Source: analyticsindiamag.com (original reporting, October 2019)
AWS in India: Strong Revenue, Slower Growth
India has become one of the most contested battlegrounds in cloud computing, with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud all aggressively expanding their presence. As of the financial year ending March 2019, AWS and its sister entity Amazon Data Services together recorded combined India revenue of approximately ₹4,131 crore — a significant figure that nonetheless raised concerns because the growth rate had decelerated compared to the previous year.
According to financial filings cited by Analytics India Magazine, Amazon Data Services India posted revenue of ₹1,504 crore with a profit of ₹117.9 crore, while AWS India reported revenue of ₹2,627 crore and a profit of ₹71.2 crore for the same period. The previous year had seen close to a threefold jump in combined revenue, making FY2019’s more modest increase a notable shift in trajectory.
Amazon has also invested heavily in Indian infrastructure. Reports at the time indicated the company had committed more than ₹1,300 crore into its data centre operations in India, partly in anticipation of India’s data localisation requirements.
Should AWS Be Worried?
Despite the slower growth rate, AWS retained a commanding position in the Indian cloud market as of late 2019. Launched globally in 2006, AWS had years of head-start over most rivals, and its depth of services — spanning compute, storage, databases, machine learning, and analytics — remained unmatched in breadth.
AWS had also made notable inroads into India’s public sector, supporting initiatives such as Digital India, Skill India, and the Smart Cities Mission. Services like Amazon Textract (document analysis) and Amazon SageMaker (managed machine learning) were being deployed to help government bodies extract value from large datasets. Public sector engagements of this scale provide long-term contract stability and are difficult for newer entrants to displace quickly.
Industry analysts at the time believed AWS was on a trajectory toward $1 billion in annual web services revenue from India, suggesting the long-term outlook remained strong even as near-term growth moderated.
For context, in FY2018 Amazon’s cloud business in India had already demonstrated rapid adoption, with revenue from operations rising from ₹397 crore to ₹1,206 crore in a single year — a signal that enterprise and government cloud adoption was accelerating.
Competitive Pressures: Google Cloud and Alibaba Cloud
Two developments in particular were cited as factors that may have contributed to a slowdown in AWS’s growth rate in India:
Google Cloud Under Thomas Kurian
The appointment of Thomas Kurian as Google Cloud CEO in late 2018 marked a strategic pivot for the division. Kurian, who came from Oracle, brought an enterprise-focused sales approach that had been widely seen as a weakness for Google Cloud relative to AWS and Azure. Under his leadership, Google Cloud began expanding its portfolio of enterprise services and investing more heavily in its direct sales organisation — a model that resonates well with large Indian enterprises and system integrators.
Google also introduced Anthos — a hybrid and multi-cloud management platform built on Kubernetes and Istio — which allowed enterprises to run workloads across on-premises infrastructure and multiple public clouds. For Indian enterprises with significant on-premises investments or data sovereignty concerns, Anthos represented a credible migration path that didn’t require full commitment to a single cloud vendor.
Alibaba Cloud’s India Expansion
Alibaba Cloud opened its first India data centre in 2018 and subsequently expanded with a second facility, explicitly targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). This segment had historically been underserved by hyperscalers whose pricing and complexity could be a barrier for smaller organisations. By competing aggressively on price and offering localised support, Alibaba Cloud introduced an additional competitive variable in a segment that AWS had been developing.
AWS’s Broader India Ambitions
Beyond cloud infrastructure, Amazon signalled ambitions to support India’s space programme. The company stated it was prepared to assist with satellite command and data processing, including high-speed downloading of large datasets, with claimed cost savings of over 80% compared to traditional approaches. While still at an early stage at the time of writing, this pointed to Amazon’s intent to position AWS as critical infrastructure across multiple sectors of the Indian economy — not just enterprise IT.
Key Takeaways for DevOps and Cloud Practitioners
- Revenue growth deceleration ≠ decline. AWS India continued to grow revenues in FY2019; the concern was the rate of growth, not a contraction. DevOps teams evaluating long-term cloud vendor relationships should distinguish between these signals.
- Multi-cloud is a real force. The rise of Google Cloud’s Anthos and Alibaba Cloud’s SMB push means Indian organisations now have credible alternatives for hybrid and multi-cloud deployments. Vendor lock-in risk is worth evaluating in any cloud architecture decision.
- Public sector alignment matters. AWS’s deep integration with Indian government initiatives (Digital India, Skill India) provides it with durable revenue streams that are less sensitive to enterprise switching cycles.
- Data localisation shapes infrastructure decisions. India’s evolving data localisation regulations continue to influence where organisations store and process data, making local data centre presence a key differentiator for all major cloud providers.
As of late 2019, AWS remained the dominant hyperscaler in India. The revenue growth slowdown reflected a maturing, increasingly competitive market — a natural evolution as Google Cloud, Azure, and Alibaba Cloud all invested heavily in Indian infrastructure and sales capacity. For engineering teams, this competitive environment is broadly positive: it drives down pricing, improves service breadth, and accelerates support for India-specific compliance and sovereignty requirements.
This article is based on reporting originally published by Analytics India Magazine in October 2019. Financial figures are drawn from Indian regulatory filings available at that time and reflect the fiscal year ending March 2019.