Cloud to make up a quarter of all software sold by 2020

Manufacturing, professional services and banking leading the way when it comes to cloud adoption, IDC claims in latest report

A quarter of all software sales in 2020 will be cloud-based, according to IDC, which claims that by then, global public cloud revenue will reach almost $200bn (£154bn), more than double the predicted revenue figure for this year.

The analyst said that global public cloud services revenue will reach $96.5bn this year, but will rocket to $195bn by 2020, representing a compound annual growth rate between 2015 and 2020 of 20.4 per cent.

"Cloud software will significantly outpace traditional software product delivery over the next five years, growing nearly three times faster than the software market as a whole and becoming the significant growth driver to all functional software markets," said Benjamin McGrath, senior research analyst at IDC. "By 2020, about half of all new business software purchases will be of service-enabled software, and cloud software will constitute more than a quarter of all software sold."

The US will be the latest market for public cloud services, generating almost two thirds of total global revenue, followed by western Europe and Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan). Manufacturing, banking and professional services are leading the way on cloud, accounting for nearly two thirds of global revenue this year.

Eileen Smith, programme director at IDC, said: "Cloud computing is breaking down traditional technology barriers as line of business leaders and their IT organisations rely on cloud to flexibly deliver IT resources at the lower cost and faster speed that businesses require. Organisations across all industries are now free to adapt to market changes quicker and take more risks, as they are no longer bound by legacy IT constraints."