While Microsoft Cloud continues to be by far the largest hyperscaler, it has fallen way behind Google Cloud, Oracle, and AWS in revenue growth for the past two quarters while also posting an RPO decline from calendar Q2 to Q3 even as the others all showed gains in backlog.
Here at Cloud Wars, I focus heavily on growth rates and RPO/backlog because those are the best indicators of current customer preferences and market momentum. While overall revenue is of course another vital indicator of a vendor’s health, the structure of cloud contracts also reflects a lot of past activity rather than what’s going on in the here and now.
And, while those past contracts and revenue figures are 100 percent legitimate, I find that growth rates and RPO/backlog numbers are more-accurate indicators of which Cloud Wars Top 10 companies are doing the best job in the very turbulent present of winning the hearts, minds, and wallets of customers today and into the next few years.
And yes, I get that growth rates fluctuate and depend on various factors — that’s why I’m including the past six quarters’ results for each vendor so you can evaluate the results across a fairly broad timeline.
With that in mind, let’s explore those two growth-oriented metrics across the four hyperscalers in more detail by digging into:
- the respective revenue-growth rates for the four hyperscalers over the past six quarters to provide historical context and to reveal the shape of each vendor’s growth trajectory; and
- RPO/backlog totals, which reveal who’s winning future business and how much of it relative to the other hyperscalers.
A) Revenue-Growth Rates
Again, the table below clearly reveals that Microsoft is by far the largest in terms of reported cloud revenue. But, the table also reveals that across the past six quarters, Google Cloud, AWS, and Oracle Cloud have all experienced sharp and steady growth — with Google Cloud surging into triple-digit growth —while Microsoft Cloud’s growth performance has been fairly flat across that time.
We all realize that it’s harder to generate high growth as the corresponding revenue base gets larger —but there’s no way that accounts for the fact that while the other three are all accelerating aggressively, Microsoft Cloud showed only a modest uptick in revenue-growth numbers as the AI Revolution lifted all boats.
| Q3 ’26 | Q2 ’26 | Q1 ’26 | Q4 ’25 | Q3 ’25 | Q2 ’25 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Cloud | ||||||
| Growth rate | 103% | 82% | 63% | 48% | 34% | 32% |
| Revenue | $30.7B | $24.8B | $20B | $17.7B | $15.2B | $13.6B |
| MSFT Cloud | ||||||
| Growth rate | 30% | 27% | 29% | 26% | 26% | 27% |
| Revenue | $63.9B | $59.3B | $54.5B | $51.5B | $49.1B | $46.7B |
| AWS | ||||||
| Growth rate | 39% | 37% | 28% | 24% | 20.2% | 17.5% |
| Revenue | $46.0B | $42.2B | $37.6B | $35.6B | $33.0B | $30.9B |
| Oracle Cloud | ||||||
| Growth rate | 62% | 47% | 44% | 34% | 28% | 27% |
| Revenue | $11.6B | $9.9B | $8.9B | $8.0B | $7.2B | $6.7B |
B) RPO/Backlog Results
This is a relatively new metric for the hyperscalers, and some didn’t begin posting RPO/backlog numbers until five quarters ago, so this comparison goes back five quarters rather than six. (Quick reminder that RPO/backlog numbers represent fully contracted business that has not yet been recognized as revenue.)
First, the overall numbers, and then we can dig into them a bit:
RPO totals over the past five quarters, ranked by current size
| Company | Q3 2026 | Q2 2026 | Q1 2026 | Q4 2025 | Q3 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSFT Cl. | $677B | $678B | $627B | $625B | $392B |
| ORCL Cl. | $664B | $638B | $552B | $523B | $455B |
| AWS | $578B | $496B | $364B | $244B | $200B |
| GOOG Cl. | $561B | $514B | $462B | $240B | $155B |
Some perspectives on those numbers:
1. Microsoft not keeping pace. As is the case with revenue growth, we again see that while Microsoft Cloud is the biggest, it is simultaneously the one that’s growing most slowly — and again, I do not believe that sheer size is enough to account for that, and I think the numbers back me up.
2. Who’s capitalized on the AI Revolution in the past year? If we go back four quarters to cover the span from calendar-Q4 2025 through calendar-Q3 2026, here’s what we find for RPO growth across those 12 months:
- AWS up $334 billion in backlog ($244B to $578B);
- Google Cloud up $321 billion in backlog ($240B to $561B);
- Oracle Cloud up $141 billion in RPO ($523B to $664B); and
- Microsoft up $52 billion in RPO ($625B to $677B).
3. AWS revival continues. Look at where the AWS backlog figure stood four or five quarters ago relative to those of its rivals, and then look where AWS stands currently. This is a great reminder that no company owns first place in any industry — that top spot is a temporary lease that customers can revoke at any time.
4. Google Cloud pairs revenue boom with backlog strength. On top of its backlog of $561 billion, Google Cloud posted Q3 revenue growth of 103%, which is the largest quarterly jump I can recall across my 10 years of analyzing the Cloud Wars Top 10.
5. Oracle punching way the heck above its weight. While its cloud revenue is much smaller than those of the other hyperscalers, Oracle’s almost at the top of the RPO/backlog chart. And, that shows enormous momentum for what Oracle has and where it is headed, and in the demonstrable confidence and trust customers are placing in Oracle.
Final Thought
But, the biggest observation to me is this: why is the 12-month increase in Microsoft RPO so much smaller than that of its competitors? And, in these extraordinary times, what are the market factors that actually led to the Microsoft RPO declining from calendar-Q2 ($678B) to calendar-Q3 ($677B)? Granted, the decline was relatively small — “only” $1 billion — but my point is that the others all showed huge increases during the same quarter-to-quarter timeframe: AWS added $82 billion, Google Cloud added $47 billion, and Oracle added $26 billion.
So, while Microsoft has a lot to be happy about with its current numbers, I believe it also has much to be concerned about — because the sets of numbers above indicate that while it is unquestionably the biggest in terms of both cloud revenue and RPO/backlog, the other hyperscalers are making enormous strides into cutting into both of those leads in a market that rewards vendors much more for where they’re headed than for where they’ve been.
