Spending on cloud infrastructure grows 6.6% to $18.6 bn in third quarter

The latest report on Cloud spending from the International Data Corporation (IDC) said spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud infrastructure, including dedicated and shared environments, increased 6.6 percent to $18.6 billion in the third quarter of 2021 (3Q21).
Investments in non-cloud infrastructure increased 7.3 percent in 3Q21 to $14.6 billion.

Spending on shared cloud infrastructure increased 8.6 percent to $13 billion.

Spending on dedicated cloud infrastructure increased 13.4 percent to $5.6 billion.

IDC forecasts cloud infrastructure spending to grow 8.3 percent compared to 2020 to $71.8 billion for the full year 2021, while non-cloud infrastructure is expected to grow 1.9 percent to $58.4 billion after two years of declines.

Shared cloud infrastructure is expected to grow by 7.2 percent year over year to $49.7 billion for the full year. Spending on dedicated cloud infrastructure is expected to grow 10.7 percent to $22.2 billion for the full year.

In 3Q21, service providers as a group spent $18.9 billion on compute and storage infrastructure, up 10.2 percent from 3Q20 and up 6.7 percent from 2Q21. This spending accounted for 57.1 percent of the total compute and storage infrastructure market. IDC expects compute and storage spending by service providers to reach $72.6 billion for 2021, growing 7.4 percent compared to 2020.

IDC expects spending on compute and storage cloud infrastructure to have a compound CAGR of 12.4 percent over the 2020-2025 forecast period, reaching $118.8 billion in 2025 and accounting for 67 percent of compute and storage infrastructure spend.

Shared cloud infrastructure will account for 70.9 percent of this amount, growing at a 12.7 percent CAGR.

Spending on dedicated cloud infrastructure will grow at a CAGR of 11.5 percent. Spending on non-cloud infrastructure will rebound in 2021 but will flatten out at a CAGR of 0.5 percent, reaching $58.6 billion in 2025. Spending by service providers on compute and storage infrastructure is expected to grow at a 1.3 percent CAGR, reaching $115.4 billion in 2025.