The Zigbee Alliance, an organisation of hundreds of companies creating, maintaining, and delivering open, global standards for the Internet of Things (IoT), has announced that findings from leading market research firm ON World project an extremely favorable market for connected devices leveraging Zigbee Alliance technologies over the next five years.

ON World confirmed that half a billion Zigbee chipsets have been sold to date. Their analysts predict that 802.15.4 mesh chipset sales will increase to 4.5 billion by 2023, with the majority of those being based on Zigbee Alliance technology standards.

The firm’s most recent findings note Zigbee as the leading IoT connectivity technology for the smart home.

Estimates state Zigbee Alliance technologies will account for 3.8 billion (85%) of the 4.5 billion IEEE 802.15.4 units projected to ship by 2023.

“ON World has closely followed the IEEE 802.15.4 category for the past 15 years and has tracked Zigbee technology since before its flagship specification was ratified in December 2004,” ON World principal analyst Mareca Hatler says.

“Since then, our team has conducted extensive, year-round primary research on wireless sensing, tracking and control in dozens of ecosystems – interviewing and surveying thousands of companies of all sizes across the entire value chain.

“Our findings indicate Zigbee leads the wireless mesh sensor network market and will continue to do so.”

Key points and projections from the report include:

• Half a billion Zigbee chips have been sold to date.
• By 2023, 1 billion Zigbee chips will ship annually worldwide.
• By 2023, 4.5 billion cumulative IEEE 802.15.4 mesh devices will be sold worldwide – and 85% of those
will use Zigbee Alliance standards.
• Today, Zigbee makes up more than one-third of the smart home Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) chipset market.
• Zigbee is the leading IoT connectivity technology for the smart home.