South African-based Internet of Things (IoT) firm IoT.nxt will open an office in London UK early 2017, the first international office for the company founded one year ago.
The Pretoria-based IoT company has identified associates in the UK. The company said two members from IoT.nxt South Africa will be based in the UK during the launch phase of the office.
“We have experienced strong growth in the local market in the past year and we are ready to use the London office as a base to make inroads in the fast-growing global IoT market,” IoT.nxt CEO, Nico Steyn, said in a statement.
“We chose the UK as our first expansion outside South Africa due to the established strong business and trade ties between the countries and ease of communication between that office and the local head office. It offers an excellent foundation for expansion into Europe at a later stage.”
Business Insider’s premium research service, BI Intelligence, reported in August this year that an estimated $6 trillion will be spent globally on IoT in the next five years.
BI Intelligence projects that there will be 34 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020, up from 10 billion in 2015. IoT devices will account for 24 billion, while traditional computing devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc.) will comprise 10 billion.
The IoT ecosystem is managed by IoT.nxt innovative device known as the Raptor. The Raptor allows migration of analogue devices and inputs into a digital platform. It serves as a filter for big data and delivers cost savings and efficiencies to the client’s IoT ecosystem. Raptor is a translation tool that aides communication between less sophisticated devices over an IP network.