LoRaWAN® Smart Metering Reaches Scale as European Tenders Quadruple

More than 30 million of the 150 million LoRaWAN devices worldwide are now meters, with water leading demand

VIENNA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Enlit Europe – Booth #B.f120 - The LoRa Alliance, the open, non-profit organization defining, evolving and promoting the LoRaWAN® standard, today highlighted new market evidence that utilities are choosing LoRaWAN for smart metering at scale. Of the 150 million LoRaWAN devices now connected worldwide, more than 30 million are meters, one in five.

“Utilities make infrastructure decisions that last for decades. They want multi-vendor choice, interoperability and long-term supply security. LoRaWAN delivers all three because it is an open standard with a robust ecosystem behind it,” said Alper Yegin, CEO of the LoRa Alliance. “Both RFP data and real-world deployments now provide clear evidence of this trend.”

Utilities are choosing LoRaWAN because it is a highly accessible, multi-vendor standard with long range, deep indoor penetration, low power consumption, and low cost. Advanced capabilities such as firmware updates over the air (FUOTA), relay, roaming, and satellite connectivity support this, helping make LoRaWAN the most widely adopted LPWAN technology.

Tender activity is accelerating

Kurrant, a strategy and innovation firm specialising in digitalisation of smart cities and utilities, tracks European public procurement trends through its Tender Tracker platform and reports:

“The number of EU-wide public tenders mentioning LoRaWAN more than quadrupled between 2019 and 2025. Growth continued in 2025, up around 13% on 2024. Water metering accounts for around half of LoRaWAN-related tenders, followed by building energy metering, network deployments, and street lighting. France leads the European market, followed by Spain and Germany.”

UK water points the same way

Netmore, a LoRaWAN network operator and platform provider, analyzed publicly announced smart water metering decisions under AMP8, the eighth five-year regulatory and investment cycle for water companies in England and Wales, running from April 2025 to March 2030. It found LoRaWAN present, either as the sole technology or as the primary component of a dual-technology deployment, in 70% of them.

Massive IoT

Single deployments now run into the millions.

• ZENNER Connect has 12 million devices on its network, one of the largest single deployments in the ecosystem.
• Veolia has more than 4 million active smart meters across France.
• Itron has deployed more than 3 million assets with LoRaWAN, mostly smart water meters.

A growing, interoperable ecosystem

LoRaWAN has the highest accessibility, most robust ecosystem and widest adoption of any LPWAN IoT technology. It runs on unlicensed spectrum, its specifications are openly available, and the Alliance certifies devices to ensure interoperability. The LoRa Alliance has more than 340 member organizations, with 58 joining so far in 2026, more than 700 certified devices, and close to 1,000 products available through the LoRa Alliance Marketplace. More than 150 million LoRaWAN devices have been deployed worldwide.

Forty-one LoRa Alliance members are exhibiting at Enlit Europe in Vienna, November 10 to 12. Pavilion sponsors akYtec, Swisscom, TEKTELIC, MultiTech, Kerlink, and Semtech join the LoRa Alliance at #B.f120.

About the LoRa Alliance®

The LoRa Alliance® is an open, nonprofit association that develops and promotes the LoRaWAN standard and product certification program. With the highest accessibility, most robust ecosystem, and widest global adoption of any LPWAN technology, LoRaWAN is the leading IoT LPWAN standard and an essential fourth pillar of global wireless connectivity, complementing cellular, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, connecting more than 150 million devices worldwide. The LoRa Alliance has become one of the largest and fastest-growing alliances in the technology sector since its inception in 2015. More information: http://lora-alliance.org and https://resources.lora-alliance.org/.