Amazon Leads; Microsoft, IBM & Google Chase; Others Trail

RENO, NV, August 1, 2016

New Q2 data from Synergy Research Group shows that Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, IBM and Google combined control well over half of the worldwide cloud infrastructure service market. They also continue to grow more rapidly than their smaller competitors. In aggregate the big four grew their cloud infrastructure service revenues 68% in Q2, while the next 20 largest cloud providers grew by 41% and all other smaller providers grew by 27%. The market as a whole grew by 51%. Amazon remains in a league of its own, almost three times the size of its nearest competitor and  with a clear lead in all major regions and most segments of the market. Meanwhile Microsoft and Google can point to substantially higher growth rates, while IBM continues to feature strongly thanks primarily to its leadership in the hosted private cloud segment. With most of the major operators having now released their earnings data for Q2, Synergy estimates that quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues (including IaaS, PaaS and hosted private cloud) have now reached the $8 billion milestone, while trailing twelve-month revenues are close to $28 billion. North America continues to account for over half of the worldwide market. The EMEA and APAC regions are similar in size, though APAC has a somewhat higher growth rate.

“In a variety of ways Amazon and the other big three players have distanced themselves from the competition in this market and continue to widen the gap,” said John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst and Research Director at Synergy Research Group. “What marks them out as different is their global presence, marketing muscle, ability to fund huge investments in hyperscale data centers and, in most cases, a determination to succeed in the market. The ranking of the next 20 largest cloud providers features some interesting companies, with Alibaba and Oracle growing particularly strongly, but they are all starting from a long way behind Google, which is itself growing by well over 100% per year and yet remains only a sixth the size of Amazon.”