IDC: Infrastructure sales for cloud data centers rises 27% in Q4 2017

Vendor revenue from sales of infrastructure products (server, storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud IT, including public and private cloud, grew 27.3% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2017 (4Q17), reaching $12.8 billion, according the latest International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker. For the full year 2017, the combined public and private cloud deployments continued the double-digit annual growth trend from past years with revenues reaching $43.4 billion for 21.7% year-over-year growth.

Public cloud infrastructure revenue has almost doubled in the past two years to $8.5 billion, growing 34.0% year over year in 4Q17. Private cloud revenue reached $4.3 billion for an annual increase of 15.7%. Total worldwide cloud IT infrastructure revenue in 2017 more than doubled when compared to 2013. The combined public and private cloud revenues now represent 42.2% of the total worldwide IT infrastructure spending, up from 39.3% a year ago. Traditional (non-cloud) IT infrastructure revenue grew 12.8% from a year ago, although it has been generally declining over the past several years; at $17.5 billion in 4Q17 it still represents 57.8% of total worldwide IT infrastructure spending.

“2017 finished strong for public cloud IT infrastructure growth, led by continued expansion by Amazon and renewed growth in Google and Facebook infrastructure,” said Kuba Stolarski, research director for Computing Platforms at IDC. “While there has been high growth in all IT infrastructure segments lately, public cloud, led by the hyperscalers, has resulted in the largest share of infrastructure growth, which is expected to continue at this pace for at least a few more quarters.”

• Except for Latin America and Japan revenue, which grew 6.2% and 4.8% respectively from a year ago, all other regions in the world grew their cloud IT Infrastructure revenue by double digits. 
• Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) saw the fastest growth rates at 59.0% and 34.1%, respectively. 
• Canada (23.3%), Middle East & Africa (MEA) (27.5%) and USA (21.1%) had annual growth in the twenties, while Western Europe (16.6%) had annual growth in the teens.