Throughout the 366 days of 2016, 5.5 million devices will be connected to the internet on a daily basis.

Analysts predict that next year a total of 6,392 million devices will become IoT enabled, an increase of 30% when compared to 2015 (4,902 million).

In the next five years this number will more than double, as by 2020 Gartner forecasts 20,797 million online IoT devices.

Consumer based devices are set to dominate the IoT landscape, accounting for 4,024 million devices next year, and 13,509 million by 2020, compared to business products which will account for 2,368 million and 7,288 million, respectively.

The analyst firm estimates that the IoT will support total services spending of $235 billion in 2016, up 22% from 2015.

Connectivity services, through communications service providers, and consumer services have been estimated to grow at a faster pace than the professional category.

The firm said that contracts between businesses and external providers in order to design, install and operate IoT systems will dominate the smart services landscape.

IoT hardware spending will amount to $1,414 billion in 2016, up from $1,183 billion this year. By 2020, Gartner predicts this sum to reach $3,010 billion.

The vertical-specific business space will invest the most in IoT hardware next year totalling $667 billion (2015: $612bn; 2020: $911bn).

This will be followed by the consumer sector at $546 billion (2015: $416bn; 2020: $1,534bn), and by the cross-industry business space at $201 billion (2015: $155bn; 2020: $566bn).