British Regulator Ofcom Calls For Antitrust Probe Into Amazon and Microsoft's Cloud Dominance

Ofcom, the British media regulator, is set to advocate for an antitrust probe into the stronghold Amazon.Com Inc  AMZN and Microsoft Corp MSFT have on the U.K.'s cloud computing market, as per insiders. 

The two tech giants collectively command a 60% - 70% market share, overshadowing their nearest rival, Alphabet Inc's GOOGL Google, which holds approximately 10%. 

In 2022, Ofcom proposed investigating digital markets, including cloud computing, internet messaging, and smart devices. 

The regulator first chose to probe whether the so-called hyperscale cloud providers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, which generated 81% of revenues in the U.K. public cloud infrastructure services market worth £15 billion.

Ofcom's stance, initially articulated in April, is expected to be reiterated in its conclusive report slated for release this Thursday.

Earlier in the year, an Ofcom study considered bringing the issue before the CMA, the U.K.'s competition watchdog. 

The regulator has raised alarms about the prevailing conditions in the cloud computing sector, emphasizing the challenges existing clients face in negotiating favorable terms with their providers, owing to the market dominance of Amazon and Microsoft.

Price Actions: AMZN shares traded lower by 3.25% at $125.24 on the last check Tuesday. MSFT shares traded lower by 2.55% at $313.62.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.