The Cloud Market Keeps Moving Upwards

The cloud computing market has tripled its revenue for the past three years, posting robust and continuous growth, according to Canalys. In the first quarter of 2016, total market revenue stood at about $8 billion. Within two years, the size of the market doubled, and within three years it reached $24.1 billion in the first quarter of 2019.

Growth in the cloud infrastructure service space is being fueled by increasing demand for information and data storage. The cloud allows users to store and access information via an internet connection. Instead of storing information on a single device, a user can access information from any device with an internet connection.

Major tech giants are getting in on the lucrative and expanding industry. Alibaba’s first-quarter report for 2020 shows the company grew its cloud business by 66 percent year-over-year, the fastest-growing segment of its business. In terms of absolute dollars, the cloud computing business came second to the core part of Alibaba’s business, e-commerce, pointing to the future direction of the company.

Amazon, Alibaba’s American e-commerce counterpart and competitor, has been growing and profiting from its cloud service business for the past couple of years. Amazon is a major player in the cloud industry internationally, though Alibaba dominates the Asian market and is eyeing the everything stores hegemony in the space.