Global Cloud Computing Market Overview 2019‑2024: Growth, Provider Comparison, and Spending Trends

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, recently released its cloud business data, putting the cloud computing industry back into the spotlight; the market is highly competitive and both technology and market capabilities are the key weapons.

Cloud Infrastructure Spending and Annual Growth, Full Year 2019 (source: Canalys.)

According to the latest data released by research firm Canalys, the global cloud services market reached $107.1 billion (≈ 7,500 billion RMB) in 2019, a year‑over‑year increase of 37.6%. Canalys forecasts the market to reach $141.0 billion in 2020 (32% growth) and $2.84 trillion by 2024 (≈ 20 trillion RMB).

Comparison of Cloud Providers

Overall, the cloud services market is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few giants: Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Alibaba together hold about 60% of the global market share. Wikibon analyst Dave Vellante discusses the current state of the market, the performance of cloud providers, and their growth momentum.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) continues to lead the market, but its 2019 market‑share growth was 36%, below the industry average. Microsoft, Google and Alibaba each posted year‑over‑year growth above 60%, putting pressure on AWS. AWS positions itself as a platform for building applications rather than a SaaS marketplace; as AWS CEO Andy Jassy puts it, “AWS is about infrastructure.”

Google Cloud grew 87.8% year‑over‑year, generating $8.92 billion in FY‑2019 revenue, making it the fastest‑growing of the four major cloud providers. This growth is driven by continued investment in cloud technologies and strategic acquisitions such as Elastifile and CloudSimple. Most of Google’s cloud revenue comes from its G Suite productivity tools (Docs, Drive, Sheets), and the company places strong emphasis on infrastructure and analytics services.

Microsoft Azure, the strongest competitor to AWS, increased its revenue from $11 billion in 2018 to $18.1 billion in 2019 (63.9% growth). Azure also secured a multi‑billion‑dollar cloud contract that surpassed Amazon’s bid. In the fourth quarter of FY‑2019, Microsoft’s “Intelligent Cloud” revenue exceeded its Windows business for the first time. Azure’s portfolio includes not only IaaS but also SQL Server, Windows Server, Visual Studio, System Center and GitHub, covering public, private and hybrid cloud, which makes direct comparison with AWS difficult.

In the Asia‑Pacific and Chinese markets, Alibaba Cloud is a strong rival to Amazon. China, the world’s second‑largest cloud market, sees Alibaba Cloud holding over 40% domestic share. Over the past four years Alibaba Cloud’s revenue has grown 20‑fold, serving 3 million enterprise customers worldwide. Its rapid growth is powered by a massive cloud ecosystem that offers a rich set of application services and a full‑stack “cloud‑edge‑device” architecture.

In summary, each major cloud provider defines its cloud offering based on its own strengths.

Larger Scale = Higher Profit

These companies are all performing well, and given the profitability of cloud businesses, this is not surprising. The chart below shows the basic economics of different technology‑business segments (hardware, software, services, outsourcing) before and after the cloud era.

The diagram illustrates how hardware achieves economies of scale, with marginal cost stabilising over time. Professional services become less economical at scale due to increasing complexity and indirect costs, while software marginal cost approaches zero as production volume rises.

The real distinction between the pre‑cloud and post‑cloud eras lies in outsourcing.

“In the pre‑cloud era, outsourcing firms could achieve some economic benefit but could not change the rules of the game,” Vellante says. “In the post‑cloud world, ultra‑large companies are driving automation, and the gross margin for cloud providers from outsourced IT services is much higher.”

Cloud Computing Expenditure Surge

Reports show that although Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud posted higher growth rates than Amazon, AWS‑dominated cloud‑infrastructure spending continues to explode. Synergy Research Group notes that cloud‑infrastructure spending in Q4 increased by $2.8 billion over the previous quarter—the largest quarterly increase on record.

Cloud Provider Competitive Positioning (IaaS, PaaS, Hosted Private Cloud – Q4 2019) (source: Synergy Research Group.)

Synergy’s findings align with Canalys: Q4 2019 saw a historic high in cloud‑infrastructure spending, up 37% to exceed $300 billion. AWS still accounted for 32% of total spending in that quarter.

Cloud Infrastructure Spending and Annual Growth Canalys Estimates, Q4 2019 (source: Canalys.)

Canalys states that total cloud‑infrastructure spending in 2019 surpassed $1.07 trillion, up from $780 billion in 2018, highlighting the ongoing digital‑transformation push across industries. Organizations are increasing investments in compute, storage, and on‑demand cloud services to analyse growing data sets and meet internal DevOps needs when building new applications and services.

Synergy analyst John Dinsdale adds, “Because of the strong growth of cloud providers, the 2019 market size is more than double that of 2017, and the upward trend suggests continued robust growth in cloud‑computing expenditures.”

The market remains volatile; the future may see a “four‑horse race,” continued dominance by the strong, or a “winner‑takes‑all” scenario.

References: https://siliconangle.com/2020/02/09/analysis-will-no-winner-takes-cloud-2020/ https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2020/02/10/q4-cloud-reports.aspx https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1658133844413568528&wfr=spider&for=pc

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