9 Mainframe Statistics That May Surprise You

Are mainframes still relevant today? You bet!  The following ten statistics paint a picture that shows mainframes are still going strong, with no signs of slowing.

1.  The Mainframe Turns 60: A Milestone in Computing History. 

60 years can really fly by! On April 7, 2024, the Mainframe turned 60. At this milestone, we should all reflect on what the mainframe has done to the computing industry. What would the world look like without it? What is the current state of the mainframe? And what is its future?

2.  Mainframe Usage Continues to Rise.

According to the 2024 Forrester report, “among global infrastructure hardware decision-makers, 61% said that their firm uses a mainframe. Of those that use mainframes, 54% indicated that their organization would increase its use of a mainframe over the next two years”.

3.  Mainframes are used by 71% of Fortune 500 companies. 

More specifically, these companies use IBM Z systems. The industry has consolidated around the strongest vendor on the block, and IBM has continued to invest in its highly secure, highly scalable Z platform.  The most recent version, IBM z16, was released in April of 2022.

4. Growth and Market Size.

The global mainframe market was valued at approximately $2.5 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.4% during the period from 2024 to 2032. This growth is driven by the ongoing need for reliable, high-capacity computing systems, particularly in sectors like banking, finance, and government​.

5.  Mainframes handle 90%of all credit card transactions. 

Did you buy something with your Visa or Mastercard today? More likely than not, a mainframe made it possible. Peter Rutten, Research Director, IDC tells us why: “There is no platform that can conduct the same number of transactions per second with the high availability and security that mainframe supplies.”

6.  Mainframes handle 68% of the world’s production IT workloads, yet they account for only 6 percent of IT costs.

That’s according to IBM, which obviously has a horse in the mainframe race, and it is unclear exactly how these figures were calculated. However, if you assume that these numbers are anywhere close to accurate, they are impressive, especially for what they reveal about the cost efficiency of mainframes.

7.  An IBM Z System mainframe can survive an earthquake having a magnitude of at least 8.0 on the Richter scale.

How do we know? Because someone ran a test, complete with a video to prove the results. Nothing says “high availability” like a mainframe.

8. Revenue from Z System sales spiked 77% year-over-year with the 2022 release of the newest IBM mainframe, the z16 system. 

Yes, IBM continues to make money from mainframe sales. In its Q2 2022 earnings report, IBM executives cited the latest mainframe’s capacity for large-scale AI, resilient security, and cloud-native capabilities.

9. As of 2020, 92 of the top 100 banks and all top 10 insurers worldwide use IBM mainframes.

Sure, the cloud is great and x86 servers are cheap, but when you’re a company with millions of transactions to process each day and ultra-tight security needs, nothing beats the mainframe.

As these mainframe statistics confirm, mainframe systems are still a vital part of the business landscape. Learn how to leverage your mainframe for maximum value. Read our white paper: Getting the Most Out of Your Mainframe.