A China-led international organization for IoT has released the 2018 World Internet of Things Ranking List (WIOTRL), featuring the top 500 companies involved in the development of connected things.
Headquartered in Beijing, the World Internet of Things Convention (WIOTC) gathers resources from more than 30 international IOT associations, standard organizations and more than 3000 IOT enterprises.
It includes among its members the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of IOT, Hong Kong IOT Association, Taiwan IOT Alliance, IOT Association of Guangdong Province, Alliance of Shaanxi IOT Industry, VDE, and the American Association of Industrial Internet.
The 2018 list was released at the WIOTC held at the China National Convention Center on October 20.
For the second year in a row, Chinese telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics company Huawei topped the list.
The Guangdong-headquartered firm has a robust mobile phone business but has also focused on ICT infrastructure and intelligent devices. In its annual report for 2017, it said its outlook for 2018 is that “emerging technologies like IoT, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and 5G will soon see large-scale commercial applications.”
Seven other companies joined Huawei in the WIOTC Top 50 — China Unicom, China Telecom, Alibaba Cloud, China Mobile, Haier U+, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), and Softbank.
In comparison, there are 21 companies from the United States (North America) in the top 50, led by three California-based technology conglomerates Qualcomm (No. 2), Google (No. 4), Cisco (No. 5).
In Europe, 21 companies also made it to the top 50, led by German engineering and electronics company Bosch (No. 3), Dutch global semiconductor manufacturer NXP (No. 9) and German-based software firm SAP SE (No. 11).
The WIOTC did not disclose how the 500 companies in the list were chosen but it said the list was selected by a special selection committee composed of international experts and scholars from China, the United States, Germany, France, Japan, India, representatives of the IoT associations, and the WIOTC Expert Advisory Committee.
Since its introduction in 2017, the WIOTRL “has become the world's most powerful and authoritative ranking on IoT,” according to WIOTC.
The list has been used, since its introduction in 2017, to promote the development of the global IoT industry and the construction of its network system.
It also envisions to encourage global enterprises to transform and upgrade towards IoT.
