From a staggering $545.5 billion spent globally to an overwhelming 94% of enterprises now on board, the cloud has undeniably shifted from a cutting-edge option to the absolute core of modern business.
Key Takeaways
- Worldwide public cloud services end-user spending reached $545.5 billion in 2023, growing 19.1% from 2022
- 94% of enterprises used cloud services in 2023, up from 89% in 2022 according to Flexera's State of the Cloud Report
- Cloud adoption among SMEs reached 91% globally in 2023, with 67% multi-cloud strategies, per Deloitte survey
- Global public cloud spending hit $597.6 billion in 2023, up 21% YoY per Gartner
- Enterprise cloud spend averaged $12.5 million per org in 2023, Flexera
- IaaS spending reached $91.4B in Q4 2023, 27% growth, Synergy Research
- AWS held 31% global cloud infrastructure market share in 2023, Synergy Research
- Microsoft Azure captured 25% of cloud infrastructure spend in Q4 2023, up 3 pts YoY, Synergy
- Google Cloud at 11% market share in 2023 cloud infra, Synergy Research Group
- Financial services AWS usage 34% provider share 2023, Flexera
- Healthcare Azure adoption 42% in hospitals 2023, HIMSS
- Retailers 65% use cloud for inventory mgmt, NRF 2023
- Public cloud end-user spending to reach $1.3 trillion by 2027, 21% CAGR from 2023, Gartner forecast
- Cloud infrastructure services to grow to $250B annually by 2027, 25% CAGR, Synergy Research
- AI/ML cloud spend projected $90B by 2026, 35% CAGR, IDC
Cloud usage is surging globally with most businesses now adopting it.
Adoption Rates
- Worldwide public cloud services end-user spending reached $545.5 billion in 2023, growing 19.1% from 2022
- 94% of enterprises used cloud services in 2023, up from 89% in 2022 according to Flexera's State of the Cloud Report
- Cloud adoption among SMEs reached 91% globally in 2023, with 67% multi-cloud strategies, per Deloitte survey
- 92% of US enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy in place as of 2024, Flexera reports
- Global cloud infrastructure services spending hit $91.4 billion in Q4 2023, up 25% YoY, Synergy Research Group
- 85% of organizations experienced cloud outages in the past year, per CloudZero 2023 report
- Hybrid cloud adoption stands at 58% among enterprises in 2023, IBM survey
- 69% of businesses accelerated cloud migration post-COVID, McKinsey 2023
- Cloud usage in APAC grew 28% in 2023 to $55 billion, IDC
- 76% of workloads are now cloud-native in leading enterprises, per CNCF survey 2023
- Edge computing adoption in cloud environments reached 45% in 2023, Gartner
- 82% of EU companies use cloud services daily, Eurostat 2023
- Fintech cloud adoption hit 96% in 2023, Finextra report
- 61% of enterprises plan to increase cloud spend by over 30% in 2024, Nutanix survey
- Serverless computing adoption grew to 49% in 2023, Datadog report
- 88% of developers use cloud platforms regularly, Stack Overflow 2023
- Public cloud attachment rate reached 20.4% in 2023, Synergy
- 73% of IT leaders cite skills gap as cloud adoption barrier, HashiCorp 2023
- Container adoption in cloud hit 83% among enterprises, Portworx 2023
- 54% of organizations use AI/ML in cloud environments, O'Reilly 2023
- Blockchain-as-a-Service adoption rose 35% to 22% in 2023, Gartner
- 67% of retailers adopted cloud for e-commerce in 2023, NRF survey
- IoT cloud integration reached 41% globally, Cisco 2023
- 79% of healthcare providers use cloud for patient data, HIMSS 2023
- SaaS adoption at 99% among enterprises, BetterCloud 2023
- PaaS market penetration 37% in dev teams, Forrester 2023
- IaaS usage grew 24% to 65% of workloads, IDC 2023
- Multi-cloud strategies adopted by 87% of firms avoiding lock-in, Virtana 2023
- Cloud repatriation affected only 14% of users in 2023, CoreWeave report
- FinOps practices implemented by 56% for cloud governance, FinOps Foundation 2023
Adoption Rates Interpretation
The cloud has become the world's reluctant and occasionally glitchy headquarters, where nearly every company now rents its brain, proving that while the sky may be the limit, the monthly bill certainly isn't.
