Amazon Web Services commands 31% of worldwide cloud market, says research firm

Amazon Web Services (NASDAQ: AMZN) continues to retain its top spot in the cloud infrastructure market with a 31 percent worldwide market share, according to a new Synergy Research report.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), IBM and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) -- three of AWS' largest competitors -- accounted for 22 percent of the market, while the next 20 top-ranked cloud providers accounted for another 27 percent. Synergy noted that Microsoft are benefiting from 100 percent growth rates, meaning they are gaining ground on AWS. Following the big four cloud providers, the next 20 cloud service providers are growing at an average 41 percent per year. However, Synergy says these players are growing at over 50 percent, illustrating "that most of them are losing market share."

Now that the majority of major cloud operators have released their first quarter earnings data, Synergy has forecast that quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues (including IaaS, PaaS and private & hybrid cloud) have passed the $7 billion mark. Cloud services growth remains consistent across major geographic regions meaning that the United states accounts for about half of the worldwide market. Release