Cloud Computing Market

The Cloud Computing Market is expected to grow from USD 1881.1 US$ Bn in 2026 to USD 5348.6 US$ Bn by 2033, reflecting strong industry expansion and registering a CAGR of 16.1% during the forecast period from 2026 to 2033. 

We need cloud computing because of the numerous individual and business problems that we encounter today - from acquiring and maintaining expensive hardware and software resources to streamlining these resources in the most efficient manner. It enables us to run software programs without installing them on our computers; it enables us to store and access our multimedia content via the internet, it enables us to develop and test programs without necessarily having servers and so on.

Enterprises are concerned about the upfront and ongoing costs of hosting data on-premises. Furthermore, employee costs and challenges with downtime are two additional worries for businesses. The current competitive environment and global economic conditions have hastened the use of cost-effective business model restructuring measures. Another factor driving the adoption of cloud computing services is the increasing shift of enterprises toward digital transformation and the acceleration of customer experience, both of which are lowering enterprise costs. Furthermore, the cloud provides the benefit of a pay-as-you-go model, which allows enterprises to pay for cloud services based on their usage, resulting in lower costs.

From the time the Idea first came in the 1950s, five technologies - distributed systems and its peripherals, virtualization, web 2.0, service orientation and utility computing - have played a crucial role in its furtherance. Cloud computing is a 21st-century marvel that holds its importance in almost every field we can think of. Emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, distributed ledger technology, and many other capabilities are becoming available as services through cloud computing. As a segment of IT services, cloud computing generated more than 300 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2020 and is showing very few signs of slowing down.

Three Main Types of Cloud Computing Services

• Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and IBM Cloud are among the most prominent.
• Software as a Service (SaaS) - Salesforce, Microsoft, Adobe, and SAP are all major players in this segment.
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Amazon, controls almost half of the market, while Microsoft and Alibaba take the second and third largest share of the market.

Within each of these service categories, there are Public, Private, and Hybrid cloud solutions.

Stringent Regulatory and Compliance Policies

There are federal, international and even state laws that impose responsibilities to both cloud computing tenants and providers. Regardless of which side the business is on, one has to consider the legal issues, especially those related to the data we collect, store and process.

In the United States, privacy and security are spread over different industry specific laws and regulations:

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

Cloud Computing Attacks

Cyber-attacks such as Spectre and Meltdown, as well as cloud malware injection attacks, account or service hijacking, and man-in-the-cloud attacks, are posing risks to enterprise data. These threats have the potential to cause business losses and shutdowns.

According to the 2020 Trustwave Global Security Report, cloud environments are now the third most targeted environment for cyber-attacks. The volume of attacks on cloud services more than doubled in 2019 and accounted for 20% of investigated incidents.

Sharing sensitive organizational data with a third-party cloud service provider comes with its set of challenges:

• API vulnerabilities, provider lock-in, weak cryptography, misconfiguration and inadequate change control, lack of cloud security architecture and strategy, metastructure and applistructure failures, insufficient identity, credential, access and key management, account hijacking.

Other Aspects to Consider

• What if the cloud fails?
• Still require servers - redundancy is key for backup and recovery; cannot let go of all servers and staff.
• No Redundancy - cloud server is not redundant nor is it backed up. As technology may fail here and there, a redundancy plan is better.
• Bandwidth issues - additional charge for bandwidth could be expensive.
• Can applications and data moved around seamlessly? Is it accessible from anywhere?
• Downtime: may have to face power outages, low internet, service maintenance, and more such technical issues.
• Performance fluctuation: since multiple applications are running simultaneously on a single server, chances are there might be performance issues due to shared resources.
• Lack of support: lack of timely technical support from the cloud providers. This is a hassle especially for teams with no or little technical know-how.

APAC is expected to provide significant growth opportunities during the forecast period. The increasing availability of skilled labor and keen focus provided by SMEs and large enterprises to enter and grow in this region are a few factors driving the adoption of cloud computing in this region.

According to the US Business Formation Statistics (BFS), the developing countries of Asia and Latin America are far ahead of Europe in starting new businesses.

In U.S. in 2010, the number of new business applications came in at 2.50 million. In 2020, 4.35 million applications were submitted. That’s a whopping 74 percent more. It is also a 24.13 percent increase from 2019 and the biggest increase of the past decade by a mile.

As per Global Entrepreneurship Center: worldwide, there are about 300 million persons trying to start about 150 million businesses. About one third will be launched, 50 million new firm births per year.

Cloud Associations

• The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA)
• The Cloud Computing Association (CCA)
• The Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA)
• The Cloud Industry Forum

The cloud computing market is dominated by companies such as

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Microsoft Azure
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• IBM Cloud
• Oracle Cloud
• Alibaba Cloud
• Salesforce
• SAP SE
• VMware
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
• Cisco Systems
• Dell Technologies
• Tencent Cloud
• Adobe Inc.
• Rackspace Technology

By Type

• Public Cloud
• Private Cloud
• Hybrid Cloud

By Service

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
• Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Software as a Service (SaaS)

By Enterprise Type

• SMEs
• Large Enterprises
• By Industry
• BFSI
• IT and Telecommunications
• Government
• Consumer Goods and Retail
• Healthcare
• Manufacturing
• Others

By Region:

• North America
• Latin America
• Europe
• Asia Pacific
• Middle East & Africa