Cloud Market Share 2022: An Overview Of This Growing Ecosphere.

Major Cloud Computing Services that holds maximum Cloud market Share

Before directly hopping into cloud market share, the first thing you need to know about what these cloud companies majorly offer. In the majority, the leading cloud companies provide you with three main types of cloud computing services. Each one provides a definite range of facilities and based on that holds some part of the total cloud market share.

The major Cloud Computing services are:

1. SaaS (Software as a Service)

SaaS is a cloud computing service that mainly focuses on cloud-based software and has a major part in the Cloud market share. The provider will install software on the server and provide access to the users that have subscribed to that software. The users do not need to install the application on their machines. But they can get access and navigate the software either using a web browser or an API.

Since the software is installed or stored in the server, you only have to store and analyze your data. There is no need to download the software, install it, manage it or update the software on your machine. Everything is managed and handled by the provider only.

Based on the service SaaS is subdivided into three categories:

1. Private Cloud

A Private cloud is where you host your application or software on your server or the intranet. And you only be only responsible for managing it, upgrading it, updating the software, and using other resources, In addition to it, you will have to set up your security and firewall systems as well.

2. Public Cloud

Public cloud service is where the Provider installs the software on the server and gives access to their subscriber to use the software. The provider will be responsible for all the management, upgrades, maintenance, and security. This is what the majority of Cloud computing companies provide.

A public cloud is where the provider supplies you with access to their data center infrastructure. They are responsible for all management, maintenance, security, and upgrades.

3. Hybrid Cloud

A hybrid cloud is a mixture of both private and public cloud solutions. It means You will be in charge of handling and managing, the two public and private services altogether, mainly focussing on passing the data between both cloud services securely.

2. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

IaaS from the name itself suggests this Cloud service is mainly focused on infrastructure. The provider will provide you with all the resources such as servers, storage capacity, and networking on demand. And as a user, you have to build your platform and run the application on it. This cloud service gives users the flexibility to choose resources of their own and can also upgrade as per their needs in the future.

3. PaaS (Platform as a Service)

PaaS is the third and last sub-category of SAAS which offers cloud computing, where the provider allows you to use their cloud services such as managing, developing, and testing applications. Along with it, they provide you with all sorts of tools through the platform to run tests and development.

However, the provider’s main role is to ensure, security, maintenance, and backups of the infrastructure.

Cloud market share: Present scenario of Cloud Computing Market

According to the leading research website grand view research, the worldwide could computing market size has been estimated with a worth of USD 274.79 billion in 2020. And it has been expected to be growing with a rate of 19.1% from the year 2021 to 2028.

All these can be possible due to tremendous advancements in technology such as Machine learning and AI. Cloud computing services and the maximum cloud market share now have been shifted to AI capabilities. Since the COVID pandemic, business managers and employees chose to work from home or remotely and it has become the latest trend that doesn’t seem to end shortly.

Due to the pandemic, there has been seen a great transformation in the workplace and Work culture. In addition to it, the pandemic also shapes the business model with the technologies that adapting the changes such as the Internet of things, Artificial intelligence, mobile computing, etc.

The cloud computing market accelerated the demand in Q3 2020 as organizations continued to migrate their workloads from traditional channels to digital formats. The fundamental driving forces for the market are consumerization of IT, diverse landscape of suppliers, new requirements of agile IT thinking, higher availability of skilled workforce, increased awareness of the benefits of cloud computing, government initiatives in support of adopting cloud computing, a rise of emerging technologies, and rapid increase in the number of start-up ecosystems.

How much SaaS, PaaS and IaaS holds Public Cloud Market Share?

It has been observed that the public cloud market around the world comprising of Software as a Service(SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) has shown positive growth of 24.1% in the year 2020. As per the reports by IDC (International Data Corporation), these services have generated about $312 billion in revenue worldwide.

Combining all the revenue generated by the top five Cloud market share holders, Amazon, Google, Oracle, Microsoft, and Salesforce, In 2020 they hold about 38% of the worldwide earnings. And it is increasing by 32% over year by year. This is all possible due to spreading SaaS and ISaaS services widely that make Microsoft, as well as Amazon, become top contenders in the cloud market share with 12% total revenue.

From the above table, it is visible, results in combining IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS are the basic cloud services, that big SaaS company and customers uses to run, transform and building, and managing different applications on shared public clouds. In addition to it, combining the cloud services such as IaaS, PaaS, and SISaaS cloud market, the top 5 cloud companies, Google, AWS, Microsoft, IBM, and Alibaba holds about 51% of total revenue globally.

