Amazon Web Services (AWS) maintained its domination of the global public cloud services market in terms of market share and revenue growth in 2021. But rivals Google (No. 4) and Microsoft (No. 2) grew at a much faster rate than the longstanding cloud giant, according to Gartner, Inc.

In 2021 the global public cloud market grew 41.4% to total $90.9 billion, up from $64.3 billion in 2020, with five main cloud service providers accounting for 80% of the market: AWS, Microsoft, Alibaba, Google, and Huawei.

"The IaaS market continues to grow unabated as cloud-native becomes the primary architecture for modern workloads,” Gartner VP analyst Sid Nag said in a statement.

This growth is due in part because the “cloud supports the scalability and composability that advanced technologies and applications require, while also enabling enterprises to address emerging needs such as sovereignty, data integration, and enhanced customer experience," Nag explained.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella expressed similar confidence in the future of the cloud. “I don’t hear businesses looking to their IT budgets or digital transformation projects as the place for cuts,” Nadella said during Microsoft’s third-quarter earnings call. It’s more likely that these projects are going to accelerate companies’ digital transformations and increase demand for the cloud giant’s services, he touted.

At the top of the ever-growing market sits AWS with revenue of $35.4 billion in 2021 and 38.9% market share. That represents a decrease from the provider's 40.8% market share in 2020.

Runner-up Microsoft saw 21.1% market share in 2021, up from 19.7% the year prior, along with $19.1 billion in public cloud revenue. Many organizations already depend on the provider's enterprise software and other services, positioning Azure to "capture opportunities across nearly every vertical market," according to the analyst firm.

Alibaba maintained its 9.5% market share in 2020-2021 with 2021 revenues of $8.7 billion.

But despite its global ranking of No. 3, Alibaba continues to lead "the Chinese cloud market, [and] it is also poised to be the leading regional provider in Indonesia, Malaysia, and other emerging cloud markets, given its local market understanding and ability to serve as a bridge to digital commerce," Gartner reported.

"Regional cloud ecosystems are becoming increasingly important amidst growing geopolitical fragmentation and emerging regulatory and compliance requirements, presenting an opportunity for providers with a strong regional presence," Nag added.

Google Cloud came in at No. 4 with 7.1% of the market and $6.4 billion in 2021 revenue. Despite its modest ranking, the provider saw the highest growth rate among its competitors at 63.7%.

Gartner says this growth is a result of increased adoption of traditional enterprise workloads along with Google's prowess in artificial intelligence and Kubernetes container tech. The "expansion of their partner ecosystem to reach a wider customer base" is another key contributor to this growth, the firm reported.

Huawei landed in No. 5 with tempered growth of 56.3% after the last two years of more than 200% growth. Gartner cited the provider's open hardware and open source software strategy and partner ecosystem as its biggest growth contributors.