We already know cloud computing is one of the most important industries globally and today IDC has the data to prove it.
According to a new report from the analyst firm, spending on cloud storage and computing products, including dedicated and shared environments, rose by 13.5% year-over-year to $21.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021.
For the full year, cloud spending rose 8.8% over 2020 to a staggering $73.9 billion, while investment in non-cloud infrastructure rose 4.2% YoY to $59.6 billion.
The next big thing
Businesses and governments globally began to spend more profligately on cloud services over the past two years, spurred by the pandemic highlighting the importance of being connected remotely.
The big winners have been AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, all of which have seen revenue and profits increase substantially since the start of 2020.
And the trend shows no sign of stopping, according to IDC. Worldwide cloud infrastructure spending on shared and dedicated services is expected to reach almost 70% of the total by 2026.
While cloud services might appear to be magic to the end user, all of them rely on huge amounts of computing resources, located in faraway data centres, and fast broadband connections.
The full IDC report is worth reading for detailed insights into the breakdown of who spent what, on what, and where but the general takeaways are that spending was up and to the right in almost all cases.
That was true for almost all regions globally (besides Latin America) and across all types of services – and the same is expected as we get deeper into 2022.
AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud – plus their regional counterparts, such as Alibaba Cloud – are riding a rocket ship and the final destination still hasn't come into view.
