Hosting and cloud services enablement company Parallels in its recent study of the cloud services market in India has estimated that the Indian SMB cloud services opportunity in 2013 is worth Rupees 16.9 billion (US$339 million), and expects it to grow 35 percent year-over-year for the next 3 years, reaching Rupees 42 billion (US$839 million) by the beginning of 2016.
The company recently released he findings of its Parallels SMB Cloud Insights for India study, a detailed report illustrating how service providers can profit by delivering cloud services to small and medium businesses (SMBs). According to the research, this growth will be driven by new adopters of cloud services and current users adding more applications and functionality to their existing cloud services.
The study details the fastest growing opportunities to deliver cloud services to SMBs across four key sectors: infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), web presence & web applications, hosted communication & collaboration, and business applications.
Findings suggest that Infrastructure-as-a-service (Iaas) will experience continued steady growth as more SMBs gain access to the Internet, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30 percent through 2016 to become a Rupees 17.2 billion (US$344 million) market. It also predicts that growth in web presence and web applications is expected to remain high over the next several years, growing by at least 36 percent year-over-year to reach Rupees 6.8 billion (US$137 million) in 2016. Much of this growth will come from over three million SMBs who still do not have a website.
Furthermore, the study notes that lack of awareness is one of the main barriers to hosted PBX adoption – over 20 percent of Indian SMBs still haven’t heard of hosted PBX. Despite this relatively low awareness of hosted PBX, 50 percent of organizations without PBX systems are considering adding this service over the next three years.
The study also estimates that the business applications market among Indian SMBs in 2016 will be Rupees 6.9 billion (US$137 million), with a 19 percent year-over-year growth rate. This growth rate is much lower than that of other cloud categories in India and indicates that the value proposition of premium online applications has not yet landed among Indian SMBs.
“While India’s low Internet and broadband penetration has limited the spread of cloud services, Indian SMBs are eager to get online and consume services that will help them reach their customer base, increase their productivity, and improve their IT capabilities,” said David Dzienciol, Regional Vice President and General Manager, Parallels Asia Pacific.
The report also provides specific recommendations for applications and services in the aforementioned categories.
