As the cloud’s momentum continues to grow, so do the number of cloud adoption statistics and overall cloud statistics available. Many point to the growing number of businesses moving their workloads to the cloud as evidence of this growth, but how many businesses are moving their workloads to the cloud? How long are they staying there? And how do these statistics differ across different types of businesses? This article will examine current cloud adoption and usage statistics in order to gain insights into these questions and many more.

Cloud Adoption Statistics

Current Rate of Adoption

According to the Cloud Industry Forum, 94% of enterprises use the cloud. Some 41% of SMBs use the cloud, while 31% are likely to use it within a year. Cloud adoption statistics are encouraging: organizations of all sizes—and across industries—are transitioning their operations to the cloud.

SMB Cloud Statistics

According to a survey by TechTarget, around 70% of SMBs have been able to reinvest into their company since moving to the cloud. Additionally, a report published by Forbes shows that more than 20% of SMBs have reaped significant benefits since adopting cloud technology. And almost 10% have been able to launch entirely new products or services! Overall, 60% of SMBs in Forbes’ study were either extremely satisfied or very satisfied with their cloud experience.

Cloud Adoption Budget

51% of SMBs spend less than $120,000 per year. However, 11% of SMBs still spend more than $1.2 million.  According to a report by Forbes, 32% of IT budgets will be allocated to the cloud in 2021.  This represents an increase from 29% in 2018 and 21% in 2017. Currently, 49% of organizations have budgeted for cloud initiatives, up from 38 percent last year. This is because many businesses are realizing that they can use cloud services to reduce costs and improve their business performance.

Cloud Migration Statistics

In a recent survey, 88% of small businesses indicated that they had either migrated to or were considering migrating to cloud-based solutions. Additionally, 72% of those surveyed stated that they believed cloud solutions would allow them to cut IT costs. When it comes to enterprise adoption of cloud computing solutions, 97% of companies have integrated at least one cloud solution into their business processes. As you can see, as a whole it seems companies are more interested in moving away from traditional infrastructure models rather than toward them.

Cloud Usage Statistics

Data Storage Size

By 2025, there is estimated to be a staggering 100 zettabytes of data stored in the cloud.   To put that into perspective, one ZB equals 1000 exabytes or 1 billion terabytes. That’s a major increase from the 2014 estimate from IDC, which stated that some 2.7ZB of information was stored in digital form worldwide.

Multi-Cloud Strategies

92% of enterprises employ a multi-cloud strategy.  Multi-cloud is no longer just for tech giants, either: 61% of small businesses with less than 250 employees report using multiple clouds.  Enterprises are clearly warming up to cloud computing in general; if you don’t have a cloud-first mindset now, it’s time to take stock and reevaluate your cloud strategy so that you can better optimize for cost savings, flexibility, and scalability in an increasingly hybrid IT environment.

Cloud Market Share

The most recent statistics available show that Amazon’s AWS leads the charge with 31% of the market share, followed by Azure at 20% and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) at only 7%.  In other words, there is still plenty of room for enterprise adoption.

Cloud Market Worth

In 2020, the total market worth of the cloud was $371 billion and is expected to reach an impressive $832 billion by 2025.  The SaaS space is expected to grow the fastest, reaching a valuation of $363 billion by 2023. For information on the differences between SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS, check out our article that goes into detail on these different solutions.

Other Cloud Statistics

Top Cloud Priorities

According to research from Statista, the top three priorities for businesses as it relates to the cloud are security, cloud spend, and governance, at 83%, 82%, and 79% respectively.  This makes sense when you consider that any company considering a cloud-based solution must feel confident in the security of their data in order to make a move; more cost-conscious businesses will need reassurance that they’re getting a good deal by going with an alternative platform; and finally, any business that chooses a cloud solution will have some sort of governance structure they must adhere to in order to ensure everything stays on track.

Cloud Spend

Just over a third of enterprises (36%) are spending more than $12 million on cloud annually. This number tends to increase with larger enterprises. Large enterprises (over $1 billion in revenue) were much more likely to report an annual cloud spend of over $50 million (14% vs. 2%). Conversely, smaller companies, those with less than $10 million in revenues, reported spending between zero and just under $2 million per year. As a point of comparison, almost half (48%) of companies worldwide have revenues under $100 million. Thus, it makes sense that smaller companies are less likely to be using cloud computing technologies at all; even when they do use it, they may not be using it very extensively or effectively.

Now is a pristine time to begin considering a move to the cloud.  And if you’re already in the cloud to some degree, it’s a great time to ensure your environment is well-architected and running optimally from both a performance and spending perspective.  Let Axeleos help you on your cloud journey.  Contact us today to schedule a call with us.