Las líneas de IoT se triplican en dos años por las balizas V16

The decision made by Spain's Direction General of Traffic (DGT) to make the V16 beacon mandatory for all vehicles on the road, which also requires a SIM connection to the agency's systems, has caused a significant surge in the mobile lines connecting machines, known as M2M (Machine to Machine) and IoT (Internet of Things). This boom has tripled the number of SIMs dedicated to M2M over the past two years, according to the Commission for the National Markets and Competition (CNMC).

In July 2024, there were 17.33 million SIMs linked to M2M systems in Spain, but by July 2026, this number had skyrocketed to 57.67 million. This means that SIMs used for mobile data are now nearly as prevalent as conventional SIMs, with 90% of mobile data SIMs and only 1.1 normal SIMs for every IoT card. The boom in M2M SIMs began around April 2025, when consistent warnings were issued about the mandatory V16 beacon starting January 2026.

Monthly growth of M2M SIMs accelerated in the last months of 2025 and the beginning of 2026. In November 2025, the number of SIMs increased from 32.5 million to 37.2 million, a growth of 4.7 million in a single month. This trend continued into December 2025, reaching 41.7 million SIMs, an increase of 4.5 million units. However, the most notable month was January 2026, with 47.9 million M2M cards, or 6.2 million new lines added in that month, compared to 4.7 million in February.

The expansion also includes other uses such as logistics, water, electricity, and gas meters, vending machines, theft prevention alarms, and the growth of logistics and fleet management.