Alibaba Catching Up Fast With AWS, Azure

Alibaba is on fire! Recently released data from Synergy Research Group shows that cloud upstart is edging its way into the pack of cloud leaders, with AWS and Azure wary of its sparkling growth.

And the fact that Alibaba Cloud is located in the heart of China, where both cloud leaders have had trouble establishing a foothold, means that the best may be yet to come it.

Synergy released its report for Q4 2017 a few days back, echoing the general theme of the previous quarters. That being, Amazon Web Services remaining the dominant cloud leader, challenged by the likes of IBM, Google, and Microsoft.

However, there is a plot twist:

“AWS maintained its dominant position with revenues that exceeded the next four closest competitors combined, despite huge strides being made by Microsoft. A notable change in Q4 was that a doubling of cloud revenues at Alibaba enabled it to join the ranks of the top five operators for the first time.”

This chart below shows the cloud market standings for the fourth quarter:

Amazon, Microsoft, and Alibaba each announced their latest quarterly reports last week.

AWS reported revenue of $5.1 billion for the period, a 45% increase. Microsoft had figures of a 98% increase for Azure, though Redmond did not break out a specific dollar amount. Alibaba, meanwhile, trailed distantly, but has shown rapid growth, earning $553 million, representing a 104% yearly jump.

According to Synergy, AWS and Alibaba both gained market share at the expense of smaller players, and the areas is seeing good growth overall.

That’s because spend on cloud infrastructure services increased 46% from the final quarter of 2016.

Not bad.