New data from Synergy Research Group shows that enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure services in the first quarter exceeded $39 billion, having increased by well over $2 billion from the previous quarter and 37% from Q1 2020. Notably, for the third successive quarter, the year-over-year growth rate increased, which is unusual for such a large and fast-growing market.

Microsoft has been slowly gaining ground on Amazon and the gap between their market shares has narrowed by two percentage points over the past year. Together, these two market leaders continue to account for more than half of global cloud revenues. Beyond Amazon and Microsoft, the top 12 players whose growth rate outpaced overall market growth were Alibaba, Google, Tencent and Baidu.

With most of the major cloud providers reporting first quarter results, Synergy estimates that quarterly revenue for cloud infrastructure services (including IaaS, PaaS and hosted private cloud services) was $39.5 billion, with year-over-year revenue reaching $140 billion. Public IaaS and PaaS services account for the majority of the market and grew 39% in the first quarter. The dominance of the top cloud providers is even more pronounced in the public cloud, where the top five control 80% of the market. Geographically, the cloud market continues to experience strong growth in all regions of the world.

"Amazon and Microsoft have achieved their leadership positions by aggressively focusing on growing their cloud services, quarter after quarter, year after year. They continue to invest billions of dollars each quarter in expanding their global data centre footprint, while enhancing their cloud service portfolios," said John Dinsdale, chief analyst at Synergy Research Group. "These two don't have to spend too much time looking in their rearview mirror and worrying about the competition. However, that doesn't mean there aren't great opportunities for other players. Excluding Amazon and Microsoft, the remaining market generates over $18 billion in quarterly revenue and is growing at over 30% per year. Cloud providers that focus on specific regions, services or user groups can aim for several years of strong growth."

Source: developpez.com