Despite the adversity caused by Covid-19, grounds for optimism remain for IoT spending in the USA, according to end-user research carried out by Strategy Analytics.

Looking at the US IoT market in Q2 and Q3 of this year, the report found that a quarter of IT decision makers plan to spend over $1m on IoT projects in the next two years.

IoT spend as a portion of IT spend was higher on average among US companies in 2020. And 16% of IT decision makers in the USA will spend over $1m on IoT projects over the next year, rising to just under a quarter in a one-to-two-year timeframe.

US short-term operational spending has increased ahead of strategic spending. More spending is happening outside the central IT budget.

A need for asset visibility is seeing deployments scaling, showing major growth in second half of 2021 and 2022. Major growth in IoT will focus on 5G and Wifi 6.

“The US has weathered the pandemic storm as effectively as any major market, with higher average spending on IoT than a number of other major markets,” said Andrew Brown, executive director at Strategy Analytics and author of the report. “Of course, business needs swung back towards short-term planning and operational spending, with delays on strategic IoT planning as a direct result of the pandemic, but we see serious investment in 5G, which will have a massive impact on IoT environments in the USA in the next 12 months and will be by far the most prominent technology.”

There are, however, problems relating to security, managing large deployments, in-house skills and partnerships.

“Security remains the primary barrier to deploying IoT, while unpredictable costs and the challenge of managing IoT networks and devices as deployments begin to scale are concerns among US companies,” said David Kerr, senior vice president at Strategy Analytics. “Having the right skill sets that are needed to deploy IoT effectively is vital. US companies struggle with having the right in-house resources and have an acute need for partners who have the knowledge and experience to make a deployment effective and successful.”

Strategy Analytics interviewed more than 300 IT decision makers across nine vertical markets across several markets, including the USA. The survey identified trends and the future direction enterprises plan to take regarding their IoT strategy, deployments and investments.