The worldwide public cloud services market is projected to grow 18 per cent in 2017 to total $246.8 billion, up from $209.2 billion in 2016, according to Gartner, Inc. The highest growth will come from cloud system infrastructure services (infrastructure as a service [IaaS]), which is projected to grow 36.8 per cent in 2017 to reach $34.6 billion. Cloud application services (software as a service [SaaS]) is expected to grow 20.1 per cent to reach $46.3 billion (see Table 1.)
“The overall global public cloud market is entering a period of stabilization, with its growth rate peaking at 18 percent in 2017 and then tapering off over the next few years,” said Sid Nag, research director at Gartner. “While some organisations are still figuring out where cloud actually fits in their overall IT strategy, an effort to cost optimise and bring forth the path to transformation holds strong promise and results for IT outsourcing (ITO) buyers. Gartner predicts that through 2020, cloud adoption strategies will influence more than 50 per cent of IT outsourcing deals.”
“Organizations are pursuing strategies because of the multidimensional value of cloud services, including values such as agility, scalability, cost benefits, innovation and business growth,” said Mr Nag. “While all external-sourcing decisions will not result in a virtually automatic move to the cloud, buyers are looking to the ‘cloud first’ in their decisions, in support of time-to-value impact via speed of implementation.”
Table 1. Worldwide Public Cloud Services Forecast (Millions of Dollars)
| 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | |
| Cloud Business Process Services (BPaaS) | 40,812 | 43,772 | 47,556 | 51,652 | 56,176 |
| Cloud Application Infrastructure Services (PaaS) | 7,169 | 8,851 | 10,616 | 12,580 | 14,798 |
| Cloud Application Services (SaaS) | 38,567 | 46,331 | 55,143 | 64,870 | 75,734 |
| Cloud Management and Security Services | 7,150 | 8,768 | 10,427 | 12,159 | 14,004 |
| Cloud System Infrastructure Services (IaaS) | 25,290 | 34,603 | 45,559 | 57,897 | 71,552 |
| Cloud Advertising | 90,257 | 104,516 | 118,520 | 133,566 | 151,091 |
| Total Market | 209,244 | 246,841 | 287,820 | 332,723 | 383,355 |
Source: Gartner (February 2017)
The SaaS market is expected to see a slightly slower growth over the next few years with increasing maturity of SaaS offerings, namely human capital management and customer relationship management and the acceleration in the buying of financial applications. Nevertheless, SaaS will remain the second largest segment in the global cloud services market.
“As enterprise application buyers are moving toward a cloud-first mentality, we estimate that more than 50 per cent of new 2017 large-enterprise North American application adoptions will be composed of SaaS or other forms of cloud-based solutions,” said Mr Nag. “Midmarket and small enterprises are even further along the adoption curve. By 2019, more than 30 per cent of the 100 largest vendors’ new software investments will have shifted from cloud-first to cloud-only.”
Gartner predicts more cloud growth in the infrastructure compute service space as adoption becomes increasingly mainstream. Additional demand from the migration of infrastructure to the cloud and increased demand from increasingly compute-intensive workloads (such as artificial intelligence [AI], analytics and Internet of Things [IoT]) — both in the enterprise and startup spaces — are driving this growth. Furthermore, the growth of platform as a service (PaaS) is also driving the growth in adoption of IaaS.
From a regional perspective, China’s IaaS cloud market forecast has been increased to account for anticipated higher buyer demand over the forecast period. In particular, the larger pure-play IaaS providers in China, as well as other telecom-related cloud providers driving this market, are reporting significant growth. While China’s cloud service market is nascent and several years behind the US and European markets, it is expected to maintain high levels of growth as digital transformation becomes more mainstream over the next five years.
Gartner clients can read more in the reports: “Forecast Analysis: Public Cloud Services, Worldwide, 4Q16 Update” and “Forecast: Public Cloud Services, Worldwide, 2014-2020, 4Q16 Update.”
The outlook for the cloud market will be further discussed at the Gartner Data Center, Infrastructure and Operations Management Summit, taking place from 27-28 November 2017 in London. Follow news and updates from these events on Twitter using #GartnerDC.
This topic will also be discussed at the Gartner IT Infrastructure & Operations Management Summit, 12-13 June 2017 in Frankfurt, Germany. Follow news and updates from these events on Twitter using #GartnerIOM.
