Axiata, Yen Global unit eye IoT opportunities in Asean

From left: Anil Chet Karamsingh, group business development consultant of Axiata; Dominic Arena, group chief strategy officer of Axiata; Gerard Lim, CEO of Atilze Digital and Howard Chen, founder, president and CEO of Gemtek Technology Co. Ltd.

KUALA LUMPUR: Axiata Group Bhd and Yen Global Bhd's unit have teamed up to seek Internet of Things (IoT) opportuniuties in Asean, with the initial focus on connected car solutions and commercialising city-wide LoRa network deployments.

Axiata said on Friday it had signed a 12-month collaboration agreement with Yen Global's  Atilze Digital Sdn Bhd to undertake the trial, explore, develop and pursue the IoT opportunities.

Atilze and Axiata will jointly implement proof-of-concept pilots for the connected cars and LoRa IoT network in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

LoRa or long range, low-power wide area network (LPWAN) technology provides a lower cost connectivity solution with broad coverage and lower energy consumption. Its technology is backed by several global telecom companies.

While LoRa suits the demands of IoT applications and services, it also complements the telco operators’ cellular 3G and 4G LTE networks.

It said connected car solutions' range of applications include advanced diagnostics, predictive maintenance, real-time fleet monitoring and management, driving pattern analysis, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), in-car WiFi, in-car Infotainment, in-car e-commerce, electronic gate-less toll payments and usage based insurance .

Axiata and Atilze would test and explore viable IoT applications as well as pursue broader potential business opportunities in the IoT sector. 

Concurrently, the collaboration encourages partnerships with other stakeholders within the ecosystem which have ready-made IoT applications to integrate into Atilze’s LoRa Network. 
 
With this collaboration, both Axiata and Atilze will work together to acquire partnerships and create collaborative ecosystems with other stakeholders in relation to the selected IoT solutions for the city-wide LoRa Network.

Atilze CEO Gerard Lim said there are huge opportunities for IoT applications and services across South and Southeast Asia, hence the decision to team up with Axiata due to its regional footprint and scale. 

“We have started introducing our IoT solutions to the market through Axiata and its operating companies as well as affiliates and early results have been very encouraging,” he said.

Axiata group chief strategy officer Dominic Arena said as Axiata transforms itself into a new generation digital company, it intend to lead the digital revolution and embrace new growth opportunities throughout the digital economy.

“IoT is one key pillar of our 'Axiata 3.0' strategy and is an emerging digital services sector estimated to be worth potentially US$30bil by 2020 in Axiata’s current footprint alone based on our own analysis of several independent forecasts. 

“We foresee the IoT sector growing exponentially over the next two to five years with greatest economic potential in the B2B and B2B2C segments, through empowering enterprises and Governments to digitize their own operations and also provide innovative, integrated connectivity and analytics-based solutions to their end customers and citizens,” he said. 

With Atilze, we enter into a collaboration with an established IoT provider to explore growth opportunities, incubate and offer targeted IoT solutions both within our existing footprint markets and also beyond where we currently operate.”
 
Under the collaboration, Atilze will supply the LoRa gateways, antenna systems, nodes and devices for use with existing and new sensor systems that form the basis of IoT applications in industries such as transportation, utilities, healthcare and smart cities. Atilze will also manage, operate and provide maintenance and support services for its city-wide LoRa Network.