Amazon Vs. Microsoft Vs Google: Who Won The Cloud Race In Q4?

Big tech cloud vendors Amazon Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) turned in overall mixed results for the fourth quarter.

Here’s a rundown on how each of them did in terms of their Cloud business:

Amazon’s AWS: Amazon’s Cloud business, known as Amazon Web Services, or AWS, ringed in fourth-quarter revenue of $21.38 billion, up 20.24% year-over-year increase. The year-over-year growth slowed from the 27.49% increase in the third quarter.

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On a quarter-over-quarter basis, AWS revenue rose a modest 4.10% from the previous quarter.

The Cloud business accounted for 14.33% of Amazon’s revenue in the fourth quarter, up from 12.94% from the year-ago quarter, but was lower than the previous quarter’s 16.16%.

AWS fetched Amazon an operating income of $5.21 billion, down from $5.29 billion a year ago and $5.40 billion in the preceding quarter.

Google Cloud: Alphabet’s Google Cloud's revenue jumped 32.02% year-over-year to $7.32 billion in the fourth quarter. Sequentially, the growth was a more modest 6.51%.

Google Cloud accounted for 9.62% of Alphabet’s total revenue in the December quarter. The segment generated an operating loss of $480 million, narrower than the years-ago’s operating loss of $890 million.

“There’s also great momentum in Cloud,” said Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in a statement.

Microsoft’s Azure: Microsoft Azure, the software giant’s public cloud service, climbed 31% in the December quarter, the company said in its earnings release. This growth slowed from the 35% pace in the September quarter. Microsoft doesn’t disclose dollar revenue from Azure, which is comparable with Amazon’s AWS and Google Cloud. Microsoft also issued soft guidance for Azure revenue.

Redmond’s Intelligent Cloud business fetched a revenue of $21.5 billion, up 18% year-over-year. The company’s total Cloud revenue rose 22.62% year-over-year to $27.1 billion. On a quarter-over-quarter, the increase was 5.5%.

Market research firm Canalys' third-quarter estimates show that Amazon held a dominant share of 32% compared to Microsoft Azure’s 22% and Google Cloud’s 9%.

In the December quarter, Google has seen the fastest growth followed by Microsoft and Amazon, data culled from the earnings reports show. In terms of dollar revenue, Amazon leads with $21.38 billion.

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