New Delhi, May 1 (IANS): The global Cloud infrastructure services spending increased 34 per cent to reach $55.9 billion in the January-March quarter (Q1), as organisations prioritised digitalisation strategies to meet market challenges, according to a new report.

The top three cloud service providers benefited from increased adoption and scale, collectively growing 42 per cent year on year and accounting for 62 per cent of global customer spend, according to market research firm Canalys.

"Cloud has continued to be a hot market and transformation strategies are emphasising digital resiliency to face the market challenges of today and tomorrow," said research analyst Blake Murray.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) was the leading cloud service provider in Q1, accounting for 33 per cent of total spend after growing 37 per cent on an annual basis.

Microsoft Azure was the second largest cloud service provider, growing by 46 per cent to take a 21 per cent market share.

Google Cloud was the fastest growing of the top three, increasing by 54 per cent in the latest quarter to account for 8 per cent of the market.

"As the use cases for cloud infrastructure services expand, so does the potential complexity, and we see that hybrid and multi-cloud deployments are commonplace in the market," said research analyst Yi Zhang.

"The hyperscalers are investing in rapid channel development and partners are responding as the opportunities grow," Zhang added.