全球网路规模网路营运商市场分析(2023 年第四季):
市场调查报告书
商品编码
1460834

全球网路规模网路营运商市场分析(2023 年第四季):

Webscale Network Operators - 4Q23 Market Review: Network/IT Capex up 4% in 2023 even as Total Capex Dips, Good Outlook for 2024-25 driven by GenAI Land Grab, Big Jump in Sector Profitability amidst Layoffs

出版日期: | 出版商: MTN Consulting, LLC | 英文 | 订单完成后即时交付

价格
简介目录
儘管总资本支出下降,但2023 年网路/IT 资本支出仍将成长4%,由于生成式人工智慧前景的发展,对2024-25 年有利,行业盈利能力显着上升儘管裁员

本报告分析了2011年以来全球网路规模网路营运商(WNO)市场的成长表现和发展趋势。 最近12个月(2023年第一季至2023年第四季),网路规模营运商收入为2.37兆美元(年增6.2%),研发费用为2930亿美元(年增9.4%) ),资本投资1920亿美元(年减5.1%)。 截至2023年12月,现金及短期投资余额6,790亿美元(年增9.8%),债务总额5,620亿美元(年增1.9%)。 截至 2023 年底,WebScaler 拥有约 4,093,000 名员工,低于 2022 年底的 4,194,000 名员工。

视觉的

网路规模营收:2023年年成长率(YoY)始终在加速

2022 年网路规模细分市场销售疲软,但 2023 年情况恰恰相反。2023年,全球经济成长改善,数位广告市场復苏,TikTok开始面临反弹,云端服务更加流行,华为设备业务持续下滑。根据 Webscale Tracker 的衡量,所有因素都倾向于推动营收成长。

2023年每季的年成长率(YoY)均增加,促使2023年销售额达到22,370亿美元,比2022年成长6.2%。

Webscale 部门的每名员工收入将从2022 年的539,000 美元增加到2023 年的584,000 美元,每位员工的自由现金流将从2022 年的73,000 美元增加到2023 年的73,000 美元。 109,000 美元。每位员工的自由现金流成长幅度更大,从 2022 年的 73,000 美元增加到 2023 年的 109,000 美元。这些变化既是由于销售额的增加和利润成长的加快,也是由于过去两年员工人数成长的停滞。截至2023年底,WebScale拥有4093,000名员工,较2021年底略有增加,但较2022年的4,194,000人总数大幅减少。随着主要网路扩展商寻求在其营运中实施生成式人工智慧以降低劳动力成本,整个行业可能会进一步裁员。同样的事情已经发生在电信公司身上。

技术开发成本:虽然2023年总资本投资减少,但技术开发成本增加了4%。

2023 年资本支出总额略为下降,下降 5.1%,至 1,920 亿美元。这并不意味着市场情绪消极。季度资本支出可能会根据供应链和其他问题而大幅波动,而网路规模市场尤其波动,因为它是由少数大型参与者推动的。此外,在2023年的资本投资金额中,高科技领域实际上正在成长,比前一年成长4%。

2023年网路规模研发费用将达到销售额的12.3%,高于2022年的12.0%。这是因为公司在研发上花费了大量资金,以进入机器人、医疗保健和金融服务等新市场。大部分研发支出都用于支撑资料中心营运的实体基础设施:开发更智慧的软体以及新晶片和其他硬体的专有技术。

美国占网路规模资本投资的 50% 以上

过去十年,美国占全球网路规模资本支出的 50-60%。这一比例近两年有所上升,到2023年将达到60%以上。在可预见的未来,预计美国仍将是迄今为止最大的单一国家市场。资料中心资本支出预计将遵循这种模式,因为大多数主要的生成式人工智慧创新者都位于美国,并严重依赖美国的网路基础设施。然而,随着网路扩展器扩展到其他地区,美国的占有率可能会在几年内恢復到 50% 以下。中国云端提供商支出的增加将是经济放缓的驱动因素之一。

网路规模市场与营运商比较

十年前,网路规模领域还不存在。大型科技公司刚开始建立自己的资料中心,以优化成本结构、营运效率和上市时间。然而,与整个网路基础设施市场相比,网路规模的资本投资很小。但现在情况并非如此。2022 年网路规模资本支出将首次超过 2,000 亿美元。从那时起,网路规模的资本支出每年已降至 2,000 亿美元以下,但这只是短暂的。

