80+ Big Data Statistics You Need to Know – Generation, Storage and More

In an increasingly connected world, big data has emerged as a critical asset for businesses. The ability to collect, analyze, and glean insights from over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data generated daily has revolutionized decision-making processes, fueling innovation and driving growth. 

Whether you are seeking to leverage big data for strategic decision-making or simply curious about its impact, this curated list is all you need to navigate the big data landscape in 2024. Keep reading to discover over 80 big data statistics you need to know, including big data generation, storage, and more.

Big Data Market Statistics

As a result of the rapid growth in data and the rise in mobile apps and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the big data market is expanding rapidly. 

The global big data market is expected to reach $367 billion in 2029, up from $163 billion in 2021.

Research by Stellar Market Research estimates the growth of the market at a compound annual growth rate of 12.3% between 2021 and 2029. 

North America accounted for 29% of the global big data market in 2022.

Together with Europe, North America held a collective share of more than 55% of the market.

The global big data analytics market was valued at $271.83 billion in 2022.

Big data analytics examines unstructured and structured databases to uncover insights based on correlation, hidden patterns, varying market trends, and more. It is a key driver of the big data market, as businesses seek to gain an edge in a highly competitive landscape. 

Among other things, Big data analytics can help businesses:

• Improve consumer engagement.
• Increase operational efficiency.
• Enhance decision-making.
• Optimize sales and marketing. 

Key competitors in the global big data market include:

• IBM
• Google
• Oracle
• Microsoft
• SAS
• Teradata
• AWS
• Salesforce
• Accenture

Over 58% of the world’s businesses are investing in big data solutions.

In addition, more than 97% of global businesses plan to invest in big data and AI. The combination of AI and big data technologies can automate almost 80% of all physical work, 70% of data processing, and 64% of data collection tasks.

Big Data Costs Statistics

In 2022, more than $1.3 trillion in enterprise IT spending was impacted by the shift to the cloud.

This figure is set to grow to almost $1.8 trillion in 2025, according to Gartner. Ongoing disruption to IT markets by cloud will be accelerated by the introduction of new technologies, including distributed cloud. 

Enterprise organizations spent more than $1 million dollars a year on cloud computing, according to a report by Flexera.

The 2022 report found that the most common level of annual cloud expenditure among companies with more than 1,000 employees was between $2.4 and $6 million (19%). SMEs spent between $600,000 and $1.2 million. 

The same report found that 32% of cloud spending was wasted, up from 30% in 2021. 

Respondents estimated that only 68% of their cloud investments were being deployed efficiently. Additionally, cloud projects were found to be on average 13% over budget.

Small companies can expect to spend anywhere between $10,000 to $100,000 per year on data analytics.

However, this depends on several factors such as business needs. Typically, analytics may account for approximately 2-6% of a company’s total budget. 

Mid-sized organizations can pay anywhere from $200,000 to $3 million to implement big data solutions.

Costs vary and depend on several factors including business needs and project scope.

Spending on big data analytics solutions is estimated to reach $42.2 billion in 2023.

This is up 19.6% from 2022 and is driven primarily by the incremental demand for data-driven decision-making.

Big Data Statistics by Industry

In 2023, big data tools and technologies are showing deeper penetration across several end-use industries, including IT and telecoms, retail, gaming, and media and entertainment. This trend is expected to continue through 2029. Other industries expected to use big data extensively include:

• BFSI
• Healthcare
• Manufacturing
• Travel and hospitality
• Education and research
• Transportation and logistics

Banking and Financial Industry 

The banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sector accounted for more than $75 billion in revenue in 2022.

Additionally, BFSI accounted for over a 40% share of the market. In 2023, the sector is anticipated to remain a prime adopter of big data technology and tools.

The global big data and business analytics industry was worth $274 billion at the end of 2022.

In the banking sector, big data and analytics have become increasingly important due to the substantial amounts of data generated, as well as government requirements. Additionally, consumers are using more devices to transact (such as smartphones) generating volumes of valuable data in the process.

Big data analytics in the banking industry was worth approximately $5.83 million as of 2022.

According to Mordor Intelligence, the market is expected to reach $19 million in 2028, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 23%.

By making use of big data analytics to analyze investment patterns, shopping trends, investment intent, and personal or financial history, banks can better understand client behavior.

