Microsoft is not a new name that you might not have heard of. This software company is quiet for a long time and provides various services other than just Software. Similarly, Microsoft Azure is one of the cloud computing solutions they provide. It has become one of the leading cloud computing solutions providers now and Microsoft Azure market share has been seen drastically increasing in recent years, Which we will cover in detail in this post.
Microsoft Azure is rapidly growing its roots in providing cloud computing infrastructure and hosting services in accordance with Microsoft’s connections in different enterprises that help to accelerate its growth.
Microsoft is trying to cover up some more areas of internet solutions other than focusing on the software business. They have started to expand their business into the cloud computing market with Microsoft Azure in which they provide cloud solutions such as:
- Through Microsoft Azure, Microsoft is offering cloud based solutions such as SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. In addition to it, they are using their B2B connections to push Microsoft Azure Market Share.
- Levaraging their services and increase competition between the three big tech giants Amazon, Google and Microsoft that help to acquire key enterprise clients in future.
It has become history that Microsoft is only a Software-based company. Now, by offering multiple services and Azure’s aggressive growth Microsoft is turned out to be a leading competitor for big cloud service providers. Let us get into more details.
What do you mean by Microsoft Azure?
From the introduction part, you might have gotten some idea about Microsoft Azure, it is nothing but Microsoft’s cloud service platform. This platform provides a lot of cloud-related services such as cloud hosting, machine learning, Internet of things (IoT), Data science virtual machines, and many more.
Microsoft started cloud service, Azure, in the year 2010 and they launched this service to give tough competition to some leading cloud service providers, Amazon Web services (AWS) and Google Computing Platform (GCP).
Although, both the platforms AWS(2006) and GCP (2008)had been launched earlier than Microsoft Azure, still azure has been able to catch up with the market and has risen up as a leading competitor for both the platforms.
Just like Microsoft’s competitors, it also offers cloud-based hosting services but the major selling products of Microsoft azure are its blockchain products, Artificial Intelligence platform, and many more.
As per the reports by W3Techs, Currently, Microsoft Azure’s market share is about 1% within cloud hosting. Since it is a multitude of different solutions starting from IaaS services to AI-based cloud solutions, hence we can only estimate its market share and it would be difficult to calculate the exact figure.
To start with a discussion of Microsoft Azure market share for Web hosting in detail, let us check out their estimated numbers which have been released by W3Techs for the year 2021.
From the above picture, you can easily see Microsoft azure market share is only 1% within the web hosting industry.
This low figure won’t look impressive especially for a giant teach company in the world. But you also need to consider one thing being Microsoft azure market share only 1% its worth is about $168.1 billion in 2021, which is even a massive amount. And from this figure, you can estimate that even a single percentage share shows a billion-dollar revenue.
But also you must know one thing that, Microsoft Azure is not just limited to providing cloud services, but they are also into Blockchain with the name Azure Blockchain Workbench and has a market share of about 5.07% of the total blockchain market.
As per the reports published by BuiltWith, which is a leading technology service that stores historical data or information about technology service providers such as CRM, Web hosting provider, etc. And as per their reports in 2021, there are more than 1,307,138 websites that are hosted with Microsoft Azure and this number is what represents a value of a minimum of 1% Microsoft azure market share.
Let us get you into deep about Microsoft azure usage statistics.
When you deeply analyze the above Usage statistics and look carefully at the data for top sites in the world that uses Microsoft Azure. You will find that Microsoft has managed to establish connections with large enterprises due to their brand value. And the enterprises like Jeep, Starbucks, and Volo have become their Hosting clients.
And when you consider the top 10k websites on the internet, you will find Microsoft Azure has become a noticeable contender and has been able to hold the fourth position in cloud hosting providers along with its other contenders such as Amazon, GCP, and Cloudflare.
From the previous data, Microsoft Azure market share has been improved from 6.82% to 8% in 2021. It has been a great improvement from the previous market share among the top one million websites on the internet. And you must not be surprised to see the results about how much cloud providers are dominating in the top 10k of the websites.
