The public cloud computing services market is expected to grow 19.6% to reach $109 billion globally this year on the back of infrastructure segment, which is the fastest-growing area at 45.4%, research firm Gartner said today.
"The public cloud services market is forecast to grow 19.6% in 2012 to total $109 billion worldwide. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is the fastest-growing segment of the public cloud services market and is expected to grow 45.4% in 2012," Gartner said.
However, business process services (BPaaS) will remain the largest segment, accounting for about 77% of the total market.
"BPaaS is the largest segment primarily because of the inclusion of cloud advertising as a sub-segment. BPaaS is forecast to grow to $84.2 billion in 2012, up from $72 billion in 2011," Gartner said.
Cloud computing enables companies to use software, applications and various services on pay-per-use basis, without the need to set up and own IT infrastructure.
In 2011, cloud advertising represented about 47% of the total public cloud services market.
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Through 2016, cloud advertising will continue to account for about 47% of total public cloud services spending, it added.
Software as a service (SaaS) is the next-largest segment and is forecast to grow to $14.4 billion in 2012, while IaaS is forecast to grow from $4.3 billion in 2011 to $6.2 billion in 2012.
"The total public cloud services market size in 2011 was $91.4 billion and it will grow to $206.6 billion in 2016.
As the market grows, IaaS will become a larger part of the overall market, while the market share of cloud management and security services will grow as well," Gartner research director Ed Anderson said.
In 2010, the IaaS market was less than one-third the size of the SaaS market but by 2016 it will grow to almost equal the size of the SaaS market, Gartner said.
Although North America is the largest region and is expected to produce the largest absolute increase in market size, Gartner expects the highest regional growth rates in emerging Asia-Pacific, including India and Indonesia, China; Eurasia, including Russia and Latin America, including Argentina, Mexico and Brazil.
"North America will account for the greatest percentage of absolute growth in the cloud services market, with 61% of all growth from 2010 through 2016," it said.
Western Europe is forecast to grow the slowest during the period, largely due to ongoing euro-zone economic issues, while growth will also be lower in mature Asia-Pacific markets due to ongoing economic challenges in the Japanese market, Gartner added.