Application container market small but mighty, 451 Research says

Containers may constitute a small segment of the cloud-enabling technologies (CET) market, but it is expected to see remarkably fast growth in the next few years.

According to 451 Research’s newest Cloud-Enabling Technologies Market Monitor report, which was released in December, the application container market will reach approximately $2.7 billion USD by 2020, up from $762 million USD in 2016.

The entire CET market – which includes virtualization, containers, private PaaS and other automation and management software – is estimated to be worth approximately $23.1 billion this year (2017) and expected to grow at a 15 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to $39.6 billion USD by the end of 2020, the New York-based information technology research and advisory company reports.

In contrast, containers are expected to achieve an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 per cent through 2020.

Greg Zwakman, vice president of market and competitive intelligence at 451 Research, says in a press release from Jan. 10 that two things stand out from the company’s market sizing and research on containers: “the breadth and diversity of vendors basing their offerings on containers or integrating and partnering to better support containers in their products, and the speed at which the container software and market are maturing based on production, use and revenue growth.”

container revenue chart
Container revenue between 2015-2020, according to 451 Research.

Container applications in production

There has also been an increased growth of container applications in production among enterprises. In 451 Research’s Voice of the Enterprise SDI Workloads and Key Projects 2016 study, a survey of enterprise IT buyers conducted in April and May 2016, there are indications of strong growth in production container use.

“Of the roughly 25 per cent of enterprises surveyed who use containers, 34 per cent were in broad implementation of production applications, and 28 per cent had begun initial implementation of production applications with containers,” the company’s press release says. “This is an impressive adoption growth profile for a technology that has only been in the enterprise for a few years.”

However, 451 Research is quick to highlight the consolidations in the container management and orchestration segments that are already occurring. For example, Apprenda acquired Kubernetes-backer Kismatic in May 2016, and Cisco acquired Docker Swarm supporter ContainerX at the end of August.

Comparisons and broader impacts

451 Research compares the application container market to the OpenStack market, since both “are based on open source software and have participation from startups and established vendors,” in addition to both seeing relatively rapid growth in a short amount of time. The company estimates the OpenStack market was worth $1.8 billion in 2016 and is expected to grow to $5.8 billion at a CAGR of 35 per cent by the end of 2020.

The report points out that containers may have a broader impact on the market due to the fact that enterprise adoption of containers and market maturity appears to be happening more rapidly. There is a sizeable number of vendors – 451 Research is currently tracking 125 of them – both large and small, that are offering application container technology and support, and the company expects many more market participants to emerge in coming months and years.

But these are all conservative estimates, adds Jay Lyman, principal analyst of cloud management and containers at 451 Research.

“In the three years we’ve been tracking the OpenStack market, we’ve watched it grow from just 30 vendors in 2013 to more than 91 vendors today,” he explains in the company’s press release. “We will be tracking the container market closely to see whether that translates into even higher revenue and faster growth than with OpenStack.”

Would you recommend this article?

Share

Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you think of this article!
We'd love to hear your opinion about this or any other story you read in our publication.


Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

Featured Download

Mandy Kovacs
Mandy Kovacshttp://www.itwc.ca
Mandy is a lineup editor at CTV News. A former staffer at IT World Canada, she's now contributing as a part-time podcast host on Hashtag Trending. She is a Carleton University journalism graduate with extensive experience in the B2B market. When not writing about tech, you can find her active on Twitter following political news and sports, and preparing for her future as a cat lady.

Featured Articles

Cybersecurity in 2024: Priorities and challenges for Canadian organizations 

By Derek Manky As predictions for 2024 point to the continued expansion...

Survey shows generative AI is a top priority for Canadian corporate leaders.

Leaders are devoting significant budget to generative AI for 2024 Canadian corporate...

Related Tech News

Tech Jobs

Our experienced team of journalists and bloggers bring you engaging in-depth interviews, videos and content targeted to IT professionals and line-of-business executives.

Tech Companies Hiring Right Now