Microsoft and Google have clawed back ground on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the expanding cloud infrastructure market, as the big three continue to race away from industry competition.
During the third quarter of 2017, Microsoft reported increased revenue of 90 per cent, with Google recording a 76 per cent surge through the cloud.
As a result, both vendors significantly closed the gap on AWS, who also kept growing to record a revenue increase of 42 per cent year-on-year.
According to Canalys findings, the worldwide cloud infrastructure services market performed strongly during the quarter, growing 43 per cent year-on-year to reach US$14.4 billion.
IBM also gained traction, driven by its strong base of large global customers, meaning that the four largest cloud service providers all maintained momentum and expanded combined share to 57 per cent of the total market.
“The leading cloud service providers’ hyper-scale investment in both technical capabilities and geographic coverage continues to help them expand rapidly,” Canalys research analyst Daniel Liu said.
“AWS will continue to benefit from its first-mover advantage, broadest cloud services portfolio and strong awareness among developers.
“But Microsoft’s substantial growth, driven by its huge enterprise installed base, compatibility with its Office portfolio and enhanced hybrid cloud solutions, means it will remain AWS’ closest competitor.”
According to Liu, the growing adoption of cloud for digital workloads around artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and edge computing will catalyse the next wave of market growth.
“This will also become the key factor in determining cloud players’ future momentum,” Liu added.
From a geographical standpoint, North America remained the largest market, accounting for 55 per cent of the worldwide total, followed by EMEA, which represented 23 per cent of the market, compared with 18 per cent for APAC and four per cent for Latin America.
For full-year 2017, Canalys forecasts the worldwide market will grow 43 per cent to hit US$54.4 billion.
