Cloud IT infra spending grows in Q1, 2020; non-cloud spending declines: IDC

Vendor revenue from sales of IT infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud environments, including public and private cloud, increased 2.2% in the first quarter of 2020 (1Q20) while investments in traditional, non-cloud, infrastructure plunged 16.3% year over year, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker.

The broadening impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was the major factor driving infrastructure spending in the first quarter. Widespread lockdowns across the world and staged reopening of economies triggered increased demand for cloud-based consumer and business services driving additional demand for server, storage, and networking infrastructure utilized by cloud service provider datacenters. As a result, public cloud was the only deployment segment escaping year-over-year declines in 1Q20 reaching USD 10.1 billion in spend on IT infrastructure at 6.4% year-over-year growth. Spending on private cloud infrastructure declined 6.3% year over year in 1Q to USD 4.4 billion.

IDC expects that the pace set in the first quarter will continue through rest of the year as cloud adoption continues to get an additional boost driven by demand for more efficient and resilient infrastructure deployment. For the full year, investments in cloud IT infrastructure will surpass spending on non-cloud infrastructure and reach USD 69.5 billion or 54.2% of the overall IT infrastructure spend. Spending on private cloud infrastructure is expected to recover during the year and will compensate for the first quarter declines leading to 1.1% growth for the full year. Spending on public cloud infrastructure will grow 5.7% and will reach $47.7 billion representing 68.6% of the total cloud infrastructure spend.

Disparity in 2020 infrastructure spending dynamics for cloud and non-cloud environments will ripple through all three IT infrastructure domains – Ethernet switches, compute, and storage platforms. Within cloud deployment environments, compute platforms will remain the largest category of spending on cloud IT infrastructure at USD 36.2 billion while storage platforms will be fastest growing segment with spending increasing 8.1% to USD 24.9 billion. The Ethernet switch segment will grow at 3.7% year over year.

At the regional level, year-over-year changes in vendor revenues in the cloud IT Infrastructure segment varied significantly during 1Q20, ranging from 21% growth in China to a decline of 12.1% in Western Europe.

Notes:

a. IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide cloud IT infrastructure market when there is a difference of one percent or less in the vendor revenue shares among two or more vendors.

b. Due to the existing joint venture between HPE and the New H3C Group, IDC reports external market share on a global level for HPE as "HPE/New H3C Group" starting from Q2 2016 and going forward.

c. Due to the existing joint venture between IBM and Inspur, IDC reports external market share on a global level for Inspur and Inspur Power Systems as "Inspur/Inspur Power Systems" starting from 3Q 2018.

In the long-term, IDC expects spending on cloud IT infrastructure to grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.6%, reaching USD 105.6 billion in 2024 and accounting for 62.8% of total IT infrastructure spend. Public cloud data centers will account for 67.4% of this amount, growing at a 9.5% CAGR. Spending on private cloud infrastructure will grow at a CAGR of 9.8%. Spending on non-cloud IT infrastructure will rebound somewhat in 2020 but will continue declining with a five-year CAGR of -1.6%.