Cloud Infrastructure Spending Maintained Strong Growth In First Quarter Of 2021: IDC
By Godson Omejiego,, Correspondent USA
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker: Buyer and Cloud Deployment, spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud infrastructure, including dedicated and shared environments, increased 12.5 per cent year over year in the first quarter of 2021 (1Q21) to US$15.1 billion. Investments in non-cloud infrastructure increased 6.3 per cent year over year in 1Q21 to US$13.5 billion.
As the market and the world slowly begins to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, sectors of the economy that had suffered the most revenue loss are returning to growth. A lasting impact on IT infrastructure will be an increased reliance on cloud platforms for delivering commercial, educational, and social applications, as well as an intensified focus among organizations on business continuity and risk management, helping to drive digital transformation initiatives and increase usage of as-a-service delivery models.
Spending on shared cloud infrastructure increased 11.6 per cent year over year in 1Q21, reaching US$10.3 billion. IDC expects shared cloud infrastructure spending to surpass non-cloud infrastructure spending in the near future. Spending on dedicated cloud infrastructure increased 14.7 per cent year over year in 1Q21 to US$4.8 billion with 45.5 per cent of this amount deployed on customer premises. IDC expects that cloud environments will continue to outpace non-cloud throughout its forecast.
With healthy first quarter results and the overall infrastructure market beginning to recover from the pandemic, IDC is forecasting cloud infrastructure spending to grow 12.9 per cent to US$74.6 billion for 2021, while non-cloud infrastructure is expected to grow 2.7 per cent to US$58.5 billion after two years of declines. Shared cloud infrastructure is expected to grow by 12.2 per cent year over year to US$51.8 billion for the full year. Spending on dedicated cloud infrastructure is expected to grow 14.7 per cent to US$22.7 billion for the full year.
As part of the new Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker: Buyer and Cloud Deployment, IDC tracks various categories of service providers and how much compute and storage infrastructure these service providers purchase, including both cloud and non-cloud infrastructure. The service provider categories IDC follows are: cloud service providers, digital service providers, communications service providers, and managed service providers. In 1Q21, service providers as a group spent US$15.5 billion on compute and storage infrastructure, growing 12.5 per cent year over year, and accounting for 54.0 per cent of total compute and storage infrastructure spending. IDC expects compute and storage spending by service providers to reach US$74.7 billion for 2021, growing at 11.1 per cent year over year.
Spending on cloud infrastructure increased across most regions in 1Q21, with the highest annual growth rates in Canada (40.3%), China (PRC) (35.0%), and Asia/Pacific excluding Japan and China (APeJC) (28.8%). Western Europe grew 10.8 per cent, the United States grew 4.5 per cent, and Japan declined 1.1 per cent. The smaller regions had mixed results and collectively grew 0.1 per cent.
At the vendor level, all major vendors grew their cloud infrastructure revenue in 1Q21, with the highest growth rates belonging to Lenovo (38.2%) and Huawei (37.9%). Huawei, Lenovo, and HPE/H3C(a) each grew their market share compared to results from the prior year’s first quarter.
