Written by Mary Lennighan
The global market for cloud infrastructure services continued to show significant growth in the second quarter of the year, albeit at a lower rate than it did in Q1, according to new analyst data.
And with artificial intelligence (AI) front-of-mind for cloud services providers, but yet to have a meaningful impact on revenues, there is plenty of cause for optimism. But cloud providers will have to be selective when deciding who to partner with in this market.
Worldwide cloud infrastructure services spending grew by 16% to US$72.4 billion in Q2, Canalys reported on Thursday. That’s a decline compared with the previous quarter’s 19% growth rate, but is nonetheless a healthy increase. The market is feeling the impact of pressure on customer spending, the analyst firm noted, but pointed out that the slower growth is also a result of the increased size of the market.
The big three cloud vendors – Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud – still account for almost two-thirds of the market. To be precise, they accounted for 65% of total spending in Q2, together growing faster than the market; their collective 20% growth rate was down two percentage points on the first quarter though.
