The global installed base of connected tanks will reach 22.2 million in 2025 compared with 4.8 million units at the end of 2020, according to market watcher Berg Insight.

The installed base of active remote tank monitoring (RTM) is predicted to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 35.5 per cent.

Berg estimates that the European market accounted for more than 1.3 million active RTM systems at the end of 2020. The North American market is estimated to be larger than the European at around 1.6 million active units. The Asia-Pacific market represents an installed base of about 1.4 million RTM systems. South America, and Middle East and Africa are smaller markets having installed bases of 243,000 units and 388,000 units, respectively.

There are more than 100 RTM vendors active on the market worldwide. Berg ranks Otodata as the leading RTM provider in terms of the active installed base worldwide with an installed base of about a million RTM units. Otodata is based in Canada and primarily focuses on the fuel reseller segment in North America. Anova and SkyBitz (Ametek) were in second and third place having achieved installed bases of about 743,000 units and 180,000 units, respectively.

Anova has done a string of acquisitions including Independent Technologies, Wikon, ISA Intelligent Sensing Anywhere and iTank (Sierra Wireless) and Silicon Controls to become the second largest RTM vendor with more than 2000 customers in 70 countries.

SkyBitz is based in the USA and most of its tanks under management can be found in North America and a few in Mexico and other countries. Polish AIUT and Sensile Technologies from Switzerland followed in fourth and fifth place and had installed bases of 138,000 and 100,000 tank monitoring systems, respectively.

Tank Utility, FoxInsights, Angus Energy, Dunraven Systems, WacnGo and Kingspan are also ranked among the largest providers with 55,000 to 92,000 units each. Other RTM providers with installed bases of 21,000 to 50,000 RTM systems in active use at the end of 2020 include Varec, Atek Access Technologies, Powelectrics, Banner Engineering, FreeWave, SilentSoft, Insite Platform Partners, GreenCityZen and Schmitt Industries.

Merger and acquisition activity on this market is just about to commence at the same time as new innovative companies enter the market. Anova has been the most ambitious consolidator on the market so far with its acquisitions of five major companies.

“Additional companies have recently started to look at in-organic grow opportunities more actively including for instance Otodata that acquired Wise Telemetry in April 2021 and Wika that picked up Sensile Technologies during in Q3 2020,” said Johan Fagerberg, principal analyst at Berg Insight, who anticipates that the market consolidation of the remote tank monitoring industry will accelerate in the next five years.