AWS and Alibaba Lead the APAC Cloud Market; Microsoft Chasing Hard; Tencent and Google Follow

RENO, NV, September 16, 2020

New Q2 data from Synergy Research Group shows that Amazon (AWS) and Alibaba are clear leaders in the APAC region cloud market, based on quarterly revenues. Amazon is the frontrunner in four of the five APAC sub-regions, while Alibaba has a strong lead in China and is also well placed in the rest of East Asia, South & Southeast Asia and Oceania. Microsoft is ranked second in three of the sub-regions, has a strong position in Japan and is placed third in the overall APAC region. The rest of the top-ranked cloud providers are either global players with a position in multiple markets - Google and IBM - or companies with a strong position in their home markets. Beyond Alibaba the next five cloud providers in China are all local companies, while Fujitsu and NTT are well placed in Japan, Naver and KT feature heavily in South Korea, and Telstra is a challenger in the Australian market. China is by far the largest market in the region, helping Tencent and Baidu to feature among the region’s leaders. While all sub-regions are growing strongly, it is South & Southeast Asia that has the highest growth rate, thanks in large part to India. APAC revenues from cloud infrastructure services were over $9 billion in Q2 and are growing at over 40% per year. Public IaaS is by far the largest segment in the region, followed by public PaaS and managed private cloud services. Public IaaS also had the highest growth rate in the quarter, though managed public cloud also features strongly due to particularly high growth in VPC and bare metal cloud services. 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. After China, the largest country markets in the region are Japan, India, Australia and South Korea.

“China is a unique market and remains dominated by local companies, but beyond China there is strong competition between a range of global and local companies. Amazon is the leader in four of the five sub-regions, but it is not the market leader in every country,” said John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group. “The challenge for local players is that in most ways cloud is a truly global market, requiring global presence, leading edge technology, strong brand name and credibility, extremely deep pockets and a long-term focus. For any local cloud companies looking to expand significantly beyond their home market, that is an extremely challenging proposition.”