Public Cloud Computing Market is Contestable, But Moving Towards a Stable Structure

The public cloud computing “as a service” market had a market share pattern in 2019 that by some estimates had changed significantly by 2021. 

Where some estimated Amazon Web Services in 2019 had 47 percent share; Microsoft about 22 percent share and Google with about eight percent, by 2021 some estimates had AWS at about 33 percent share; Microsoft at about 21 percent and Google at about 10 percent, according to Synergy Research Group data. Other early 2021 estimates had slight variances from end of year projections. 

source: Finbold, Synergy Research Group 

All the estimates show that leadership is consolidating among a handful of suppliers. 

source: Gartner, Goldman Sachs 

Though it is perhaps unwise to argue that market leadership cannot change, there are some intriguing patterns we might glean from other “mature” or “stable” markets. One rule of thumb suggests that--in a mature and stable market--the leading provider has twice the share of number two, which in turn has twice the share of number three. 

That would work out to a predicted market share pattern something like 34-17-8 or 30-15-7.5. The present pattern in the cloud infrastructure services market does not fit exactly, but is close. 

The conclusion we might draw is that the public cloud computing market now is approaching a more-stable structure, but remains contestable.