Energy & Utilities Cellular Connectivity Revenue to Exceed $5 Billion in 2030
6th May 2025, London, UK: A new report from connectivity specialist research house Kaleido Intelligence has found that revenue from connectivity across the energy and utilities sector will exceed $5 billion in 2030, up from an expected $1.8 billion in 2025. This growth will primarily come from smart grid deployments, with a wide variety of use cases anticipated from 5G network roll-outs across the globe.
The new research, Cellular IoT Connectivity Series: Energy & Utilities Opportunities 2025, draws on insights from Kaleido’s latest enterprise connectivity survey and notes that demand for the latest technologies in deployments is high, with 64% of respondents deploying cellular IoT in energy and utilities reporting that support for the latest cellular technologies was a factor influencing their choice of connectivity provider.
“Much energy and utilities infrastructure needs to stay in place for years, if not decades”, remarked research author James Moar. “It is this concern that is driving the desire for the latest connectivity, so that users can be sure that their equipment will not become obsolete as cellular generations change.”
Mining and Grid Driving Up Data
Kaleido expects over 800 petabytes of data to be generated by the sector as a whole by 2030, over 90% of it from the mining and smart grid sectors. This is from increased automation in mining, and rising use of distributed grid technologies. However, the report notes that much of it will not be directly monetised, particularly in mining, as much of it will be deployed in private networks, which do not typically monetise data traffic directly.
Smart meters will account for most of the connections in the sector, but these are LPWAN (low power wide area network) connections that send only small amounts of data per connection. They are also the slowest-growing sector, with many alternatives to cellular tech, and several government mandates having already run their course. As such, Kaleido expects them to account for only 5% of data usage, despite being over 80% of connections in the sector.
This disparity in the smart meter market also impacts where the money is to be made in this industry; while East Asia and Europe, with their smart meter mandates, account for a combined 73% of all connections, they will only generate 33% of the revenue from the sector.
About Kaleido Intelligence
Kaleido Intelligence is a specialist consulting and market research firm with a proven track record of delivering telecom research at the highest level. Kaleido Intelligence is the leading research company addressing mobile roaming and connectivity services in its entirety, covering industry-leading market insights, data forecasts, historical viewpoints, competitive intelligence and operator market surveys.
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