Since more than 90% of the enterprises prefer to use cloud services, combining both public as well as private cloud services. In past, it has become a matter of inconvenience to manage your own data center, take regular backups, take all security measures, and update software regularly. And it became a tradition for any enterprise in the past.
Microsoft Azure’s exact revenue is never revealed in exact figures but the company bundles up all its cloud services reports.
As per the reports by Statista, revenues from Microsoft Azure are integrated into its intelligent cloud segment, which comprises various cloud services such as private, public, and hybrid server products. In the year 2021, it has been estimated that Microsoft’s intelligent cloud segment has generated a revenue of more than $60 billion, including azure’s server products and cloud services revenues. In addition to it, Microsoft cloud services also provide other amazing products that provide consulting and premium support.
However, when you compare from the last year 2020, Microsoft has hit the $50 billion revenue for its commercial cloud services.
Another thing you must note is that these revenues figures are not solely generated by Microsoft’s cloud properties, it also includes Microsoft’s other products such as Office 365 and Dynamics 365.
From the above graphs and analysis, it is clear that no matter how much Microsoft azure has shown revenue growth from the previous years, it is still lagging behind its main competitor Amazon Web Services which has generated over $16.11 billion alone in Q3 2021 alone for its cloud services.
It has been observed that Microsoft’s entire cloud services Azure have shown some astonishing growth from past recent years.
As per the reports published on Microsoft’s official Website, June 2021 Q4, when comparing Microsofts from last fiscal year:
- Revenue was $46.2 billion and has been increased by 21%
- The Operating incoe was $19.1 billion and has been increased by 42%
- Microsoft’s net income was $16.5 billion and has been increased bby 47%.
- Diluted earning per share were $2.17 and has been incresed by 49%
The chief executive officer of Microsoft has said “We are innovating across the technology stack to help organizations drive new levels of tech intensity across their business, “Our results show that when we execute well and meet customers’ needs in differentiated ways in large and growing markets, we generate growth, as we’ve seen in our commercial cloud – and in new franchises, we’ve built, including gaming, security, and LinkedIn, all of which surpassed $10 billion in annual revenue over the past three years.”
And the Executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft also said ” As we closed out the fiscal year, our sales teams and partners delivered a strong quarter with over 20% top and bottom-line growth, highlighted by commercial bookings growth of 30% year over year, Our commercial cloud revenue grew 36% year over year to $19.5 billion.”
Since the majority of the top enterprises have a good relationship with Microsoft through their Operating systems software of other productivity. They have been able to create a lot of opportunities through their bondings and relationships that keep providing them significant deals in the future.
Microsoft Azure Security
To check if Microsoft Azure is able to provide a secure environment to their users or it has the best security measures or not? Before making any conclusion let us first check out whether public cloud hosting tends to be secure or not?
When considering users’ or IT professionals’ opinions, the public cloud hosting and computing services are not great. But Microsoft a Multi-Trillion global technology leader better know its popularity and successful business will also attract cybercriminals as well as hackers. Hence, they will never compromise on that, and keeping their customers secure is a top priority for Microsoft.
You can assume how much Microsoft is concerned about its security as they invest over $1 billion each year into the security that includes even Azure infrastructure.
Here are some of the precautionary measures that Microsoft takes to enhance security for Azure customers:
- Automatic enabled encryption: The whole sending and receiving within the Azure cloud environment is automatically set to ecncryption. They have intelligent tools that detect any suspicious activity such as DDOS attacks just like you have provided in Xbox and MS offcie 365.
- Automatic smart Traffic monitoring: Microsoft provide another safeguard to its cloud services by automatic enabling traffic monitoring and profiling. With the help of this it become easy to detect any suspicious threats and the system immediately deflect or divert it from the path. Hence, it helps in to reduce the vulnerability of any possible threats that might affect external security systems.
- Intelligent Access control: Admin access or accounts have dedicted or seperate networks than other team members. Admin have all the controls and permissions to either restrict or limit access for a certain period of time, device or even a particular section/document.
- Enable smart hardware and software protection: Microsoft security has been also extended to their hardware as well as softwares. They regularly review and revise their system codes aslo when creating smart hardwares that can automatically detects threats before software is either installed or activated. In case, any threat is found, it will immediately pasue the software loading till the problem is not resolved.