支出展望

儘管 2023 年资本支出略有下降,但前景依然强劲,因为即使在市场完全开发和定义之前,各大公司也在寻求 GenAI 机会。

预测更新

我们对 2023 年 12 月的预测预计 2023 年网路规模资本支出将达到 2,020 亿美元,略高于实际情况。2024年和2025年的官方目标分别为2,030亿美元和2,180亿美元。

调查范围

排名前 8 位的 WNO(网路规模网路营运商)

  • Alibaba
  • Baidu
  • Alphabet
  • Meta (FB)
  • Amazon
  • Microsoft
  • Apple
  • Tencent

其他 WNO

  • Altaba
  • Fujitsu
  • LinkedIn
  • Yandex
  • ChinaCache
  • HPE
  • Oracle
  • Cognizant
  • IBM
  • SAP
  • eBay
  • JD.com
  • Twitter

目录

  • 1.概述
  • 2.分析
  • 3. WNO市场:主要统计数据
  • 4.公司详情
  • 5. WNO前8名公司
  • 6.企业对标
  • 7.依地区划分
  • 8.原始数据
  • 9.汇率
  • 10.关于MTN Consulting
简介目录
Product Code: GNI-08042024-1

This report reviews the growth and development of the webscale network operator (WNO) market since 2011. In the most recent 12 months (1Q23-4Q23), webscalers represented $2.37 trillion (T) in revenues (+6.2% YoY), $293 billion (B) in R&D spending (+9.4% YoY), and $192B in capex (-5.1% YoY). They had $679B of cash and short-term investments (+9.8% YoY) on the books as of December 2023, and $562B in total debt (+1.9% YoY). Webscalers employed approximately 4.093 million (M) people at the end of 2023, down from the YE2022 total of 4.194M.

VISUALS

bscale revenues accelerate YoY growth rate each quarter of 2023

Revenues for the webscale sector floundered in 2022, but the opposite happened in 2023. In 2023, global economic growth improved, the digital ad market recovered, TikTok began to face some backlash, cloud services penetration marched on, and Huawei's device business remained in the doldrums. All factors tended to benefit the revenue growth measured by our webscale tracker.

Each quarter of 2023 saw an increase in the YoY growth rate, resulting in annual 2023 revenues of $2.237 trillion, up 6.2% from 2022. Improvements were widespread. China's leading cloud services providers (Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent) all went from revenue declines in 2022 to increases in 2023; Amazon's revenues grew 11.8% in CY23 increase (2022: 9.8%) and Microsoft's rose 11.5% (2022: 10.4%). Most significant, perhaps, was Meta's big jump, growing revenues by just under 16% in 2023 after 2022, when revenues fell for the first time in history. Alphabet remained stable with revenue growth again in the 8-10% YoY range. Apple disappointed with a -0.5% YoY change as it still struggles to find growth now that 5G networks are widely deployed. Oracle performed very well for its size, growing 12.1% due to a mix of acquisition activity and success with its Oracle cloud infrastructure platform.

Revenues per employee in the webscale sector ended 2023 at $584K, from $539K in 2022; free cash flow per employee jumped even more noticeably, from $73K in 2022 to $109K in 2023. These swings are due both to rising revenues and even more quickly rising profits, and the sector's headcount growth taking a pause in the last two years. Webscale headcount ended 2023 at 4.093M, slightly up from the YE2021 figure but handily down from the 2022 total of 4.194M. Meta saw by far the biggest dip in its workforce, down 22% in 2023 to 67,300. This recent wave of layoffs was due in part to overhiring during COVID. There is a good chance that we will see additional layoffs across the sector though as big webscalers attempt to impement Generative AI in their own operations in search of labor cost savings. The same thing is already happening in the telco sector.

Tech spending: total capex dipped in 2023 but the tech portion rose 4%; R&D spend remains elevated

The main reason we cover webscalers is because we care about their technology spend. Webscalers spend heavily on data centers and related cloud infrastructure in support of both their services and operations. So, while it's important to know about revenue & profitability trends in webscale, the vendors selling into the market (our main clients) care about technology spend. That means capex and R&D. And not just capex in general, but more specifically the technology component of capex, i.e. "Network/IT/software" broadly defined.

