Key Takeaways

• Statista (link here) currently offers one of the most comprehensive, publicly available sources of data on public cloud spending in the United States. The research database's report on the public cloud industry in the country includes (1) historic and projected spending, both overall and by type of cloud, (2) historic and projected spending growth, both overall and by type of cloud and (3) historic and projected average spend per employee, both overall and by type of cloud.
• ICD (link here) publishes a Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Tracker that provides historic, current and forecasted information about public cloud spending by geography and key market segment. This includes public cloud spending overall for the United States as well as by type of cloud. Additionally, ICD (link here) releases a Worldwide Public Cloud Services Spending Guide which includes current public cloud spending data by geography (e.g., United States), type of cloud, industry and business size.
• The Alibaba Cloud Research Center (link here), supported by paywalled data from IDC, currently provides one of the few, publicly available sources of information on public cloud penetration rates in the US overall. This includes quantitative information on America's public cloud market size segmented into IaaS, PaaS and SaaS in 2020 (16.6%, 16.4% and 67.1%, respectively).

Introduction

I. Public Cloud Spending

#1. Statista (Publicly Available)

• Statista (link here) currently offers one of the most comprehensive, publicly available sources of data on public cloud spending in the United States.
• The research database's report on the public cloud industry in the country includes (1) historic and projected spending, both overall and by type of cloud, (2) historic and projected spending growth, both overall and by type of cloud and (3) historic and projected average spend per employee, both overall and by type of cloud.
•  These figures have been provided directly below for convenience.

 

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#2, #3. IDC (Paywalled)

• ICD (link here) publishes a Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Tracker that provides historic, current and forecasted information about public cloud spending by geography and key market segment. This includes public cloud spending overall for the United States as well as by type of cloud.
• Additionally, ICD (link here) releases a Worldwide Public Cloud Services Spending Guide which includes current public cloud spending data by geography (e.g., United States), type of cloud, industry and business size.
• Beyond providing a broad array of relevant data points, it is worth noting that IDC data on the public cloud market is widely cited by reputable media sources (e.g., Fierce Telecom) and other market researchers (e.g., Alibaba Cloud Research Center).

#4. Grand View Research (Paywalled)

• Grand View Research (link here) released a comprehensive, global report on the state of the public cloud market in May 2020 which includes detailed information about the US segment of this industry.
• In addition to providing the overall spending on public cloud by US businesses (which it publicly reports as $87.06 billion as of 2018), the market researcher also offers more current figures on overall spending, spending by type of cloud, spending by industry and spending by business size in the country, as demonstrated by the report's table of contents, as well as the below, publicly released image.

 

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#5. KBV Research (Paywalled)

• KBV Research (link here) distributed a June 2020 research study on the global public cloud industry whose contents largely mirror the preceding Grand View Research report.
• Of particular interest, the full (paid) version of the report includes detailed information about the segmentation of spending within the US public cloud industry, such as by type of cloud, business size and industry.

#6. TV Technology (Publicly Available)

• Although not a formal report, per se, TV Technology (link here) published an estimate for US spending on public cloud as of May 2021: $172.1 billion. This corroborates the data from the Statista report that was presented at the top of this research brief.
• The publication adds that the US public cloud market represents approximately half of global revenue for the industry as of 2021.

II. Public Cloud Penetration

#7. Alibaba Cloud Research Center (Publicly Available)

• The Alibaba Cloud Research Center (link here), supported by paywalled data from IDC, currently provides one of the few available sources of information on public cloud penetration rates in the US overall.
• This includes quantitative information on America's public cloud market size segmented into IaaS, PaaS and SaaS in 2020 (16.6%, 16.4% and 67.1%, respectively), as well as a visual depiction of the relative scale of these market sub-areas since 2016, as depicted below.

 

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• Additionally, the Alibaba report includes visual depictions of the relative scale of the US public cloud industry (versus other countries) and the size and growth rate of the industry between 2016-2020, as detailed further below.

 

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#8. O'Reilly (Publicly Available)

• O'Reilly (link here) provides an alternative source of publicly available data on public cloud penetration that is relevant to the US, given that its August 2021 survey of businesses is largely representative of North America (42% of respondents).
• According to this report, public cloud has a penetration rate of 67% at present, as depicted below.

 

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• Additionally, O'Reilly found that public cloud penetration rates are the highest in the industries of retail & ecommerce (79%), media & entertainment (73%) and software (72%), adding that telecommunications (60% penetration) is the "only sector in which private clouds led public clouds." These and other industry figures have been visualized below.

 

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#9. Flexera (Publicly Available)

• Flexera (link here) produces an annual State of the Cloud Report which presents data that is relevant and largely representative of the United States and the Americas (65% of respondents), in a manner similar to the O'Reilly survey.
• In addition to providing overarching information on the penetration of public cloud among enterprises and small/medium businesses, the 2020 report previously found that "56% of US small business owners spent as much as $600,000 annually on public cloud expenses."

Research Strategy