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Australia’s enterprise 5G market in Australia is forecast to generate around $45 billion per year by the mid-2020, new Telsyte research has found.
The bulk of the market will consist of application development, IT services, platforms and connectivity, according to Telsyte’s Australian Enterprise IoT & 5G Study 2019.
The research, which surveyed 271 “IT decision-makers” across Australian businesses, claimed more 68 per cent of IT and business leaders see 5G as crucial for their future strategy, while half said it was critical for future application development.
However, a quarter of respondents said they would seek a partner to develop 5G applications, citing skills shortages as an issue.
Other potential barriers to 5G investment also included integration with current systems, with more than a third citing it as a concern. Twenty-three per cent said they were lacking a business case for development, while 17 per cent said they had security concerns.
The race to switch on 5G in Australia began heating up at the end of last year when Telstra claimed it had achieved Australia’s first live 5G connection using a commercial chipset on its mobile network.
In January, the telco said it had switched on 5G support at more than 200 mobile base stations and last week revealed its first 5G device, a HTC-manufactured mobile hotspot.
Meanwhile, rival Optus intends to deliver 1,200 5G sites by March 2020 and demonstrated its first 5G data call in January.
Enterprise IoT
One of the biggest results of the 5G roll-out for enterprises will be the ability to develop internet of things (IoT) applications.
As such, according to Telsyte, around half of organisations surveyed had pilot programs running or already have IoT in operation.
Among companies that do not have a formal IoT strategy yet, almost a third of organisations with more than 200 employees plan to adopt one within 12 months.
However, more than a quarter said they lacked a business case, while a further quarter claimed IoT tech was seen as too expensive. Around 20 per cent said a lack of skills was also a barrier.
Telsyte also found "shadow IoT", when non-IT groups in a business purchase and experiment unsanctioned with the technology, was a growing issue.
However, 81 per cent of those practising shadow IoT were experiencing "stalled" projects and also had issues such as inconsistent technology selection, poor fit for purpose and higher costs, Telsyte added.
