Edge computing market forecasted to be worth US$6bil by 2022

The edge computing global market size is expected to grow from US$1.47 billion in 2017 to US$6.72 billion by 2022, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 35.4% during the forecast period, research has found.

A report by MarketsandMarkets research states that growing loads on cloud infrastructure, a wide range of applications in different industries, and the increase in the number of intelligent applications are the driving factors growing the edge computing market.

Telecommunications and IT verticals are expected to contribute to the largest market share for the forecasted period.

With a voluminous rise in data generated from millions of subscribers streaming terabytes of videos, music, and social networking every day, enterprises are facing various challenges, such as high network load and increasing demand for network bandwidth.

To overcome these challenges, enterprises are significantly focusing on optimising their Radio Access Network (RAN).

Thus, to enhance the user experience and better utilise the bandwidth, the edge computing solution is a feasible option.

Edge computing allows operators to optimise the traffic within the prevailing radio conditions, enhance the service quality, and improve the network efficiency.

Traditionally, computational power was centralised at the core network, but in the edge computing solution, data collection, and processing and storage take place at the edge of the network.

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) environments provide real-time radio information, which can be used by applications and services to optimise content delivery and utilise the network efficiently.

Moreover, it enables Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to quickly deploy various monetising services for content delivery, IoT, retail, and enterprise applications.

The SMEs segment for edge computing is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

SMEs have been majorly dependent on data centers to process and analyse their data.

However, budget constraints have been a major obstacle for SMEs to adopt data center services.

Transferring and processing the data over the cloud increases the operational costs.

Edge computing facilitates SMEs to collect, process, and store data at the edge of the network closer to the source, thus reducing the operational costs.

The rapid adoption of edge computing due to a strong and well-established economy makes North America the largest market in terms of global share.

North America is said to be the largest contributor among all the other regions in the edge computing market.

The top countries contributing to the growth of the edge computing market in North America include the US and Canada, out of which, about three-fourths of the market share is said to be contributed by the US alone.

The market in North America is expected to have a slow growth rate by 2022 compared to the other regions, as the edge computing market in the region is well-established and stagnant.

The North American regions provide a suitable environment for startups and SMEs, in terms of government regulations and compliance.

Owing to this, enterprises are growing rapidly in this region and have a heavy demand for edge computing.

Therefore, the North American region is said to have the highest market share in the edge computing market.

The major trends responsible for the growth of edge computing market in the North American region include the growing number of devices and the dependency on IoT devices, the need for faster processing, the increase in cloud adoption, and the increase in pressure on networks.