Cloud software adoption is uneven by business size and geography, but the overall direction is clear. In 2023, 45.2% of EU businesses bought cloud computing services. Adoption reached 77.6% among large enterprises, compared with 59% of medium enterprises and 41.7% of small businesses. At the provider level, Microsoft Cloud revenue reached $137.4 billion in fiscal 2024, while Alphabet reported $43.229 billion in Google Cloud revenue in 2024.
Table of contents
- EU cloud adoption
- What businesses use cloud services for
- Adoption leaders and the edge-computing target
- Cloud revenue at the largest providers
- Oracle and enterprise cloud applications
- Subscription software scale and contracted demand
EU cloud adoption
Eurostat reported that 45.2% of businesses in the European Union bought cloud computing services in 2023. This is a business-adoption measure for the EU and the 2023 reference year; it is not a measure of consumer use or the percentage of software workloads running in the cloud.
Business size was strongly associated with adoption. Large enterprises had a 77.6% cloud-service purchase rate in 2023, while the rate for medium enterprises was 59%. Small businesses recorded a 41.7% rate. The figures show a 35.9-percentage-point gap between large and small enterprises, based on the reported category percentages.
| EU business group | Businesses buying cloud services in 2023 |
|---|---|
| All businesses | 45.2% |
| Large enterprises | 77.6% |
| Medium enterprises | 59% |
| Small businesses | 41.7% |
The difference by company size matters when interpreting cloud software statistics. A single headline adoption figure combines organizations with very different resources, technology needs, and purchasing patterns. The large-enterprise figure is more than twice the small-business figure in relative terms, while the all-business figure sits much closer to the small-business rate than to the large-enterprise rate.
These adoption figures come from Eurostat reporting cited by the European Commission’s digital strategy materials. They describe purchases made in 2023, so they should be read as a historical measurement rather than a current-year estimate or forecast.
What businesses use cloud services for
Among EU businesses that used cloud services in 2023, email hosting was the most widely reported use in this dataset. Eurostat reported that 83% of EU cloud users used cloud services for email hosting. File storage was used by 68%, and office software by 66%.
| Cloud use among EU cloud users | Share in 2023 |
|---|---|
| Email hosting | 83% |
| File storage | 68% |
| Office software | 66% |
Email hosting therefore led file storage by 15 percentage points and office software by 17 percentage points. These are differences between reported shares of cloud users, not measurements of storage capacity, email volume, or software spending.
The pattern places familiar workplace functions at the center of cloud adoption. Email, files, and office applications are recurring business services, so their reported usage provides a useful view of the practical entry points for cloud software. The data does not quantify how many applications each business used, how much data it stored, or whether a service was purchased from a specific provider.
The same Eurostat reporting gives important context for the business-adoption figures. The 83% email-hosting share applies only to businesses already identified as cloud users; it should not be multiplied by the 45.2% all-business adoption rate without additional source data. Keeping those denominators separate avoids treating a usage mix as a population-wide adoption percentage.
Adoption leaders and the edge-computing target
Cloud adoption varied substantially across EU countries in 2023. Finland recorded a 78% share of businesses using cloud computing, the highest figure listed here. Sweden recorded 72%, and Denmark recorded 70%.
| Country | Businesses using cloud computing in 2023 |
|---|---|
| Finland | 78% |
| Sweden | 72% |
| Denmark | 70% |
Finland’s reported share was 6 percentage points higher than Sweden’s and 8 points higher than Denmark’s. All three country figures were above the EU-wide all-business rate of 45.2%, although the country figures and the EU aggregate should not be treated as a ranking of every EU member state because only three countries are represented in the supplied figures.
The European Commission’s Digital Decade target is for 75% of European businesses to use cloud-edge technologies by 2030. This is a policy target, not an observed adoption rate. It also refers to cloud-edge technologies, a broader or differently defined measure than the 2023 cloud-computing purchase rate reported by Eurostat.
The same European Commission material sets a target to deploy 10,000 climate-neutral and highly secure edge nodes by 2030. Edge-node deployment grew from 498 in 2022 to about 1,836 in 2024. The 2024 figure is described as approximate, while the 2030 number is a target. They should not be presented as a forecast of the eventual total.
The reported deployment counts show that edge infrastructure was present at a much larger scale in 2024 than in 2022, but the supplied data does not provide a growth rate, geographic breakdown, or definition of which nodes were counted. Those limitations matter when comparing infrastructure deployment with business adoption.
Cloud revenue at the largest providers
Microsoft reported Microsoft Cloud revenue of $137.4 billion in fiscal 2024. The company delivered more than $245 billion in total annual revenue and more than $109 billion in operating income in the same fiscal year. Microsoft Server products and cloud services revenue increased 22%, while Azure and other cloud services revenue increased 30%.
