Amazon owns more than a quarter of IaaS/PaaS market

Amazon Web Services estimated to have turned over $600m in Q2, significantly more than Microsoft, Google and IBM combined

Amazon accounts for more than one in four dollars spent on infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) globally, new research claims.

The online giant's Amazon Web Services (AWS) arm turned over more than $600m (£387m) in IaaS and PaaS revenue in Q2 2013, 59 per cent more than closest rivals Microsoft, Google and IBM combined, according to Synergy Research Group.

Amazon itself has been notoriously secretive over AWS' numbers, even refusing to divulge to its closest partners how many staff it employs in its European HQ.

But it seems the giant has rapidly achieved the same dominance in cloudy services as it has in online bookselling. According to Synergy, AWS - which has about 4,000 partners globally - truly is the market's 800-pound gorilla, growing 52 per cent in Q2, compared with 47 per cent for the overall market.

Having said that, Microsoft - which only leapt into the IaaS market earlier this year - Google and IBM are all gaining on Jeff Bezos' firm. Between them, this triumvirate turned over close to $400m in IaaS and PaaS revenues in Q2, compared to just over $200m a year earlier.

"Starting from a much smaller base, the big three IT companies actually achieved higher growth rates, but Amazon is doing an impressive job of keeping its grip on market leadership and remains in a league of its own," said Synergy's John Dinsdale.

"The real race is to see if any of the chasing pack can establish themselves as a clear number two in the IaaS/PaaS market. While IBM's acquisition of SoftLayer helped it to leapfrog both Microsoft and Google, the three remain tightly bunched with somewhat similar growth trajectories."

Amazon itself shows no signs of wanting to break out AWS' numbers but it is possible that, if anything, Synergy's estimates are on the conservative side. According to Macquarie Capital, AWS is on course to turn over $3.8bn this year and would be worth $19bn as a standalone entity, Gigamon reports.

At a conference in April, AWS chief technology officer Werner Vogels would reveal only that the number of objects stored on Amazon S3 had passed the two trillion mark.

According to Synergy, total global IaaS/PaaS revenue hit $2.25bn in Q2, with IaaS accounting for 64 per cent of the total. North America appears to be by far the most mature market, accounting for 53 per cent of the total, ahead of EMEA and APAC on 21 per cent each.