64+ Cloud Computing Statistics, Market Share, Industry & Growth (2024)

Cloud computing is slowly by steadily changing our everyday lives. While people rely on it for data storage, companies also take advantage of its computing capabilities.

Discover:

• Cloud computing market share and which companies dominate the market
• How much will cloud computing earn in the future, and at what speed
• What enterprises use the cloud, and what cloud companies do they trust
• What are the benefits and risks of cloud computing

Did you know that more than 3.6 billion people already use the cloud? Find out more in the article below.

Cloud adoption statistics

Cloud security statistics

Cloud computing growth statistics

Cloud computing industry

Cloud computing market share

Important Cloud Computing Statistics

• With a 32% share, Amazon Web Services have the largest cloud computing market in 2022.
• Google Drive is the most used cloud storage platform by 94.44% of internet users. 89.35% of them access the cloud through mobile.
• 65.28% of people consider the cloud as their primary storage.
• Cloud gaming was worth $2.4 billion in 2021 and plans to almost triple in size in 2023.
• 45% of organizations have experienced cloud breaches in the past 12 months, while 85% of breaches have their roots in human error.

What is the cloud service market share (globally)?

For foundational cloud services:

Amazon Web Services held the biggest cloud computing share of 32% in Q4 2022.

The second was Microsoft Azure at 23%.

For SaaS applications

Microsoft holds the biggest market share of SaaS cloud services at 10.9% in Q2 2021.

Salesforce.com lagged only by 1% behind Microsoft (9.9%).

The global cloud computing market was worth $545.8 billion in 2022.

At the expected CAGR of 16.3%, it will reach $1.24 trillion by 2027.

What is the cloud computing market size in the US?

The US cloud computing market size was worth $135 billion in 2021.

In 2020, the number was $101.4 billion.

(GVR)

The North American cloud computing market represented 40% of all global revenue share in 2021.

(Globe Newswire)

The cloud computing market in North America was worth $262.44 billion in 2021.

In 2020, it was worth slightly less at $222.08 billion.

(FBI)

Who has the largest cloud service market share?

Amazon Web Services currently holds the largest cloud computing market share at 32%.

The data is from Q4 2022.

(Canalys 4)

How big is the cloud computing market?

Global cloud computing industry revenue was $408.6 in 2021.

The biggest market share represents SaaS (software as a service) at 43.5%.

Public cloud revenue in the US, by segments and years.

Future of cloud computing – what are cloud market size predictions for the future?

The cloud computing market is expected to earn more than $494 billion by the end of 2022.

By current estimations, it may reach $1.24 trillion by 2027.

Cloud computing growth & adoption

How fast is the cloud computing market growing?

Cloud computing is growing by 26.3% per year on average.

How much will cloud computing grow in the future?

Spending on all major shared cloud services (IaaS, SISaaS, PaaS, and SaaS) will grow at a CAGR of 21% through 2025.

By 2025, the industry will reach $809 billion in spending.

(IDC 3)

Private cloud services, including dedicated cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (DCIaaS), will grow even faster at a CAGR of 31% until 2025.

However, as an emerging service, it currently held only $5 billion in revenue in 2021.

(IDC 3)

How many companies use cloud computing?

94% of enterprises used cloud services to store their data in 2022.

(CIO)

• 89% of companies use multi-cloud services.
• 80% use a hybrid approach by combining public and private clouds.

(Flexera)

41% of EU enterprises were using cloud computing services in 2021.

Enterprises primarily used these services for hosting e-mails and digital file storage.

However, around 73% of that 41% have also used more complex cloud services for security, hosting databases, and developing, testing, and deployment of applications.

In 2020, 36% of enterprises were using cloud computing.

The cloud will back up more than 60% of all companies’ data in 2022.

In 2015, the percentage was around 30%.

More than 95% of digital workloads will get transferred to cloud-native platforms by 2025.

That’s up from 30% in 2021.

Gartner predicts around 85% of companies will start using the cloud-first principle by 2025, making their digital strategies execution fully dependable on cloud architecture and technologies.

(Gartner)

What percentage of companies use the cloud in the US?

North America is the leader in cloud computing, representing 40% of total global revenue in 2021.

(Yahoo)

What are the major reasons for cloud adoption?

The main reasons organizations decide on cloud adoption are:

How much do companies save by adopting the cloud?

90% of enterprises expect cloud services to reduce IT spending by at least 10%.

Around 55% of enterprises plan to reduce their IT budgets by 30% due to cloud services.

(OpsRamp)

Companies are struggling to control cloud spending.

On average, companies already spend 13% over their initial budget on the public cloud, and the spending will increase by another 29% in the next 12 months.

(Flexera)

Companies estimate they’re wasting 32% of cloud spending.

That’s 2% more compared to 2021.

Only 68% is spent efficiently.

(Flexera)

Cloud adoption by industry – who/what kind of companies/what industries are using cloud computing?