As per the data published by IDC Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Tracker which provides the total market size and the seller’s share for more than 70 segments of the public cloud service market globally. The parameter on which this tracker is revenue generated by all the leading cloud services, IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), SISaaS (System Infrasture Software as a Service, PaaS (Platform as a Service), and SaaS (Software as a service) revenues.

The Tracker also reveals the data of about 500 cloud market share companies from 49 countries around the world.

Some Leading Cloud Market Share holders:

1st Leading Cloud Market Share- Amazon Web Services (AWS)

According to the leading statistic website statists, Leading with 32% of the world’s IaaS+PaaS+SISaaS cloud market share, Amazon Web Services become a clear market leader in 2021. And as per the reports by parkmycloud, AWS (Amazon Web Services) generated a revenue of $13.5 billion for Q1 2021. AWS revenue grew 32% in the quarter, accelerating from 28% growth in the fourth quarter.

2nd Leading cloud Market Share- Microsoft Azure

With a market share of 20%, Microsoft grows its revenue by 50% over the previous quarter. which is quite impressive as compared to the 46% growth analysts anticipated. Microsoft’s cloud computing business Azure provides Intelligent Cloud services which show a growth of about 23% to $15.1 billion that includes, servers and cloud services.

Microsoft’s soul of success was its cloud computing business. Even the Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said ” Even the world has been severely hit by the Pandemic, the digital transformation and adaptation curves are still showing positive results. They are increasing at a great rate and it is just the beginning. We are working on cloud infrastructure for the next decade, which increases our market reach and innovating across every layer of the tech stack to help our customers be resilient and transform.”

Even, Azure has not specified its specificity that frustrates many experts, and hence it cannot be simply compared with Amazon Web Services. Due to this many experts showed concern about How Azure is still doing great?

Whatever the reason is, you cannot ignore the fact that Microsoft’s cloud computing business is generating good profits for the company.

3rd leading cloud market Share- Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

In 2021, Google cloud has reportedly generated a revenue of $4.047 billion. Which is quite an impressive increase of 46% year over year. It is also to be noted that Google cloud includes not solely Google cloud platform but also google Workspace.

Alphabet, Google parent company has also highlighted their cloud growth and their CFP has said that ” We are very pleased with the ongoing momentum in Google cloud, that has generated revenue of $4 billion in the quarter showing better future and opportunity in both GCP and Workspace.

4th leading cloud market share- Alibaba

Owning a 6% public cloud market share according to Parkmycloud, Alibaba has annual revenues of $2.6 billion, and impressive growth of 37% year over year. Alibaba also mentioned that the reason behind the slower revenue growth rate during the quarter is mainly due to payments declined by the top cloud customers.

This Top cloud customer has great reach outside China that uses Alibaba’s cloud service in the past. But has decided to terminate the contract only for their international business due to non-product-related requirements. Even Alibaba believes that in the future their other customers are so diversified with cloud computing, that they won’t get affected much by a single customer.

IBM

On the other hand, IBM cloud owns only 5% of the Cloud Market Share in 2021. It has been observed that IBM Cloud generated revenue by 20%, whereas RedHat’s revenue has been increased by 18%. However, the overall IBM revenue has been going down by 4.5%.

In the year 2020, IBM has acquired seven small companies whose main focus was AI and hybrid cloud.

Why Cloud computing has attracting Businesses?

Businesses are attracted to Cloud Computing for various unique reasons. But even, some reasons match with almost every business, that opts for their companies to make the transition. Here are some most common reasons why businesses are getting attracted to Cloud Computing.

Add value to your Business

Cloud Computing offers a wide range of offerings to a Business that add value to it. It provides businesses, greater flexibility, scalability, and security. However, there are a lot more benefits that you will go to see in the next section.

Events that happen to be terminated

No matter whatever product you have either digital or physical, all of them have a typical lifecycle. Hence, whenever a seller has announced to terminate their products, then it becomes an opportunity for you to consider alternative solutions. Hence, due to these naturally occurring events, businesses are moving from one premise to more reliable cloud-based solutions.

Business merges or Acquisition

When a company turns over or acquired another company or merges, the main challenging part that arises for them is the compatibility issues. Different companies use different technologies and applications, and it becomes tough for both companies to match all technical parameters.

