AWS tops all four global markets, APAC a unique case

Amazon Web Services (AWS) stamped its mark as the leading public cloud services provider 12 years ago and since then it has truly been business as usual.

New third quarter data from Synergy Research reveals the cloud behemoth is the leading public cloud services provider in all four of the world's major regions – North America, Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), Asia Pacific (APAC), and Latin America.

Synergy established its rankings in terms of public IaaS and PaaS service revenues.

Microsoft also put up a strong showing in maintaining second place in three of the four regions, while Google came in third in three of the four regions.

Where both of these companies lose a place is in the unique case of APAC. The region is bolstered by the prominence of the Chinese market and consequently the dominance of local cloud providers in China.

The end result being Alibaba wresting second place from Microsoft ,while Tencent claims fifth place, which in the other regions is taken by IBM or Salesforce.

Synergy asserts public Iaas and Paas are the most prominent segments of the cloud infrastructure services market, claiming the bulk of the revenues with the balance coming from managed or hosted private cloud services.

Looking deeper within public cloud, AWS', Microsoft's, and Google's dominance is even more pronounced than in the larger cloud market. For example, AWS takes up a whopping 40 percent of the market, with the three companies in aggregate accounting for almost 65 percent.

However, in a pronounced distinction, all of the top five cloud providers in China are local companies.

In fact, according to Synergy, China now accounts for more than a third of the total APAC market and its share of the regional total is increasing every quarter.

"Despite some local issues over data sovereignty, in most meaningful ways public cloud computing is a global market that is led by truly global cloud providers. The market leaders need to have a global presence, a global brand and an ability to fund huge ongoing investments in data center footprint and service enhancements," says Synergy Research Group chief analyst and research director John Dinsdale.

"There will remain opportunities for smaller cloud providers to serve niche markets, especially focused on single countries or local regions, but those companies cannot hope to challenge the market leaders. China will continue to be an exception to the rule, but outside of China this is a global game requiring massive scale.