Synergy attributed the increased growth rate, which was bigger than any of the previous three quarters, partly to the aggressive growth of the leading cloud providers, all of whom posted strong quarterly results.
Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Alibaba all increased their market share, while IBM held its ground and most small-to-medium sized operators saw their market shares decrease in the final three months of 2017.
AWS maintained its dominant position with revenues that exceeded the next four closest competitors combined, despite huge strides being made by Microsoft.
Cloud revenues at Alibaba doubled, meaning it gained a 1% market share, becoming the fifth largest provider of cloud infrastructure services.
Full-year revenues in the cloud infrastructure market grew 44%, according to Synergy’s estimates, with public infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) accounting for the bulk of this. These both grew by 50% in Q4, with the top five providers controlling three quarters of the public cloud marketplace.
“We fully expected a year-end boost in cloud growth rates but the numbers came in a little stronger than anticipated, which says a lot about just how robust are the market drivers,” said John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst and Research Director at Synergy Research Group.
“As demand for cloud services blossoms, the leading cloud providers all have things to be pleased about and they are setting a fierce pace that most chasing companies cannot match. Smaller companies can still do well by focusing on specific applications, industry verticals or geographies, but overall this is a game that can only be played by companies with big ambitions, big wallets and a determined corporate focus.”
New data from Synergy Research Group shows that across six key cloud services and infrastructure market segments, operator and vendor revenues for the four quarters ending September 2017 reached $180 billion.
