New research from Omdia projects satellite Internet of Things connections will reach 197.6 million by 2035, up from 7.7 million in 2023, representing a 31 percent compound annual growth rate. The expansion reflects converging forces: a rapid build-out of LEO satellite constellations, greater bandwidth availability, and falling per-connection costs that have moved satellite from backup to primary connectivity option for a growing number of applications.
Low Earth Orbit is where the acceleration is concentrated. Geostationary Earth Orbit satellite IoT is also growing, though at a more moderate 7.3 percent CAGR. The gap between the two reflects how LEO's lower latency and expanding coverage have reshaped expectations for what satellite connectivity can support.
The automotive sector stands out as a particularly sharp adoption curve. Connected vehicles using satellite connectivity are forecast to grow from 11,000 in 2023 to more than 112 million by 2035, a 115 percent CAGR. Geely, Tesla, BMW, and Stellantis are among the manufacturers already deploying or testing satellite connectivity, building what Omdia describes as a "network of networks" that switches dynamically between terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks.
Agriculture and environmental monitoring, defence and military, energy and utilities, and transportation and logistics are also identified as high-adoption verticals. Each shares the characteristic that terrestrial connectivity is either unavailable or insufficient for the reliability and global coverage the applications require.
“While the technical advances in the satellite market are significant, their timing is equally important,” said John Canali, Principal Analyst, IoT at Omdia. “As IoT matures enterprises increasingly need global coverage without connectivity gaps, as well as greater resilience when terrestrial connectivity is unavailable. These requirements will become more pressing as IoT devices support a growing range of data-intensive models and automated applications.”
The Omdia forecast also points to declining connectivity costs as a structural enabler. The economics that once confined satellite IoT to high-value, remote-sensing use cases are no longer holding, and that cost shift is what makes the automotive number plausible: mass-market vehicles cannot carry per-connection costs that would be acceptable for a pipeline monitor or a shipping container.
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