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Cloud infrastructure services spending has jumped 42 per cent in the first quarter of 2019, compared to the same time last year.
According to new data from Synergy Research Group, the growth rate was lower than seen throughout last year.
“The decline in growth rate should not be viewed as a weakening market but as an inevitable consequence of a market that has now reached massive scale. For the eighth consecutive quarter the market size has increased by well over a billion dollars over the previous quarter,” Synergy Research chief analyst, John Dinsdale, said.
In terms of suppliers, Amazon still reigns supreme, growing faster than the overall market. Microsoft, Google, Alibaba and Tencent all saw revenue increase 70 per cent or more, year-on-year according to Synergy.
In February, Amazon Web Services (AWS) generated US$7.29 billion in operating income for Amazon.com during the financial reporting year ended 31 December 2018, representing the tech giant's fastest growing division.
The research company also noted niche players in the market in the market such as IBM, Salesforce, Oracle and Rackspace, typically faced lower growth rates.
“As the market goes from strength to strength the pack of cloud providers that are chasing Amazon has bifurcated into high-growth challengers and lower growth niche-oriented providers. But Amazon retains its strong leadership position and continues to control a third of the worldwide market,” Dinsdale said.
Based on first quarter earnings data from major cloud providers, Synergy estimated that quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues such as IaaS, PaaS and hosted private cloud services, exceeded US$21 billion, with revenues from the last four quarters stretching beyond US$75 billion.
The analyst firm indicated that public IaaS and PaaS services accounted for the bulk of the market, growing 48 per cent in the first quarter.
