Cloud adoption is changing how businesses operate at every level. The cloud has become the de facto standard for data storage, application development, and infrastructure management.
Gartner says that by 2024, more than 45% of IT spending on system infrastructure, infrastructure software, application software, and business process outsourcing will shift from traditional solutions to the cloud.
There are many reasons why businesses choose to use cloud services instead of using local servers. From cost savings to improved security, there are plenty of advantages to choosing cloud solutions over traditional ones.
This article aims at providing data about cloud adoption statistics across multiple countries to prove that cloud adoption is only going to increase.
Here are some Cloud adoption statistics highlighting the current trends and the future of could computing.
Cloud Adoption Statistics Facts
1. By 2022, more than $1.3 trillion in IT spending will be impacted by the move to the cloud.
Gartner suggests that technology providers should use indications of growth in cloud adoption to indicate market opportunities. They classify the cloud computing market into four categories: system infrastructure, infrastructure software, application software, and business process outsourcing.
The largest shift in IT spending is in application services – 36% of companies that have used another method to host their applications have switched to the cloud.
The biggest change in system infrastructure in 2019 was the smallest portion with just 13%. In 2022, the application software will be most important, accounting for 40% of the total market share, while system infrastructure will shift toward cloud solutions, accounting for 20%.
2. 66% of enterprises have already established a central cloud team or center of excellence.
Another 21% plan to have one soon, too.
The main responsibilities of these central IT departments shape up to be optimizing cloud costs (for 68% of enterprises), figuring out which applications should run on which cloud (for 62%), and finally – setting policies for cloud use (for 59%).
3. 94% of enterprises use the cloud.
According to Right Scale’s annual State of the Cloud Report for 2019, 91% of businesses used a public cloud and 72% used a private one. Most enterprises use both public and private clouds, with 69 percent choosing a hybrid cloud solution.
Cloud adoption trends indicate that companies should use both public and private clouds for greater flexibility and a variety of options. Only 22% of companies use the public cloud exclusively. And only 3% of companies use a private cloud exclusively.
Cloud Usage Statistics
4. Cloud adoption statistics reveal that in 2020 a staggering 83% of the companies' workload was stored on the cloud.
A notable detail here is that a growing number of companies will be moving from a private to a public cloud. This attests to the claims that even though the public model gives you less control, you can still enjoy optimum security and ease of access.
5. Cloud Adoption in the EU is at 46% in 2022.
Cloud adoption has been slow in Europe as a whole. Only 42% of European enterprises used cloud computing in 2021 – mainly for email hosting and file storage. However, this is an enormous increase from the previous year's figure of 36%. European companies find the cloud a suitable place to run their financial, accounting, and customer relationship management (CRM) software.
Public cloud services receive more attention (18%) from European companies than their private counterparts ( at 11%). 68% of cloud users use these services for storing files; 48% find them a suitable place to host their databases; and 53% report using them for office software.
The numbers varied significantly across member states. At least 40 percent of enterprises in Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Belgium use cloud computing. Sweden has the highest percentage of cloud adoption at 75%, while only less than 13% percent of businesses rely on cloud services in Bulgaria and Romania.
6. Cloud adoption in Asia-Pacific is showing great progress. Only 10 percent of businesses are yet to realize its benefits.
A majority of businesses in the region (more than 90%) use, or plan to adopt, a multi-cloud environment (either a hybrid or a fully integrated hybrid). 52% of those either currently use a fully integrated hybrid or are planning to use one. It helps them establish consistency in terms of their security policies and reduces the total cost. It also gives them more flexibility when responding to changing requirements.
More than half of enterprises are focusing on moving workloads from their internal environment to the public cloud. Another 28 percent are focusing on a lift-and-shift approach, while another 28 percent are undergoing refactoring first. A slight majority of enterprises (55%) will use the help of a service provider to execute their hybrid cloud plans. They will rely on their cloud service provider either during the deployment or migration (21%) or for ongoing operations (35%).
Security is the primary concern when making hybrid cloud decisions. More than half (56%) say it’s critical and a hard requirement. Only 5% consider security not to be an issue at all.
7. North America and APAC are the Regions adopting Fastest
According to ReportLinker, North America is the most mature market in cloud computing services adoption. The analysts believe that North America's position is due to several factors including the presence of various companies with more advanced IT infrastructures and the availability of IT expertise.
Asia Pacific (APAC) is also expected to offer huge growth opportunities for cloud computing companies between the period of 2021 and 2026. Growth in these areas could be particularly significant with the arrival and adoption of new technologies like IoT.
