrade to 5G is already in the works to hasten the adoption of IoT in the consumer level.
"China Mobile's huge 4G presence and its cutting-edge 5G research will give the company an edge in capitalizing on IoT," industry expert Xiang Ligang told China Daily.
Meanwhile, China Mobile's deputy general manager Qiao Hui said that the telecom operator is looking to link five billion devices by 2020. This will translate to about 100 billion yuan in revenue.
China Mobile's IoT boost complements the global landscape. According to Gartner, more than half of new business systems and processes will adopt IoT.
However, the technology will no longer be treated as a single application and will instead be incorporated into existing systems or devices.
"There will be no purely 'IoT applications.' Rather, there will be many applications that leverage the IoT in some small or large aspect of their work," Gartner analyst W. Roy Schulte said.