Total capex did fall a bit in 2023, down 5.1% to $192B. This doesn't imply a negative market sentiment. Capex spend by quarter can vary significantly due to supply chain and other issues, and the webscale market is especially volatile since it's driven by just a few big players; the top 4 capture 77% of global capex, after all. Moreover, the tech portion of capex actually grew in 2023, up 4% YoY. The disparity is due to an easing of spend on transportation, logistics, fulfillment and non-tech infra categories at Amazon, Alphabet, Alibaba and others.

R&D spend within webscale amounted to 12.3% of revenues in 2023, even higher than the 12.0% recorded in 2022. The R&D intensity ratio has been creeping up in webscale for some time, as companies spend heavily to enter into new markets such as robotics, healthcare, financial services, and more. A good chunk of this R&D cash also targets the development of proprietary tech for the physical infrastructure of data centers underlying their operations: new chips and other hardware, not just smarter software.

Looking beyond the 2023 numbers, what is most important is that last year the webscale market found a new lifeforce, a new reason for being.

For the prior several years, adoption of cloud services was a primary motivator for incremental investments; they drove data center spread and design evolution at Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle. Short-form video content and gaming were also important drivers. This could be seen in the big related investments made by Alphabet and Meta, and Microsoft's biggest acquisition ever (of Activision, for $69B). Then in early 2023 - alongside these other trends - GenerativeAI's potential suddenly reached mass market awareness. In reality, GenAI was cooking for many years prior to this, but January 2023 was a turning point with the release of ChatGPT: it reached 100 million users by the end of the month. Other platforms were rushed to market, and any big tech company (webscaler or not) without investments in GenAI quickly scurried around to cobble something together, or invest in a third party. Amazon, for instance, invested heavily in Anthropic, as did Alphabet. Chinese webscalers each launched their own native offerings.

There is surely some unrealistic hype being floated about the potential of GenAI to solve all the world's problems - cure diseases, find solutions to global conflict, invent new forms of transportation, etc. This happens every time markets get excited about a new technology. There is always a 'tech leader' willing to make obnoxiously grandiose statements, and always a receptive audience to echo some of the nonsense. That said, GenAI has real potential to develop new markets over the next few years, and it is a legitimate reason to accelerate data center investments. The exact shape and size and location of such investments are not yet clear, and that uncertainty can slow down investment. But GenAI is not going away. We suspect the quest to monetize GenAI will drive a land grab for more capable data centers and supporting supercomputer clusters for several years to come.

US accounts for over 50% of webscale capex

This report series traditionally breaks out revenues by region for each webscaler. Towards the end of 2023, we added our first regional breakout of capex, focused on the US. Our analysis finds that the US has amounted to between 50-60% of global webscale capex for most of the last decade. This percentage increased in the last two years, ending 2023 at just over 60%. The US will continue to be the largest single country market, by far, for the foreseeable future. Most of the key GenAI innovators are based in the US and rely heavily on US Internet infrastructure, and data center capex will follow this pattern. However, the US ratio may return below 50% within a couple of years as webscalers expand their footprints in other regions. Spending pickups by China-based cloud providers will be one driver of this moderation.

Webscale market compared to telecom

A decade ago, the webscale sector did not exist. Big tech companies were just beginning to build their own data centers to optimize their cost structure, operational efficiency, and time to market. But webscale capex was a rounding error in the overall market for network infrastructure. That's not the case anymore. Webscale capex surpassed $200B for the first time in 2022. Annualized webscale capex has since fallen below $200B, but that is a short-term blip.

Telco capex is still higher, and will remain so for the next few years. But, webscale capex is far more concentrated, as it is dominated by a few big spenders, and it is focused on a smaller range of product types and vendors. Some aspects of webscale capex are more leading edge; innovations in the data center often impact other types of networks (e.g. high-speed optics for telco backbone networks). As such, the market will continue to be important for lots of vendors - and not just chip suppliers like NVIDIA, Intel and AMD.

