China's Internet of Things sector poised for robust growth in the next 5 years

Over 300 smart city initiatives have been launched.

China's IoT sector will grow robustly over the next five years on the back of financial and policy support from the government, said BMI Research.

In particular, the research firm which is a FitchGroup Company explains that the manufacturing and agricultural sectors take the front seat due to their importance in the economy, and industrial IoT adoption in these sectors are set to outperform.

"Consumer IoT has lagged due to this focus, but we see it picking up speed with China Mobile's push into the fixed-mobile converged market," it said in a report.
The government has highlighted the integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) as a key theme in its 13th five-year plan and we believe this national-level push will be the key factor driving the development of the IoT in China (see '13th Five-Year Plan To Provide Boost To Domestic IT, CE Sectors', March 22 2016).

Already, BMI notes that the city have already seen the government's IoT movement start to take shape.
State-owned operators China Mobile and China Telecom have set plans to roll out nationwide narrowband (NB)-IoT networks by 2018, while more than 300 smart city initiatives have been launched.