Cloud Storage Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2021 - 2026)

The Global Cloud Storage Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 24.74% over the forecast period (2021 - 2026). Increasing demand for low-cost data backup, storage, and protection across all enterprises, coupled with the necessity to handle data generated by augmented usage of mobile technologies, favors the rate of adoption of cloud storage.

Key Highlights

• The increasing volume of data being uploaded on the servers of the enterprises has resulted in the need for high-end security, SSL, well-defined sharing, along cost-effective options within the organization. For instance, on an average of approximately 60 million photos are uploaded daily by Instagram users globally, which is rapidly increasing, owing to the company's new policy associated with multiple uploads.
• The increasing automation in the fields of aerospace and defense coupled with the necessity to improve storing and sharing data on operations and soldiers over the army cloud is expected to drive the market over the forecast period.
• Major technology vendors present in the market are focusing on emerging geography expansions for their cloud storage portfolios. For example, Google Cloud built out its cloud computing network infrastructure, with plans to expand the number of its announced Google Cloud Platform with new data centers in Seoul, South Korea. The infrastructure expansion primarily is to cater to the demand from public cloud customers across the region. Further, Google Cloud aims to enhance the storage segment in South Korea across the telecommunications, information technology, and gaming sectors.
• Through strategic partnerships, mergers & acquisitions, research & developments, some of the prominent players in the market have been able to further the technology. This is expected to fuel the demand for cloud storage over the forecast period. For instance, in 2020, Facilis Technology announced that it had entered into a strategic partnership with Qualstar on Object Cloud storage solutions.
• According to Cushman & Wakefield's Datacenter updates 2021, Construction of more than 200 MW of Data Centers are underway in each Northern Virginia, Silicon Valley, Chicago, and Atlanta, of which self builds for Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook featuring prominently in phased build.

Key Market Trends

BFSI Sector is Expected to Hold a Significant Share

• In order to improve the revenue generation, banks increase customer insights, contain costs, deliver market-relevant products quickly and efficiently, and help monetize enterprise data assets, have started digitizing their working by introducing online portals through which a user can directly complete his work without any need for a bank official's intervention. This has resulted in a massive surge in data generation, propelling such institutions to have cloud storage in place.
• Banking service providers across the world are adopting cloud storage solutions as it enables banks to synchronize the enterprise and breaks down operational and data silos across risk, finance, regulatory, customer support, and allows institutions to combine massive data sets in one place for advanced analytics and integrated insights.
• In its 2020 annual report, JPMorgan Chase stated that the company had recorded 55 million active digital customers, including 41 million active mobile customers. The company also recorded a 10% active mobile customers growth rate. This in itself indicates that banking institutions could need solutions like cloud storage to handle such amounts of data.
• According to Finder, in 2021, the Digital-only banks have a total of more than 14 million customers from Britain and are expected to grow by 10 million by the year 2026. This in itself indicates that such an increase would require solutions like cloud storage to handle the surge, thereby boosting the growth of cloud storage over the forecast period.
• Also, the increasing initiatives from the government or related regulatory bodies pertaining to the storage of large volumes of data are propelling the institutions to opt for cloud storage. Financial services organizations worldwide to store and retain large volumes of communications are under increasing pressure from MiFID II, MAR, Dodd-Frank, and FX Code of Conduct as regulations mandate recording greater numbers of regulated users, asset classes, channels & devices.
• The increasing data breaches in the banking sector are propelling the banks to adopt cloud storage that allows them to store data in a space managed and owned by the bank or a third party that offers better security to the end-user. This is expected to boost the adoption of cloud storage over the forecast period.

North America is Expected to Hold the Largest Share

• North America is expected to hold a significant share owing to the early adoption of new technologies, huge investments in R&D for cloud-based solutions, and enhanced IT infrastructure. Moreover, cheap and secure storage options result in rapid industrial development.
• The North American region has a strong foothold of vendors in the market. Some of them include Google, LLC, IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, and Amazon Web Services Inc.
• These prominent players in the region, through research and development, have been able to develop the technology further. This is expected to boost the adoption of cloud storage and reduce the cost of cloud storage throughout the forecast period.
• For instance, in recent times, Google Cloud announced a new pricing plan for its cloud-based data storage, Google Cloud Storage. This pricing plan, called the Storage Growth Plan, aims to reduce wasted cloud spend for enterprises.
• A survey by Cisco reported that 69% of the IT decision-makers favor BYOD as an optimistic addition to workplace policy as it saves workers time. In the United States IT sector, it was estimated that BYOD adoption witnessed an increase of 44.42% in the past three years. Hence, with the growing number of mobile workers in organizations and workplaces, there has been a subsequent rise in the data generated and managed. This is expected to boost the cloud storage market’s growth over the forecast period.

Competitive Landscape

The competitive rivalry in the cloud storage market is high owing to the presence of some major players such as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, amongst others. Their ability to continually innovate their offerings has allowed them to gain a competitive advantage over others. Through strategic partnerships, research and developments, and mergers & acquisition, these players have been able to gain a greater footprint in the market.

• September 2021 - Telefonica España partnered with Oracle in a multi-year collaboration for migration of its database to Oracle Exadata Cloud. This collaboration aids in the cloud adoption and the development of new communication services for consumers and businesses of telecom companies.
• July 2021 - AT&T partnered with Microsoft to provide Its cloud computing platform run core parts of its 5G wireless network. The new generation networks being rolled out by AT&T are designed to rely on software and data centers to routing network traffic rather than Telecommunications specific gear.

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