IoT and enterprise markets: five trends to watch in 2026

To help navigate the year ahead, we are releasing a series of reports that highlight the key trends to watch in 2025 and the implications for ecosystem players. The analysis covers five key areas: 5G and network transformation; spectrum; IoT and the wider enterprise market; the digital consumer; and fixed and pay-TV markets. This Insight Spotlight addresses IoT and the wider enterprise market.

As the telecoms industry and wider digital ecosystem evolve at an unprecedented rate, regularly assessing major developments and their implications is more important than ever. GSMA Intelligence's new Industry Checkpoint series helps navigate how the market is changing, identify the trends that matter and understand the implications.

The benefits of quantum computing come from the order-of-magnitude increase in computational power compared to conventional computers. This enables a range of use cases from predictive analytics to pharmaceutical simulations. However, there are also risks, primarily related to security vulnerabilities. Overall, we estimate around 8% of IoT devices currently in active use are quantum safe. Conversely, over 90% (i.e. nearly all) of IoT devices are exposed. The exposure risk for telcos comes at multiple levels, including networks, billing systems, consumer devices and IoT. The focus in this report is on the IoT dimension because it represents the largest universe of devices, is highly disparate and is particularly open to security risks due to the ageing nature of many assets deployed today.