AdminDespite earlier data that suggested cloud computing spending continued to increase as companies optimized rather than cut back, new data emerged Synergy Research Group (opens in a new tab) suggest that this is simply not the case.
While companies continue to invest huge amounts of money in their cloud services, the rate at which it is growing has shown significant signs of suffering over the past year.
Despite lower year-on-year growth in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the previous year – at 20% – there are some positives, such as a total value of $63 billion worldwide, an increase of over $10 billion compared to the first quarter of 2022.
The cloud continues to grow, but more slowly
Amazon still holds about a third of the market, with Microsoft not far behind in second place, accounting for 23% of the market, compared to the previous year. Google, also occupying a slightly larger share of the cloud market, accounted for just 10% in Q1 2023.
With spending soaring, smaller companies looking to grab a bite of the pie continue to open up new opportunities, but the dominance of the Big Three shows no signs of slowing down as they collectively account for nearly two-thirds of the market. When it comes to the private cloud itself, the impact is more felt as it serves almost three-quarters (72%) of all customers.
All three have come under scrutiny by EU regulators in recent months for anti-competitive business practices that make it difficult and often costly to switch suppliers.
The most notable in terms of growth outside of the Big Three were Oracle, Snowflake, MongoDB, Huawei and a number of Chinese telecommunications operators.
The pending antitrust case does not point to an immediate solution, but as the market continues to grow despite the tightening of the economy, there is at least some potential for smaller companies to get a bigger piece of the pie.
