Manufacturing Cellular Connectivity Revenue to Exceed $8 Billion by 2030
5th June 2025, London, UK: The latest research from connectivity specialist research house Kaleido Intelligence has found that cellular connectivity in the manufacturing sector will exceed $8 billion in 2030, growing at a CAGR of 34% from under $2 billion in 2025. Leveraging a growing range of use cases, parts of the manufacturing sector have shown a strong interest in cellular connectivity, especially private cellular networks.
The new research, Cellular IoT Connectivity Series: Manufacturing Opportunities 2025, notes that growing interest in computer vision and automation use cases will steadily increase the ARPC of manufacturing cellular connections. However, this will not necessarily be down to 5G connectivity, with use of RedCap modules in particular remaining low outside of China thanks to high module costs. This is despite a high level of interest in the latest technologies, driven by a desire to have devices in the field for many years in a rapidly evolving technology landscape.
Private cellular networks are of great interest to many manufacturing players, with Kaleido’s enterprise cellular IoT survey noting over 40% of manufacturers said they were considering private cellular networks. However, this will take time to implement, and we expect less than 10% of global manufacturing premises to adopt cellular IoT of any sort, although this will be higher in economies like Germany, Japan and the US, as well as a growing manufacturing base in other European countries.
Cellular Must Work Alongside Other Connectivity
Part of the reason for this relatively low adoption is the high level of fungibility for cellular connectivity for many use cases; the report notes that while cellular connectivity is often the most popular connectivity choice, it is far from the only one. As a result, cellular connectivity providers must be able to integrate with non-cellular systems in both legacy and greenfield deployments.
“Cellular connectivity often promotes itself as a technology-first solution”, remarked research author James Moar. “However, our research has found that the manufacturing industry has shifted to wanting solutions-based products, regardless of the underlying technology, as well as increased interest in end-to-end solutions. Cellular providers need to demonstrate that the technology is the best fit on utility grounds, rather than simply assuming its superiority is self-evident.”
This means that cellular connectivity can serve as transport for other types of connectivity; as well as supporting high-data connections, many of the almost 200 million connections in 2030 will act as points of collation and relay for a number of other devices, keeping data rates relatively high.
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