Ofcom, Britain's media and communications regulator, has expressed concerns that Amazon and Microsoft may be harming competition in the market for cloud services. Ofcom has announced that it is considering referring the market for cloud services to the UK antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, for further investigation due to "concerning practices" it has uncovered, including high barriers to switching between providers. Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure have a combined market share of 60%-70% in the UK cloud services market, according to Ofcom, while Google is their closest competitor with 5%-10%.
Ofcom, the UK’s media and communications regulator, has expressed concerns about the market for cloud services and proposed referring it to the Competition and Markets Authority for further investigation. Ofcom’s own investigation had identified issues including high barriers to switching between providers, technical restrictions imposed by leading providers, and fee discounts structured to incentivize the use of a single provider. The regulator said there were indications that these features had already caused harm, with some cloud customers facing significant price increases when renewing contracts. Ofcom will publish its final decision on whether to refer the market by October 5.