Who are the biggest cloud providers?

Cloud computing has taken off like wildfire. In that vein there is a bit of discrepancy between who the largest cloud company is and isn’t. Is perception reality? One could argue that perception is reality. And the perception today is that Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is the largest. That may be the perception, but the reality is far different.

Amazon by the Numbers

Today, Amazon’s market cap is $180 billion. In fiscal 2012, Amazon reported $61 billion in revenue. In Nov 2013, Alex Williams (@alexwilliams) of TechCrunch reported that the AWS (Amazon’s Web Services) portion is “…widely believed to be a $3.5 billion business.” That is a substantial business on its own, but pales in comparison with the revenue from the rest of the Amazon portfolio; namely amazon.com. Meaning, AWS may account for less than 6% of Amazon’s total revenue.

Largest Cloud Computing Providers

Now let’s look at the larger, publicly traded companies that focus on cloud computing solely:

Market Cap (as of Jan 24, 2014)

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) = $379 billion

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) = $36 billion

LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) = $25 billion

Workday (NYSE:WDAY) = $16 billion

NetSuite (NYSE:N) = $8 billion

ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) = $8 billion

Concur (NASDAQ:CNQR) = $6 billion

Now, these are closer to pure-play cloud providers. Meaning, their only business is cloud-based services. And they don’t represent two other groups: Diversified public companies and privately held companies.

Diversified Cloud Companies

While cloud computing may not be their primary source of revenue, one can not exclude this group from the mix. Some of the larger companies include:

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) = $309 billion -> 365, Dynamics, Azure

Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) = $168 billion -> Cloud

SAP (NYSE:SAP) = $92 billion -> Cloud

IBM (NYSE:IBM) = $196 billion -> SoftLayer

HP (NYSE:HPQ) = $55 billion -> Cloud

Verizon (NYSE:VZ) = $137 billion -> Terremark

Rackspace (NYSE:RAX) = $5 billion -> Cloud

The revenue from cloud alone from each of these companies can easily reach into the billions of dollars.

Privately Held Cloud Companies

Aside from publicly traded companies, there are a number of privately held companies. Some of which are startups. Of late, companies such as Box and Dropbox have received valuations of $2 billion and $8 billion respectively. And this is before they go IPO.

Perception vs. Reality

The point is, Amazon’s AWS may garner the 800lb gorilla perception, but there are a number of other viable and larger cloud providers in the market today. And this doesn’t account for the up-and-coming providers that could provide Amazon with some healthy competition.