Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and G Suite revenues rose sharply in Q1 2020, and parent Alphabet didn't mention any signs of a Q2 slowdown during an April 28 earnings call with Wall Street analysts.
Both Microsoft and Amazon are also set to disclose quarterly revenues this week. The earnings statements should give channel partners a more complete picture of the public cloud infrastructure market -- which is dominated by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, though Google is certainly carving a big market niche of its own.
Google Cloud revenues were $2.8 billion in Q1 2020, up 52 percent compared to the corresponding quarter last year. Data and analytics demand lifted Google Cloud Platform in the areas of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). And G Suite -- the Google alternative to Microsoft 365 -- continues to gain seat count while expanding its average revenue per seat, the company says.
Related: Top 200 Public Cloud MSPs for Google Cloud, AWS and Azure
Google Cloud: Business Milestones
Under Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, the company has more effectively outlined the platform's potential benefits to partners and customers. Noteworthy moves over the past year include:
- March 2019: Hiring Oracle veteran Amit Zavery as VP of engineering.
- April 2019: Rallying customers and partners with new offerings during the Google Cloud Next 2019 conference.
- April 2019: Hiring SAP veteran Robert Enslin to succeed Paul-Henri Ferrand as president of Global Customer Operations for Cloud.
- November 2019: Hiring Cisco partner veteran Nirav Sheth as director of channel sales and partnerships, and acquiring CloudSimple to ease VMware migrations.
Next up, Google may acquire D2iQ to drive multi-cloud management and Kubernetes container management, reports suggest.
Google Cloud: Q2 2020 Performance Clues
In recent weeks, rumors about public cloud pricing pressures have emerged. Some large customers apparently have been pushing Google, Microsoft and AWS for pricing relief. But during the April 28 earnings call, Alphabet executives did not mention any such pricing pressure on Google Cloud Platform and G Suite service -- though some deals are taking a bit longer to close.
During the earnings call, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai:
"Overall on cloud the interest in the momentum remains strong, we’re obviously making a lot of progress both across GCP and G Suite and we find our offerings are getting deeper and we’re really helping customers from a deeper standpoint so we see overall momentum. There are cases where even though the deal trajectory is the same and we have the wins. Things are taking a bit longer, naturally as you would expect."
Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat added:
"With respect to the implications of the global crisis for Google Cloud, we’re proud of the accelerated traction we achieved across sectors, including public sector and healthcare for disease monitoring and control, working with leading retailers on demand forecasting working with companies across media and communications to enhance their customer service and across industries on supply chain optimization."
Google Cloud vs Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure
How does Google Cloud growth compare to that of Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and the former Office 365? Stay tuned for quarterly financial statements from Microsoft (April 29) and Amazon (April 30) for context.
