Organizations estimate that 28% of cloud spend is wasted, and 82% of enterprises name cost control as their top challenge. Mid-market companies overshoot cloud budgets by an average of 13%, turning planned capacity into unplanned expense. In the economics and cost management view, cloud bills come down to idle resources, complex charges, and inefficient usage decisions.
Key Takeaways
- Organizations estimate that 28% of their cloud spend is wasted
- Controlling cloud costs is the #1 challenge for 82% of enterprises
- Cloud spend exceeds budget by an average of 13% for mid-market companies
- The global public cloud services market is projected to reach $678.8 billion in 2024
- Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) spending is expected to grow by 26.6% in 2024
- Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) spending is forecast to reach $176.5 billion in 2024
- Cloud security is the top concern for 79% of IT professionals
- 45% of data breaches are cloud-based
- Misconfiguration remains the #1 cause of cloud data breaches
- 89% of organizations have a multi-cloud strategy
- 73% of enterprises indicate they are using a hybrid cloud approach
- On average, organizations use 2.9 public clouds and 2.5 private clouds
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) held a 31% market share of global cloud infrastructure spend in Q3 2023
- Microsoft Azure and other cloud services revenue grew 30% in the most recent fiscal quarter
- Google Cloud's market share grew to 10% of total infrastructure spending in 2023
Enterprises waste 28% of cloud spend and struggle with costs and security, driving major savings through FinOps.
Related reading
01 · Category
Economics & Cost Management30 stats
01
Organizations estimate that 28% of their cloud spend is wasted
02
Controlling cloud costs is the #1 challenge for 82% of enterprises
03
Cloud spend exceeds budget by an average of 13% for mid-market companies
04
$17.6 billion in cloud spend will be wasted on idle resources in 2024
05
Cloud hosting costs for generative AI models are 10x higher than traditional models
06
Reserved instances and savings plans are used by 54% of AWS customers to save money
07
Cloud bill complexity is cited as a major barrier by 37% of IT managers
08
The average monthly cloud bill for a Series B startup is $25,000
09
Organizations using FinOps tools reduced cloud waste by 15% on average
10
42% of cloud users find "unallocated costs" (shared services) difficult to manage
11
Global spending on cloud-native security tools is set to grow 24% in 2024
12
Egress cost waivers by major clouds could save independent vendors up to $500M annually
13
31% of companies are considering cloud repatriation to reduce long-term costs
14
Public cloud storage is 20% cheaper than on-prem storage over a 5-year TCO
15
Cloud computing can reduce enterprise IT energy costs by up to 87%
16
The average hourly rate for a cloud architect is $120-$180 in the US
17
Labor costs account for 50% of the total budget in cloud migration projects
18
Enterprises using auto-scaling save an average of 22% on compute costs
19
Managed MongoDB (Atlas) reduces OpEx by 40% compared to self-managed cloud VMs
20
Multi-cloud networking solutions added 12% to the average cloud budget in 2023
21
Data egress fees from AWS to the internet can cost up to $0.09per GB
22
60% of IT leaders prioritize ROI over lower entry costs when choosing cloud vendors
23
Training staff on cloud technologies costs enterprises $3,500per head annually
24
Government cloud spending is expected to grow 17% due to modernization mandates
25
25% of cloud budgets are lost to "Shadow IT" (unauthorized cloud usage)
26
Companies using cloud-native monitoring save 30% in troubleshooting time
27
Cloud migration can result in a 30-50% reduction in TCO for legacy app hosting
28
Subscription price hikes for SaaS averaged 12% in 2023
29
Investing in cloud automation has a payback period of less than 12 months for 65% of firms
30
Data transfer between cloud availability zones costs $0.01per GB on average
Interpretation
Economics & Cost Management Interpretation
The cloud's great promise of endless scalability and savings is being hilariously undermined by a universal failure of arithmetic, where executives, drowning in bills as cryptic as they are colossal, are essentially funding a secret skunkworks for their own employees while paying a king's ransom to cool empty virtual servers.
