Most respondents do not pay for the service they use, although they were “receptive to the idea of ad-supported cloud services”.
American consumers were asked by InfoTrends about their awareness of how to use online cloud services for storing, protecting, accessing and sharing files, particularly personal photos.
Users generally know what the benefits of the technology are and think that it provides the features they feel are most essential to their work and are therefore happy to pay for the service, as an ad-supported version “may be an easier way to generate revenue than to rely on converting free users to paid subscribers”.
More than half of the cloud users in the survey were “interested in allowing vendors access to their photos”, a much higher percentage than in 2013, and InfoTrends recommends that providers look at starting or expanding partnerships with photo prints vendors and custom photo merchandise.
A report was released earlier this month predicted the cloud software revenue will surpass $112.8 billion (€102.2 billion) by 2019, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.3 percent.