Amazon Leads Cloud Infrastructure Services Market

Amazon continues to lead the cloud infrastructure services market, according to new data from Synergy Research Group. The company dominates the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) segment, accounting for 36 percent of revenue.

In addition, total cloud infrastructure service revenues grew 15 percent between Q4 2011 and Q4 2012 to reach $12.5 billion, based on Synergy Research findings.

Service provider revenue from IaaS and PaaS topped $2.75 billion in the first half of the year, having grown by 65 percent from the same period in 2011. While Amazon clearly dominates the IaaS segment, it is also quickly approaching Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) leader Salesforce’s 19 percent market share.

The industry is still in the early innings of market growth, with opportunities for service providers and telecos alike, according to Jeremy Duke, Synergy Research Group’s founder and chief analyst.

“We are in the early days of a profound shift in the data center market towards cloud infrastructure services, which presents extremely exciting growth opportunities for emerging cloud providers and traditional service providers the world over,” Duke said in a statement. “Amazon has clearly demonstrated first mover advantage and built a strong cloud provider position, driving the IaaS market and lighting a fire under traditional telcos which are seeking to play catch up, often via M&A and partnership activity.”

Although Amazon trails Akamai and Level 3 in the CDN/ADN segment, the company holds the number-three spot with 7 percent market share.

Meanwhile, the more mature managed hosting and colocation segments have substantially lower growth rates, at 6 percent and 13 percent respectively, but remain much larger in terms of revenue generated, the report said.

While cloud adoption continues to climb, the growth market for enterprise cloud-based services is expected to decrease over the next five years, as the size of the overall cloud services market expands, MSP Today reported.

The worldwide market for enterprise cloud-based services is expected to grow from $18.3 billion in 2012 to $31.9 billion in 2017, according to the latest forecast by research firm Analysys Mason.

By comparison, the firm previously predicted cloud computing services would grow from approximately $13 billion in annual revenue in 2010 to more than $35 billion in 2015.