UK raises cloud competition concerns, names Microsoft and Amazon as dominant players
Britain's antitrust watchdog on Tuesday raised concerns over competition in the multi-billion-pound cloud computing market.
Britain's antitrust watchdog on Tuesday raised concerns over competition in the multi-billion-pound cloud computing market and singled out Microsoft and Amazon as the dominant players.
An independent Competition and Markets Authority inquiry group provisionally recommended that the regulator considers investigating Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft's Azure cloud unit under new digital markets legislation.
In a statement, the CMA said it estimates the cloud services market was worth £9 billion ($11.18 billion) in 2023 — a figure growing over 30% year-on-year. The CMA noted that, currently, businesses face a limited choice of providers when it comes to cloud services.
The regulator called AWS and Microsoft "the two large providers of cloud services, each with a share of up to 40% of UK customer spend on cloud services."
Notably, it added Google was the third-biggest provider "with a much smaller share."