Overall, the banking and financial industry can leverage big data and analytics for:

• Fraud detection.
• Risk management.
• Personalized marketing.
• Customer relationship management.
• Financial trend prediction.

Manufacturing and Retail Industry

Big data analytics in the retail industry was estimated at $4.38 billion in 2022.

This was primarily driven by the growth of e-commerce, online shopping, and increased market competition.

In 2022, 70% of retail companies increased spending on data and leveraged AI for revenue growth.

According to Mordeo Intelligence, Walmart is in the process of digital transformation and creating the world’s largest private cloud system. The system is expected to be able to manage 2.5 petabytes of data per hour.

Global big data in the manufacturing industry exceeded $3.22 billion in 2018.

The industry is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14%, to hit $9.11 billion by 2026. Big data helps manufacturers track, analyze and simplify the entire supply chain process. It also helps them increase operational efficiency and identify potential risks.

Big data continues to help companies better manage their supply chains, saving them millions in the process. 

• Sensors incorporated into Rolls-Royce aircraft engines gather 70 million data points a year for real-time analysis allowing engineers to correct potential performance issues before they become catastrophic.
• Deere and Company has been able to save $900 million in inventory control over two years as a result of big data.
• The Coca-Cola company saved around $45 million annually by using big data to improve its vehicle routing systems.

Key players in the manufacturing industry include:

• SAS Institute 
• IBM 
• Tibco Software 
• SAP
• Oracle 
• Microsoft

These companies have over 50% share in the market and continue to invest heavily in innovative technologies and solutions to better serve their customers.

Healthcare Industry

According to Straits research, the global big data in the healthcare market was worth $32.9 billion in 2021.

Big Data in the healthcare industry continues to grow as wearable devices and sensors collect patient data in real time. The market is projected to reach $105.73 billion by 2030, increasing at a compound annual rate of 13.85%.

The global big data healthcare market was dominated by North America in 2021.

As one of the first regions to digitize, North America held 37% of the market. The Asia-Pacific region was the fastest-growing emerging market, jumping to 41% in 2021.

Leveraging analytical tools to track supply chain performance metrics can save hospitals up to $10 million per year.

 In addition, big data can help key players in the healthcare industry with:

• Prediction of disease outbreaks.
• Early symptom detection. 
• Electronic health records.
• Real-time alerting.
• Enhancing patient engagement.
• Research acceleration.
• Analysis of medical images.

Real-life examples of how big data continues to shape the healthcare industry:

• Big data healthcare analytics have improved outcomes in cardiovascular disease and achieved an estimated $1 billion in savings from reduced office visits and lab tests.
• The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services saved over $210 million through big data-enabled fraud efforts in just a year.

Travel and Tourism Industry

The tourism big data analytics market was worth $220 billion in 2022.

Due to the widespread adoption of travel analytics to increase sales revenue, improve marketing initiatives, and gain a competitive edge, the market is expected to grow at a rate of 15% each year.

Big data in the tourism industry allows companies to:

• Personalize travel products.
• Enhance the travel experience.
• Improve service delivery.
• Gauge customer sentiment.

Real-life examples of how big data is revolutionizing the tourism industry:

• Fareboom used big data and analytics to improve its travel booking website and offer customers attractive prices, increasing the average time a person spent on its website by 100%.
• Booking.com uses big data analytics in web marketing, attribution models, ROI predictions, recommendation systems, call volume predictions, and scheduling algorithms. 
• As a result of automation and data analytics, Hyatt reduced contact center costs by 33% and saved 94% on fully automated interactions, saving $4.4 million. 

Across multiple industries including tourism, big data simplifies and streamlines transportation through:

• Congestion management and traffic control.
• Route planning.
• Traffic safety.
• Real-time processing.
• Predictive analytics to detect accident-prone areas.

Airplanes generate over 1,000 gigabytes of data for transatlantic flights. 

Aviation analytics systems analyze fuel efficiency, passenger and cargo weights, and weather conditions to optimize safety and energy consumption.

Statistics on Big Data Generation

The big data market is predominately driven by consumers as the majority of global data is produced by their online activities. Every day, consumers spend between four and six hours generating and consuming data through various gadgets and applications. With each click, swipe, or message sent, enormous amounts of data are generated.

