As geopolitical tensions between the EU and the U.S. escalate, these charts present how reliant the continent is on American tech suppliers, regardless of pledges to develop into extra unbiased.
Since returning to the White Home final 12 months, U.S President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on the continent and precipitated complications and concern in Europe as he initially refused to rule out navy motion to amass Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, earlier than backtracking.
With the long-standing transatlantic alliance wanting unsure, European governments are more and more shifting to develop digital autonomy. Critics of Europe’s reliance on U.S. firms for digital infrastructure warn that U.S. regulation enforcement can request person knowledge from American firms, no matter the place the info is saved, as a part of the Cloud Act.
However tech suppliers from the opposite facet of the Atlantic nonetheless dominate in Europe.
European cloud suppliers have been steadily shedding floor to U.S. rivals over the previous 9 years, holding beneath 15% of the market in 2025, in line with knowledge from Synergy Analysis Group, a market analytics firm.
“Will probably be extremely tough for European cloud suppliers to meaningfully reverse the market share pattern,” John Dinsdale, the group’s chief analyst, instructed CNBC.
“This can be a recreation of scale. As a way to be a number one participant, it’s a must to be frequently investing giant quantities in analysis, service improvement, technical infrastructure, buyer help and channel companions,” he added. “You additionally need to have the model recognition and talent to function globally or a minimum of throughout a number of geographies.”
Amazon, Microsoft and Google management greater than 70% of the European cloud market, whereas the European firms with the biggest share of the market are German duo SAP and Deutsche Telekom, with 2% every, per Synergy knowledge.
“For those who had been in a position to return 10 years and rewrite historical past, possibly one or two European firms might and may have set out their stall to be a number one participant within the cloud market, however they did not,” mentioned Dinsdale.
Amazon gained an enormous early mover benefit by performing first out there, he mentioned, including that Microsoft and Google adopted at a distance. “Oracle ultimately acquired severe concerning the cloud and is now rising quickly, and neocloud firms are concentrating on particular companies with some success.”
Whereas SAP instructions the most important share of Europe’s enterprise software program market, a minimum of 59% is held by U.S firms, in line with knowledge from a December report by the European Parliament, with Oracle and Microsoft controlling 18% and 10%, respectively. The enterprise software program market knowledge refers to Europe as an entire, together with non-EU members such because the UK and Switzerland.
Many political leaders at the moment are “taking a look at expertise in a option to achieve sovereignty,” SAP CEO Christian Klein instructed CNBC’s “Squawk Field Europe” on Friday, by way of “not solely the place can we retailer the info and the way we handle the info, but in addition how you can achieve sovereignty on the software program facet.”
Buyer relationship administration software program is a sector dominated by a single participant in Salesforce, with SAP taking second spot, knowledge from the European Parliament report, referring simply to the 27 members of the European Union, confirmed.
