The Real CDN Market Share Numbers

Dan Rayburn writes on his blog about the real market shares of the CDN (Content Delivery Network):

In his eyes, the worst data that is routinely quoted in the market in all forms is the percentage of market share that any CDN vendor has in the market. None of those numbers are accurate because they are not backed up by any real data simply due to the fact that CDN providers and content owners do not release the majority of their data to the public or to research houses. For all those research reports you see about the size of market share, the number of streams delivered etc... all of the CDNs will tell you if you ask them that they provided ZERO data, other than what is already public, to the analysts who write the reports.

In two different articles about content delivery vendors last week, one said Akamai had 60% of the CDN market share and the other one said 80% market share. Which one is it? That's a big difference in a market that is a few hundred million dollars. I see reports that say Limelight Networks has 10% market share and I also hear numbers up to 25% market share. So which is it? The answer is, no one truly knows. And the question we should be asking is why does anyone care? Does size or market share equal long term success?

Recently, when speaking with CDNetworks they said they had 8% of the market share for CDN services and that Limelight Networks had 9%, based solely on revenue. When I asked where those numbers came from, the said from a Frost & Sullivan report on CDNs and they included a slide in their presentation showing the data.

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