The International Data Corporation (IDC) has defined three primary locations where data is generated:

• The core – traditional and cloud data centers
• The edge – enterprise-related infrastructure
• The endpoints – PCs, smartphones, and IoT devices

All of this data, whether it is created, captured, or replicated, is called the Global Datasphere, and it is growing at an incredible rate. 

In 2022, the amount of data created and replicated exceeded 94 zettabytes.

That’s up from 64 zettabytes in 2020, when data generation experienced rapid growth due to the pandemic. A zettabyte is equal to approximately a thousand exabytes, a billion terabytes, or a trillion gigabytes. 

Between 2021 and 2026, data will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 21.2% to exceed 221 zettabytes.

This includes both structured and unstructured data, with unstructured data accounting for more than 90% of all data created each year. The types of activities driving unstructured data creation include media streaming, gaming, the Internet of Things, non-entertainment images, productivity, social media, and voice. 

Unstructured data includes:

• Video
• Photos
• Images
• Voice
• Documents and other productivity content

According to a report by Data Reportal, there were 5.18 billion internet users as of April 2023.

That’s 64.6% of the world’s population generating data at an unprecedented rate. Since 2010, global internet users have more than doubled, while global internet traffic has grown 20x. 

The same report states that there were over 4.8 billion active social media user identities.

That’s over 93% of all internet users, all actively using social media to generate large amounts of data. A 2022 report by Domo reveals that every minute:

• Instagram users share over 66,000 photos.
• Facebook users share 1.7 million pieces of content.
• Twitter users share 347,200 tweets. 
• YouTube users upload 500 hours of video.
• Snapchat users send 2.43 million snaps.

Domo further reports that every minute:

• 104,600 hours are spent in Zoom meetings.
• Email users send 231.4 million messages.
• People send 16 million texts.
• Viewers spend 1 million hours streaming.

In 2022, 255 billion mobile apps were downloaded worldwide.

The number of mobile apps downloaded worldwide surpassed 255 billion in 2022 up by more than 80% from 140.7 billion app downloads in 2016.

According to a report by Sandvine, internet traffic volume was 23% higher in 2022 than it was in 2021.

This was primarily due to notable growth in: 

• Video streaming
• Downloads
• Encrypted traffic 
• OTT services and TV content

Google processed over 200 petabytes (PB) of information in 2022.

This is a jump from around 20PB of information every day in 2008. In addition, research by Domo reveals that Google users conducted approximately 5.9 million searches per minute that same year.

In 2020, the average person generated 1.7MB of data every second.

This equated to more than 40 zettabytes in 2020 alone, and over 328.77 million terabytes of data each day in 2022.

Only 15% of all generated data was original in 2020, and the other 85% was derived by replicating data for various uses in organizations. 

IBM projected that the data generated by the 5.8 billion enterprise and automotive IoT endpoints in 2020 would continue to accelerate data growth.

Video accounted for 65.93% of the total volume of data over the internet in 2022.

That’s a 24% increase from 2021, with ‘video’ accounting for TV, video, streaming, and downloads. Marketplace, gaming, and social networking each contributed over 5%.

Storing Big Data Stats

Total global data storage is projected to exceed 200 zettabytes by 2025. 

This includes data stored on: 

• Private and public IT infrastructures.
• Utility infrastructures.
• Private and public cloud data centers. 
• Personal computing devices such as PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
• IoT devices.

The installed base of storage capacity is projected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 19.2% between 2020 and 2025.

In 2020, the installed base of storage capacity reached 6.7 zettabytes. Although 2% of the data produced and consumed in 2020 was saved and retained into 2021, storage capacity is set to increase. 

To keep up with the storage demands, over 22 zettabytes of storage capacity must be shipped across all media types between 2018 and 2025.

The IDC projects that 59% of that capacity will be supplied by the hard disk drive (HDD) industry.

60% of all storage goes toward data copies.

According to IBM, this leads to costs of around $55 billion per year in total. 

Collectively, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook store over 1,200 petabytes or 1.2 million terabytes of data.

This excludes big providers such as Dropbox, Barracuda, and SugarSync, as well as massive servers in industry and academia.

Data Centers Stats

In 2018, big data was estimated to require 124 exabytes of data center storage space, globally. This grew to 403 exabytes by 2021.

There were over 700 hyperscale data centers globally at the end of 2021.

This is up from about 600 hyperscale data centers in 2020 and double the number in 2015. Growth was driven primarily by the increasing volumes of data generated.

