Google Cloud Market Share: Where the Google Cloud Platform Stands

What Is Google Cloud Platform Used For?

Google Cloud Platform is a rich ecosystem of tech, and much like other cloud business platforms, it’s used for many purposes.

With cloud computing, you can do almost anything that requires a remote server:

• Run apps or Internet of Things (IoT) devices
• Host web servers
• Power machine learning applications
• Manage big data
• Store files in a safe location

The main draw of GCP is its provider.

You host your app or website and store your files in Google’s data centers, where you can then do what you want with them. Since your files are hosted and backed up on the cloud, they’re safe from data loss.

Another important GCP feature is its pay-as-you-go payment model that ensures you only pay for the resources you use. There are no exorbitant up-front or termination fees, and each service has its own pricing.

You also get $300 in free credits for 90 days for signing up, so you can test out Google Cloud before committing. It’s a reasonable payment model backed by powerful servers.

How Big Is Google Cloud’s Market Share Compared Among Other Cloud Providers?

Google Cloud’s market share fluctuation isn’t unusual. The other top cloud platforms have also remained stagnant over the past 5 years, showing little consistent growth or loss in total market share except for the occasional spike in popularity.

While there’s been little change in the top companies in the past few years, they’re still growing steadily. The cloud market was worth $274.79 billion in 2020 and is expected to have an annual growth rate of 19.1% for the entire industry. By 2029, the industry could be worth $376.37 billion.

While numbers did skyrocket due to the pandemic, the cloud market was already growing at a very rapid pace even before this.

Alibaba Cloud is lagging just behind Google with a worldwide market share of 4–6%, but its presence in China is huge. According to Canalys, that’s likely due to cloud regulations in China. While it seems Google is safely ahead, it’s possible Alibaba could make a resurgence (or that Tencent Cloud could take its spot as Google’s competitor).

The big three dominate 64% of the cloud market share: Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. All other cloud service providers hold only 36% of the market combined.

Synergy Research Group found that cloud revenue for the giants also grew since 2020, but the smaller companies grew with them. The cloud infrastructure market is full of many diverse entities, which doesn’t seem to be changing soon.

Google Cloud has removed much of the competition, but it still has a long way to go before it can overtake Microsoft or Amazon. And it’s still possible GCP could be overtaken by a smaller company like Alibaba.

Still, GCP has had surprising growth in only just over a decade and has managed to push its way into the top 3, so anything is possible.

For Google Cloud Platform, the future is hopeful.

When Was Google Cloud Platform Created?

Cloud computing started taking off in the late 2000s. Amazon launched its cloud platform in 2006, Microsoft introduced Azure in 2010, and Alibaba Cloud launched in 2009.

Google announced its cloud platform in April 2008. At the time, it was called Google App Engine, a platform to develop and run web apps on Google’s infrastructure.

In 2010, Google launched the Google App Engine for Business and introduced new features like cloud storage and APIs.

Google released App Engine to the public in November 2011. Since then, Google has added many features, programming language support, and new products to the platform. Google has also released it outside the US and created a partner program.

Google App Engine became known collectively as Google Cloud Platform, with App Engine making up just one of its many services. Now you can host a website, work in a Docker container, analyze data, and much more.

Google Cloud Products Overview

There are over a hundred products available on Google Cloud, specialized for different tasks. Here’s an overview of what GCP offers:

• AI and Machine Learning: Using Google’s innovative Vertex AI platform, you can bring the power of the intelligent cloud to your app with building blocks such as image or video recognition. You can also purchase the cloud infrastructure services market and GPUs you’ll need to run a machine learning
• API Management: Take advantage of the Apigee platform, AppSheet’s automation, scalable cloud endpoints, or various API tools directed at health care servers.
• Compute: These virtual machines, base infrastructure, and dedicated GPUs let you build applications on scalable servers — including Google’s most popular Platform as a Service (PaaS), Google App
• Containers: Develop and run software within dedicated containers (including Google’s Kubernetes container), from app-building to deep learning.
• Data Analytics: Manage big data and analytics and automatically derive insights from hosted data.
• Databases: Store large amounts of data and tables in Google’s backend.
• Developer Tools: Various useful tools for development teams, ranging from cloud-native integrated development environments (IDEs) and command-line tools to testing infrastructure.
• Health Care and Life Sciences: Specialized tools for those in the medical industry, with all its unique software challenges.
• Hybrid Cloud and Multicloud: These Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) tools are directed at those using a mix of cloud tools — either private cloud and public cloud service providers or on-premise infrastructure.
• IoT: Create IoT apps and connect them to customers’ devices.
• Management Tools: Tools to help you manage your applications and servers on the cloud.
• Media and Gaming: Run game servers on-demand and render visual effects.
• Migration: Various tools for transferring large amounts of data.
• Networking: DNS, CDNs, domains, network connectivity, and more are managed here.
• Operations: Keep track of what’s going on in your cloud servers with metrics and monitoring.
• Security and Identity: Log your networks and apps, handle sensitive data, locate malware, or just develop your apps in security-hardened virtual machines.
• Serverless Computing: Take advantage of the serverless model to develop and host apps.
• Storage: Store, archive, migrate, and share files with others.

Google also offers various cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) products, like the video meetings platform Google Meet and the productivity apps suite Google Workspace.

Can Google Continue to Gain a Greater Position in the Market?

AWS and Azure currently dominate the cloud market share, but Google has managed to muscle its way into third place. While its 9% share is nowhere near Amazon’s 33% or Microsoft’s 22%, Google is still keeping up.

Google’s quality of services, integrations, and innovation has helped it maintain its place and popularity.

While there’s no clear indication of whether it will take over the other 2 services, the market is growing, and Google with it. It certainly has a continued future in the cloud market.

At Kinsta, we use Google Cloud hosting because it delivers the best performance at the most affordable price for you. Google released a case study showing that, among other benefits, load times were reduced by 50%.

While the Google Cloud market share may not be the highest in the industry, it certainly had an impact on our servers.