According to Canalys (a market tracker), global spending on cloud infrastructure services was up by nearly $11 billion in Q1 2021 as compared to last year.

Over the course of last year, Cloud Computing emerged as a winner across all sectors. This was primarily due to the inception of the Covid-19 pandemic and the implementation of lockdowns thereafter. As businesses began to heavily lean on the internet to survive through the pandemic, the industry witnessed a record-high $41.8 billion global spending on cloud computing in a single quarter.

Must Read: Digital Business Growth with Cloud Computing

But, you’d be surprised to know that despite large-scale spending on the cloud in the past year, most businesses have yet to make their digital transformations. It is now expected that companies will continue to migrate towards the cloud as the economies improve. That being said, let’s take a look at the top contributors to this growth.

Amazon Web Services held onto its top spot yet again, growing by 32% on an annual basis during the quarter and making up 32% of the total services spend during Q1 2021. However, Google and Microsoft reported a bumper growth during the quarter. Azure grew 50% for the third consecutive quarter, taking 19% market share. Its growth was majorly boosted by cloud consumption and longer-term customer commitments enabled by investments for hybrid-IT control plane management, data analytics, and AI as a platform. Google Cloud on the other hand maintained its momentum by benefiting from its Google One approach driving cross-sell and integration opportunities across its portfolio. Overall, it grew 56% in the latest quarter to account for a 7% market share.

Also Read: How to Protect Data in a Multi-Cloud Environment

Now, something that all these cloud providers have in common is their introduction to new industry cloud propositions such as financial services, manufacturing, and non-profit organizations, adding to healthcare and retail. This new segmented growth has led to the rise in demand for cloud computing in industries that didn’t exist earlier. Along with that large projects that were postponed last year are beginning to resurface, while new use cases are most likely to expand the addressable market. That said, investment at the edge, including 5G, is a key area, especially for the development of ultra-low latency applications and use cases, such as autonomous vehicles, industrial robotics, and augmented or virtual reality.

Conclusion: The competition among the leading cloud service providers to capitalize on opportunities will continue to intensify. Thus, bringing higher revenue in the quarters coming ahead. 2021 is all set to break cloud computing records as clearly stated by the Q1 results.

Recommended Read: How to Reduce Cloud Waste

For more articles like “Digital Transformations led Global Cloud Spending to $42 billion”, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.