M&A activity in the IoT sector is robust, with 60 deals seen in the first quarter of 2025, and it is on pace to match 2024 levels. There are an estimated 20.1 billion connected devices worldwide, a figure forecasted to rise to 39.6 billion by 2033 due to growing demand from all types of industries and sustained strength in smartphone sales on the consumer side. 

Advances in telecommunications technology, such as 5G, enables the flow of vast amounts of data collected by IoT devices that enterprises use to monitor soil moisture, determine automotive health and more. The six trends driving M&A activity in the IoT sector include agriculture applications, remote patient monitoring, advanced analytics, AIoT, energy consumption monitoring and industrial IoT.