AWS Bests Microsoft, Alibaba, Google In Cloud IaaS: Gartner
Amazon, Microsoft, Alibaba and Google were the four global leaders in the $90.9 billion IaaS cloud market last year. Here’s where each cloud giant ranked.
Amazon is the clear worldwide market share leader in terms of providing infrastructure as a service (IaaS) in the public cloud, besting the likes of its rivals Microsoft, Alibaba and Google.
The global IaaS public cloud services market reached $90.9 billion in 2021, representing 41 percent annual growth year over year compared to $64.3 billion in 2020, according to new data from IT research firm Gartner.
The four cloud giants of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Alibaba and Google Cloud accounted for a whopping 76 percent of the total IaaS cloud services market last year.
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Amazon Wins 38.9 Percent Market Share
Amazon, who’s technology arm AWS is the worldwide leader in cloud services, generated $35.4 billion in total IaaS public cloud services revenue in 2021, representing 35 percent sales growth year over year compared to $26.2 billion in 2020.
The Seattle-based company won a 38.9 percent share of the worldwide IaaS cloud market in 2021, down from a 40.8 percent share in 2020, according to Gartner. It is key to note that Amazon grew IaaS revenues by a whopping $9 billion from 2020 to 2021.
Amazon has been the market share leader in the IaaS industry for the past several years.
No. 2 Microsoft Is Taking Market Share
Although Microsoft is well behind Amazon in terms of global market share, the software giant gained market share in 2021 compared to Amazon whose market share fell approximately two percentage points.
Microsoft generated approximatley $19.2 billion in IaaS cloud revenue in 2021, up 51.3 percent year over year compared to $12.6 billion in sales in 2020.
With many organizations already leveraging Microsoft’s large software and services portfolio, Azure is positioned to capture opportunities across nearly every vertical market, Gartner said.
Alibaba’s Asia-Pacific Cloud Stronghold
China-based Alibaba continues to lead the Chinese cloud market, while it is also positioning itself to be the leading regional cloud provider in emerging markets such as Indonesia and Malaysia.
Alibaba generated $8.7 billion in IaaS cloud services revenue in 2021, up 42 percent compared to $6.1 billion in 2020, according to Gartner.
Alibaba captured the No. 3 spot by winning 9.5 percent market share in IaaS public cloud services in 2021, which remained flat with the 9.5 percent share it won in 2020.
Google Is Growing Cloud Sales The Fastest
Google, whose technology arm Google Cloud has big plans to win more market share, grew IaaS cloud services at the fastest percentage rate on a worldwide basis.
Google captured $6.4 billion in worldwide IaaS cloud services revenue in 2021, nearly 64 percent growth year over year compared to $3.9 billion in sales in 2020.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based search and cloud giant witnessed this growth thanks to a steadily increased adoption for traditional enterprise workloads as well as Google’s innovation in more cutting-edge capabilities such as artificial intelligence and container technologies.
Google Cloud is also expanding its partner ecosystem to reach a broader customer base that is helping to drive IaaS sales.
Gartner: ‘Cloud-Native Becomes The Primary Architecture For Modern Workloads’
Gartner’s Sid Nag said the IaaS market continues to grow “unabated as cloud-native becomes the primary architecture for modern workloads.”
“Cloud supports the scalability and composability that advanced technologies and applications require, while also enabling enterprises to address emerging needs such as sovereignty, data integration and enhanced customer experience,” said Nag, vice president and analyst at Gartner, in a statement.
Gartner said regional cloud ecosystems are becoming increasingly important amidst growing geopolitical fragmentation and emerging regulatory and compliance requirements, presenting an opportunity for providers with a strong regional presence.
The next phase of IaaS growth will be driven by customer experience, digital outcomes and the “virtual-first world,” according to Nag.
“Emerging technologies that can help businesses bring experiences closer to their customers, such as the metaverse, chatbots and digital twins, will require hyperscale infrastructure to meet growing demands for compute and storage power,” said Nag.