Google Cloud increased revenue 63% year over year to $20.03 billion in the first quarter of 2026, growing faster than Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services as enterprise AI spending lifted the wider cloud infrastructure market.
Beth Kindig (@Beth_Kindig), founder and lead technology analyst at I/O Fund, posted a chart on July 29th comparing the three largest cloud providers. Her chart showed Google Cloud at 63% growth, Azure at 39% and AWS at 28%.
The figures cover the quarter ended March 31st. Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon each published the underlying results on April 29th, making Q1 the latest completed quarter for a direct three-provider comparison. Amazon is scheduled to report its second-quarter results on July 30th.
The comparison needs a currency footnote
Kindig's chart captures the ranking, though the three percentages are not presented on exactly the same basis.
Alphabet reported Google Cloud's 63% increase on a reported basis. Microsoft said Azure and other cloud services revenue increased 40% as reported and 39% in constant currency. Amazon reported AWS sales growth of 28% on a reported basis. A like-for-like use of the companies' reported figures puts the comparison at 63% for Google Cloud, 40% for Azure and 28% for AWS. The ranking does not change.
The underlying businesses also differ. Alphabet's Google Cloud segment includes Google Cloud Platform, Google Workspace and other enterprise services. Amazon discloses AWS as a separate segment. Microsoft reports Azure's growth rate without publishing Azure revenue in dollars, preventing a direct comparison of its size or operating profit with Google Cloud and AWS.
That leaves the growth rates as a measure of momentum rather than market position. AWS generated $37.59 billion in quarterly sales, nearly twice Google Cloud's $20.03 billion. Microsoft reported $54.5 billion in broader Microsoft Cloud revenue, but that total includes products beyond Azure.
Independent market-share estimates reinforce that distinction. Synergy Research Group placed AWS at 28% of global cloud infrastructure spending in Q1, followed by Microsoft at 21% and Google at 14%. AWS remained the largest provider even as Google posted the fastest segment growth.
Google is converting AI demand into cloud profit
Alphabet attributed the acceleration to Google Cloud Platform sales across enterprise AI solutions, AI infrastructure and core GCP services. Google Cloud operating income reached $6.60 billion, up from $2.18 billion a year earlier. That works out to an operating margin of about 33%.
AWS produced $14.16 billion in operating income and a margin of roughly 38%. Amazon therefore retained a substantial lead in both cloud revenue and operating profit, despite its slower percentage growth.
The market itself expanded quickly enough to support all three providers. Synergy estimated that businesses spent $129 billion on cloud infrastructure services during Q1, up $35 billion from the prior-year period. Its estimated 35% market growth was the highest since the fourth quarter of 2021, when the sector was less than half its current size.
For Google, the quarter showed that its integrated AI offering - custom TPUs, Gemini models, managed infrastructure and enterprise software - is bringing more workloads into its cloud division. Alphabet also said Google Cloud's backlog exceeded $460 billion and nearly doubled from the previous quarter, though backlog represents contracted future business rather than recognized revenue. The 63% figure marks a sharp acceleration and narrows the growth gap with Azure and AWS. It does not show Google Cloud taking the market lead. AWS still controls the largest share and generates the most cloud operating income, while Microsoft's limited Azure disclosure keeps one of the industry's central comparisons partly hidden.