As geopolitical tensions between the EU and the US increase, these graphs show how the continent remains dependent on US technology providers despite pledges to become more independent.
Since returning to the White House last year, US President Donald Trump has caused headaches and fear in Europe by imposing tariffs on the continent, initially refusing to rule out military action to take Denmark’s semi-autonomous territory of Greenland, and later backtracking.
As long-standing transatlantic alliances become uncertain, European governments are increasingly moving toward greater digital autonomy. Critics of Europe’s reliance on U.S. companies for digital infrastructure have warned that as part of the Cloud Act, U.S. law enforcement agencies could request user data from U.S. companies regardless of where the data is stored.
However, Europe remains dominated by technology providers from the other side of the Atlantic.
European cloud providers have steadily lost ground to U.S. rivals over the past nine years and will hold less than 15% of the market by 2025, according to data from market analysis firm Synergy Research Group.
“It will be very difficult for European cloud providers to meaningfully reverse market share trends,” John Dinsdale, the group’s principal analyst, told CNBC.
“This is a game of scale. To become a leading player, we must continue to make significant investments in research, service development, technology infrastructure, customer support and channel partners,” he added. “You also need brand recognition and the ability to operate globally, or at least across multiple regions.”
Amazon, microsoft and google Control over 70% of the European cloud market, but the two European companies with the largest share of the market are from Germany. SAP and deutsche telekom2% each, according to Synergy data.
“If we could go back 10 years and rewrite history, perhaps one or two European companies could and should have positioned themselves to be the leading players in the cloud market, but they didn’t,” Dinsdale said.
He said Amazon had a huge first-mover advantage by acting ahead of the market, adding that Microsoft and Google were not far behind. “Oracle has finally gotten serious about the cloud and is now growing rapidly, and neo-cloud companies are targeting specific services with some success.”
SAP has the largest share of Europe’s enterprise software market, but at least 59% is held by U.S. companies, according to data from a December European Parliament report. oracle Microsoft controls 18% and 10% respectively. Enterprise software market data covers Europe as a whole, including non-EU countries such as the UK and Switzerland.
SAP CEO Christian Klein told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday that many political leaders are now “looking at technology in a way that gives them sovereignty. They’re not only thinking about where they store their data, how they manage their data, but also how they get sovereignty on the software side.”
Customer relationship management software is an area dominated by a single player. sales forceSAP came in second place, data from the European Parliament report, which refers only to the 27 member states of the European Union, showed.
