The spending on Internet of Things (IoT) in the Asia-Pacific region will rebound in 2021 to reach $288.6 billion at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.7 per cent, according to a new IDC report.

On a geographical perspective, China, Korea, and India will account for more than three quarters of overall IoT spending in the region in 2021, followed by Australia and Indonesia.

Countries that will see the fastest IoT spending are China, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

The Asia-Pacific spending on IoT was deeply impacted in 2020 due to the pandemic hitting major economies in the region, with spending growth descending to 7.1 per cent (YoY) — down from the 12.5 per cent forecast prior to Covid-19.

Industries which were highly impacted by the pandemic (personal & consumer services, transportation, and discrete manufacturing resources) suffered reduced IoT investments in line to their reduction in overall IT spend.

With resumption of economic activities in the region due to better control of pandemic, these industries spend are expected to rebound back in 2021 and achieve double digit growth in the forecast period to 2024, according to IDC’s �Worldwide Semiannual Internet of Things Spending Guide.’

Driven by the pandemic in 2020, emphasis on overall health, work from home, safety, and need for better connectivity resulted in double-digit growth of healthcare, telecommunications, retail, and consumer industry.

“The current COVID-19 pandemic has slowed the growth of IoT spending in 2020 while, at the same time, highlighting the importance of public priorities to be rearranged in IoT for public healthcare and telemedicine, remote/online education, disaster management, automated manufacturing, online retail, food delivery, logistics and transportation and smart home services,” explained Bill Rojas, Adjunct Research Director at IDC Asia/Pacific.

The use cases that will see the fastest spending growth are healthcare use-cases such as bedside telemetry, remote healthcare monitoring and use-cases which reduces human interactions like omni-channel operations, advanced payment/shopping etc.

Long term focus on environmental conservation will lead to use cases such as electric vehicle charging and environmental monitoring detection to grow by 17.8 per cent and 17.7 per cent, respectively, in the forecasted period.

“Although COVID-19 continues to impact the economies in Asia/Pacific, more than two thirds of the organizations intend to retain their IoT budgets at same or increased level — 50 per cent of which will increase the IoT investments,” said Sharad Kotagi, Associate Market Analyst at IDC Asia/Pacific.