In Q1 2021, the capital expenditure of hyperscale operators was $38 billion.

Capital expenditure for data centers increased substantially, growing by 31% year-on-year. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple were among the top hyperscale spenders in 2020.

The highest number of hyperscale data centers are located in the US.

39% of all hyperscale data centers in the world are located in the US with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft accounting for more than half of the total. This is followed by China in second place and Japan in third place.

Providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud continue to build data centers in different regions to increase their global infrastructure.

In 2022, hyperscalers allocated around $9 billion to building more capacity.

Investments to increase the capacity of hyperscale data centers are expected to grow by more than 4% per year over the next 7 years.

As of January 2022, there were 2,701 data centers in the US.

Germany came in second place with 487 data centers followed by the UK which ranked third with 456. As the amount of data generated increases, data center real estate will continue to garner importance worldwide.

Data centers and data transmission networks were responsible for almost 1% of energy-related gree house gas emissions in 2021.

Data centers and data transmission networks were responsible for approximately 300 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2020. This includes emissions released during their operation and the emissions associated with their production. 

The average hyperscale data center consumes 20-50MW annually which is enough electricity to power up to 37,000 homes.

In 2021, the figure was around 220 to 320 terawatt hours (TWh), excluding energy used for cryptocurrency mining, which was between 100 to 140 TWh.

Data center energy demand in the US was 17 gigawatts (GW) in 2022.

The US houses the largest number of data centers and accounts for roughly 40% of the global market.

As of 2023, data centers are estimated to be responsible for up to 3% of global electricity consumption.

This is up from between 0.9% and 1.3% in 2021.

The water usage effectiveness of an average data center using evaporative cooling systems is 1.8L per kWh. 

This type of data center can consume 3-5 million gallons of water per day or the amount of water consumed by a city of 30,000-50,000 people.

Cloud Solutions Stats 

According to IBM, the global cloud market will experience an 18% annual growth rate through 2023.

One of the key drivers of growth in the core is the shift to the cloud from traditional data centers. As companies continue to pursue public, private, and hybrid clouds for data processing needs, cloud data centers are becoming the new enterprise data repository. 

By 2023, organizations expect to be using at least 10 clouds, from a growing number of vendors. 

Both the insurance industry and telecommunications industry plan to have 11.4 clouds by 2023, while enterprises across industries will use an average of 8 clouds.

In 2023, 5 billion people will access and store data on their digital devices and the cloud.

Cloud solutions continue to grow in popularity, with more consumers opting to keep less data on their personal devices. By 2025, it is projected that 20% of data will remain on personal devices, compared to 60% in 2010.

In 2023, cloud IT infrastructure spending is projected to exceed $94 billion dollars. 

Public cloud infrastructure continues to expand and is a large driver of IT spending. Leading companies in the market include Dell Technologies, HPE, Inspur, Lenovo, IBM, and Huawei.

A report by Cybersecurity Ventures estimates that the total amount of data stored in the cloud will reach 100 zettabytes by 2025.

This includes public as well as private clouds owned by mid-to-large-sized corporations. 100 zettabytes represents 50% of the world’s data, up from 25% stored in the cloud in 2015.

As of 2022, over 60% of all corporate data was stored in the cloud. 

Respondents in a Flexera Survey described their organization’s cloud use as heavy at 63% in 2022, up from 59% in 2021. Overall, corporate data stored in the cloud more than doubled from 30% in 2015 to over 60% in 2022.

According to Statista, global cloud infrastructure market spending surpassed $66 billion in Q4 2022.

This was driven primarily by the increasing demand for cloud services across all industries and sectors.

In 2022, enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure services amounted to $225 billion.

This represents an increase of $47 billion compared to 2021. The growing market for cloud infrastructure services was primarily driven by the demand for modern networking, storage, and database solutions.

As of 2023, 41% of technical professionals indicated that they were already using Microsoft Azure Stack private cloud services. 

Private clouds offer a dedicated cloud infrastructure to a single company and can either be managed by the company itself or by a third-party service. Based on the survey, Microsoft Azure came in first place in terms of current usage while VMware vSphere/vCenter came in second place. On the other hand, AWS Outposts, as well as Google Anthos and VMware vCloud Director took the lead in terms of planned usage. 

