According to ANCOM’s survey, 22% of the Romanians have heard of IoT, more people aged 16-30 and 31-45 being familiar with the IoT concept (over 30%) than those aged 46 and above (7-10%).

IoT is more widely known in households where the monthly income exceeds RON 6,000 (43%), whereas this concept is familiar in only 14% of the households with a monthly income of maximum RON 3,000.

Considering the respondents’ occupation, a substantially higher share of pupils/students and active people (employers/employees) are acquainted to IoT (28-46%), than inactive categories of population (retired, unemployed people) – 8%.

 

At a national level, 4% of the respondents were IoT users, i.e. on average, every sixth respondent aware of the IoT holds intelligent personal devices or home appliances. However, the difference between the urban (6%) and the rural (1%) areas is considerable.

67% of the IoT users have purchased the devices together with their connectivity component, usually from a mobile communications provider (50%), but also from the equipment provider (17%), and 24% have purchased the devices and the internet connectivity separately.

The IoT devices most frequently used among the survey respondents are smart watches/wristbands (2%) and smart TVs enabling access to/control of other devices (2%). Other categories of IoT devices are less commonly used (less than 1% each).

65% of the IoT users deem that it has already become personal routine, whereas 25% of them believe that it will enter their daily lives in the next couple of years.

 

Comfort is deemed as the main benefit that IoT can bring about (by 42% of the respondents), personal and family safety is appreciated by 33% of the respondents, while 20% value activity automatization and 17% household consumption optimization.

On the other hand, the respondents consider that the most important challenges rising once with the uptake of IoT are the theft or loss of personal data (35% of the respondents), the high costs of IoT devices (34%) and the breach of data confidentiality (25%).

51% of the IoT users declared the main reason why they had started using the Internet of Things was its usefulness in the daily life, whereas 45% were curious about its functionalities and wanted to test the options it offered. 28% started using IoT because they had a passion for technology.

Overall, 79% of the IoT users deem that this type of devices has brought about more benefits than costs. Therefore, 46% of the users find them affordable, with smart watches/wristbands and smart TV/household appliances at the top of their preferences.

 

One third of the respondents are familiar with the 5G concept, their profile being similar to that of the respondents who have heard of IoT.

Once with the deployment of 5G in Romania, 47% of the respondents expect better national coverage, 31% anticipate higher download/upload speeds and 26% hope for fewer connection failures.

 

With a view to obtaining a set of relevant information on the use of IoT by the end-users - natural persons, ANCOM commissioned a market survey, carried out by Metro Media Transilvania between October and December 2018. It was conducted on a total sample of 3,066 respondents, of which 1,461 were IoT users (error margin ± 2.6%) and 1,605 were no IoT users (error margin ± 2.5%). The survey is available, in Romanian, here.

 

Internet of Things (IoT) is a global infrastructure for the information society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting (physical and virtual) things based on, existing and evolving, interoperable information and communication technologies. Intelligent devices that are connectivity-enabled and are therefore included in the IoT category, thus being taken into account for this survey are: home appliances, smart watches/wristbands, home sensors, meters, heating/air conditioning systems, cars, entertainment devices, sports equipment, etc.