Public cloud refers to the standard cloud computing model-based service provider enabling general users the access to virtual machines, storage or applications over the internet. Public cloud is either available free of cost or on pay-per-usage basis. These services provide high scalability, cost savings, agility, simplicity, and efficient business growth prospects, due to which the demand for public cloud has increased over the past decade and is gaining high traction from various companies.

According to Coherent Market Insights’ analysis, public cloud market is projected to witness growth at the rate of 20% over the forecast period (2017 to 2025), with Amazon, Microsoft, Alibaba, Google, and Rackspace leading the market.

Systems Infrastructure Services (IaaS) is expected to gain significant traction over the forecast period

Increasing number of startups are focusing on business enhancement and expansion, which requires high initial capital for development of these resources. As public cloud offers its services for free or at minimal charges in most cases, the demand for these services is rapidly increasing. Moreover, growing volume of data and computing of intensive workloads, owing to emergence of enterprise trends such as Bring your own device (BYOD), Choose your own device (CYOD), Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI), are expected to create a conducive environment for growth of the public cloud market. This service is not associated with any maintenance costs, efforts for infrastructure, and does not necessitate long-term contracts, owing to pay-as-you-go service. These benefits, in turn, are expected to propel growth of the public cloud market.

Public Cloud Market Taxonomy

On the basis of component, the global public cloud market is segmented into:

Hardware

Software

Services

On the basis of services, the global public cloud market is segmented into:

Business Process Services (BPaaS)

Application Infrastructure Services (PaaS)

Application Services

Management & Security Services

Systems Infrastructure Services (IaaS)

Advertising

On the basis of organization, the global public cloud market is segmented into:

Small Enterprises

Medium Enterprises

Large Enterprises

On the basis of end-use industry, the global public cloud market is segmented into:

Discrete Manufacturing

Professional Services

Banking

Process Manufacturing

Retail

Others

On the basis of Region, the global public cloud market is segmented into:

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Latin America

Middle East & Africa

High demand for these services in financial applications is expected to fuel market growth

Growing adoption of SaaS offerings such as customer relationship management (CRM), human capital management (HCM), enterprise resource management, and other financial applications is increasing, especially in large enterprises. According to Coherent Market Insights’ research findings, around 45% of large enterprise application adoption in the U.S. comprised of software-as-a-service or other such solutions in 2016. This in turn, is expected to drive growth of the public cloud market growth.

Lack of customizability and weak data security are major challenges for market growth

Clients adopting such forms of services such as public cloud have no control over infrastructure or data provided by such a public platform. The risks associated with usage of public cloud include lack of data security and integrity. Owing to large number of consumers sharing the same hardware resources, information security threats are higher and the date is highly vulnerable to security breaches, resulting in increased risk of loss of confidential data. Moreover, service level policies are enforced on the user by the service provider. Lack of customizability of the services and total reliance of the business operation performance on the internet connectivity are few other challenges faced by this market, which are expected to hamper growth of the public cloud market.

North America holds the dominant position in the market, with the U.S. being the major growth engine. The region is expected to retain its dominance, owing to increasing inclination of enterprises towards adoption of public cloud solutions, and high presence of chief industry participants in the region. Asia Pacific is expected to register significant growth, owing to increasing business activities, development of infrastructure, and high potential growth prospects in countries such as China, India, Indonesia, and Thailand.

Major players operating in the global public cloud market include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Salesforce, Microsoft, IBM, Google, CenturyLink, and Verizon Wireless. The market is highly consolidated, with four major players accounting for over 60% of the public cloud market share.

Key Developments:

In November 2018, IT services provider Mphasis has acquired Virginia-based cloud technology service provider Stelligent Systems LLC. Stelligent Systems LLC provides development, security and operation solutions on AWS.

In January 2018, Kubernetes launched multicloud 2.0. From multicloud 2.0 user can manage the multiple clusters running on multiple clouds.

In January 2018, Veeam Software acquired N2WS, provider of cloud-native enterprise backup and disaster recovery for Amazon Web Services (AWS). N2WS provides IaaS data protection, a cloud-native backup solution specifically designed for AWS workloads, enabling organizations to back up data and applications.

In October 2017, BT and AWS partners to focus on networking, security and managed services to transform enterprise cloud adoption at scale.