Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has been in the cloud business for quite some time, and it is one of the largest companies in the cloud industry. However, there is a lot of competition and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is at the top position while Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) closely follows suit.
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The cloud business has grown to become one of the largest industries in the US. The global cloud market is expected to grow by 17% to $204 billion in 2016. According to research firm Gartner, the projected income of the cloud industry will be more than the income made by General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) for a whole year.
The growth is an indicator that businesses are shifting their presence onto cloud networks as part of their strategies to save money and speed up operations. It also points to how big the cloud business is for technology firms. Google has a few cloud services collectively under the Google Cloud Platform. The platform continues to attract attention and offers discounts based on usage.
Google’s market share in the cloud industry is only 6% though, considerably lower than its main competitors. Amazon has the largest piece of the pie with a 29% market share taken up by its Amazon Web Services and Microsoft takes second place with its Azure platform at 12%. International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) takes the third position with 7%. The market share data is according to Synergy Research.
Google is a worthy opponent in the cloud industry, but the company’s small market share is from its lack of big business customers. The company makes billions from its advertising business, and it pushes the envelope with a few other ventures. Enterprise customers are often not attracted to the company because of its reputation as a consumer-oriented firm. Regardless of the lack of enterprise customers, it is also important to note that Google had a late entry into the cloud industry compared to the top firms.
The company made its debut in the public cloud in 2012 while Microsoft launched two years earlier. Amazon had already been in existence for six years thus granting it an ample head start that paid off.