Spending in the global cloud infrastructure services market last quarter hit a record US$30.2 billion and is expected to grow 32 percent annually this year, market advisory firm Canalys Co said in a report yesterday.
US technology giants continued to dominate the market, with Amazon.com Inc taking the lead through its cloud-computing arm, Amazon Web Services (AWS), which claimed a 32.4 percent market share, the report said.
Microsoft Corp followed with its Azure cloud computing unit for a 17.6 percent market share, while Alphabet Inc’s Google cloud services came in third at 6 percent.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) ranked fourth as its cloud services branch Alibaba Cloud, also known as Aliyun (阿里雲), clinched a 5.4 percent market share.
Total expenditure exceeded US$107 billion last year, jumping from US$78 billion in 2018, the report said, highlighting an unrelenting expansion in the IT industry as companies continued to seek digital transformation.
The growing demand for cloud services is also driving up spending on data center infrastructure, Canalys principal analyst Matthew Ball said in the report as he pointed to an 8 percent annual increase in spending last year by cloud services providers including Alibaba, Amazon, Baidu Inc (百度), Facebook Inc, Google, Microsoft and Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊).
This might come as good news for Taiwan-based server manufacturers, as cloud service providers are the largest buyers of servers worldwide, accounting for more than 35 percent of the overall server market, Canalys said.
Digitimes Research last month forecast a 6 to 7 percent annual increase in sales this year for local server makers, while predicting another 6 to 8 percent growth in server shipments based on market demand driven by companies such as Facebook and Amazon.
Inventec Corp (英業達) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) were the top two server makers last year in terms of shipments, ahead of Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) and Wistron Corp (緯創), Digitimes data showed.
Meanwhile, a coronavirus outbreak is sparking fears over production delays as the Chinese government extended a holiday until Monday next week.
However, the server industry is not expected to be strongly affected by the outbreak, Ball said in an e-mail.
“The impact of the US tariffs over the last 12 months has meant vendors and cloud service providers have shifted supply chains to mitigate the additional levies,” Ball said.
RELOCATIONS
Inventec last quarter announced plans to move part of its server production from Shanghai to a plant in Taoyuan’s Gueishan District (龜山). The firm also has server plants in Mexico and the Czech Republic.
Hon Hai last year decided to build a server plant in Kaohsiung’s Hofa Industrial Park (和發產業園區), while its subsidiary Ingrasys Technology Inc (鴻佰科技) is expanding its server plant in Taoyuan, Chinese-language media outlet TechNews reported.
Quanta last year shifted part of its server production back to its plants in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口) amid trade tensions between the US and China.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
RSS