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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:

• Globally, cloud apps will account for 90% of total mobile data traffic by 2019, compared to 81% at the end of last year. Mobile cloud traffic will grow 11-fold from 2014 to 2019, attaining a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 60%. Source: Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2014–2019.

• 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

• The global SaaS market is projected to grow from $49B in 2015 to $67B in 2018, attaining a CAGR of 8.14%. Global infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) spending globally is projected to grow from $23B in 2015 to $34B in 2018, attaining a CAGR of 10.27% in the forecast period.  Source: Technology Business Research presentation The Developer’s Coup: 2015 Applications Development Demands and Vendor Opportunities.

• The PaaS market will grow from $1.7B in 2014 to $68.3B by 2026, attaining a 36% CAGR according to Wikibon Research.  Overall, Salesforce.com (24%), Amazon (17%), and Microsoft (10%) are the leaders in PaaS  according to the Wikibon Research study.. Source: Wikibon Public Cloud Market Shares 2014 and 2015 by Ralph Finos – 29 August 2015.

• 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?

• AWS is used by the majority of enterprise IaaS customers (57%) today. Rackspace is on par with AWS for its ability to fulfill customer IaaS needs and is the highest-rated IaaS provider for guaranteed SLAs, consistent with Rackspace’s new managed cloud positioning. Source: Amazon Web Services and VMware are Market Leaders in IaaS and On-Premises Cloud Platforms, Respectively, According to 451 Research’s Vendor Window.

• The more experienced an enterprise is with cloud computing the more likely they are to rely on cloud-based apps and platforms to boost customer demand strategies (50%). The Economist Intelligence Unit study (in conjunction with IBM) found that the most cloud-mature enterprises also invest the heaviest in expanding their sales channels (39%). Conversely low maturity enterprises are fixated on improving internal business-process efficiency (41%) and reducing costs and/or liabilities (38%). Source: Mapping the cloud maturity curve: Measuring organizational excellence in the new era of IT. (free, no opt-in, 19 pp.) .  The full study, Mapping The Cloud Maturity Curve, can be found here.

• Forrester’s Business Technographics data showed increased reported adoption of hosted private cloud for the US (5%), Canada (2%), and Germany (3%). Conversely, adoption decreased in the UK and France by 7% and 6%, respectively.  Source: Forrester Technographics. Adoption Profile: Hosted Private Cloud, North America and Europe, Q3 2014.

• 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.

• 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.

• The Cloud Analytics Market is expected to grow from $7.5B in 2015 to $23.1B in 2020, attaining a CAGR of 25.1% during the forecast period. Source: Cloud Analytics Market worth $23.1 Billion by 2020.

• Global spending on Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is expected to reach almost US$16.5B this year, an increase of 32.8% from 2014. Gartner projects the market will reach a 29.1% a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2014 to 2019, Source: Gartner Says Worldwide Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service Spending to Grow 32.8 Percent in 2015

• 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.

• Public Cloud Services in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are projected to reach $386M in 2015 with SaaS being the largest area of spending (69.0%). Source: SaaS Will Take Nearly 70% of Public Cloud Market in CEE in 2015.