Kyocera Corporation announced that it is promoting the acceleration and expansion of its Internet of Things business.

The company – which established its ‘Software Laboratory’ in October 2015 – has doubled the workforce in this new division to 40 as of March this year, and has plans to increase this number to 200 by March 2020.

According to the company, the Software Laboratory is tasked with “combining hardware and software technologies and enhancing value in the company’s diverse business fields”.

Kyocera has technology plays in multiple industries, including automotive, health care, electronic and semiconductor applications, industrial cutting tools, printing devices and energy solutions.

Since December 2015, the Software Laboratory has made use of IBM’s Bluemix platform-as-a-service (PaaS), improving its productivity in software development and forging stronger relationships with its clients through software sharing and application customisation.