India public cloud services market to grow at a CAGR of 22.2% over the next four years: IDC

The India public cloud services (PCS) market, including infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solutions, and software-as-a-service (SaaS), touched USD 1.6 billion for the first half of 2020, according IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Tracker. The overall India public cloud services market is likely to touch USD 7.4 billion by 2024 growing at a CAGR of 22.2% for 2020-24.

"The current uncertainty has accelerated the demand for public cloud services. Getting to the “next normal” entails businesses to leverage cloud as part of their business plans. Irrespective of where the businesses are positioned across the IDC’s “response to recovery” framework, organizations state cloud is imperative in attaining their core business objectives. Enterprises across verticals like financial services, IT/ITeS, media, education among others are witnessing a surge in demand,” Rishu Sharma, Principal Analyst, Cloud and Artificial Intelligence, IDC India.

The spending continues to solidify with the top two cloud providers capturing close to 52% of the Indian public cloud services market in the 1H 2020. From a segment perspective, SaaS forms the largest component of the overall public cloud services market with over 63% of the overall market in 1H2020, followed by IaaS and PaaS segment.

The public cloud services market has nearly tripled since 2016. As businesses focus on gaining agility, flexibility, and resilience, reliance on cloud platforms and infrastructure as well as software as a service will become pivotal. Although most organizations in India have adopted cloud in some stage, the current pandemic situation has now enabled organizations to rely on public cloud IaaS and PaaS to expedite the development process and deployment of business applications.

"Enterprises which adopted cloud and other digital technologies fared better than enterprises with traditional IT systems during the pandemic, thereby stressing the urgent need for digital transformation. During the pandemic, there has been an increase in demand for cloud-based collaboration tools, content management solutions, and online streaming platforms. We are witnessing demand from large enterprises, tech start-ups and government institutions. The pandemic, along with investments from tech giants is expected to propel the adoption of cloud among SMBs,” says Harish Krishnakumar, Senior Market Analyst, IDC India.