The COVID-19 pandemic has largely proven to be an accelerator of cloud adoption and extension and will continue to drive a faster conversion to cloud-centric IT, according to IDC. Total worldwide spending on cloud services, the hardware and software components underpinning cloud services, and the professional and managed services opportunities around cloud services will surpass $1.0 trillion in 2024 while sustaining a double-digit compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.7%.
"Cloud in all its permutations, hardware/software/services/as a service as well as public/private/hybrid/multi/edge, will play ever greater, and even dominant, roles across the IT industry for the foreseeable future," said Richard L. Villars, group vice president, Worldwide Research at IDC. "By the end of 2021, based on lessons learned in the pandemic, most enterprises will put a mechanism in place to accelerate their shift to cloud-centric digital infrastructure and application services twice as fast as before the pandemic.
The strongest growth in cloud revenues will come in the as a service category, public (shared) cloud services and dedicated (private) cloud services. This category, which is also the largest category in terms of overall revenues, is forecast to deliver a five-year CAGR of 21.0%. By 2024, the as a service category will account for more than 60% of all cloud revenues worldwide. The services category, which includes cloud-related professional services and cloud-related management services, will be the second largest category in terms of revenue but will experience the slowest growth with an 8.3% CAGR.
Global shipments of artificial intelligence eyewear, encompassing both display-less and AR-integrated models, escalated by 263% year-over-year in the first half of 2026, according to Counterpoint Research.
The volume of chargeback requests initiated by cardholders is projected to reach 616 million by 2031, representing an increase of over 50%, according to findings from Juniper Research.
Infobip forecasts more than 7.3 billion customer interactions during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period in 2026, as AI and conversational platforms reshape how consumers discover products, receive promotions, and access support.
