Ericsson and China Mobile Communication Co. Ltd. signed a strategic agreement to cooperate on the Internet of Things at the China Mobile Global Partner Conference in Guangzhou, China, on December 20, 2016. The two companies aim to start in-depth cooperation to manage connections efficiently, provide a consistent service to global enterprise customers and to explore new Internet of Things markets. China Mobile will use the Ericsson Device Connectivity Platform to streamline the process for provisioning, as well as deploy services to capitalize on new business opportunities. With the Ericsson platform, China Mobile will be able to integrate resources of roaming partners and offer global enterprise customers reliable connectivity based on service level agreements. Other benefits include a common and unified approach to customer portals and selection of access network. China Mobile expects to have 200 million IoT connections by 2017.