In this article, Feraz Ahmed, CEO of Hayo, explores the opportunities and challenges for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in leveraging IoT to drive digital transformation and revenue growth in emerging markets.
Emerging markets across the globe are seeing rapid growth in network infrastructure, mobile networks and technology such as AI and 5G. This growth presents Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) with a huge opportunity to expand their reach and build additional revenue streams through IoT. With the right approach, they can play a key role in transforming the digital landscape of key emerging markets, while monetising the opportunity.
One area that is home to many emerging markets is sub-Saharan Africa. Licensed cellular IoT connections in this region are set to almost double between 2023 and 2030, from 27 million to 51 million, according to the GSMA, with South Africa contributing over 50% of this total. The economic impact of mobile is expected to grow from $140 billion to $170 billion in sub-Saharan Africa at the same time. It’s a huge opportunity at a crucial time.
Mobile operators have traditionally put too much emphasis on consumer subscribers, when the enterprise market can open the doors to a wide range of industries in need of digital transformation.
MNOs are in a superior position to enter the IoT market with existing network infrastructure and established relationships, but they need to put a strong focus on diversifying their offerings, and do it before competitors get there first.
An expert IoT partner with a solid platform and understanding of target local markets can hold the key to maximising network ROI, monetisation and growth, no matter the challenge.
IoT Across Industries
Enterprises often lack the internal infrastructure and expertise to make the most of IoT, and this is where MNOs can come in. By reselling IoT platforms to enterprises, MNOs can help to simplify enterprise operations, reduce costs and strengthen the growth of local digital economies, all while generating additional revenue streams for their own businesses.
IoT has wide-reaching benefits for all kinds of industries. For example, it is integral to smart city development, implementing features like smart lighting, traffic and waste management. Projects are already underway in emerging markets like South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Nigeria and Ghana, to name a few.
IoT can also help to extend healthcare to underserved areas, using features like remote patient monitoring, asset management and telehealth.
Within agriculture, it supports precision farming, livestock tracking and irrigation management. Farmers can increase profits and reduce waste by utilising smarter farming to monitor weather, soil and livestock.
The transportation and logistics sector can utilise IoT for fleet management, smarter logistics, asset tracking and traffic and route optimisation. This streamlines operations and reduces costs.
Not only this, but the mining industry can also harness IoT to monitor equipment and maintenance needs, helping to improve worker safety and boost productivity.
With rising connectivity demands across a variety of industries, it is time for MNOs in emerging markets to invest in IoT services now.
What Are the Barriers?
MNOs need to overcome challenges and accelerate speed-to-market to capitalise on the IoT opportunity in emerging markets across Africa, South Asia and other parts of the world. They need a partner that understands the barriers and can provide the local insights and expertise to get up and running, fast.
Taking Africa as an example, no single operator has complete coverage, which makes it vital to leverage multiple operators to gain full coverage. This makes a multi-IMSI SIM solution very important for IoT deployment across African markets.
Different regions across Africa often operate with individual roaming agreements and unique regulatory and pricing challenges. IoT generates a high volume of low-bandwidth data and requires continuous connectivity, which standard roaming agreements may not be suitable for. Managing multiple contracts and billing systems across country borders can cause complications for providers and negatively impact IoT adoption.
Moreover, traditional consumer SIM cards often aren’t IoT-optimised. Businesses using IoT have different connectivity and data requirements than consumer applications, which can result in poor network performance and inefficiencies. Many emerging markets still operate with 2G and 3G rather than newer technologies like 4G and 5G. These earlier technologies were not developed with IoT in mind, which can create further challenges.
Differentiating between IoT and consumer devices on a network is also critical. Advanced network analytics and device profiling techniques are needed, otherwise providers will struggle to optimise the network and produce an accurate pricing model, potentially decreasing ROI.
The IoT market covers various devices, manufacturers and connectivity standards, making integration and device management difficult without the right platform, solutions and expertise.
Partnering for IoT Success
As MNOs move into the IoT landscape, finding a partner that prioritises collaboration and interoperability is key. Local insights and experience are also invaluable to help navigate the regulatory landscape, accelerate service delivery and deploy go-to-market strategies with reduced risk. With the correct infrastructure, partnerships and strategy, the providers that act now will be best positioned to support rapid IoT adoption across emerging markets.
A comprehensive IoT platform can streamline the onboarding of new devices and applications and hugely accelerate IoT adoption, with standardised security protocols and compliance to reduce threats. It can also simplify SIM card management and provisioning, speeding up time-to-market and creating new growth opportunities.
MNOs can also benefit from add-on services from partners such as Roaming Data Steering (RDS), which channels data roaming traffic from target MNOs with discounted rates. This helps to boost operational efficiency and customer experiences, with reduced data usage and higher roaming revenues.
Emerging markets can hugely vary in terms of compliance and network operations, making local experience crucial for MNO success. An expert partner can offer tailored support and market-specific insights to maximise ROI and long-term growth.
Creating Long-Term Revenue Streams
IoT is building clear momentum across emerging markets, with technologies like AI and 5G making large-scale deployments more viable than ever. MNOs must make the most of this opportunity to grow their services and respond to increasing demand across key enterprise sectors.
The mobile operators that act now, prioritise partnerships and utilise a platform-based approach, will be the ones that can scale with confidence and build a strong position in this rapidly growing market.
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