AWS Continues Dominance over Azure, Google Cloud with Strong Growth

The cloud computing market continues to grow, and Amazon Web Services continues to reap big rewards from that growth. In fact, last quarter AWS grew faster by revenue than ever before.

The big three public cloud providers — Amazon, Microsoft, and Google — all announced earnings over the last 10 days, with all three seeing cloud gains. Despite Google’s and especially Microsoft’s strong most recent quarters, Amazon still dominates the market by revenue share. Amazon reported its fourth-quarter fiscal 2021 earnings on Feb. 3, with AWS revenue coming in at $17.8 billion, which is a staggering 40% gain over the fourth quarter of 2020.

"AWS saw a continuation of the strong usage and revenue growth we’ve seen throughout 2021," Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said on his company's earnings call. "AWS added more revenue year-over-year than any quarter in its history."

AWS Public Cloud Services Continue to Lead Azure, Google Cloud

During the fourth quarter, AWS hosted its 10th annual re:Invent conference, where it announced more than 115 new services and features, according to Olvsavsky. Among the new services rolled out was Private 5G, which helps providers with 5G cellular deployments, as well as AWS Cloud WAN and the Amplify low-code developer studio.

It's not just new services that are accelerating AWS usage; it's also a growth in general demand as the COVID-19 pandemic situation stabilizes.

"Different companies have had different COVID experiences. With some, their volumes went through the roof; with some, their volumes went through the floor," Olsavsky said. "So as things have stabilized, I think that a lot of people made the commitment to go to the cloud as they better understood the benefits."

Microsoft and Google Picking Up the Pace in Cloud

Microsoft reported its second-quarter fiscal 2022 financial results on Jan. 25. Revenue from its Intelligent Cloud unit, which includes the Azure public cloud services, was $18.3 billion, a 26% year-over-year gain.

Google parent company Alphabet reported its earnings on Feb. 2, with Google Cloud revenue reported at $5.54 billion for a 45% year-over-year gain.

“It is a strong testimony to the value and attractiveness of cloud services that the 2021 market growth rate actually exceeded 2020 growth, despite the enormous scale that has already been achieved," said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research Group, in a statement.

cloud-market-share

Dinsdale noted that organizations are now spending more on cloud services than their own data centers. In terms of market share, he said the battle is getting interesting, even though AWS leads the market by a solid margin.

"Microsoft’s market share is making impressive gains and is now just eleven percentage points behind Amazon," Dinsdale said. "The rising tide continues to lift all boats, but some are being lifted more swiftly than others."