Worldwide public cloud services spending forecast to reach $195 billion by 2020, according to IDC

10 Aug 2016

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., August 10, 2015 – A new update to the Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Spending Guide from International Data Corporation (IDC) shows worldwide revenues from public cloud services reaching more than $195 billion in 2020. This will be more than double the $96.5 billion in revenues forecast for 2016 and represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.4% over the 2015-2020 forecast period.

Cloud software – the service enablement of products in all three primary software markets: applications as a service, system infrastructure software (SIS) as a service (which combine to form SaaS), and application development and deployment (AD&D) or platform as a service (PaaS) – was responsible for 83.7% of all public cloud revenue in 2015, with the remaining 16.3% belonging to infrastructure as a service (IaaS). However, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) revenues are forecast to grow at a faster rate than SaaS, expanding their share of overall revenues in the process.

"Cloud software will significantly outpace traditional software product delivery over the next five years, growing nearly three times faster than the software market as a whole and becoming the significant growth driver to all functional software markets," said Benjamin McGrath, senior research analyst, SaaS and Business Models. "By 2020, about half of all new business software purchases will be of service-enabled software, and cloud software will constitute more than a quarter of all software sold."

The industries leading the way in public cloud services spending are discrete manufacturing, banking, and professional services, representing nearly a third of total worldwide revenues in 2016. The industries that will see the fastest revenue growth over the five-year forecast are media, telecommunications, and retail. However, all 20 of the industries profiled in the spending guide will experience revenue growth of more than 100% over the forecast period.

"Cloud computing is breaking down traditional technology barriers as line of business leaders and their IT organizations rely on cloud to flexibly deliver IT resources at the lower cost and faster speed that businesses require. Organizations across all industries are now free to adapt to market changes quicker and take more risks, as they are no longer bound by legacy IT constraints," said Eileen Smith, program director, Customer Insights and Analysis.

The United States will be the largest market for public cloud services, generating nearly two thirds of total worldwide revenues throughout the forecast, followed by Western Europe and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan)(APeJ). Latin America and APeJ will experience the greatest revenue growth over the forecast period, while all eight regions are forecast to see revenue growth greater than 100% over the next five years.

The Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Spending Guide quantifies public cloud computing purchases by cloud type for 20 industries across eight regions and 54 countries. Unlike any other research in the industry, the comprehensive spending guide was designed to help IT decision makers to clearly understand the industry-specific scope and direction of public cloud services spending today and over the next five years.