Q3 Cloud Spending Up Over $11 Billion from 2021 Despite Major Headwinds; Google Increases its Market Share

RENO, NV, October 27, 2022

New data from Synergy Research Group shows that Q3 enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure services exceeded $57 billion. This was up by well over $11 billion from the third quarter of last year despite two fierce headwinds – historically strong US dollar and a severely restricted Chinese market. That incremental spending represents year-on-year growth of 24%. If exchange rates had remained constant over the last year, the growth rate would have been over 30%. As the market continues on a strong growth trajectory, Google increased its market share in Q3 compared to the prior quarter, while Amazon and Microsoft market shares remained relatively unchanged. Compared to a year ago all three have increased their market share by at least a percentage point. Amazon, Microsoft and Google combined had a 66% share of the worldwide market in the quarter, up from 61% a year ago. In aggregate all other cloud providers have tripled their revenues since late 2017, though their collective market share has plunged from 50% to 34% as their growth rates remain far below the market leaders. With most of the major cloud providers having now released their earnings data for Q3, Synergy estimates that quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues (including IaaS, PaaS and hosted private cloud services) were $57.5 billion, with trailing twelve-month revenues reaching $217 billion. Public IaaS and PaaS services account for the bulk of the market and those grew by 26% in Q3. The dominance of the major cloud providers is even more pronounced in public cloud, where the top three control 72% of the market. Geographically, the cloud market continues to grow strongly in all regions of the world.

“It is a strong testament to the benefits of cloud computing that despite two major obstacles to growth the worldwide market still expanded by 24% from last year. Had exchange rates remained stable and had the Chinese market remained on a more normal path then the growth rate percentage would have been well into the thirties,” said John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group. “The three leading cloud providers all report their financials in US dollars so their growth rates are all beaten down by the historic strength of their home currency. Despite that all three have increased their share of a rapidly growing market over the last year, which is a strong testament to their strategies and performance. Beyond these three, all other cloud providers in aggregate have been losing around three percentage points of market share per year but are still seeing strong double-digit revenue growth. The key for these companies is to focus on specific portions of the market where they can outperform the big three.”