Cloud computing has become one of the most disruptive technologies of the 21st century. In recent years, adoption has accelerated dramatically. But just how pervasive is the cloud today? Let‘s dig into the stats on global cloud adoption.
Cloud Usage Reaches Over 90% of Enterprises
The COVID-19 pandemic spurred a major digital transformation for companies globally. Businesses quickly shifted operations online and enabled remote collaboration. According to Flexera‘s 2022 State of the Cloud Report, over 90% of enterprises now utilize some form of cloud computing, whether directly or through third-party services.
Back in 2021, a survey by Enterprise Strategy Group found that 37% of organizations increased their cloud spend by over 50% compared to 2020. This highlights the growing strategic value of the cloud, which IDC estimates will account for over 50% of all IT infrastructure spending by 2025.
Industry Cloud Adoption
Digging deeper, cloud adoption varies across industries and company size. According to 2021 estimates by Spiceworks Ziff Davis, the sectors leading cloud usage include:
- Technology – 98%
- Education – 97%
- Media & Entertainment – 97%
- Telecom – 96%
- Finance – 93%
- Healthcare – 92%
- Retail – 91%
Additionally, large enterprises with over 1,000 employees have a 97% cloud adoption rate compared to 86% for SMBs. But the gap is expected to close as cloud accessibility improves for smaller businesses.
Cloud Market Surpasses $90 Billion in 2022
The market for public cloud services has exploded over the past decade. Cloud infrastructure spending grew from $22.3 billion in 2013 to an estimated $90 billion in 2022 according to Gartner.
Here‘s a breakdown of the worldwide market share across the major cloud providers:
| Cloud Provider | Market Share 2022 | Revenue 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| AWS | 33% | $80 billion |
| Microsoft Azure | 22% | $27 billion |
| Google Cloud | 10% | $21 billion |
| Alibaba Cloud | 7% | $16 billion |
| IBM Cloud | 5% | $21 billion |
| Salesforce | 5% | $29 billion |
| Oracle Cloud | 3% | $13 billion |
AWS maintains a significant lead, but Microsoft has established itself solidly as number two. Competition is also heating up especially between Google Cloud and Alibaba Cloud in vying for market share.
According to Gartner, the top three hyperscalers AWS, Azure, and Google now account for 65% of the global cloud infrastructure market. However, multi-cloud is the norm – about 80% of organizations adopt multi-cloud strategies combining two or more providers.
Global Cloud Spending 2013-2025
What‘s Driving Massive Cloud Adoption?
There are several important factors leading enterprises of all sizes to embrace cloud computing:
Cost Efficiency
Cloud eliminates high upfront capital expenditures. The pay-as-you-go pricing model allows companies to pay only for the resources used. For SMBs and startups, this removes a major barrier to access best-in-class infrastructure.
According to IDC, companies can realize cost efficiencies between 30-50% by migrating to cloud vs on-premises data centers.
Scalability
The cloud provides nearly unlimited scale on demand. Companies can scale up compute and storage resources during peak demand and scale back down during lighter loads. Accommodating usage spikes is challenging and costly to overprovision with on-prem infrastructure.
Business Continuity
The pandemic highlighted the cloud‘s resilience. Employees could work remotely while accessing apps and data seamlessly in the cloud. Companies that relied on on-prem data centers struggled with business continuity.
Flexibility & Productivity
With the cloud, employees can stay productive from anywhere on any device. Cloud-based apps and collaboration tools support the shift to flexible, hybrid work environments. Employees at companies using cloud are able to collaborate 45% more effectively according to research by IGEL.
Innovation Velocity
The cloud democratizes access to cutting-edge technologies like AI, IoT, VR, and big data analytics which previously required substantial upfront investment. Developers can build innovative solutions quickly leveraging these cloud services.
Startups like Uber, Airbnb, and Robinhood could not have disrupted their industries so rapidly without leveraging the cloud.
Enhanced Security
While data security remains a concern, enterprise-grade cloud providers offer robust security capabilities exceeding on-prem solutions for most organizations. The cloud also simplifies implementing security best practices and staying updated continuously.
According to research by IDC, 70% of enterprises feel the cloud provides greater data security than on-premises data centers.
Europe Leads in Cloud Adoption
Europe has emerged as one of the most cloud-forward regions globally. Here‘s a breakdown of cloud adoption across key European countries according to 2021 estimates by Eurostat:
- Sweden – 77%
- Finland – 75%
- Denmark – 69%
- Netherlands – 68%
- Germany – 65%
- Ireland – 64%
- Austria – 61%
- Spain – 60%
- France – 59%
- Poland – 57%
The Nordics lead in cloud maturity, spurred by strong internet connectivity, tech skills, and government adoption of digital services. But even lagging countries like Poland have crossed 50% cloud adoption rapidly.
Cloud Spending to Reach $195 Billion by 2028
IDC forecasts worldwide spending on public cloud computing to soar from $90 billion in 2022 to over $195 billion by 2028, representing a CAGR of 15.7%.
Driving this growth is the accelerated cloud migration across industries along with adoption of cutting-edge technologies like AI/ML, AR/VR, IoT, and blockchain that all heavily leverage cloud platforms.
Here‘s a breakdown of the cloud computing industry growth forecast by IDC:
| Year | Cloud Spending | Growth |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | $100 billion | 15.6% |
| 2023 | $133 billion | 15.5% |
| 2024 | $155 billion | 16.6% |
| 2025 | $178 billion | 15.1% |
| 2026 | $195 billion | 9.7% |
The Cloud Future is Here
In the past, enterprises approached cloud adoption cautiously. Today, cloud is a core pillar of enterprise IT strategy. According to Gartner, 85% of companies already implement a "cloud-first" policy when deploying new applications or building new capabilities.
Looking ahead, emerging technologies like serverless computing, edge computing, containerization and microservices will unlock greater cloud capabilities. As 5G proliferation enables new mobile use cases, the more distributed nature of cloud will come into play.
However, workloads like ERP, databases and other legacy applications remain stubbornly on-premise. Migrating without business disruption is a challenge. According to Flexera‘s report, only 22% of enterprise workloads have moved to the cloud. So the runway for growth remains long.
The bottom line is that cloud computing has graduated from hype to reality. In today‘s digital business landscape, the cloud is the catalyst enabling transformative innovations that were unimaginable just a decade ago. We‘ve only scratched the surface of what‘s possible.
