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Revenue for the global infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) has blown past US$100 billion for the first time, reaching US$120.3 billion in 2022.
This is according to research firm Gartner, which said this was an increase of 29.7 per cent year-on-year from 2021.
The top five IaaS providers made up over 80 per cent of the market during the year, the firm said, with Amazon holding onto its number one ranking with 40 per cent market share and US$48 billion in revenue.
Next was Microsoft with 21.5 per cent market share and US$25.9 billion in revenue, with Gartner claiming that its software-first strategy supported its IaaS growth through customers opting for more cloud capacity to support automation, advanced analytics and digital workplace capabilities.
Alibaba was next with 7.7 per cent market share and US$9.3 billion in revenue. Although it holds dominance in China, expansion elsewhere has slowed, the firm claimed, with this being the driving factor to spin off Alibaba Cloud into a separate entity.
The top five were rounded out by Google, with 7.5 per cent market share and US$9.1 billion revenue – a 41 per cent increase compared to a year ago – and Huawei with 4.4 per cent market share and US$5.2 billion in revenue.
Google’s growth boon follows an increased investment in sovereign cloud and expanded sales and marketing partner programs, widening its customer base. Meanwhile, Huawei’s growth was labelled by Gartner as steady in China and emerging markets.
Sid Nag, VP analyst at Gartner, claimed IaaS is driving growth in both the software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) markets.
“IaaS growth in 2022 was stronger than expected, despite a slight softening in the fourth quarter as customers focused on using their previously committed capacity to its fullest potential,” he said. “This is expected to continue until mid-2023 and is a natural outcome of the market’s maturity. We expect an acceleration in 2024, as there is still room for plenty of additional future growth.”
Looking to the calendar year ahead, Nag said generative artificial intelligence (AI) is predicted to push the market forward, especially when hyperscalers offer products past the “existing, democratised generative AI solutions.”
“As enterprises integrate generative AI into their technology portfolio, new markets and opportunities for cloud hyperscalers will emerge related to sovereignty, ethics, privacy and sustainability,” Nag added.
Gartner's analysis on IaaS comes as competing research firm IDC claimed earlier this month that global revenue generated by public cloud services topped the US$500 billion mark in 2022.
For IaaS revenue generated during last year, IDC came to a similar figure as Gartner, with US$115.5 billion.
