- CMA says UK Cloud Market is competitive
- AWS and Microsoft account for 30-40% of the British market each
- The two companies disagree with CMA’s findings
Britain’s Competition and Market Authority (CMA) certainly has Britain’s ski market shows for many competitive features, with Microsoft and AWS each holding about 30-40% of the UK market in 2024 and Hyperscaler concentration, which is especially very much in infrastructure-like-one service.
At the same time, fewer than 1% of customers change providers annually, and Multicloud is rare (especially among SMEs with more limited budgets).
CMA has blamed high output fees, incompatible interfaces, latency and skill holes for widespread supplier-in, which ultimately weakens the competition.
CMA concerned about AWS and Microsoft Cloud Market Dominance
Behind the two hyperscalers, Google is drawing only 5-10% of the market, with others like IBM and Oracle having even smaller shares. Although AI capacities do not yet change market dynamics drastically, existing positions are likely to be reinforced and therefore CMA has entered to ensure competition remains healthy.
In its final decision -making decision, CMA took the biggest hits on Microsoft over its unreasonable licensing practice, making it more expensive to run Microsoft software on rival sky providers.
A Microsoft -Taltian told Techradar Pro: “The latest publication of the CMA panel misses the brand again and ignores that the cloud market has never been so dynamic and competitive, with record investments and fast, AI-driven changes. Its recommendations cover Google, one of the fastest growing cloud market participants.”
“Microsoft is looking forward to working with the digital market unit against a result that more precisely reflects the current competition in cloud that benefits UK customers,” they continued.
“The action proposed by the study group is unjustified and undermines the significant investments and innovation that have already drawn hundreds of thousands of British companies,” AWS spokesman added.
On Flip Side, Google supported CMA’s findings: “The decisive finding that restrictive license damage Skyeconds and competition is a waters for the United Kingdom.”
Elsewhere in the industry, CMA has been criticized for not acting fast enough and tackling persistent problems such as cloud credits, lock-in and shopping bias.
“We urge CMA to use the forces available now to tackle these injuries, rather than embarking on a new study that may not give customers relief in the coming years,” shared coalition for Fair Software Licensing Executive Director Ryan Triplette.
Looking ahead, CMA’s next step is to designate Microsoft and AWS with strategic market status (SMS) in accordance with the law on digital markets, competition and consumers (DMCC), allowing it to impose legally binding, targeted behavioral requirements on the two giants.
“A significant driving force for high cloud computing bills is consolidation of the market to a handful of players. Until recently, these companies have been the only game in the city, so they have been able to set the market rules, for example, including output fees for shifts, long lock-in periods and more. In fact, gardener has observed that most customers use 10% to 15% of their sky Release fees, ”noted Aamams brushs.
“UK companies are under huge cost pressure. We need to make it easier for them to change cloud computing providers and find price settings that better fit their balance.”
