News

Report: Microsoft Azure Holds Steady at No. 2, Except in Asia

In an increasingly globalized public cloud market, the runaway leaders remain Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure -- except in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, where newcomer Alibaba continues to disrupt.

That's one of the takeaways of a recent report from Synergy Research Group analyzing the global public cloud market during the first quarter of the year.

Confirming past research, the new study shows the market is mostly dominated by No. 1 AWS and runner-up Azure, with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) rounding out the top three. The notable exception is in the APAC.

"Asia Pacific is the one region where the ranking differs, thanks to the prominence of the Chinese market and the dominance of local cloud providers in China," Synergy researchers said. "That results in Alibaba being ranked second in the APAC region and fourth worldwide. IBM, Salesforce and Tencent fill out the other top five slots in the regions, the latter thanks to its position in China."

Public cloud market share rankings by region. (Source: Synergy Research Group)

Whereas Synergy said public cloud computing is essentially a global market with little local differentiation, the top five cloud providers in China are local companies.

Synergy measured revenue for public Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) vendors in its Q1 2018 report, published in late June.

"This is a game of scale and to be a market leader demands vast ongoing investments, a global presence and a global brand," said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst and research director at Synergy. "Of course there will often be local issues that might enable local companies to carve out niche positions for themselves, but they will remain small local players in a specific country or sub-region. It is also true that in such cases the global leaders can usually deploy different local strategies to enable them to succeed. With the glaring exception of China, we view this as a truly global market."

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.

Featured

  • Report: Cost, Sustainability Drive DaaS Adoption Beyond Remote Work

    Gartner's 2025 Magic Quadrant for Desktop as a Service reveals that while secure remote access remains a key driver of DaaS adoption, a growing number of deployments now focus on broader efficiency goals.

  • Windows 365 Reserve, Microsoft's Cloud PC Rental Service, Hits Preview

    Microsoft has launched a limited public preview of its new "Windows 365 Reserve" service, which lets organizations rent cloud PC instances in the event their Windows devices are stolen, lost or damaged.

  • Hands-On AI Skills Now Outshine Certs in Salary Stakes

    For AI-related roles, employers are prioritizing verifiable, hands-on abilities over framed certificates -- and they're paying a premium for it.

  • Roadblocks in Enterprise AI: Data and Skills Shortfalls Could Cost Millions

    Businesses risk losing up to $87 million a year if they fail to catch up with AI innovation, according to the Couchbase FY 2026 CIO AI Survey released this month.