Cloud IT infrastructure revenues surpassed traditional IT infrastructure revenues

Vendor revenue from sales of IT infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud environments, including public and private cloud, grew 47.2 percent year-over-year in 3Q18, reaching USD 16.8 billion. IDC also raised its forecast for total spending (vendor revenue plus channel mark-up) on cloud IT infrastructure in 2018 to USD 65.2 billion with year-over-year growth of 37.2 percent. Quarterly spending on public cloud IT infrastructure has more than doubled in the past 2 years reaching USD 12.1 billion in 3Q18 and growing 56.1 percent year-over-year, while spending on private cloud infrastructure grew at half of this rate, 28.3 percent, reaching USD 4.7 billion. Spending on private cloud grew 23.3 percent year-over-year in 2018.

In 3Q18, for the first time, quarterly vendor revenues from IT infrastructure product sales into cloud environments surpassed revenues from sales into traditional IT environments, accounting for 50.9 percent of the total worldwide IT infrastructure vendor revenues, up from 43.6 percent a year ago. However, for the full year 2018, spending on cloud IT infrastructure remained below the 50 percent mark at 47.4 percent. Spending on all three technology segments in cloud IT environments was forecast to deliver double-digit growth in 2018. Compute platforms are the fastest growing at 59.1 percent, while spending on Ethernet switches and storage platforms grew 18.5 percent and 20.4 percent, respectively.

The rate of growth for the traditional (non-cloud) IT infrastructure segment slowed down from the first half of the year to 14.8 percent, which is still exceptional for this market segment. For the full year, worldwide spending on traditional non-cloud IT infrastructure is expected to have by12.3 percent as the market goes through a technology refresh cycle, which will wind down by 2019. By 2022, traditional non-cloud IT infrastructure will only represent 42.4 percent of total worldwide IT infrastructure spending (down from 52.6 increased in 2018). This share loss and the growing share of cloud environments in overall spending on IT infrastructure is common across all regions.