- Supports TEEs – Microsoft Azure is one of its kind that provide a platform to support both software and hardware TEEs )Trusted Executive Environments. It helps in to mak sure that any encrypted data whether it is stored or inactive is protected and safe from any unauthorised access or tampering.
- Encrypted VPN- If you are working off side and want to secure access, then with the help of ExpressRoute you have acess to your Azure via encrypted Virtual private Network, from anywhere.
- Dedicated cybersecurity experts- Microsoft has employed more than 3.5k cybersecurity experts who continuously monitoring all the wekaness and helps in to improve microsoft security from threats.
Microsoft provides you with all sorts of possible security measures and is always concerned about your storage and password. And has become one of the most secure platforms that any cloud service provider can serve.
while comparing Microsoft Azure with Google Cloud, there are some important things you need to consider:
Google cloud has shown tremendous results when comparing Azure by taking 2 years continuous lead on Azure. And it is obvious because Google was built on a robust network of cloud services.
While analyzing the latest usage statistics of web hosting providers, you will notice that Google Cloud has almost two times the market share (2.1%) than Microsoft Azure with 1.1% in 1st Nov 2021. In addition to this result, Google cloud has also a higher usage share among the Top 10K websites on the internet. With Microsoft Azure (8%) and Google Cloud Platform (13%) as per Builtwith.
But when comparing the revenue of both platforms it would be difficult because of Microsoft’s lack of transparency.
Now let us compare Microsoft Azure with AWS(Amazon Web Services) and see where these two tech giants stand against each other.
No doubt Amazon has the largest share rather than Microsoft Azure market share, even with other Major cloud services providers.
Now while talking about IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and Paas (Platform as a Service) revenue of different cloud vendors, Amazon still shines with 25.9% market share in the year 2021.
This trend is the same when you consider the usage statistics of web hosting providers. In 1st Nov 2021, AWS manages to have 6.2% market share and has become 1st largest hosting provider in the world whereas Microsoft Azure market share is about 1.1%.
Similarly, when you look at the pie chart provided by BuiltWith, you will see the same thing happened in the usage statistics between Amazon web services and Microsoft Azure in the top 10K websites on the internet.
With 38% of Amazon Web services leading the cloud hosting provider market in the world. Hence, it has an advantage over other cloud platforms. IT has become easy for AWS to establish themselves a leading market in IaaS category and it has become difficult for other contenders such as Azure to catch the speed.
No doubt at present Microsoft market share is low as compared to other leading cloud service providers, but it has also shown tremendous positive growth from past recent years. Users are now realizing the power of Microsoft Azure and start migrating their business on Azure.
Although it would be tough to give tough competition to AWS and Google since both these platforms have a large user base and were able to accumulate a majority of the market share early. But Microsoft’s enterprise connections and reputation will also help them to grab as much as a piece of the whole cloud computing market share.
Slowly and steadily it will be able to match up with the growth of these two platforms and it has the potential to hold position in the top three cloud service providers.
if you like to add more valuable information or points to this article, or I have missed anything worth mentioning, please do lets us know in the comment section below.
Frequently Asked Quesitons
What is Microsoft Azure market share?
The cloud services have been dominated by three major cloud service providers, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Cloudflare hosting, combining all of them consuming more than 75% World’s cloud hosting market share. Whereas Microsoft Azure market share is about 8%.
What percentage of companies use Azure?
Microsoft Azure market share in top 500 fortune comapines is about 95%. And from this data you can assume how much Azure is gaining popularity.
Why is Azure so popular?
Microsoft Azure is gaining popularity due to its high end smart security features, scalability and flexibility that no other platform able to provide on the same price.
Rahul Kumar is a web enthusiast, and content strategist specializing in WordPress & web hosting. With years of experience and a commitment to staying up-to-date with industry trends, he creates effective online strategies that drive traffic, boosts engagement, and increase conversions. Rahul’s attention to detail and ability to craft compelling content makes him a valuable asset to any brand looking to improve its online presence.