Most famous companies that are using cloud services:

Microsoft Azure is having a higher adoption rate than AWS in 2022.

How are enterprises adopting their cloud services of choice:

Share of current and planned cloud technologies adoption between larger businesses and small-large businesses (SMB).

Yearly spend on the public cloud by companies.

Public cloud services that companies currently use.

Cloud Computing Usage

What percentage of computing is in the cloud?

More than 33% of companies run 50% of their workloads in the cloud as of April 2021.

(Statista 5)

Around 40% of workloads were running in public clouds.

(SWZD)

How cloud software improves business – the main benefits of cloud computing?

Main benefits for businesses when switching to cloud computing:

• Security: 94% of businesses claim improved security after switching to the cloud, while 91% claim it helps them meet government compliance requirements more easily.

• Cost savings: Around 20% of companies are initially concerned about the cost of switching to the cloud. However, 50% of all CIOs and IT leaders claim using cloud-based applications saved them money.

• Flexibility: Relying on an outside company to maintain IT hosting and infrastructure reduces the cost of upgrading your IT systems and gives you extra bandwidth to meet the demand instantly. 65% of respondents in the 2008 survey claimed that meeting a business’s needs quickly is the most important reason to switch to the cloud.

• Mobility: Since almost everyone uses a smartphone, the data from the cloud is readily available everywhere to anyone. Companies focusing on employee satisfaction are 24% more likely to expand cloud usage.

• Insight: Integrated cloud analytics helps with better organization and data tracking, which increases efficiency.

• Easier collaboration: Cloud service makes it easier to connect multiple workers to work on the same project or to see the latest data as soon as it changes.

• Quality control: Cloud computing helps maintain data consistency and avoid human error.

• Disaster recovery: Faster data recovery in case of emergency scenarios. 20% of cloud users can recover data in 4 hours or less, compared to 9% of non-cloud users. No wonder 43% of IT executives from the VMware survey said they plan to invest in improving disaster recovery.

• Loss prevention: With the data stored or backed up elsewhere, it doesn’t hurt as much if your hardware gets damaged. Even FBI’s laptops get frequently lost or stolen (75% of laptops every month, to be exact), so having a data backup is essential.

• Automatic updates: Since IT staff doesn’t have to manually update every computer in the company, updates over the cloud save time and money. Companies require up to 50% less IT resources due to this feature.

• Competitive edge: 77% of companies claim they have a competitive advantage due to cloud usage.

• Sustainability: Data centers can be very power hungry (based on estimations, around 7.2 million data centers worldwide might be using 1% of all global electricity), but they still help reduce overall power consumption if companies move to cloud services. Google plans to reduce its cloud service electric bill by 40% and be carbon-free by 2030.

Sources: Salesforce, InformationWeek, DW

How many people use cloud computing services?

Around 3.6 billion people worldwide used cloud services in 2018.

That was nearly half of the entire Earth’s population (47%). Today the number is over 50%.

(Zippia)

Statistics of how many people save their files to the cloud.

53% of internet users worldwide used the cloud to store their personal data in 2019.

More than 69% of American internet users do the same or use cloud-based apps.

(Zippia)

Most people (44%) use Google Drive for cloud file storage, according to a 2021 survey.

Most popular cloud storage services:

Most people have been using their current cloud storage service for 1-5 years.

In the GoodFirms survey in 2020, 54.62% of respondents use at least 3 different cloud services.

(GoodFirms)

Most used cloud storage services in 2020 were:

Most people have accessed their storage through mobile apps (89.35%).

Closely followed by website access at 87.96%, while access through desktop apps sits at a distant 10.65%.

Percentage of people accessing cloud data from website and mobile, by age group and gender.

In 38.19% of cases, people manually update data to the cloud on a regular basis.

In 34.67% of cases, the data gets synced by default; in 15.58% of cases, the app or software automatically syncs data, whereas 9.55% of people only sometimes save data to the cloud.

65.28% of people consider the cloud as their primary storage.

17.59% aren’t sure, whereas 17.13% disagree.

Out of those who consider cloud storage as their main storage, 86.67% consist of Gen Z users.

In 92.59% of cases, cloud storage is used for office data.

73.15% is used for personal data.

In 2020, around more than 61% of people used free limited cloud storage plans for saving data.

Only 16.20% had paid for unlimited storage plans.

Free limited plans are most popular among Gen Z users, while paid unlimited plans are most spread among the Gen X population.

Here’s more data on music streaming services that also use cloud computing.

How much data is stored in the cloud?

Global cloud storage could hold 200 zettabytes of data by the end of 2025.

That includes data on both private and publicly available cloud services. That’s equal to 2 billion terabytes of data.

(CSV)

A person creates more than 1.7 megabytes of data every second.

Every day, people create more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data worldwide.

(Domo)

What is the market size of cloud gaming?

