South Africa and Kenya’s cloud computing markets together earned revenues of $114.6 million in 2013 while this figure is estimated to jump to $288 million in 2018.

This is according to Frost & Sullivan analysis which specifically studies these cloud computing markets “from the service providers' perspective, in terms of their revenues and not the investments made by enterprises (verticals, e.g. Banking, Retail, etc).”

The research body also says it did not consider the infrastructure investments made by these enterprises to move to the cloud.

Frost & Sullivan adds that while awareness of cloud computing in these two countries exists, the actual adoption “continues to be dependent on sector, and more pertinently, on enterprise size.”

“While private cloud services have been the main focus of tier I competitors in the large enterprise sector, the move towards public cloud is slowly gathering pace in both countries,” said Frost & Sullivan information and communication technologies research analyst Lehlohonolo Mokenela.

“Small and medium enterprises, in particular, are turning to cloud computing motivated by the availability of affordable and convenient public cloud offerings,” Mokenela says in a statement.

Key factors holding back cloud computing in Kenya and South Africa; though, include security concerns and a lack of trust in third parties to manage internal IT systems, says Frost & Sullivan.

Frost & Sullivan notes these issues “are dissuading some enterprises and governments from employing data centre services” and are particularly “prevalent in conservative verticals, such as the financial services and healthcare sectors, where security and compliance are critical to business operations.”

But Mokenela notes that insurance companies and banks, for example, are beginning to move less critical applications to the cloud to reduce costs.

“Non-core applications, such as email and customer relationship management, will be the most commonly migrated solutions as organisations look to test the reliability of cloud services,” notes Mokenela.

“It will be crucial for service providers to demonstrate the security of their solutions in order to allay consumer concerns and boost uptake in the South African and Kenyan cloud computing domain,” says Mokenela.