Hence, if you ever came across such situations, the best and the right solution left for you is to migrate all applications and technologies to the cloud platform. By doing this, you can offer your employees a more smoother and seamless ecosystem.

Contract Renewals

Many businesses have contracts with private data centers, hardware, and software providers that must be periodically renewed. Much like an end-of-life event, this presents you with an opportunity to reconsider how you deploy specific services and solutions.

Increasing cost bases and a range of other limiting factors present you the opportunity to make the transition to a more cost-effective cloud-based solution.

Capacity Requirements

If you are running a business that utilizes hardware, then it is obvious that you will face issues when there is a surge in growth or experiencing huge seasonal shifts. Due to this demand will be high and the cost will rise, and you will end up paying more money on services that are not even utilized properly.

When you shift your business to the Cloud platform, it will give you the option to either increase or decrease computational power instantly. And the price will solely depend on the model you chose.

Software and handware Updates

if you are setting up an in-house hosting data center or software application, you will be responsible for managing it and keeping it fresh or up to date. In-house updating software or hardware is usually less expensive and it is highly beneficial when you shift to the cloud ecosystem.

For example, a public SaaS subscription eliminates all the unnecessary hardware upgrades and very expensive software licenses.

Data Compliance

Data compliance is one of the foundations for any business operations. Especially if you are into healthcare service providers or Financial industries. If you are shifting your business to Cloud computing, it will provide you the freedom to choose those services that are already in compliance.

Protection from cyber attacks

Since the increase in business migration to online platforms, cyberattacks and hackers become active. Their attack might be severe that can damage your whole website to an extent that it cannot be restored. You might even find your business to be vulnerable and also at risk of these cyber attacks.

No matter, if they are have not enough tools or intellect, you will still find cloud platforms provide you with an inbuilt solution to lower the risks.

Advanatges of Shifting to Cloud Computing Services in terms of Business

As far as now, I have tried to cover all the major common reasons for any business to consider moving on cloud computing. Now let us check out more advantages of shifting to cloud computing in terms of business.

Saves money

One of the main reasons to move to cloud services is it helps to save money. Depending upon the type of your business and how efficiently you utilize cloud resources, you can save money through cloud computing in various ways.

For example, Cloud computing helps you to automatically scale according to changes in demands, supply, and many more.

Easy to scale

Another key advantage of shifting to cloud services is its ability to scale. Cloud computing lets you easily scale up computational as well as storage demands whenever necessary for the business. It is based on whatever you pay that much you will receive, it means to scale up your compute and store you will require to pay more, hence it is better you must control over your costs and scale up or down only when it is utmost necessary or the demand.

Continuous Operational

A major factor for your business to be successful and ahead of its competitors is to provide service even if there is any disaster occurs. Your technology must be operational anyhow. No matter how much you control your business processes, there are always high chances that it will let you down. And due to high competition and demand, even a slight downtime can seriously impact your business and hence its reputation, productivity, and at last revenue.

In addition, cloud computing technology provides overall protection from any kind of contingency, that can harm data loss and failure of vast data centers.

Edge over the competitors

When you are running a business, you have limited resources for your IT team but when you decided to move to Cloud services, it helps your business to run more smoothly and quickly than competitors.

You can let your IT team to more focus on the business and work on different projects that create revenue rather than working in a room depending on the in-house infrastructure resources.

Can easy to do business and access data from anywhere

Cloud computing helps your business team members and employees well connected through a loop no matter where they are located in the world. By providing remote access, cloud services let your employees ability to work on your business projects remotely and access data via any IT devices. It helps to encourage remote working and also ensures to maintain productivity as well as connectivity of the employees while they are on the move.

Quality Control

Quality is everyone’s business’s sole backbone, if you compromise on that your business will no longer survive. Similarly, any business should not tolerate any lack of quality and inconsistent reporting. Cloud services can help you to prevent such by keeping all the information and important documents in a single format in one place. These services also offer data backups as well as version control, provides your employees the exact information without disturbing accuracy and consistency.

Sustainable Development

Since the new industries have emerged vigorously, it has been a matter of concern for the environment as well. Hence, it has become a top priority for any business to consider sustainable resources as an alternative so that they can help to lower the carbon footprint. Some Businesses are also implementing this by supplying renewable energy in their data centers.