The Cloud gaming market was worth $2.4 billion in 2022.

It’s expected to reach $6.31 billion by 2024.

North America is the biggest market for cloud gaming, representing an estimated 57.92% of the global share by the end of 2022.

Japan is the leader in the Asian market, with an estimated 45.41% of the market share.

(GreyViews)

The Asian cloud gaming market brought in 41.43% of the global revenue in 2021.

(GreyViews)

What are the top companies in cloud gaming?

• NVIDIA GeForce Now
• PlayStation Now
• Google Stadia
• Shadow
• Vortex
• Amazon Luna
• Playkey
• Paperspace
• Blacknut
• Rainway
• NetBoom
• Boosteroid

(Geekflare)

Cloud Computing Security

What are the biggest cloud security threats?

The biggest security problems with cloud computing.

Here’s a table of cloud computing security risks:

More security risks for cloud computing, in more detail.

• Identity mismanagement: By 2023, mismanagement of identity, credentials, access, and privileges will cause around 75% of all security breaches.

• Cloud misconfiguration: Multi-cloud environments can be complicated, so glitches, errors, and gaps in the system can occur. Attackers use the latter to breach into the cloud. In 80% of security breaches, cloud misconfiguration is the cause.

• Denial of service: In Q1 2022, Cloudflare reported that out of all DDoS attacks, 10% were ransom (still representing a decrease of -28% YoY), application-layer attacks increased by 164% YoY, and network-layer attacks increased by 71% YoY.

• Insider threat: According to Verizon, insider threat is responsible for approximately 22% of security breaches.

• Reduced infrastructure visibility: It’s essential to have 100% visibility and be able to inspect both encrypted and non-encrypted traffic for any anomalies.

• Unauthorized use of cloud workloads: Someone can create a Shadow IT, which uses IT systems, services, devices, applications, or software without approval. 29% of security breaches involve shadow IT.

• Insecure APIs: Approximately 29% of successful attacks in 2019 involved insecure APIs.

• Compliance and regulation issues

Sources: Business Wire, Cloudflare, Verizon, Gigamon, Forcepoint, TechTarget, Horangi

How common are cloud security breaches?

In the past 12 months, 45% of organizations have had a data breach.

That’s 5% more than the year before.

(Thales)

Around 1/3 of organizations have suffered from a ransomware attack or breach between August 2021 and August 2020.

These attacks blocked access to systems and data.

(IDC 4)

What are the biggest cloud data breaches?

The most significant data breaches in history.

Top 5 cloud security breaches that happened in 2022.

• FlexBooker
• Microsoft’s BlueBleed data leak
• Alibaba Cloud data leak in China
• Microsoft Azure hacked by Lapsus$ group
• Medibank data leak in Australia

(ImmuniWeb)

How important is cloud security to companies?

75% of companies place cloud security as their top priority in 2022.

Around 33% of those companies are highly concerned about cloud security, 42% are very concerned, whereas 25% are only mildly concerned.

Top 5 reasons why companies should invest in cloud security.

• It minimizes possible security breaches
• It manages remote work
• It ensures disaster recovery
• It helps to comply with government regulations
• It irons out weak points and vulnerable glitches

(Alibaba Cloud)

How secure is cloud computing?

Out of all cyber attacks in 2020, 20% targeted cloud platforms.

The frequency of the attack will keep on getting higher in the future.

(Triskele Labs)

Cloud-based cyber attacks have increased by 48% from 2021 to 2022.

The attacks increased the most in Asia and the least in North America.

Only 1 out of 5 companies had regularly assessed their cloud security posture in 2020.

Another 20% did that weekly, whereas 58% did it monthly or even less frequently.

(Tripwire)

Regarding cloud storage, people are most concerned about privacy and data security (78.24%).

Which cloud (company) has the highest security? / Who is the leader in cloud security?

Here are the most trusted cloud security companies among well-known enterprises:

What are the main reasons for cloud breaches?

In general, human error is the leading cause of cloud security failures.

Around 85% of data breaches have their roots in human errors.

Statistically, 43% of people have already made a mistake that could weaken a company’s cybersecurity.

(Tessian)

The younger demographic under 40 is likelier to admit their mistake at work than the older ones.

Around 53% of workers aged 31-40 admit they made a mistake with cybersecurity consequences.

People that clicked on phishing e-mail at work, by age.

Reasons why workers engaged with a phishing e-mail.

Read more:

• Technology addiction statistics
• Information technology statistics

Conclusion

More and more companies are shifting from internal computing capacities to cloud-based ones. While that brings many benefits, it also brings new kinds of vulnerabilities to the table.

Hopefully, every issue the cloud technology might face will get addressed as the cloud computing market is bound to extend even further. The future is undoubtedly in the cloud.

What do you think, should everything be cloud-based? Does storing data in the cloud make your life easier? What cloud service do you use?

Please, let us know down in the comments.