A Collection of Cloud Computing Statistics: Growth, Usage, Revenue and Adoption

Cloud computing has been a staple of the modern enterprise for sometime. Having moved on from being seen as a soon to pass fad, cloud computing is now used in everything from applications, storage, and networking. In order to understand the influence of cloud computing on the modern enterprise we must assess both current statistics and those projected for the coming years. Below we’ve rounded up a number of statistics that demonstrate the extent to which cloud computing is shaping businesses.

Cloud Usage Statistics

A study by Clutch found that of the enterprises studied, 70% used Cloud services for file storage, 62% for backup and recovery and just 51% for application deployment.

The average enterprise uses 1,427 distinct cloud services, 76 distinct file sharing cloud services, and 210 distinct collaboration cloud services. – SkyHigh

“18.1 percent of files uploaded to cloud-based file-sharing and collaboration services contain sensitive data. Cloud data comprises of roughly 6 categories: confidential, personally identifiable, password protected, email, payment information, and protected health information.” – SkyHigh

“2.7 percent of files shared in the cloud have access permissions that make them publicly accessible. These files are able to be downloaded through a search engine, making the possibility of a security breach very high.” – SkyHigh

Growth Statistics

“41% of businesses are planning to increase their investment in Cloud technologies, with 51% of big and midsize companies planning to increase spend compared to only 35% of smaller firms.” – Waterford Technologies

“Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) adoption is predicted to be the fastest-growing sector of cloud platforms according to KPMG, growing from 32% in 2017 to 56% adoption in 2020.” – Forbes

The IaaS/PaaS markets are often dubbed the “cloud infrastructure” market. IaaS spending — fueled by the growing need for remote computing power and storage — could rise from $38 billion this year to $173 billion in 2026, according to Forbes.

Spending on PaaS, which is often overshadowed and merged with IaaS solutions, could hit $7.5 billion by 2020 as developers create more applications within the cloud, according to Global Industry Analysts. 50% of PaaS spending could be focused on the Internet of Things (IoT) market by 2020, according to Gartner.

Spending Statistics

“Total spending on IT infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switches) for deployment in cloud environments will increase 15.3% year over year in 2017 to $41.7B.” – Forbes 

“Worldwide spending on public cloud services could double from almost $70 billion in 2015 to over $141 billion in 2019, according to research firm IDC. IDC expects Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions — like Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure — to grow faster than Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms.” – The Motley Fool

Annual global spend on public Cloud services is predicted to grow at a 19.4% compound annual growth rate to reach $141 billion by 2019. This rate of growth is predicted to be six times greater than the increase in overall IT spending in the same period.  – Forbes 

Other Trends

“The cloud presence is becoming a norm in almost 70% enterprises across the globe, and they have at least one application running on the cloud.” – Apium Hub

“Among the various services covered by cloud computing platforms, data analytics, and data management are seemingly leading in cloud adaptation trends in 2017 and beyond.”

Almost 46% organizations are integrating cloud APIs for databases, messenger systems, and storage systems and trends are increasing rapidly for other integrations too.