A roundup of cloud computing forecasts and market estimates for Q315

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  • The global SaaS market is projected to grow from $49B in 2015 to $67B in 2018, attaining a CAGR of 8.14%.
  • Global spending on Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is expected to reach $16.5B this year, an increase of 32.8% from 2014.
  • Cloud applications will account for 90% of worldwide mobile data traffic by 2019, compared to 81% at the end of last year.

These and other insights are from recent cloud computing forecasts and market estimates published by research and advisory consultancies including International Data Corporation (IDC), Forrester, Gartner, Ovum, Wikibon and others.

While the methodologies differ significantly, the findings from a recent Economist Intelligence Unit study provide the galvanizing thread across this diverse set of data.  The Economist found that the most mature enterprises are now turning to cloud strategies as a strategic platform for growing customer demand and expanding sales channels. The study found low-maturity or lagging cloud adopters focus on costs more than growth.

Key take-aways from the round-up are provided below:

cloud mobile data

  • 57% of IT architects and tech professionals are running apps on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform today.  Rightscale’s 2015 State of the Cloud Report found that AWS adoption is over 4X greater than Microsoft Azure IaaS and 5X that of Rackspace Public Cloud.  Rightscale found that AWS, Microsoft Azure IaaS, Azure PaaS, Rackspace Public Cloud and VMWare vCloud Air are the top five public cloud platforms used in enterprises today. Source: RightScale 2015 State Of The Cloud Report

Public Cloud Usage

paas market trends

PaaS Market Share

  • Goldman Sachs is forecasting the cloud infrastructure and platform market will grow at a 19.62% CAGR from 2015 to 2018, reaching $43B by 2018. Their recent market analysis also forecasts that the global market for cloud infrastructure and platforms will grow from $21B this year to $43B by the end of the forecast period.  Source:  How Big Can The Amazon Web Services Business Grow In The Future?

goldman sachs cloud computing

IaaS Market Window

cloud maturity

hosted private cloud computing adoption

  • 46% of surveyed firms in the European Union (EU) are using advanced cloud services relating to financial and accounting software applications, customer relationship management or to the use of computing power to run business applications. In 2014, almost twice as many firms used public cloud servers (12%) versus private cloud servers (7%). The following graphic illustrates the degree of dependence on cloud computing, by economic activity, EU-28, 2014. Source: Eurostat Statistics Explained.  Cloud computing – statistics on the use by enterprises.

degree of dependence

  • 64% of Small & Medium Businesses (SMBs) are already using cloud-based apps, with average adoption being 3 apps.  78% of businesses indicate that they are considering purchasing new solutions in the next 2-3 years creating the potential to move the average number of applications used to 7, with 88% consuming at least one service.  Source: The small business revolution: trends in SMB cloud adoption.

cool infographic

  • Worldwide spending on enterprise application software will grow 7.5% to reach $149.9B in 2015, increasing to more than $201B in 2019 with accelerating cloud adoption driving new software sales. Gartner’s analysis of enterprise software spending shows that alternative consumption models to traditional on-premises licenses are accounting for more than 50% of new software implementations; these include SaaS, hosted license, on-premises subscriptions and open source.  Gartner also predicts that by 2020, about a quarter of organizations in emerging regions will run their core CRM systems in the cloud, up from around 10 percent in 2012. Source: Gartner Says Modernization and Digital Transformation Projects Are Behind Growth in Enterprise Application Software Market.