Spending outlook

While capex dipped a bit in 2023, the outlook is strong as key players pursue GenAI opportunities even before that market is well developed or defined. Here is a summary of the spending outlook for key webscalers:

  • Amazon (27.4% of global webscale capex): CY23 capex of $48.4B was down $10.2B YoY, mainly due to lower fulfillment and transport spend. In 2024, company expects capex to increase YoY due mainly to infra spend at AWS, due partly to adding capacity in AWS for regional expansions, and "additional investments in generative AI and large language models"
  • Microsoft (18.3%): 4Q23 capex was lower than expected due to a third party capacity issue, but capex will "increase materially" on a sequential basis in 1Q24, driven by cloud and AI infrastructure. Company notes, "You started to see the acceleration in our capital expense starting almost a year ago...looking forward, you'll tend to see ... accelerating capital expense to continue to be able to add capacity in the coming quarters, given what we see in terms of pipeline." Also, is considering a $100B supercomputer data center campus needing up to 5GW of power, in concert with OpenAI, to develop AI models. Could open in 2028, coined "Stargate".
  • Alphabet (16.8%): reported capex in 4Q23 was $11B, driven by servers and then data centers. The 4Q stepup in reflects company's outlook "for the extraordinary applications of AI to deliver for users, advertisers, developers, cloud enterprise customers and governments globally and the long-term growth opportunities that offers. In 2024, we expect investment in CapEx will be notably larger than in 2023." Drivers include "the extraordinary applications of AI within Google DeepMind, Google Services, Google Cloud, it's across the board for users, for advertisers, developers, cloud enterprise customers, governments. And it's really the long-term opportunity that offers."
  • Meta (FB) (14.2%): expects CY24 capex of $30 to $37 billion, a $2B increase above prior range. Notes that it underbuilt the infra needed to support the growth of Reels in 2023 - is building to support both Reels and another similar sized service "so we wouldn't be in that situation again." Capex growth to be "driven by investments in servers, including both AI and non-AI hardware, and data centers as we ramp up construction on sites with our previously announced new data center architecture." Not providing guidance for 2025 and beyond but says it expects that its "ambitious long-term AI research and product development efforts will require growing infrastructure investments beyond this year."
  • Apple (5.0%): as usual does not provide capex guidance, just says it will "never underinvest in the business..."
  • Oracle (3.6%): 4Q23 capex was $1.1B. Expected capex for 12 months ended May 2024 is $8B, meaning "second half CapEx will be considerably higher as we bring online more capacity..."
  • Chinese cloud providers: no concrete guidance but early signs in 2024 point to increased spend as all key players are investing in GenAI platforms and attempting to accelerate cloud revenue growth, including overseas. Alibaba, for one, appears to be pushing a price war. Domestically, the telcos are strong in cloud services in China, and also provide carrier-neutral site services, as do GDS/ChinData/Vianet etc. Huawei is also a strong cloud player in China. So, the mainstream webscalers face more competition but also more options for building out their footprint.

Forecast update

Our Dec 2023 forecast called for $202B in 2023 webscale capex; that proved a bit too high. The official targets for 2024 and 2025 are $203B and $218B, respectively. We see no reason to modify these targets, but note that there is now significant uncertainty. They could be too low, but, some of the optimistic projections issued by webscalers will change as they face resource constraints or pursue more asset light strategies, or be crowded out by companies not currently classed as webscalers e.g. OpenAI. One certainty is that this is an exciting time to be selling into data center infra markets.

COVERAGE

Top 8 WNOs

  • Alibaba
  • Baidu
  • Alphabet
  • Meta (FB)
  • Amazon
  • Microsoft
  • Apple
  • Tencent

Other WNOs

  • Altaba
  • Fujitsu
  • LinkedIn
  • Yandex
  • ChinaCache
  • HPE
  • Oracle
  • Cognizant
  • IBM
  • SAP
  • eBay
  • JD.com
  • Twitter

Table of Contents

  • 1. Abstract
  • 2. Analysis
  • 3. WNO Market: Key Stats
  • 4. Company Drilldown
  • 5. Top 8 WNOs
  • 6. Company Benchmarking
  • 7. Regional Breakouts
  • 8. Raw Data
  • 9. Exchange Rates
  • 10. About

