AT&T’s IoT business picked up steam in the third quarter, adding a record 1.6 million connected devices.
The carrier now has a total of nearly 25 million devices connected to the AT&T network, marking a year-over-year increase of over 25 percent when compared to the same quarter last year.
“This year was pivotal for IoT,” said AT&T Mobile and Business Solutions CEO Ralph de la Vega. “We saw, and are continuing to see, tremendous global interest and adoption from virtually every industry. We think 2016 will be the year when IoT becomes an indispensable part of our daily lives as consumers, governments and businesses fully embrace all it has to offer.”
The vast majority of connections added to the network were automotive, with around 1 million of the third-quarter numbers coming from connected cars. As of the third quarter, AT&T had around 5.8 million connected cars on its network.
Over the past year, AT&T has worked hard to expand its IoT business, signing more than 300 deals for connected devices across the automotive, shipping, industrial, healthcare, home security and smart cities sectors.
Among those deals were agreements with Subaru, Jaguar Land Rover and Audi to provide in-car connectivity through the AT&T network. AT&T now has deals with nine top automakers and said it expects to connect more than half of all new connected passenger vehicles in the United States by the end of this year.
AT&T also launched more than 14 new wearable devices in 2015, including health and fitness trackers.