The global cloud market continues to boom as spending rises beyond on-prem infrastructure, new figures from analyst firm IDC suggest.
According to the report, businesses spent $15.1 billion on cloud infrastructure in the first quarter of 2021, up 12.5 percent compared to the same period last year. On-prem infrastructure also recorded growth in the same timeframe, but only of 6.3 percent (totalling $13.5 billion).
IDC believes the pandemic played a major role in the rise in cloud spend, as it has left a “lasting impact” on infrastructure. Organizations left and right were scrambling to move into the digital realm to provide commercial and social applications, IDC said. At the moment, businesses are focused on continuity and risk management.
Drilling deeper into cloud spending, IDC says that organizations spent $10.3 billion (11.6 percent more) on shared cloud infrastructure this year. At the same time, spending on dedicated cloud infrastructure hit $4.8 billion, representing a 14.7 percent spike.
The analysts expect growth to continue throughout 2021, hitting $74.6 billion for the year, which would represent 12.9 percent growth. On-prem infrastructure spend is expected to rise by 2.7 percent, to $58.5 billion.