IoT 2022 in review: The 10 most relevant IoT developments of the year

As we start 2023, the IoT Analytics team has again evaluated the past year's main IoT developments in the global "Internet of Things" arena. This article highlights some general observations and our top 10 IoT stories from 2022, a year characterized by a skyrocketing inflation rate, ongoing supply disruptions, and a looming recession. The 4.4% global growth forecast for the year (from January 2022) was almost certainly not reached, and the outlook for 2023 has been lowered to a meager 2.7% (as of Oct 2022). The Nasdaq Composite, one of the key indices for technology companies, fell 33.1% in 2022. Against this backdrop, IoT 2022 markets held up somewhat steadily, with the number of connected IoT devices growing to approximately 14.4 billion (exact update coming in a few weeks) with roughly $202 billion in IoT enterprise spending (IoT Analytics will publish the 2022 IoT spending actuals shortly). The public relevance of the term "IoT," which had been on the decline since October 2018, climbed back up by more than 30% to reach its all-time high levels in Q1 2022. Throughout 2022, we monitored significant developments regarding IoT technology. In the aftermath of the global pandemic and war in Ukraine, reports of congested ports, suppliers halting production, or critical cargo going missing became normal news in 2022.