FIGURES & CHARTS

  • 1. Key Metrics: Growth rates, Annualized 4Q23/4Q22 vs. 2019-23
  • 2. WNO Revenues: Single-quarter & annualized (US$M)
  • 3. Top 8 WNOs: YoY revenue growth in 4Q23
  • 4. Annualized profitability: WNOs
  • 5. Free cash flow per employee, 4Q23 annualized (US$)
  • 6. FCF Margins vs. Net Margins, 4Q23 annualized
  • 7. Advertising revenues as % total (FY2023)
  • 8. Annualized capex and R&D spending: WNOs (% revenues)
  • 9. WNO capex by type, Annualized: 4Q15-4Q23 (US$M)
  • 10. Network & IT capex as share of revenues, 4Q23 annualized
  • 11. R&D expenses as % revenues, Top 8 WNOs (4Q23 annualized)
  • 12. Acquisition spending vs. capex spending, annualized (US$M)
  • 13. Net PP&E per employee (US$' 000) - 4Q23
  • 14. Ranking the Webscale Network Operators: Revenues; R&D; Capex; Network & IT capex - 2023 & 4Q23 (US$B)
  • 15. Annualized spending share for key webscalers since 2011 Capex: Network, IT and software
  • 16. Share of webscale spending by company, 4Q23 and 4Q22 annualized (Capex: Network, IT and software)
  • 17. Energy consumption vs. Net PP&E for key webscalers in 2022
  • 18. USA: Webscale capex total ($M) and % of global market, 2011-23
  • 19. Webscale vs. Telco Market: Annualized Capex (US$B)
  • 20. Webscale vs. Telco Market: Annualized capital intensity
  • 21. Revenues: annual, single-quarter, and annualized (US$M)
  • 22. Profitability (Net Profit; Cash from operations; Free cash flow): annual, single-quarter, and annualized (US$M)
  • 23. Spending (R&D; M&A; Capex; Network & IT capex; Lease): annual, single-quarter, and annualized (US$M)
  • 24. Cash & Short-term Investments: annual and single-quarter (US$M)
  • 25. Debt (Total debt; Net debt): annual and single-quarter (US$M)
  • 26. Property, Plant & Equipment: annual and single-quarter (US$M)
  • 27. Key Ratios: Net margin; R&D/revenues; Capex/revenues; Network & IT capex/revenues; Free cash flow/revenues; Lease costs/revenues - annual and annualized (%)
  • 28. Total employees
  • 29. Revenue per employee, annualized (US$K)
  • 30. FCF per employee, annualized (US$K)
  • 31. Net PP&E per employee, annualized (US$K)
  • 32. Revenues & Spending (US$M)
  • 33. Webscale Business Mix by Revenues (FY2023) - MTN Consulting estimates
  • 34. Top 10 recent acquisitions & investments
  • 35. Data center footprint
  • 36. Revenues (US$M) & YoY revenue growth (%), single-quarter: by company
  • 37. Revenues, annualized (US$M): by company
  • 38. Annualized profitability margins: by company
  • 39. Annualized capex and capital intensity: by company
  • 40. Annualized capex and R&D spending as % of revenues: by company
  • 41. Share of WNO network & IT capex, Annualized: by company
  • 42. Total employees: by company
  • 43. Annualized per-employee metrics (US$000s): by company
  • 44. Net debt (debt minus cash & stock) (US$M): by company
  • 45. 2011 vs. 2023: company benchmark by KPI (Revenues, R&D, Net profit, Cash from operations, Capex, Free cash flow, Cash & short-term investments, Net PP&E, Total debt)
  • 46. 2011 vs. 2022: company benchmark by key ratio (Capex/revenues; R&D/revenues; Net margin; FCF margin)
  • 47. Top 8 WNO's share vs. Rest of the market: by KPI (Revenues, R&D, Net profit, Cash from operations, Capex, Free cash flow, Cash & short-term investments, Net PP&E, Total debt)
  • 48. Top 8 WNOs benchmarking by Key ratio: Capex/revenues; R&D/revenues; Net margin; FCF margin)
  • 49. Total WNO Market Revenues, by region: Latest CY; Latest Quarter; Annual trend (2011-23); Single quarter (4Q15-4Q23 )
  • 50. WNO Market: Revenues, single-quarter (YoY % change)
  • 51. Regional revenues by operator: Latest CY; Latest Quarter; Annual trend (2011-22); Single quarter (4Q15-4Q23)
  • 52. Top 10 operators by region: Latest CY; Latest Quarter