Future Projections
- Public cloud end-user spending to reach $1.3 trillion by 2027, 21% CAGR from 2023, Gartner forecast
- Cloud infrastructure services to grow to $250B annually by 2027, 25% CAGR, Synergy Research
- AI/ML cloud spend projected $90B by 2026, 35% CAGR, IDC
- Edge computing cloud market to $250B by 2028, Gartner
- Multi-cloud adoption to 95% by 2027, Forrester
- Serverless market to $35B by 2026, 23% CAGR, MarketsandMarkets
- Sustainability-driven cloud optimization to save $20B annually by 2025, McKinsey
- FinOps maturity to cover 80% enterprises by 2026, FinOps Foundation
- Containerized workloads to 85% of apps by 2026, Portworx
- Hybrid cloud to dominate 70% enterprises by 2027, IBM
- Quantum cloud services market $10B by 2028, Gartner
- Data sovereignty clouds to grow 30% CAGR to 2027, IDC
- Zero-trust cloud security adoption 90% by 2026, Forrester
- Generative AI cloud infra demand up 50% annually to 2027, Synergy
- SaaS to $400B by 2027, 15% CAGR, Statista
- PaaS forecast $200B by 2028, Gartner
- Cloud repatriation to affect 20% workloads by 2026, CoreWeave
- Low-code/no-code platforms $50B cloud market 2027, Gartner
- 6G cloud-native networks 40% adoption by 2030, Ericsson
- Sustainable cloud data centers 50% of capacity by 2027, Deloitte
- Blockchain cloud services $20B by 2027, 45% CAGR, MarketsandMarkets
- AR/VR cloud rendering $15B by 2028, IDC
- Autonomous cloud ops 60% adoption by 2026, Gartner
- Metaverse cloud infra $80B by 2030, McKinsey
- Ransomware defenses cloud spend $25B by 2027, Cybersecurity Ventures
- Digital twins cloud market $110B by 2028, Gartner
- 5G private cloud networks 30% enterprise adoption by 2026, GSMA
- Cloud gaming to 25% of market by 2027, Newzoo
- Supply chain resilience cloud $40B by 2027, Deloitte
- Personalized medicine cloud analytics $30B 2028, IQVIA
Future Projections Interpretation
If you think the sky's the limit, you haven't seen the latest forecast, which predicts that by 2027 the cloud will be a $1.3 trillion universe of exponential growth, from AI's voracious appetite to the sobering need for FinOps and security, proving that our digital future is both brilliantly ambitious and desperately in need of a sane budget.
Industry Specific Usage
- Financial services AWS usage 34% provider share 2023, Flexera
- Healthcare Azure adoption 42% in hospitals 2023, HIMSS
- Retailers 65% use cloud for inventory mgmt, NRF 2023
- Manufacturing 52% IoT data on cloud, McKinsey 2023
- Energy sector 48% hybrid cloud for SCADA, Deloitte 2023
- Government agencies 71% SaaS adoption rate 2023, Gartner
- Education cloud usage 89% for LMS like Canvas, EDUCAUSE 2023
- Telecom 55% 5G core on cloud, Ericsson 2023
- Media & Entertainment 76% streaming on AWS 2023, Synergy
- Automotive 39% cloud for ADAS data, PwC 2023
- Pharma 62% R&D workloads migrated to cloud, IQVIA 2023
- Logistics 67% supply chain apps on cloud, DHL 2023
- Hospitality 51% PMS systems SaaS 2023, Hotel Tech Report
- Insurance 44% claims processing cloud-based, McKinsey 2023
- Real Estate 28% PropTech on cloud 2023, Deloitte
- Gaming 82% cloud gaming platforms usage, Newzoo 2023
- Agriculture 35% precision farming IoT cloud, FAO 2023
- Construction 41% BIM models on cloud, Autodesk 2023
- Legal 53% e-discovery tools cloud 2023, Gartner
- Non-profits 72% CRM SaaS like Salesforce, TechSoup 2023
- Aerospace 47% simulation workloads cloud, NASA 2023
- Mining 29% resource mgmt on cloud, EY 2023
- Utilities 56% smart grid cloud analytics, IDC 2023
- Transportation 64% fleet mgmt cloud 2023, Geotab
- Chemicals 38% supply chain cloud, Accenture 2023
- Banking 91% core banking modernized on cloud partially, Finextra 2023
- High Tech 78% R&D cloud collab, SiliconANGLE 2023
- Consumer Goods 49% e-comm platforms cloud, Nielsen 2023
Industry Specific Usage Interpretation
Across industries, from healthcare to gaming, the cloud has quietly but decisively become the default operating system for modern business, powering everything from life-saving research and financial transactions to how we stream movies and manage our supply chains.