Cloud Adoption Statistics for Enterprises
8. Companies waste up to 30% of their cloud spend
Cloud spending seems to be a major issue for many companies, particularly as cloud prices and investments continue to rise. Respondents estimate that around 30% of cloud spending is wasted at present in their companies.
Cloud spending wastage could be caused by companies rushing into the cloud without having a full plan for their cloud strategy in 2022.
9. 70% of the companies that offer financial services are still in the early stages of cloud adoption.
Financial services lag behind most other sectors when it comes to adopting new technologies. About 70% of organizations say they're currently in the trial and testing phase of their cloud projects.
They're already planning for the future by having clear strategies in place. 60% percent of all businesses in the industry expect their IT environment to integrate both on-premises cloud infrastructure and externally hosted cloud infrastructures. Only 18% of respondents say they will solely rely upon the public cloud.
Companies still expect to handle most of their workloads internally – using one or several private cloud solutions. Experts also agree that a multi-cloud architecture will help with application security (62%), meet regulatory requirements (43%), and reduce costs (40%).
Despite the apparent reluctance to adopt the cloud, businesses in financial services show higher cloud adoption rates than overall surveys. For public infrastructure as a service (IaaS) (52% to 45%), on-premises Private Cloud (50% to 41%) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) (41% to 32%).
10. Thirty-seven percent of enterprises said their annual spending exceeded $12 million.
Increasingly, organizations of all sizes are turning to the public cloud to power their applications. Public cloud spending is now a major line item in IT budgets, and public cloud spending has grown significantly. According to Gartner, 37% of enterprises said their annual budget exceeds $12 million, and 80% reported that cloud spending exceeds US$1.2 million per annum.
Smaller companies tend to run fewer and smaller workloads, so it stands to logic that their cloud bills would also tend to be lower. However, 53 percent SMBs spend more than 1.2 million dollars—up from 38 percent in 2017.
11. Cost-cutting tops the list of the reasons why enterprises choose to adopt the cloud.
Among 166 IT leaders surveyed, there were various reasons why enterprises might decide to move their computing to the Cloud. The most popular reason ( at 61%) for cutting costs is the company’s cost-cutting initiative.
The second reason ( at 57%) is the desire for new features or capabilities.
For 30% of companies, their current warehouse filling has pushed them toward adopting cloud computing.
About 23% of enterprises simply cite “executive mandate” as a reason, and only 12% of them have cited any other reason at all.
12. AWS, Microsoft, and Google are the Biggest Cloud Vendors.
According to a recent O’Reilly study in 2021, around 90 percent of respondents are using the Cloud regularly, up slightly from 88 percent in 2020. The response to the question was worldwide, with all continents except for Antarctica responding.
When comparing the most popular cloud providers, Amazon Web Services held 62 percent of the market, while Google Cloud Platform held 48 percent. Google was following up in third place with 33%. However, O‘Reilly pointed out that Amazon’s market share has declined slightly, but its dominance is still clear.
13. 51% of companies have all applicable infrastructure in the cloud.
Cloud adoption is increasing at an unprecedented rate, according to figures produced by RackSpace in 2021. A cloud computing company recently surveyed 1400 executives and found that around 51% have all their relevant infrastructure residing in the cloud.
Of the remaining 49 percent who are still making the move from on-premises to the cloud, most plan to move as much as possible of their IT infrastructure to the cloud as soon as they can.
Furthermore, two-thirds of respondents said theirs compute workload is supported by managed hosting services, the public cloud, or colocation tools.
14. Enterprises are becoming more proficient in using cloud technology.
Of the companies surveyed, 50% spent between $1.2M and $2.4M annually, while another 38% spent more than $2.4M. Most companies use a multi-cloud strategy, with 84 percent relying on one cloud provider. This is an increase from 2018 when it was 81% between 2018 and 2019, the Hybrid cloud strategy also grew from 51% to 58%.
Looking at the current state of cloud adoption, there will be an increase compared to last year. The proportion of enterprises at the intermediate and advanced stages increased from 66% in 2018 to 68% in 2019. The number of enterprises at the beginner level has dropped from 19% to 16%.
Enterprises are becoming increasingly aware of the industry, even though most of them haven't yet taken any action.
Business of Cloud Adoption Statistics
15. Amazon Web Services is the leading cloud vendor with a 33% share.
Also known as “AWS,” Amazon’s cloud division has been the leader in the cloud market for several years now. It was launched in 2006, and only offered one service, now the company offers over 140 services to its clients.
