Public cloud in Asia-Pacific continues to rise. In 2019, IDC estimates spending at US$26 billion. The analyst forecasts this to reach US$76.1 billion by 2023, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 33.9% over the forecast period (2018-2023).
“Improving the business agility and speed is the main focus area for the adoption of cloud technology in the region, access to new refined functionality and giving the business units more direct control over the sourcing of their own IT solutions are the other focus areas,” says Ashutosh Bisht, senior research manager for Customer Insights & Analysis at IDC Asia/Pacific.
“Security concerns and IT governance are the major inhibitors towards the cloud adoption but sentiments about security on the public cloud have changed over recent years, with improving IT securities now considered as one of the top drivers for public cloud adoption.”
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) will be the largest category of cloud computing delivering 50.2% of overall public cloud spend in 2019 and more than half throughout the forecast (2018-23). IaaS spending will be balanced throughout the forecast with server spending trending slightly ahead of storage spending.
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Software as a Service (SaaS) has positioned itself second largest in terms of spending on the cloud with a share of 39.03% followed by Platform as a service (PaaS) with 10.7% share in 2019. SaaS spending, which is comprised of applications and system infrastructure software (SIS), will be dominated by applications purchases. Data Management Software will lead to PaaS spending.
Professional services, Banking and Discrete Manufacturing are the top three industries that account for more than one-third of all public cloud services spending throughout the forecast. IaaS will be the foremost category of investment for all industries, IaaS will see its share of spending increase for industries that are building data and compute-intensive services.
IaaS spending will account for more than 13.6% of public cloud services spending by the professional services industry in 2023. However, Construction and Professional services will see the fastest growth in public cloud spending with a five-year CAGR of 41.6% and 40.9% respectively.
“The smart city initiatives across major cities in the region have opened the door for governments to revamp their legacy systems and transform the traditional IT with public cloud services. In addition, authorities are easing regulations for regulated industries, such as banking, to leverage on public cloud services for better services offerings,” says Siew Choon Liew, research manager at IDC Asia/Pacific.