02 · Category
Market Size & Growth30 stats
01
The global public cloud services market is projected to reach $678.8 billion in 2024
02
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) spending is expected to grow by 26.6% in 2024
03
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) spending is forecast to reach $176.5 billion in 2024
04
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) remains the largest market segment with a projected $244 billion in spending for 2024
05
Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) is expected to see $3.2 billion in spending in 2024
06
Cloud Management and Security Services spending is forecasted at $42.6 billion for 2024
07
By 2027, more than 70% of enterprises will use industry cloud platforms to accelerate business initiatives
08
The global hybrid cloud market was valued at $129 billion in 2023
09
The retail cloud market size is projected to grow from $53.2 billion in 2023 to $178.4 billion by 2028
10
The annual growth rate (CAGR) of the retail cloud market is estimated at 27.4%
11
The cloud computing market in APAC is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.6% through 2028
12
Healthcare cloud computing market is expected to reach $90.2 billion by 2027
13
The edge computing market is projected to reach $155.9 billion by 2030
14
North America held a revenue share of 43.1% in the edge computing market in 2023
15
The cloud gaming market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 45.8% from 2023 to 2030
16
Managed cloud services market size is estimated to be $106.7 billion in 2023
17
The serverless architecture market is projected to grow from $12.4 billion in 2023 to $40.7 billion by 2028
18
Multi-cloud management market is expected to grow from $9.2 billion in 2023 to $32.4 billion by 2028
19
The government cloud market size is projected to reach $118.5 billion by 2032
20
Cloud-based ERP market is expected to reach $130 billion by 2032
21
Large enterprises segment accounted for over 65% of the total cloud revenue share in 2023
22
The BFSI sector is the largest vertical adopter of cloud, representing 20.3% of market share
23
Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) market is projected to hit $25.4 billion by 2028
24
SME cloud adoption is expected to grow at a CAGR of 18% through 2030
25
Cloud storage market size is anticipated to grow by $108.5 billion from 2023 to 2027
26
The cloud office recruitment market is growing at a rate of 12.5% annually
27
Public cloud penetration in the UK has reached 89% among large businesses
28
Global spending on cloud infrastructure services reached $73.5 billion in Q3 2023 alone
29
The generative AI contribution to cloud market growth is projected to be 3% of total cloud spend in 2024
30
China's cloud infrastructure market is growing at 12% YoY, reaching $9.2 billion in Q3 2023
Interpretation
Market Size & Growth Interpretation
The cloud is now a trillion-dollar tectonic shift where everyone from banks to gamers are betting the farm on someone else's computer, proving that the sky is not the limit, with all due respect to gravity.
03 · Category
Security & Compliance30 stats
01
Cloud security is the top concern for 79% of IT professionals
02
45% of data breaches are cloud-based
03
Misconfiguration remains the #1 cause of cloud data breaches
04
80% of organizations have experienced at least one cloud security incident in the last year
05
Cloud-based malware increased by 68% in 2023
06
65% of organizations use Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tools
07
The average cost of a cloud-based data breach is $4.45 million
08
56% of IT leaders find it more difficult to manage security in the cloud than on-premises
09
Only 35% of organizations have a "Zero Trust" strategy for their cloud environment
10
72% of companies believe the "Shared Responsibility Model" is confusing
11
95% of cloud security failures are predicted to be the customer's fault through 2025
12
38% of organizations list "Meeting Compliance Requirements" as a top cloud challenge
13
Ransomware attacks on cloud-stored data rose by 40% year-over-year
14
51% of organizations lack the necessary skills to manage cloud security
15
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) are used by 42% of enterprises
16
27% of organizations have reported a security incident involving a serverless function
17
API-based attacks in the cloud grew by 400% in 2023
18
1 in 10 cloud buckets (storage) are left open to the public internet
19
Encryption is used for only 45% of sensitive data stored in the cloud
20
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adoption for cloud admins has reached 81%
21
59% of security professionals say "visibility into cloud data" is their biggest gap
22
Supply chain attacks affecting cloud services increased by 300%
23
40% of SaaS applications are "unmanaged" by IT departments
24
Cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPP) saw a 42% rise in adoption
25
23% of companies are using confidential computing to protect data in use
26
Identity and Access Management (IAM) misconfigurations are found in 75% of cloud audits
27
The average time to detect a cloud breach is 207 days
28
Sovereign cloud services are a priority for 60% of European government agencies
29
92% of cloud security specialists believe AI will be used for both attacking and defending clouds
30
GDPR compliance remains the most expensive cloud regulatory requirement for US firms
Interpretation
Security & Compliance Interpretation
The statistics paint a vivid picture: we have collectively moved our valuables to a digital fortress that many are still trying to figure out how to lock, all while a shockingly clever crowd of thieves is already inside handing out spare keys.
