Despite Half of EMEA cloud storage costs going to fees, most organisations plan to increase cloud storage capacity in 2024, according to Wasabi's Cloud Storage Index

European organizations are still beleaguered by storage bills as 50% of all cloud storage costs in EMEA go to data access and usage fees rather than capacity, according to the 2024 Global Cloud Storage Index from Wasabi Technologies. Still, EMEA companies see the value of cloud storage services and plan to increase their spend in 2024 in order to drive IT initiatives like application or infrastructure migration and development, and to improve business and operational initiatives such as digital transformation or modernization.

Commissioned by and conducted by Vanson Bourne, the Wasabi Global Cloud Storage Index uncovers the changing attitudes toward public cloud storage adoption, the factors that influence storage buying decisions, and the market's top priorities. Wasabi surveyed 1,200 global IT decision makers, all of whom are involved in their respective organisations' storage strategy.

"Organisations worldwide are increasing their use and budgets for public cloud storage solutions, and Europe is no exception," said Andrew Smith, senior manager of strategy and market intelligence at Wasabi Technologies, and a former IDC analyst. "Like the rest of the world, European cloud storage users continue to struggle with storage fees, but despite this, the region continues to show a healthy preference toward "cloud-first" decision making when it comes to IT services adoption."

EMEA business are spending more on cloud storage fees than their global counterparts. On average in EMEA, organizations spend 50% of their cloud storage budgets on fees, not storage capacity, compared to global average of 47%. The UK however has a slightly lower percentage of bills allocated to fees than the rest of EMEA, at 48%, while Germany has the highest at 51.5%.

In 2023, the majority of EMEA respondents exceeded their cloud storage budgets. France indicated the highest level of excess, at 57%, followed by the UK (55%) and Germany (51%).

Europe's "cloud-first" and multicloud mentality

Europe is slightly ahead of the global curve when it comes to pursuing a "cloud-first" strategy for IT services adoption (as opposed to any alternative requiring owned or on premises IT infrastructure) at 44% compared to the global average of 42%. This difference was largely driven by Germany (51% "cloud-first") and France (47% "cloud-first").

When choosing a cloud storage provider, EMEA respondents prioritizes integrations with existing third-party apps like Salesforce and Veeam (43%), security and compliance features, (40%) and sustainability (39%). Additionally, EMEA continues to explore adoption of multiple cloud storage providers. When asked to identify the important drivers of multicloud adoption, 48% of EMEA respondents say it is to avoid vendor lock-in ? making it the top-ranked reason.

AI/ML technology and service adoption will drive innovation, but create new cloud storage challenges

When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies, 99% of EMEA respondents say they have adopted or are planning to adopt AI/ML in 2024, driven in large part to accelerate product/service innovation and to create operational efficiencies for the organization. Overall, generative AI is the top use case for EMEA. However, there are differing AI/ML tech priorities at the country level:

• Germany ranked GenAI as a distant 4^th of its top AI use cases. Ahead of GenAI are AI and ML solutions for product design (49%), solutions for security and compliance (47%), and solutions for computer vision (38%)
• The United Kingdom ranked AI/ML solutions for document processing or creation significantly higher than the norm. It is their #2 use case (48%) behind GenAI (52%)
• France prioritizes predictive analytics as their #2 AI use cases (39%) behind GenAI (47%)

Regardless of the AI/ML workloads organizations are implementing or planning to implement, 96% of EMEA respondents believe they will face new cloud storage concerns associated with AI/ML. The top EMEA concerns include:

• Requirements to store data across a wider range of locations (e.g., core data centers and edge/remote locations) (46%)
• Addressing new data backup, protection and recovery requirements (43%)
• New or increasing storage migration/movement requirements (including hybrid or multicloud storage) (42%)

Jon Howes, Wasabi Technologies VP & GM of EMEA, commented: "Wasabi's annual research once again shows that progress toward off-premises cloud storage solutions is a direction nearly all enterprises are taking ? and one that's only made more necessary by the adoption of AI/ML applications. However, the ever-growing frustration with unnecessary fees and vendor lock-in, as highlighted by the investigation from the UK's market watchdog, provides a navigational challenge for cloud-first organizations in EMEA."

To read the 2024 Wasabi Global Cloud Storage Index in its entirety, please visit here.

Methodology

Wasabi commissioned independent market research agency Vanson Bourne to conduct research into cloud storage. The study surveyed 1,200 IT decision makers who had at least some involvement in or responsibility for public cloud storage purchases in their organization. The research took place in November and December 2023 from organizations with more than 100 employees across all public and private sectors. All interviews were conducted using a rigorous multi-level screening process to ensure that only suitable candidates were given the opportunity to participate.

About Wasabi Technologies

Wasabi provides simple and affordable hot cloud storage for businesses all over the world. It enables organizations to store and instantly access an unlimited amount of data with no complex tiers or egress or API fees, while delivering predictable costs that save money and industry leading security and performance businesses can count on. Trusted by customers worldwide, Wasabi has been recognized as one of technology's fastest growing and most visionary companies. Created by Carbonite co-founders and cloud storage pioneers David Friend and Jeff Flowers, Wasabi is a privately held company based in Boston. Wasabi is a Proud Partner of the Boston Red Sox, and the Official Cloud Storage Partner of Liverpool Football Club and the Boston Bruins.

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