Analysts from firm IHS are seeing personal cloud subscriptions growing. IHS predicts that by the end of the year there could be a half-billion personal cloud storage subscriptions. IHS also states that we can expect double digit growth levels for at least the next half decade reports Brandon Butler for Network World. IHS findings and predictions include:
- Subscriptions have increased from 300 million to 500 million this year and 625 million in 2013.
- By 2017 1.3 billion personal cloud subscriptions could exist.
- Consumers will increasingly demand seamless ability to upload various types of media as use grows.
- Fragmentation, portability and security will remain top concerns for consumers and will need to be addressed by providers.
IHS predicts that mobile network operators are well positioned to join the personal cloud space as they can provide a ‘digital vault’ for digital assets without the need to use it to data mine for marketing purposes and revenue. Analysts state that to build up cloud services mobile operators may still need to team with pure-play cloud offerings, but they are still positioned better to offer cloud-storage through their subscription services and can allow consumers better hardware integration options.
