Source: Apple is on track to spend ~$300M on Google Cloud storage services in 2021, up ~50% from 2020, dwarfing ByteDance, Spotify, and other large customers
Apple executives have taken swipes at Google in the past over its privacy practices. But the iPhone maker trusts Google enough …
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple’s reported Google Cloud spend extends a relationship that began with its 2016 Google Cloud deal and was later confirmed as supporting iCloud data storage. It also follows Apple’s effort to reduce AWS outlay while pursuing greater cloud-operating independence, including the reported cut in AWS spending in 2018.
The 2021 increase shows that self-sufficiency has not displaced external infrastructure suppliers. Apple is allocating substantial storage demand to Google even as it remains a major cloud customer elsewhere.
First-order effects
- Google gains a storage-services customer expected to generate about $300 million in 2021, placing Apple well ahead of ByteDance, Spotify, and other large Google Cloud customers cited in the report.
- Apple increases its dependence on Google Cloud for storage capacity, making Google a more consequential supplier to its iCloud operations.
Second-order effects
- AWS faces a clearer incentive to defend its share of Apple’s cloud budget after Apple had already reduced AWS spending from the prior year’s level.
- Google Cloud can use Apple’s large workload to strengthen its position in enterprise storage procurement, where customers can divide demand among multiple providers rather than commit exclusively to one.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points to large consumer-platform companies retaining multi-cloud purchasing even while building more internal cloud capability, preserving bargaining leverage across Google and AWS.
- Cloud competition increasingly turns on winning durable, high-volume workloads from a small set of platform customers, rather than solely on adding new smaller customers.
The trend: Large internet platforms are using multi-cloud sourcing to balance infrastructure scale, supplier leverage, and internal cloud ambitions.