Almost every fourth company in the European Union uses the cloud
The latest Eurostat research shows that in the last 4 years the use of cloud computing among large companies in the European Union has increased by over 20%. Currently, 26% of enterprises use cloud computing. It is worth noting that statistically the larger the company, the more often it uses cloud computing.
This is confirmed by numbers – the largest percentage of cloud use (56%) is found among the largest companies that theoretically have their own resources, and yet more often decide to outsource. The public administration also increasingly places on the cloud.
‘A simple profit and loss account wins. Cloud will always be a cheaper solution than maintaining infrastructure on its own, in addition, the administration collides today with the problem of a shortage of specialists who prefer to work in enterprises. It is also worth paying attention to the trend of investing in the cloud of the foreign public sector’ – notes Urszula Mielcarz from CloudFerro, a company that, on behalf of the European Space Agency, stores data from the Copernicus satellites in the cloud.
Geographical differences
According to research, there are significant differences between individual countries in the use of cloud computing in the EU. While in Poland the percentage of companies using the cloud in 2018 reached only 11.5%, in Finland, Sweden and Denmark – 65.3%, 57.2% and 55.6% respectively.
In the ranking of countries most willing to use cloud solutions, Poland is on the third place from the end, before Bulgaria and Romania. No wonder – in the years 2014-2016, the percentage of Polish companies using the cloud grew by 1% per annum. For comparison, e.g in Finland, annual increases in the same period ranged from 51 to 57%.
‘The use of cloud computing strongly correlates with the digital advancement of individual European Union countries. In countries that have been investing in fiber-optic links and digital competence of citizens for years, the use of cloud computing is the most common’ – comments Eurostat data Urszula Mielcarz from CloudFerro.
It gets better and better for the cloud market
It turns out that the predictions about the cloud computing market from just a decade do not only meet, but were too timid. In 2010, the American research company Pew Research Center conducted a survey among current and potential cloud users, asking them about the forecasts related to its use in the future. As many as 71% of respondents indicated the answer “in 2020, the norm will be functioning in the cloud, and the work will be done mainly with the use of applications in cyberspace, available through network devices”. It is safe to say that they had a good feeling.
It is worth adding, however, that the forecasts for the value of the cloud computing market from the beginning of this decade were heavily underestimated. At the beginning of 2013, the analytical firm IDC (International Data Corporation) estimated that the cloud market at the end of 2013 will reach the value of 8.6 billion dollars, and for the next 5 years will increase by a cumulative rate of 24.8%. It is easy to calculate that according to this forecast, the value of the cloud market in 2018 was to amount to 32.5 billion dollars. Meanwhile, in reality it was … more than 5 times more.
Steady increase
Goldman Sachs research indicates that the company’s spending on the cloud, which currently accounts for 8% of IT budgets, will rise to 15% by 2021. So the increase will be very significant. The analyst Dave Bartoletti from Forrester also talks about the increased dynamics of the global cloud computing market – More and more commonly the implementation of cloud computing will drive digital transformation.
The global market for data processing in the cloud has a chance to exceed USD 200 billion in 2019. It would be a 20% increase compared to the previous year.
This is the same as the growth in EU companies, but within four years. In addition, Gartner predicts that in 2025 as many as 80% of enterprises will already be operating in the cloud.
According to Gartner’s analysts, in 2021 the Polish cloud computing market could approach $ 300 million. However, as the history of this type of analysis shows, after years it may turn out that they were too cautious, and the IT market driven by the development of technology can surpass even the best forecasts.