BOSTON & TOKYO-- March 02, 2023 -- Asia-Pacific organizations are embracing the public cloud to store fast-growing volumes of data, specifically for backup, archive and disaster recovery initiatives, but are hit the hardest by public cloud storage fees compared to their global counterparts, according to Part 2 of Wasabi’s 2023 Global Cloud Storage Index. The series, commissioned by Wasabi Technologies and conducted by Vanson Bourne, uncovers the global attitudes toward public cloud storage adoption, the factors that influence storage buying decisions, and the top priorities when it comes to budget, use cases, security, and cloud data migration. Part 2 of the Wasabi 2023 Global Cloud Storage Index presents results from 200 IT decision-makers across Australia, Japan and Singapore.

“The Asia-Pacific market is unique in its ambitions to adopt new technology and implement cloud services to support digital transformation projects,” said Andrew Smith, senior manager of strategy and market intelligence at Wasabi Technologies, and a former IDC analyst. “Even with storage fees from API operations, egress, and data retrievals accounting for over half of APAC organizations’ cloud storage bills, the region still indicated some of the highest forecast growth rates for cloud storage volumes and budgets over the next year.”

APAC organizations capitalize on public cloud storage, and adopt multiple providers

· 85% of APAC companies expect the amount of data they store in the public cloud to grow over the next year compared to global average of 84%
· 87% of IT decision-makers in APAC expect their cloud storage budget to grow in 2023 compared to 84% globally
· 93% migrated storage from on-premises to the cloud in 2022, higher than the global average of 89%
· 61% of APAC organizations use more than one public cloud storage provider, which is higher than global the average of 57%

Australian businesses lead regional forecasts for cloud storage budget and capacity expansion

· 92% of Australian respondents expect the amount of data they store in the public cloud to increase in 2023, compared to Japan (84%) and Singapore (78%)
· 98% of Australian IT-decision makers expect their cloud storage budget to grow in 2023, much higher than the overall APAC average of 87%
· Australian companies allocated an average of 14.4% of their organization’s total IT budget to public cloud storage services while Japan and Singapore respondents had an average budget of 13.3% and 12.2% respectively
· 60% of Australia respondents exceeded their budget expectations for cloud storage last year, the highest among APAC countries

Japan shows high prevalence of cloud storage migration in order to scale beyond on premises limits; but struggles with fees and budgets

· Japan indicated the highest proportional mix of cloud storage billings allocated to fees, at 51%.
· #1 reasons for excessive spend in Japan was higher actual data and storage usage than forecast, combined with higher data operations fees (e.g., cross-region replication) than expected
· The #1 factor driving Japanese respondents to migrate storage capacity to the public cloud is the need to scale resources beyond what they can do on premises (43%)
· However, when it comes to migration challenges, Japan indicated that planned/unplanned downtime associated with the migration process is their #1 issue (40%)

In Singapore, sustainability placed #1 on the rank list of most important considerations when choosing a cloud storage provider

· Respondents ranked sustainability at the top of the list (52%), compared to the APAC average of 43%, and global average of 43%
· 96% of organizations in Singapore migrated storage from on-premises to cloud storage last year, higher than the global average of 89%
· Only 28% of organizations in Singapore exceeded their cloud storage budget last year, compared to the APAC average of 51% and a global average of 52%
· New regulatory and compliance requirements are an important factor driving cloud storage budget growth in Singapore in 2023 (49%), compared to Japan and Australia (both at 35%)

“The APAC segment of the cloud storage market is typically the fastest-growing part of the market, and it has some of the most diversity when it comes to cloud maturity and vendor adoption. Region-specific insights into this market segment are extremely important to our understanding of market direction and end user requirements,” said Smith. “Also of note is the important role sustainability plays in the vendor selection process for APAC organizations, particularly in Singapore, where sustainability is ranked as the most important vendor selection consideration.”