SMBs can account for 30% of India’s public cloud market, Nasscom

Small and medium businesses (SMBs), which form the backbone of India’s economy, have the potential to account for 28-30% of the public cloud market, says Nasscom report titled ‘SMB cloud adoption in India: Towards a cloud first nation’, released on Friday.

In FY19, SMBs accounted for $952 billion in revenue which translates to 34% share in GDP and employed 110 million people, second only to agriculture. India’s public cloud market is growing at a CAGR of 30% to touch ₹630 billion by FY25 from ₹170 billion as of FY20, as per Nasscom.

Though the covid-19 pandemic has severely impacted the SMB segment, according to the report findings, SMBs that have an online presence have shown greater resilience and are expected to see short-term gains in revenue.

As per the report, SMBs in India are in the process of becoming digitally savvy. Over 60% of surveyed SMBs have already adopted cloud, though with varying degree of maturity. Technology-first segments such as e-commerce and IT-BPM firms lead in cloud adoption followed by banking, financial services & insurance (BFSI), media & entertainment, retail, automotive, healthcare and manufacturing.

“As India aims to become a cloud-first nation and with the government’s push for cloud adoption by MSMEs, it will be crucial for SMBs in India to think of themselves as digital enterprises and lead the e-revolution for India,” said Debjani Ghosh, president, Nasscom.

The pandemic has also accelerated cloud adoption for SMBs as they seek business continuity and collaboration in a distributed environment. This is driving demand for collaboration & conferencing tools, customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence, marketing and security tools as well as managed services, Nasscom said.
CT Bureau