ARM's Mobile, Wearables and IoT Predictions for 2015

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ARM Holdings, the processor design firm whose chip technologies have dominated the mobile device space, issued its predictions for 2015 via a series of tweets yesterday.

Three weeks into the New Year, the company’s Twitter account (@ARMHoldings) lit up on Jan. 21 with 15 new predictions that hint at how the company may be approaching the white-hot market for low-power, mobile processors. According to the company’s crystal ball, devices will grow more powerful, interconnected and a touch more personal as 2015 winds on.

Among the highlights is ARM’s first prediction, which indicates that the company is expecting healthy demand for its own 64-bit chip designs. In 2015, 50 percent of smartphones shipments will be 64-bit capable, posted ARM.

On the wearable device front, ARM is suggesting that vendors and developers step up their game and take their users’ real-world interactions into account while building their solutions. “Wearables must pass ‘don’t leave home without me’ test by delivering actionable, contextual info,” the company tweeted. The company also expects the buzz surrounding the Internet of Things to shift from wearables this year to robotics.

IoT’s effect on the bottom line will be most strongly felt in cities and enterprises, in the form of higher revenues. ARM also expects that the diverse crop of “IoT standards groups will start to consolidate as industry begins maturing.” Chinese IoT semiconductor vendors “will start to deliver significant design wins,” predicted the company.

The IT industry is flocking to the burgeoning IoT market, establishing a foothold and readying solutions to help enterprises cope with (and help monetize) the massive amounts of data and traffic that a sensor- and mobile device-filled world will generate over the next several years. By 2020, Gartner predicts that the Internet of Things will grow to encompass 26 billion devices and generate $300 billion in incremental revenue that same year.

Heightened data security concerns to will drive the adoption of hardware-based solutions that safeguard data “from sensor to server,” added ARM. Along the same lines, increased adoption of biometric technologies like Apple Touch ID will start pulling the identity management market further away from passwords, and mobile payments will finally take off – courtesy of more robust chip-and-PIN payment card systems.

Here’s the full, lightly-edited list:

50% smartphones shipped in 2015 will be 64-bit capable
Biometrics will drive alternative user ID strategies
Mobile operators will deploy smartphone services as de facto healthcare for rural areas
Wearables must pass ‘don’t leave home without me’ test by delivering actionable, contextual info
64-bit LTE smartphones will ship for under $70
IoT’s biggest revenues will be in cities and enterprises
Increasing cyberattack concerns will drive hardware security from sensor to server
More OEMs and Internet companies will acquire semiconductor vendors to drive their unique selling proposition (USP) into the value chain
Massive mobile payment surge with chip-and-PIN and smartphones will make retail more efficient
Benchmark data will shift end-user choice to purpose-optimized servers versus monolithic approaches
Effort will turn to efficiency and form factor as wirelessly-chargeable consumer devices enter market
Chinese semiconductor vendors’ focus on IoT will start to deliver significant design wins
Latest IoT buzz will shift from wearables to robotics
Diverse IoT standards groups will start to consolidate as industry begins maturing
System performance demands will move network functions virtualization (NFV) from software on server to tightly-coupled hardware accelerators