Sometimes it seems as if things can not only be spread generously over the Internet, but also multiply as desired – even the turnover of companies. At least that works especially well for those companies whose business model is to hoard the data of other companies and distribute it over the network. Cloud services are called these services. They are true money printing machines.
Even analysts are amazed again and again when the cloud providers submit their new balance sheet: At 35 or 50, even more than 90 percent of their income grew last. And it is not, mind you, small start-ups that can grow fast. Even billions are gaining substantial growth. And many a loser in recent IT history is back to the big winners thanks to the cloud.
Microsoft is a nice example of that. Since the smartphones shook up the market and the classic PC sales plummeted, many wondered how it would go with the computer giant. He eventually hounded himself with the sale of office software packages for PCs to the top of the world. But the sales stalled in recent years. Most recently, Microsoft was also harder to sell smartphones, a comparatively new business segment of the group.
In the realm of the big data clouds
But the cloud brings him again strong growth. Meanwhile, the cloud business is almost as big as the traditional Microsoft business. After all, a big market is opening up as billions of people upload their photos and messages on social networks, and companies are increasingly automating their business processes and having them processed by specialized programs and databases. This requires computer capacities, memory, networks and programs. Microsoft’s revenue from the cloud business has increased according to their own information last by 93 percent, almost doubled. For the first quarter of 2018, Microsoft reported sales of the cloud business of nearly $ 7.9 billion.
In direct comparison, the group is only the small rival in the realm of the big data clouds. The undisputed market leader is Amazon with its AWS division. The online retailer was the first to recognize the huge potential of the cloud business and invested accordingly. This ensures the online group the largest market share so far. Around one third of the global cloud market is covered by the Internet giant today. According to the company’s own statements, it posted an operating profit of 1.4 billion dollars in the first quarter. That was a staggering 73 percent of his overall score. Therefore, analysts say not without recognition, from the online retailer Amazon has now become a cloud service provider with an attached department store.
Market growth does not seem to end yet. Although IT market research firm Gartner warned against taking all published corporate cloud numbers at face value a while ago. Many corporations did not report their sales figures transparently, and they were counting on cloud businesses that did not belong. Some added hardware leasing, others selling desktop programs, and overall, a lot of things remain cloudy in the cloud. They expect more customers from the reported very high growth rates and thus want to convince the investors. This should increase their market and stock market value.
However, Gartner’s analysts have no question that overall cloud service revenue will continue to grow strongly. It was around 260 billion dollars worldwide last year, an increase of 20 percent over the previous year. And so it should go on: By 2020, the total market is already swollen to about 411 billion dollars. Above all, software service solutions and infrastructure services, ie computer capacities to be leased, would in future be demanded enormously by companies. Surveys among cloud users confirm this: According to the survey, 66 percent of business users say they are increasing their cloud services investment over the next few years by around 20 percent or more. One in five wants to double its spending on it. They want to screw down the very least. Even private users need more and more space for their data and pay for it. Anyone who saves photos and music on their smartphones and often gets the message knows that their storage space is not enough.
SAP among the top providers
Even if Amazon is apparently unassailable front and with Microsoft dominates the market almost half – there is much movement in the market. Microsoft, for example, is currently growing much stronger than its competitor and could soon lose market share. Also, IBM, Google and Alibaba save already strong. Most recently, IBM grew by a massive 50 percent in the cloud, Google by 26 percent.
Even a major German company is among the top providers, namely SAP. The Walldorfers have established themselves particularly in the area of application and infrastructure services. Most recently, SAP invested large additional sums in the cloud sector, which temporarily detracted from its business performance. But now that profits are increasingly flowing from the business of leasing storage space and computing power, the software group has recently announced an extremely good start to the year. As well as the Tec Dax company Cancom Incidentally, which also increased their sales with cloud services.
Even if some numbers are polished, the data business also offers investors good opportunities. Because not only the sales of the leading cloud providers are currently growing into the sky and inspire the results, because the margins in this business are high. But also their stock market prices are already increasing: Microsoft has doubled since 2015. Amazon rose in the same period from 256 euros to 1344. At SAP, it was last turbulent, but the price has doubled since 2015. Cancom has tripled. Only IBM has not experienced any upswing, but could get back on the cloud.