One investment theme that I think could be well worth gaining exposure to is cloud computing.
Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources such as data storage and computing power without direct active management by the user.
It is because of the cloud that you can watch Netflix on demand wherever you are, do your accounting on the go, and have Zoom meetings with colleagues.
And as you might have noticed, particularly during the pandemic, more and more software and services are going to the cloud.
This shift to the cloud is expected to accelerate in the coming years. So much so, research by Statista shows that the size of the public cloud computing services market is expected to grow from US$227.8 billion in 2019 to US$354.6 billion by 2022. This is an increase of almost 56% in just three years and is unlikely to stop there.
The good news for Australian investors is that there are a couple of quality shares which have direct exposure to the cloud.
I believe this bodes well for their future growth and could make them great long term investments. Here's why I like them:
Megaport Ltd (ASX: MP1)
The first ASX share you can buy to gain exposure to the cloud computing boom is Megaport. It offers scalable bandwidth for public and private cloud connections, metro ethernet, and data centre backhaul. As of the end of March, Megaport was serving 1,777 customers out of 329 data centres globally. Both its footprint and customer numbers have been growing at a rapid rate over the last couple of years and look likely to continue thanks to the growing cloud usage.
NEXTDC Ltd (ASX: NXT)
Another way to gain exposure to cloud computing is through NEXTDC. It is one of the world's most innovative data centre operators with a total of 9 centres across 5 capital cities. Its customers are supported by more than 550 partners that form its highly skilled and network-rich partner ecosystem. The company believes this makes it Australia's only truly channel centric data centre solutions provider, offering complete service neutrality. Demand for capacity within its centres has been growing at a rapid rate over the last few years. I expect this trend to continue and drive strong earnings growth as it scales.
