Google’s Cloud Platform outgrew larger rivals Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure during the third quarter, with all three hyperscale giants gobbling up more of the global cloud infrastructure services market. However, that growth did not come without some substantial headwinds.

Synergy Research Group (SRG) reported Google Cloud garnered 11% of the $57.5 billion spent on cloud infrastructure services during the third quarter, which was up from the 10% of the $54.7 billion it earned the previous quarter. In real money that equates to almost $1 billion more in revenue sequentially and nearly $2 billion more compared with its 10% share of a $45.4 billion market in Q3 2021.

AWS remains the market heavyweight, though it’s market share remained stagnant. The cloud giant claimed 34% of the global market in Q3, the same that it posted the previous quarter, though an increase from the 33% it held last year.

Microsoft was in a similar (gold-plated) boat, sitting on the same 21% market share it earned over the last two quarters, though up slightly from the 20% it controlled last year.

SRG also noted that vendors outside of the big three have managed to triple their revenues over the past five years, yet have seen their combined market share plunge from 50% to just 34%.

“Beyond these three, all other cloud providers in aggregate have been losing around three percentage points of market share per year but are still seeing strong double-digit revenue growth,” SRG Chief Analyst John Dinsdale noted in the report. “The key for these companies is to focus on specific portions of the market where they can outperform the big three.”

SRG’s numbers include estimated public infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and hosted private cloud revenues. The firm noted that the first two segments accounted for most of the market growth, with AWS, Azure, and GCP controlling 72% of those two markets.

Overall, SRG’s numbers showed a 24% increase in money spent on the market compared to the same period last year. The firm did add that the growth rate would have been more than 30% taking out the impact of the dynamic exchange rates over the past year. But sticking with the hard numbers, the year-over-year market increase was down from the 37% surge reported during the same quarter last year.

Dinsdale added that the market has also been dealing with increased restrictions in interacting with customers in China, which has also impacted the broader market. This includes more recent restrictions placed on the sale and export of semiconductor technology to China. Those export controls released by the Commerce Department effectively isolate China from semiconductor chips made in any location using U.S. tools.

“Had exchange rates remained stable and had the Chinese market remained on a more normal path then the growth rate percentage would have been well into the thirties,” Dinsdale wrote. “The three leading cloud providers all report their financials in U.S. dollars so their growth rates are all beaten down by the historic strength of their home currency. Despite that, all three have increased their share of a rapidly growing market over the last year, which is a strong testament to their strategies and performance.”