India was the fastest growing (154 percent YoY) cellular IoT module market
The global cellular IoT module witnessed a revenue growth of 58 percent year-on-year (YoY) in Q4 2021, as per Counterpoint’s latest research.
China, the leading region in the cellular IoT module market, accounted for more than 40 percent of the revenue.
However, India was the fastest growing (154 percent YoY) cellular IoT module market. 5G was the fastest growing (324 percent YoY) technology followed by 4G Cat 1 (105 percent YoY). Router/CPE, PC and industrial were the top applications for 5G.
Senior Research Analyst Soumen Mandal said, “Quectel, Telit and MeiG held the top three positions in the global cellular IoT module market, accounting for 40% of the total revenue in Q4 2021. For 2021, global cellular IoT module shipments and revenue grew by 59% and 57% YoY respectively.”
Quectel’s cellular IoT module revenue grew more than 100% YoY in Q4 2021. Strong partnerships, superior service and a wide range of product offerings are supporting its growth. Quectel is leading in most regions except Latin America, India and Japan.
Telit made a strong comeback after a relatively weaker performance in recent history. Telit has been expanding its offerings, which is helping its revival. Telit NExT is providing flexible connectivity plans across 190 countries to take advantage of emerging business models and removing major bottlenecks for many IoT device vendors. In Q4 2021, Telit’s focus on Latin America to help customers migrate legacy 2G and 3G modules to 4G Cat 1 modules helped it become the leading module supplier in the region to complement its strong position in North America.
MeiG is another Chinese player which is making continuous progress and made it to the top three in cellular IoT modules, both in shipments and revenue. It is focusing more on AIoT and smart module-based higher-end applications such as router/CPE, intelligent cockpit, video recordings, industrial PDAs, drones and AR/VR. MeiG entered lower-end applications in 2021. In China, MeiG overtook Fibocom to become the second largest cellular IoT module vendor.
Automotive, router/CPE, industrial, PC and POS are the top five cellular IoT applications in terms of revenue. However, drones, PC and router/CPE are the top three fastest growing segments. Smart meters is another key segment but the lower ASPs of NB-IoT and 4G Cat 1 modules mean it is not among the top five IoT applications in terms of revenue.
The overall cellular IoT module ASP increased 7% sequentially due to supply chain constraints, especially in 4G modules. Chinese chipset players are trying to reduce the 5G module ASP for mass commercialization. However, 5G adoption hasn’t picked up as expected. We see 5G peaking in the global cellular IoT module market after 2025.
