Due to the increasing commercialization of the 5G network, the growing usage of the internet of things (IoT) devices, and the soaring over-the-top (OTT) traffic and mobile data traffic, the global edge data center market will grow substantially in the coming years. The market attained a value of $5.3 billion in 2019 and is predicted to reach a revenue of $53.1 billion by 2030. Furthermore, the market is predicted to progress at a CAGR of 25.4% from 2020 to 2030.

The surging mobile data traffic is one of the biggest factors responsible for the expansion of the edge data center market across the globe. The growing usage of IoT devices and smartphones is augmenting the mobile data traffic, which is, in turn, fueling the development of edge data centers around the world. According to the report, the Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update 2017–2022, in 2019, the total mobile data traffic was around 26.8 exabytes per month.

Furthermore, the report predicts that the total mobile data traffic will rise to more than 77.5 exabytes per month by 2022. Apart from these factors, the surging OTT traffic all over the globe is also driving the progress of the edge data center industry. The burgeoning requirement for OTT services and the soaring consumer preference for online content are the major reasons behind the ballooning OTT traffic around the world.

According to Cisco, the worldwide internet protocol (IP) gaming, multimedia, and video streaming traffic is predicted to reach over 81% of all internet traffic by 2021. This will push up the requirement for edge data centers, which will, in turn, propel the growth of the market. Depending on component, the edge data center market is divided into solutions and services. Between these, the solutions category is predicted to record the highest growth in the market in the upcoming years.

This would be because of the rising establishment of edge data centers around the world. The solutions category is further subdivided into cooling, power and uninterruptible power supply (UPS), IT racks enclosure, networking equipment, storage, and data center infrastructure management (DCIM). Out of these, the cooling subcategory is predicted to demonstrate the fastest growth in the edge data center market in the coming years, on account of the rising utilization of high-end cooling technologies in various data centers across the globe.

Geographically, the edge data center industry will exhibit the fastest growth in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region in the future, as per the estimates of the market research company, PS Intelligence. This would be due to the increasing digitization and the soaring internet penetration in the emerging economies such as China, Indonesia, and India. According to a report produced by the Internet Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), on November 2019, there were over 504 million active internet users in India.

Hence, it is safe to say that the market will demonstrate rapid advancement all over the world in the coming years, mainly because of the increasing mobile data traffic, the rising popularity of online streaming, and the rapid digitization of business operations around the world.