Public Cloud Revenues to Hit $338B in 2021, a 25% Jump in a Year

The cloud computing market has witnessed impressive growth in recent years, with billions of private and business users taking advantage of the on-demand technology.

However, the COVID-19 has fuelled the entire sector’s growth, as companies across the globe started looking for a way to secure business continuity amid the lockdown.

According to data presented by Finaria.it, public cloud revenues jumped by 25% year-over-year amid the COVID-19 crisis and hit $271.9bn in 2020. The increasing trend is set to continue this year, with revenues growing by another 25% YoY to $338bn.

IaaS Revenues to Jump by 34% YoY, the Biggest Increase Among All Market Segments

Today, billions of people use cloud storage to manage and store private data. However, its ability to provide access to computing power that would otherwise be extremely expensive has seen cloud computing technology spread widely in the business sector, also.

Examples of cloud computing use can be found practically everywhere, from messaging apps, social networking, and streaming services to business processes, office tools, lending platforms, or chatbots.

In 2016, the global public cloud market generated $94.7bn in revenue, revealed the Statista survey. Over the next two years, this figure jumped by almost 80% to $170.1bn and continued rising. In 2019 the entire market hit a $216.6bn value, a 27% increase in a year.

The COVID-19 and the shift to remote work and video conferencing accelerated moves to the cloud in 2020, with annual revenues rising by more than $55bn. Statista data indicate the global public cloud market is expected to hit a $500 billion benchmark in the next two years and continue rising to $679.5bn value by 2025.

Software as a service (SaaS) represents the largest market segment and is forecast to grow to $190.9bn in 2021, an 18% increase in a year. The continued shift from on-premises license software to subscription-based SaaS models, together with the increased need for new software collaboration tools during COVID-19, is expected to continue driving SaaS growth. By 2025, SaaS revenues are forecast to hit $305.7bn.

As the second-largest market segment, cloud system infrastructure services (IaaS) are forecast to jump by 34% and hit an $87.4bn value in 2021. Statistics show this figure is set to reach $224.5bn in the next four years.

Platform as a service (PaaS) segment is set to reach a $60.4bn value this year, 33% more than in 2020. By 2025, global PaaS revenues are expected to rise to $149.2bn.

Chinese Public Cloud Market to Grow by 46% YoY

Amazon Web Services represents the leading cloud service provider, with a 32% market share in Q3 2020. AWS grew its business by $2.6bn in Q3 2020 compared with the same period in 2019 and generated more revenue than the next three largest cloud service providers combined.

Microsoft Azure ranked as the second-largest provider globally, with a 19% market share in the third quarter of last year. Google Cloud and Alibaba Cloud followed with 7% and 6% market share, respectively.

Analyzed by geography, the United States represents the world’s largest public cloud market, expected to generate 50% of combined revenues this year. Statistics also show the US market grew by 54% amid the COVID-19 outbreak, with revenues rising from $117.3bn in 2019 to $172.1bn in 2021. However, as the second-largest globally, the Chinese market is expected to witness a 46% growth this year and hit a $28.8bn value. The United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan follow with $15bn, $13.8bn, and $11bn, respectively.