Public Cloud Services Stats

Worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services is expected to increase by 20.7% to a total of $591.8 billion in 2023.

This is up from $490.3 billion in 2022 and is higher than Gartner’s 18.8% growth forecast for 2022. Public clouds are managed by service providers such as AWS or Microsoft Azure, who rent out their distributed data center infrastructure to customers.

Global public cloud revenues are expected to reach $525 billion in 2023.

The market continues to grow as more companies switch from their own data centers to public cloud services offered by companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and IBM. Globally, the most revenue for public clouds will be generated in the US, at $258 billion in 2023.

With a projected market volume of $254 billion in 2023, SaaS is the largest segment in the public cloud market.

Software as a Service (SaaS) remains the largest segment in the public cloud market and is expected to grow at a steady rate as enterprises take multiple routes to market for it and continue to break up monolithic applications into more complex parts for more efficient DevOps processes.

Hybrid Cloud Services Stats

As of 2023, 72% of enterprise respondents in an IBM survey indicated that they had deployed a hybrid cloud in their organization. 

A hybrid cloud solution integrates public and private clouds The global hybrid cloud market was worth $85 billion in 2021.

AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are among the key players enabling hybrid cloud adoption. However, other companies such as IBM and Oracle also provide hybrid cloud platforms and solutions, often tailored to specific use cases.

According to IBM, the value derived from a full hybrid, multi-cloud platform technology, and operating model at scale is 2.5x.

This is compared to the value derived from a single platform, single cloud vendor approach. 

The Future of Big Data in Statistics

90% human population, or roughly 7.5 billion people, will be online and generating data by 2030.

• IDC forecasts there will be over 55.7 billion connected IoT devices generating over 80 zettabytes by 2025.
• Investments in the IoT ecosystem are projected to exceed $1 trillion in 2026 with a compound annual growth rate of 10.4% between 2023 and 2027.
• The global metaverse market which is set to generate enormous amounts of data is projected to grow to $475 billion in 2028 at a compound annual growth rate of 47%.

Data center energy demand is expected to exceed 35 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, according to McKinsey’s analysis.

• The carbon footprint left behind by data centers is expected to increase by up to 30% by 2030.
• Before 2030, the energy consumption of the technology sector may increase by 14%, excluding the impact of big data and emerging technologies or devices.

Big data revenue is set to reach $395 billion by the end of 2029.

• Between 2019 and 2029, the big data market has been projected to experience almost three times growth in revenue. This will be driven by the increasing need for large-scale structured, and unstructured data analysis across industries globally. 
• The Asia-Pacific big data market is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14% through 2030.
• The big data market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.5% through 2029.

The value of the big data analytics market is expected to surpass $655 billion by 2029.

• In the healthcare industry, big data analytics is set to reach $79.23 billion by 2028. 
• Predictive analytics is projected to reach $41.52 billion by 2028.
• The social media analytics market is set to grow to $26.3 billion in 2028.
• By 2030, the global big data analytics market could exceed $745 billion.
• The tourism big data analytics market is set to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 15%, to reach $350 billion by 2032. 

Cloud-based and hybrid solutions are expected to grow rapidly between 2022 and 2030.

• IDC predicts that 49% of the world’s stored data will reside in public cloud environments by 2025.
• Cloud IT infrastructure spending is on the rise and is expected to surpass $130 billion in 2026. 
• Public cloud revenue is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13.81% over the next four years, resulting in a market volume of $882 billion by 2027.

FAQs

References

• Stellar Market Research
• Fortune Business Insights
• Yahoo Finance
• Mill5 Report
• Gartner
• Flexera
• Octolis
• ScienceSoft
• IDC
• Svitla
• Mordor Intelligence 
• Mordor Intelligence
• Informatica
• HotelMize
• MongoDB
• Straits Research
• Statista
• Dell Technologies
• Data Reportal
• DOMO
• Statista
• Sandvine Report
• IBM
• Cybersecurity Ventures
• Statista
• Science Focus
• Statista
• Statista
• Statista
• McKinsey & Company
• Statista
• IEA
• AFL Hyperscale
• Data Center Magazine
• NBC News
• IBM Cloud Report
• Statista
• Cybersecurity Ventures Report
• Statista
• Statista
• Gartner
• Statista
• IDC
• Fintech News
• Statista
• Seagate
• Statista