The CEO of semiconductor company CSR, Joep van Beurden, discusses the progress—and growing pains—of the Internet of Things market.

Semiconductor executives are closely monitoring the development of the Internet of Things—in which physical objects are equipped with sensors and other devices that allow them to share and receive data through a network. Examples of applications in this area include smart watches, fitness bands, and home- and industrial-automation tools. Some are predicting a multitrillion-dollar market opportunity. Joep van Beurden, chief executive officer of CSR, a fabless semiconductor company that produces wireless technologies, agrees but notes that the Internet of Things still hasn’t reached its tipping point. “I don’t think it has been overhyped by any means. I just think widespread adoption will happen later than we expected,” he says. In this edited conversation, Mr. van Beurden discusses growth in the Internet of Things market and the implications of this connectivity trend for semiconductor companies.