Microsoft’s reported figures combine a broad Microsoft Cloud measure with more specific revenue and growth measures. The $137.4 billion figure should therefore not be treated as identical to Azure revenue. The supplied data also does not state the exact dollar value of Azure and other cloud services revenue, only its 30% increase.
Alphabet reported $43.229 billion in Google Cloud revenue in 2024, with Google Cloud operating income of $6.112 billion. Alphabet’s total revenue reached $350.018 billion, and Google Services revenue reached $304.930 billion. Google Cloud is therefore a separately reported business within a much larger company whose total revenue also includes Google Services and other activities.
AWS Security Blog materials stated that the Spring 2024 SOC reports covered 177 services in scope. AWS Our Impact materials reported 2,500 scholarships through the AI & ML Scholars program in 2024 and support for 39 relief efforts in 19 countries. AWS also provided nearly $2 million in credits to 41 customers affected by natural disasters and announced 23 global water replenishment projects securing 7 billion liters of annual replenishment for future years.
The AWS figures mix assurance scope, education, disaster support, and environmental commitments. They are useful indicators of the breadth of activity associated with a cloud provider, but they are not cloud-revenue measures and should not be added to provider financial results.
Oracle and enterprise cloud applications
Oracle reported $5.3 billion in cloud revenue, defined as infrastructure plus software as a service, in its fourth quarter of fiscal 2024. Oracle’s total fiscal 2024 revenue was $53.0 billion. In the same quarter, cloud infrastructure revenue was $2.0 billion and cloud application revenue was $3.3 billion.
Oracle’s cloud application detail included $0.8 billion in Fusion Cloud ERP revenue and $0.8 billion in NetSuite Cloud ERP revenue in Q4 fiscal 2024. Total remaining performance obligations reached $98 billion in that quarter. Remaining performance obligations are a contracted-demand measure, not revenue already recognized in the quarter.
Salesforce reported fiscal 2024 revenue of $34.86 billion and fourth-quarter fiscal 2024 revenue of $9.29 billion. Its current remaining performance obligation was $27.6 billion in fiscal Q4 2024, while fiscal 2024 operating cash flow was $10.2 billion.
These results illustrate why cloud software statistics often include both recognized revenue and forward-looking contract measures. Oracle’s quarterly cloud revenue, Salesforce’s annual revenue, and the two companies’ performance obligations describe different periods and measures. They can be compared as indicators of scale, but they are not interchangeable.
Subscription software scale and contracted demand
ServiceNow reported Q4 2025 subscription revenue of $3,466 million. Its current remaining performance obligations were $12.85 billion as of December 31, 2025. ServiceNow ended Q1 2026 with 630 customers having more than $5 million in annual contract value. These measurements use different periods: quarterly subscription revenue, a year-end obligation balance, and a customer count at the end of a later quarter.
Okta reported 19% year-over-year growth in Q4 fiscal 2024 revenue and 20% year-over-year growth in subscription revenue. Okta’s current remaining performance obligations reached $1.952 billion in Q4 fiscal 2024, growing 16% year over year. The growth rates are percentages, while the obligation balance is a dollar measure.
Workday reported fiscal 2024 total revenue of $7.3 billion and subscription revenue of $6.6 billion. Its total subscription revenue backlog was $20.9 billion as of January 31, 2024, including a 12-month subscription revenue backlog of $6.6 billion. The two backlog figures have different time horizons and should not be added together.
Datadog’s quarterly revenue rose from $611 million in Q1 2024 to $645 million in Q2, $690 million in Q3, and $738 million in Q4. Datadog reported about 3,340 customers with at least $100,000 in annual recurring revenue as of March 31, 2024; about 3,390 as of June 30; and about 3,490 as of September 30. Q4 2024 revenue grew 25% year over year, and Datadog ended 2024 with 462 customers producing $1 million or more in annual recurring revenue.
Adobe reported fiscal 2024 revenue of $21.51 billion and fourth-quarter fiscal 2024 revenue of $5.61 billion. In Q4 fiscal 2024, Digital Media revenue was $4.15 billion, Document Cloud revenue was $843 million, and Creative revenue was $3.30 billion. Adobe reported $578 million in net new Digital Media annual recurring revenue, ending the quarter with Digital Media ARR of $17.33 billion, Document Cloud ARR of $3.48 billion, and Creative ARR of $13.85 billion. Digital Experience subscription revenue was $1.27 billion.
Together, these company results show several ways to measure cloud software scale: annual and quarterly revenue, subscription revenue, operating income, operating cash flow, annual recurring revenue, customer counts, and remaining performance obligations. The relevant period and definition should always accompany the number.