Chinese firms control local public cloud market; AWS & Microsoft leads the rest of APAC: SRG

Leading six public cloud providers in China are all local companies, while Amazon and Microsoft continue to lead in the rest of the APAC region, according to new Q4 data from Synergy Research Group. Even in Japan, which has a strong base of local technology companies, Amazon and Microsoft are the top two public cloud providers. China is by far the largest country market in the region, which helps three Chinese firms to feature in the top six ranking of regional cloud providers. Alibaba is the leading provider in China and also the second-ranked provider in the total region, helped by its growing presence in multiple other APAC countries. Tencent and Baidu are the second and third ranked companies in China and are also in the ranking of leading regional providers. In Japan, Fujitsu, NTT and Softbank are all in the top six, though it is Amazon and Microsoft who lead the ranking. Excluding China and Japan, in the rest of the APAC region Amazon, Microsoft and Google are the leading public cloud providers, followed by Alibaba, IBM and South Korean firm Naver.

Public IaaS and PaaS are the most prominent segments of the cloud infrastructure services market and account for the bulk of the revenues, with the balance coming from managed or hosted private cloud services. Within public cloud the APAC region does not yet account for a third of the worldwide market but it is growing much more rapidly than either the North American or EMEA regional markets. Within the APAC region, China accounts for almost a third of the public cloud market and is more than twice the size of Japan, which is the second largest country market. The next biggest country markets in the region are India, South Korea, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

“China remains a unique cloud market that is totally dominated by local companies. Beyond China every major country market is led by Amazon and Microsoft,” said John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst and Research Director at Synergy Research Group. “Japan has a long list of powerful technology vendors and IT service providers, but even there it is Amazon and Microsoft who lead the market. Putting China to one side, this speaks to the truly global nature of the cloud market. To become one of the leaders requires global presence, technology smarts, a brand name that plays well in all countries, extremely deep pockets, a long-term focus and total commitment from senior management.”