Amazon Web Services is widely used by many organizations because they offer a wide variety of services that improve business agility while remaining secure and reliable. One of AWS‘s most popular services is Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), which allows customers to create virtual machines for their business needs.
A fascinating fact is that AWS accounts for 13% of Amazon’s total sales. AWS was the most popular cloud infrastructure service provider in the fourth quarter of 2021, controlling 33 percent of the overall market. Microsoft Azure has a 22 percent market share while Google Cloud has a nine percent market share.
These three cloud vendors together accounted for 64 percent of total cloud spending in the fourth quarter of 2021. Organizations use cloud services provided by these companies for machine learning, data analysis, cloud-native development, application migration, and others.
16. The global cloud computing market is expected to reach $623.3 billion by 2023.
The global cloud computing market size is expected to grow from USD 272.0 billion in 2018 to USD 623.3 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18.0% during the forecast period.
Increased automation and agility, the need for delivering enhanced customer experience, and increased cost savings and return on investment are the major growth factors for the cloud computing market. However, data prone to cyber-attacks and lack of skilled labor may restrain the growth of the cloud computing market.
17. The average business runs 38% of workloads in public and 41% in the private cloud.
Usually, enterprises run a more significant part of their workloads in a private cloud (46%) and a smaller portion (33%) in the public cloud.
Small to medium businesses, on the other hand, prefer to use a public cloud (43%), instead of arguably more expensive private solutions (35%).
According to cloud computing statistics, public cloud spending is growing at a rate three times faster than private clouds.
Experts predict that the gap between the two will continue to widen.
Future of Cloud Adoption Statistics
18. The global Cloud Technology Market in the Healthcare Industry is forecasted to grow by $25.54 Billion in 2020-2024.
Cloud technology adoption has increased significantly over the past few years. According to a recent Technavio report, the global cloud market for healthcare is expected to reach $25.54 billion from 2020 to 2024. The ongoing pandemic has reinforced that growth.
19. According to Gartner, more than half of enterprise IT spending in key market segments will shift to the cloud by 2025.
Only those enterprises that can transition to the cloud within the application software, infrastructure software, business process services, and system infrastructure markets were included in Gartner’s “Cloud Shift” research.
By 2025, 51 percent of IT spending in these categories will be shifting from traditional solutions to public clouds, compared to 41 percent in 2022. By 2025, almost two-thirds (65 percent) of spending on application software development will be directed toward cloud technology, up from 57.5 percent in 2022.
20. By 2025, the amount of data stored on cloud servers will surpass 100 Zettabytes.
Predictions about data usage are notoriously inaccurate. They tend to underestimate just how fast modern technology has developed. However, one educated guess estimates that there will be 200 zettabytes of data stored in computers, and 100 zettabytes of data will be stored on cloud servers.
21. The Cloud Computing Market will be worth $1251.09 billion by 2028.
According to research by Grandview Research, the global market for cloud computing is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 19.1 percent between 2021 and 2028 for cloud technology. According to Grandview Research, this will lead to an estimated $1.25 trillion valuation for the cloud by 2028.
The report notes that the growth of cloud adoption has come from a variety of factors, including rapid digital transformation in virtually every industry. Furthermore, the rise of new technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, and Artificial intelligence (AI) is placing more focus on cloud flexibility.
Takeaways
Hopefully these cloud adoption statistics for 2022 have given you a great idea of how cloud adoption in the market is growing. With more companies making the transition towards a future where they're transforming their business models into ones that are digital-first, there's no doubt that the adoption of cloud computing will continue to grow. Companies that wish to expand their reach need to take advantage of what cloud computing has to offer.
If you are looking to start your Cloud hosting software journey, we have a list of the best cloud hosting providers to choose from.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the first step of cloud adoption?
The first step is understanding which on-premises apps are the best candidates for migrating to, or developing in, the cloud. This decision should be made based on usage trends and the business impact they have.
What is cloud adoption and migration?
Any enterprise-scale adoption plan involves workloads that don't require significant investments in the creation or modification of existing business logic. You could move these workloads to the cloud through any of several approaches: lift and shift (moving workloads from one location to another), lift and optimize (optimizing an existing workload for use in the cloud), or modernize (creating new workloads). Each approach is considered a migration.
What are the benefits of the cloud?
Benefits of cloud computing:
- Reduced IT costs.
- Scalability.
- Business continuity.
- Collaboration efficiency.
- The flexibility of work practices.
- Access to automatic updates.
What are the 4 types of clouds in cloud computing?
There are 4 main types of cloud computing: private clouds, public clouds, hybrid clouds, and multi-clouds. There are also 3 main types of cloud computing services: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platforms-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
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