Spending on public cloud services driven by emerging technologies becomes mainstream

Worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services is estimated to grow 23.1% in 2021 to total $332.3 billion, up from $270 billion in 2020, according to the latest forecast from Gartner. While SaaS remains the largest market segment, Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) will see the highest growth in 2021, 38.5% and 67.7% respectively.

SaaS remains the largest market segment

As organizations mobilize for a massive global effort to produce and distribute COVID-19 vaccinations, SaaS-based applications that enable essential tasks such as automation and supply chain is critical. Such applications continue to demonstrate reliability in scaling vaccine management, which in turn will help CIOs further validate the ongoing shift to the cloud.

Sid Nag, research vice president at Gartner, said,

“Even absent the pandemic there would still be a loss of appetite for data centers. Emerging technologies such as containerization, virtualization and edge computing are becoming more mainstream and driving additional cloud spending. Simply put, the pandemic served as a multiplier for CIOs’ interest in the cloud.”

Despite macroeconomic headwinds, offerings that support or deliver public cloud services are experiencing tremendous growth. SaaS remains the largest market segment and is forecast to reach $122.6 billion in 2021 as the demand for composable applications requires a different type of SaaS experience.

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) will see the highest growth in 2021, 38.5% and 67.7% respectively, as CIOs face continued pressures to scale infrastructure that supports moving complex workloads to the cloud and the demands of a hybrid workforce.

 Worldwide Public Cloud Services End-User Spending Forecast (Millions of U.S. Dollars)