More related reading
04 · Category
Usage & Infrastructure Trends30 stats
01
89% of organizations have a multi-cloud strategy
02
73% of enterprises indicate they are using a hybrid cloud approach
03
On average, organizations use 2.9 public clouds and 2.5 private clouds
04
40% of organizations’ workloads are currently in a public cloud
05
58% of organizations use Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tools to manage cloud resources
06
Container adoption has reached 65% across enterprise cloud users
07
Kubernetes is used by 54% of organizations running containers in the cloud
08
70% of organizations cite "optimizing existing use of cloud" as their top initiative
09
Serverless computing usage grew by 20% year-over-year among enterprise developers
10
Organizations are running 34% of their workloads on Microsoft Azure and 32% on AWS
11
Over 50% of enterprise data is now stored in the cloud
12
80% of organizations are seeing a rise in cloud-native application development
13
44% of companies use cloud-managed database services for most of their data needs
14
Public cloud usage for high-performance computing (HPC) increased by 15% in 2023
15
SaaS usage averages 130 apps per company in large enterprises
16
ARM-based instances are now used by 32% of cloud customers to reduce costs
17
27% of organizations use edge computing as part of their cloud strategy
18
FinOps (cloud financial management) has been adopted by 61% of large organizations
19
48% of organizations use machine learning cloud services regularly
20
The average number of cloud security tools used by a single company is 12
21
72% of companies say cloud-based collaboration tools are essential for remote work
22
Use of AWS Lambda has reached a 70% adoption rate among AWS users
23
Python remains the top language for cloud-native development (45% of projects)
24
Low-code/No-code cloud platforms are used by 41% of companies for internal tools
25
39% of organizations use Google Cloud Platform for their primary or secondary cloud
26
API traffic represents 83% of all web traffic hitting cloud infrastructures
27
Microservices architecture is used in 79% of new cloud-native deployments
28
Data egress fees account for an average of 6% of total cloud spend for large companies
29
55% of organizations use a "cloud-first" approach for new software projects
30
The use of spot instances for non-critical workloads has increased by 18% YoY
Interpretation
Usage & Infrastructure Trends Interpretation
Amidst a sprawling digital circus where businesses juggle an average of nearly three public and two-and-a-half private clouds, the collective mission has become strikingly clear: to desperately tame this self-inflicted complexity, optimize every penny with FinOps, and somehow, against all odds, secure the whole glorious mess.
05 · Category
Vendor Performance & Competition30 stats
01
Amazon Web Services (AWS) held a 31% market share of global cloud infrastructure spend in Q3 2023
02
Microsoft Azure and other cloud services revenue grew 30% in the most recent fiscal quarter
03
Google Cloud's market share grew to 10% of total infrastructure spending in 2023
04
Alibaba Cloud remains the top provider in China with a 39% market share
05
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) reported a 52% revenue growth in Q2 FY24
06
Huawei Cloud is the second-largest provider in China with a 19% share
07
IBM Cloud revenue reached $23 billion over the last 12-month period
08
Salesforce dominates the CRM SaaS market with over 23% market share
09
Tencent Cloud holds a 15% share of the Chinese cloud infrastructure market
10
AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud collectively account for 65% of global cloud spending
11
ServiceNow's subscription revenue grew 27% year-over-year in 2023
12
Adobe's Creative Cloud revenue grew 13% to reach $11.52 billion in fiscal 2023
13
Snowflake reported a 34% product revenue growth for Q3 FY24
14
SAP's cloud revenue grew 23% (at constant currencies) in FY2023
15
Workday reported subscription revenue growth of 18.1% for its fiscal Q3 2024
16
Zoom recorded a revenue of $1.137 billion in Q3 FY24, representing 3.2% growth
17
Datadog's revenue grew 25% year-over-year in Q3 2023
18
Akamai's cloud computing revenue increased 20% in Q3 2023
19
Cloudflare revenue increased 32% year-over-year to $335.6 million in Q3 2023
20
DigitalOcean reported revenue of $177 million for Q3 2023, up 16% year-over-year
21
VMware's subscription and SaaS revenue made up 44% of total revenue in its final independent quarter
22
Rackspace Technology reported $732 million in revenue for Q3 2023, with focus on "Private Cloud"
23
Splunk's Cloud revenue grew 26% year-over-year in Q3 2023, reaching $469 million
24
Dropbox reached 18.17 million paying users in Q3 2023
25
NetApp's hybrid cloud segment revenue was $1.32 billion in Q2 FY24
26
Nutanix revenue increased 18% year-over-year to $511 million in Q1 FY24
27
Teradata's cloud revenue grew 52% year-over-year in Q3 2023
28
Box revenue for Q3 FY24 was $262 million, a 5% increase year-over-year
29
Confluent (managed Kafka) revenue grew 32% year-over-year in Q3 2023
30
MongoDB's Atlas (cloud) revenue grew 36% year-over-year, representing 66% of total revenue
Interpretation
Vendor Performance & Competition Interpretation
It seems everyone is sprinting for a piece of the cloud, but the race is really between Amazon's unshakeable empire, Microsoft's relentless charge, and the chasing pack who are growing fast by finding their own clever niches in the sky.
Reference
Cite This Report
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APA
Megan Gallagher. (2026, February 13). Cloud Computing Industry Statistics. Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/cloud-computing-industry-statistics
MLA
Megan Gallagher. "Cloud Computing Industry Statistics." Gitnux, 13 Feb 2026, https://gitnux.org/cloud-computing-industry-statistics.
Chicago
Megan Gallagher. 2026. "Cloud Computing Industry Statistics." Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/cloud-computing-industry-statistics.
Sources & references
78 datasets cited across this report · attribution is report-level
akamai.com
aws.amazon.com