Using cloud services, businesses can also opt for virtual services and dependency on hardware or physical products. In addition to it, cloud computing also provides employees mobility and remote accessibility, which helps to reduce on-premises emissions.

Comprehensive

Due to digitalization, everything has become digital and eliminated manual records on papers. It has become easy to track, monitor, and examine countless data points that are related to your customer’s behavior, such as interaction and transactions with your company. It is also true, that analyzing the whole customer data is not an easy task and time-consuming process.

Now, the right cloud service provider can provide you with a strong infrastructure, powerful computing, and storage options integrated with analytics tools that help fastens the process and works efficiently. It is all due to the introduction of AI and technological advancements that happened recently.

Increases Business relationships

Cloud computing provides an easy and smooth platform for your business collaborations. These platforms provide your business team members to interact, create, view, edit and share information or data easily with protection. In addition to it, the ability to remotely connect and mobility let your team connect whenever and wherever they are located.

Threat protection

Other than the advanced features that cloud computing offers, threat protection and security are also their utmost priority. In which they offer your business a vastly improved security solution. For example, Big tech giants like Microsoft monitors and stops millions of potential threats or attacks on a regular basis, and they have dedicated in-house security experts who continuously take an eye on every possible security threats. Hence when your business moves on a Cloud platform, your security and protection are all responsible to your cloud provider so that you can freely focus on your business development.

Price or Cost Comparison for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform

If you are looking to migrate your Business to public cloud infrastructure, the first and most important step is to find the right cloud service provider with reliable pricing. However, it is not that easy it seems, the price of cloud computing services is simple and can vary on various parameters. such as:

1. The amount of storage you will require.
2. Configurations and specifications of servers you want to set up.
3. Operating system and type of software you gonna install.
4. Paying cycle (either per min, hr or by month)
5. Choose one time contract or pay as you go
6. Data centre locations

These are just common parameters, however the leading cloud market shareholders such as Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web services, and Azure offers you hundreds of different services. Each one of them changes the price as you choose the configuration of customizing it as per your requirements.

To help you out how the leading cloud market shareholders have variation in their pricing for the same service (combined public cloud hosting, installation of servers, and storage). To make it easy for you to compare prices of different leading cloud market shareholders provides you with the same parameters. I have used Cloudorado, a cloud hosting comparison tool that lets you choose basic configurations or specifications such as RAM, CPU, storage, and Operating system.

These Basic configuration settings will help you out to analyze their pricing per month.

For example, let us take a basic configuration such as:

1. CPU of power 8
2. RAM to be 5Gb
3. Operating System to be Windows
4. Storage capacity to be 2 TB.

From the above comparison, you can clearly see that Microsoft turned out to be the most economical option, it is due to if you have opted for windows which are Microsoft’s operating system. But when you change the operating system from Windows to Linux, google will be turned out to be the most economical option.

It is obvious that the above price comparison is just basic and only for your reference. However, if you go deeper into each cloud service provider, you will find hundreds of customization options, offers, and discounted models, that you can choose hence varies the pricing.

If you are well known about your Installation requirements and want to estimate the cost, each of the leading cloud market shareholders has their own calculator. That helps you out, in estimating costs for your cloud computing services.

Summary

For you as a Customer, cloud computing has dramatically changed the whole IT market, by providing you with a vast range of competitive services at reasonable price offerings. But to get the maximum benefit out of it, you are required to have the deep knowledge to explore almost every option available in the market.

In addition to it, you are also required to have the willingness to optimize your cloud installations to make them cost-effective. Considering all the major Cloud services whether it is, SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS, the leading cloud market shareholders will be Amazon (AWS), Google (GCP), and Microsoft (Azure) which continues to dominate. And it has been also observed that continuous research and development also lead to dominance in the near future as well.

While, if you are planning to shift to cloud services, you must analyze, research, and collect all the information regarding the offers these leading Cloud market shareholder companies have to offer in their competitive price ranges. Spending time to figure out the best suitable cloud services for your business, will be worthy for you to optimize price and make your installation cost-effective.

Whereas the Google cloud platform is considered as one of the reasonable and cost-efficient CLoud market shareholders, it is also one of the fastest-growing ones. They are continuously researching and making innovative steps to enhance their performance, and also provide reasonable discounts.

I hope the above-detailed article on Cloud market share will help you to understand which provider has the maximum shareholder. And if you have any experience with these cloud services please do share your valuable input with us in the comment section below.

Frequently Asked Questions