Re Predictions of IOT Growth

In part depends on how you define it.  Smart Home IOT has exploded, but security has added an element of caution.

Why the Internet of Things isn’t growing as rapidly as predicted from Verdict.co

Early forecasts for the IoT suggested that there would be 50 billion global devices connected by 2020, but in reality we have only reached about 2 billion. Let’s look at why the Internet of Things isn’t growing as rapidly as predicted.

In 2010, we started to see huge excitement about the IoT from a diverse ecosystem of suppliers, ranging from operators and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) to infrastructure vendors, module manufacturers, integrators, and solution providers. Early forecasts from companies such as Cisco and Ericsson suggested that by 2020 we would see from 20-50 billion devices connected.

What went wrong?
Initial suggestions were based on the assumption that once we had ubiquitous global connectivity, everything that could be connected would be connected. In the consumer market, projections were based on a huge rise in the number of connected cars (which we did in fact see), as well as in segments such as consumer electronics, wearables, smart watches, smart cities, and health monitoring devices. In the business segment, utilities, insurance, retail, industrial fleets, and manufacturing were (and still are) the primary verticals assumed to significantly benefit from IoT connectivity. The opportunity for IoT was also supposed to be global – not only from local/regional deployments across the world, but also from inter-country deployments where connections required roaming agreements and single-SKU global SIMs.  .... "