Market Share
- AWS held 31% global cloud infrastructure market share in 2023, Synergy Research
- Microsoft Azure captured 25% of cloud infrastructure spend in Q4 2023, up 3 pts YoY, Synergy
- Google Cloud at 11% market share in 2023 cloud infra, Synergy Research Group
- AWS IaaS share 32% worldwide 2023, Gartner
- Oracle Cloud grew fastest at 49% to 2% share in 2023, Synergy
- Alibaba Cloud 5% global share, dominant 40% in China 2023, Canalys
- IBM Cloud 2.5% share in hybrid cloud 2023, IDC
- Salesforce CRM SaaS 20% market share 2023, Statista
- VMware held 15% in virtualization cloud share pre-Broadcom, Gartner 2023
- Snowflake data cloud 7% of data warehouse market 2023, Gartner
- Databricks 4% in data lakehouse share 2023, Forrester
- ServiceNow 28% ITSM cloud market share 2023, IDC
- Workday 16% HCM SaaS share 2023, Gartner
- MongoDB Atlas 12% database-as-a-service share 2023, DB-Engines
- Twilio 22% CPaaS market share 2023, Gartner
- HashiCorp Terraform 35% IaC tool share in cloud 2023, HashiCorp survey
- New Relic 8% APM cloud monitoring share 2023, Gartner
- Okta 15% IAM cloud share 2023, IDC
- Cloudflare 18% CDN market share 2023, Statista
- Red Hat OpenShift 14% managed Kubernetes share 2023, CNCF
- Confluent 25% Kafka-as-a-Service share 2023, Gartner
- Fastly 6% edge cloud share 2023, Synergy
- Nutanix 10% HCI cloud share 2023, IDC
- Zscaler 21% SASE cloud security share 2023, Gartner
- GitHub Copilot 45% AI dev tool share in cloud 2023, Stack Overflow
Market Share Interpretation
Despite AWS and Azure bickering like tech titans over the infrastructure pie, the real story is in the niche slices where everyone from Oracle to Databricks is furiously sharpening their knives to carve out a kingdom of their own.
Spending Trends
- Global public cloud spending hit $597.6 billion in 2023, up 21% YoY per Gartner
- Enterprise cloud spend averaged $12.5 million per org in 2023, Flexera
- IaaS spending reached $91.4B in Q4 2023, 27% growth, Synergy Research
- PaaS revenue grew 22% to $45.2B in 2023 globally, IDC
- SaaS market size $195B in 2023, up 18%, Statista
- Cloud storage spend $80.1B in 2023, 21% YoY increase, Gartner
- 32% of cloud budgets wasted on average, per CloudHealth 2023
- US cloud spend $238B in 2023, 22% growth, Canalys
- APAC cloud spend $97B in 2023, fastest growing region at 28%, IDC
- Average cloud cost overrun 23% in enterprises, Accenture 2023
- Hyperscaler infrastructure capex $50B in Q1 2024 alone, Synergy
- Database-as-a-Service spend $15.6B in 2023, 25% up, Gartner
- Security services cloud spend $15.4B Q4 2023, 20% growth, Synergy
- AI cloud workload spend $8.5B in 2023, exploding 40%, McKinsey
- EMEA cloud spend $110B in 2023, 24% YoY, IDC
- Container orchestration spend $4.2B in 2023, 35% growth, Gartner
- FinOps tools market $1.8B in 2023, up 50%, Forrester
- Edge cloud spend $2.1B in 2023, 45% increase, IDC
- Multi-cloud management spend $7.3B, 28% YoY, Gartner
- Cloud backup services $9.8B revenue 2023, 19% growth, Statista
- Developer tools PaaS $12.4B in 2023, 23% up, Synopsys
- Latin America cloud spend $18B, 35% growth fastest region, IDC
- 45% of spend on top 5 services in AWS accounts, Spot by NetApp 2023
- Managed Kubernetes services $3.9B spend 2023, 40% YoY, CNCF
- Cloud migration services $10.2B in 2023, 22% increase, Gartner
- SaaS per user spend averaged $137/month in enterprises 2023, Blissfully
Spending Trends Interpretation
The cloud is an immense and endlessly hungry digital beast, devouring billions while delightfully ignoring the budget it was explicitly given.
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