In our latest Webinar Series titled Internet of Things – Opportunities aplenty for Malaysia, we hosted Mr James Lai, Chairman of Malaysia IoT Association (MyIoTA), to share his perspective on the opportunities and challenges for traditional Malaysian industries to apply IoT solutions.

Implementing IoT in the industrial environment can reduce operating costs like electricity. Sensors can be installed in manufacturing facilities to monitor the temperature in real time and adjust the chiller system to an optimal setting instead of running at peak power throughout the day. This creates a win-win situation for the company’s bottom-line and green score as there is increasing emphasis on ESG. However, Adoption of IoT is still largely in its infancy due to: (i) conventional mindset, (ii) high investment cost and (iii) limited technical knowledge. This is where MYIoTA plays the role of bridging the gap between vendors and potential adopters via its large member network in the association. With Budget 2022 nearing, James is hopeful that the government will provide goodies to incentivise the adoption among local businesses.

Increasingly, telcos will also be more involved in the IoT ecosystem in Malaysia. While telcos currently already offer IoT solutions to enterprises, 5G connectivity will allow the telcos to offer 5Genabled ultra-low-latency IoT applications, such as autonomous vehicles and smart manufacturing.

Against the backdrop of a lack of network differentiation in the 5G era, we believe the telcos will be providing enterprises with not only IoT connectivity, but also the IoT application/use cases, fuelling revenue growth in the years to come. While the telcos have shown promising efforts in developing and preparing 5G-enabled IoT solutions, we think that Telekom Malaysia currently leads the pact with its extensive suite of in-house-developed IoT solutions.

With the right frameworks and ecosystem in place, we think that IoT opportunities aplenty in Malaysia.

Source: Kenanga Research - 29 Oct 2021