Experts upbeat on Internet of things

The market value of China's Internet of things (IOT) industry as well as its primary applied technology, radio frequency identification (RFID), are poised for expansion over the coming years and months, experts said Tuesday at an industry exhibition.

The domestic IOT market is projected to be worth some 750 billion yuan ($122.39 billion) by 2015, Jin Dongbin, vice chief engineer at China Telecom, stated at the China International Internet of Things Expo, China International Smart Cards, RFID and IOT Exhibition & Conference 2013, a three-day event which kicked off Tuesday in Beijing.

Meanwhile, Zhang Qi, vice director of the electronic technology committee under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), also predicted that China's RFID market could be valued at as much as 32 billion yuan by the end of 2013, a figure which would represent an increase of 35 percent over the prior year.

The IOT refers to an Internet-like virtual network which connects objects using RFID technology, through which objects can be identified, located and inventoried.

Currently, China's IOT is primarily being utilized within the transportation and logistics sector, Song Haigang, an IOT expert at Nomura Research Institute, told the Global Times.

Since it first began picking up traction as a concept in China nearly four years ago, demand for IOT services and technologies has grown rapidly. By 2012, the domestic IOT market was worth 365 billion yuan, up 38.6 percent from the previous year; while the RFID market grew by 31.7 percent to 23.66 billion yuan over the same period, Zhang said at the exhibition.

Support from the government has been a major catalyst for growth in China's fledging IOT market, explained Song.

The first mention of the IOT in a government work report came in 2010. The 12th Five-Year Plan, which was issued in 2011, mentioned that the country would boost the scale of IOT research, establish internationally acknowledged standards for the industry and champion IOT related manufacturing and solutions. In February, the State Council announced that it would step up fiscal support and preferential tax policies for eligible IOT enterprises in order to promote healthy growth.

With top government planners standing behind the industry, many of China's listed IOT companies have reported positive results during recent accounting periods. In the first quarter, 36 of the 57 IOT firms trading on mainland bourses posted year-on-year profit growth, the Securities Times reported Tuesday.