Vodafone leads Western operators with 234 million IoT connections

Vodafone was the largest Western provider of cellular IoT connectivity services at the end of 2025, with 234 million connections, according to research from Berg Insight. 

The operator ranked fourth globally, behind China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, but remained comfortably ahead of AT&T, which placed fifth with 160 million connections.

China continues to dominate the global cellular IoT market. China Mobile reported 1.48 billion connections at the end of 2025, followed by China Telecom with 746 million and China Unicom with 723 million.

The worldwide number of cellular IoT connections increased by 11 per cent during the year to reach 4.2 billion, equivalent to around 32 per cent of all mobile subscriptions.

Global IoT connectivity revenues rose by five per cent to €14.5 billion, although average monthly revenue per connection fell by seven per cent to €0.31.

Berg Insight said IoT connectivity now generates between one and four per cent of service revenues for the largest mobile operator groups.

The research firm forecasts that the number of cellular IoT devices will increase to 6.5 billion by 2030, generating annual connectivity revenues of €21.5 billion.

Airtel recorded the fastest growth among the leading operators, more than doubling its IoT base to 69 million connections. Verizon and Deutsche Telekom each managed between 62 million and 69 million connections, while Telefónica and Orange had around 59 million and 58 million respectively.

Berg Insight also highlighted the growing importance of IoT managed service providers, which combine access to multiple mobile networks through roaming agreements, sponsored IMSIs and eSIM profiles.

These providers collectively managed more than 250 million cellular IoT connections at the end of 2025 and generated annual revenues of around €1.9 billion.