Cloud services to see double-digit growth this year - Gartner

Cloud services grow faster than expected, according to Gartner

Gartner predicts cloud services will enjoy double-digit growth this year, driven by strong SaaS and IaaS sales.

By the end of the year, cloud services revenue is predicted to reach $260bn (€195.50bn), an 18.5 per cent year-on-year increase.

Breaking the figures down, the highest growth will come from IaaS offerings, which are projected to grow 36.6 per cent in 2017 to reach $34.7bn.

SaaS revenue meanwhile is expected to grow 21 per cent in 2017, to hit $58.6bn.

Research director at Gartner Sid Nag explained that the acceleration in SaaS adoption can be explained by providers delivering nearly all strains of application functional extensions and add-ons as a service.

"This appeals to users because SaaS solutions are engineered to be more purpose-built and are delivering better business outcomes than traditional software," Nag said.

"SaaS is also growing faster in 2017 than previously forecast, leading to a significant uplift in the entire public cloud revenue forecast."

Commenting to the rest of the market, Nag added:

"Strategic adoption of PaaS offerings are also outperforming previous expectations, as large enterprises are becoming confident that PaaS will be their primary form of application development platform in the future.

"This accounts for the remainder of the increase in this iteration of Gartner's public cloud services revenue forecast."

If current trends continue, Gartner predicts that the total market will be worth $411.4bn by 2020.