Amazon Web Services Not Giving Up Ground to Microsoft, IBM and Google on Cloud Computing Infrastructure Front

Amazon, Microsoft, IBM cloud revenues 2016

The world’s top cloud service providers (CSPs) recorded yet another stellar quarter of growth, continuing with the trend of reporting strong double-digit numbers. The industry has so much momentum behind it that, despite the growing competition at the top, things are still growing sequentially every quarter. As a top player in the infrastructure space, many wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon had faced a slowdown in the growth numbers, but despite having to tackle four more players in the cloud game, Amazon keeps running away with the market.

Amazon Web Services Quarterly Sales Growth

Amazon Web Services Quarterly Revenue GrowthAmazon Web Services revenue grew 42.67% during the first quarter, reaching $3.661 billion in quarterly revenues compared to $2.566 billion last year, while Microsoft Azure, its lead competitor, recorded 93% growth during the same quarter.

According to Q1-17 data from Synergy Research Group, Microsoft, IBM, Google and Oracle recorded faster growth rates than Amazon, but they were hardly able encroach on Amazon’s market share in the segment, which strongly held on to 33% of the market under its belt.

“At the top end of the cloud provider market we’re now seeing a clear stratification featuring AWS, a group of higher-growth chasers, and a couple of more focused niche players,” said John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst and Research Director at Synergy Research Group.

It must also be noted that Google, Microsoft and IBM’s Infrastructure as a Service revenues are much smaller when compared to that of Amazon Web Services, and it’s not really a surprise that they are able to grow fast. But the fact that Amazon is still holding on to its market share clearly shows that the growth of other players is not coming at its own expense.

There are two possibilities here: either the overall market it growing at a sustainable enough rate, or Microsoft, IBM and Google are eating up marketshare of smaller, niche players within the IaaS segment.

Thanks for reading our work! We invite you to check out our Essentials of Cloud Computing page, which covers the basics of cloud computing, its components, various deployment models, historical, current and forecast data for the cloud computing industry, and even a glossary of cloud computing terms.

Source: Synergy Research Group