The battle for China’s cloud computing market has been going on for a decade.
The lunatics at Aliyun group have gone out of China and started to compete with AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud in the world market.
Tencent Cloud recruit operatives, forming a variety of ecological alliance. It is determined to use the depth and breadth of coverage in social, gaming, advertising and other businesses to carry out a broader dimension of competition in Chinese cloud marketing.
Although Huawei Cloud entered the Chinese public cloud market late, it is unique by virtue of its excellent technology and deep government-enterprise relationship.
Baidu is temporarily outdated, but its glorious background and far-reaching AI reserves cannot be ignored.
Plus JS Yun (or Kingsoft Cloud) , who just went to the US for a successful IPO and relies on Boss Lei.
There is also UCloud in the era of great navigation and QingCloud who never falls…
Although the pattern of China’s cloud computing market is gradually clear, but the head competition has never been broken. Today, Domatters will analyze the heads of China’s cloud computing market for you.
01 Who is the third cloud in China?
Since the ancient times when Ma Yun, Ma Huateng, and Li Yanhong were arguing over cloud computing, the contest between the Chinese cloud computing market has already begun. The leader’s initial attitude will largely determine the layout of each family and the future direction.
For example, Li Yanhong’s remark that “cloud computing is an old wine in a new bottle” has been ridiculed thousands of times by the media.
However,Ma Yun’s sentence “Our own company is full of confidence and hope in cloud computing” has made Alibaba Cloud an important note in China’s cloud computing market.
At least from the current market structure, Aliyun’s dominant position is difficult to be shaken in a short time. Tencent cloud also holds the no. 2 spot. Instead, the “third cloud” battle has become the hottest topic in China’s cloud computing market.
In fact, different reports have given the name of the third cloud from different dimensions. But because of the different reports, some manufacturers say that they have the most advanced technology; some say they have the most users; others directly target 5G and the future…
The report of “Tracking China’s Public Cloud Service Market (Latest Half of 2019)” internationally renowned data research agency China (IDC) recently shows that:
Ali, Tencent, China Telecom, Huawei, and AWS rank in the top five in the IaaS+PaaS and IaaS markets, occupying a total of 76.3% market share in the IaaS+PaaS market; It has an overall market share of 77.5% in IaaS. Among them, the market share of IaaS+PaaS of Aliyun was 41.9% in the second half of 2019, down 0.8% year-on-year;Tencent was 12%, up 0.2% from a year earlier;China Telecom’s Tianyiyun was 7.7 per cent, up 0.2 per cent year on year.The battle for third place has added China Telecom and AWS China operations, indicating that the battle is getting more chaotic and difficult to judge.
However, instead of discussing who ranks third, it is better to look carefully at the strengths and weaknesses of each family and come to a conclusion.
02 Ali “madman” who invested 200 billion in three years
In 2018, an article titled “Alibaba Cloud’s Mad Men” became popular on the Internet. Ali Yun’s difficult and majestic history of blood and tears began to be known to outsiders.
There is no objection to saying that Alibaba Cloud is the leader in China’s cloud computing market. After all, since Ma Yun said, “I vote 1 billion for Alibaba Cloud every year, first for ten years. If I can’t do well, I will talk about other things.” When it comes to basic cloud computing, the battle for basic cloud computing is no longer just a contest of technology and determination. Rich money and food and grass are the basis for determining that the war can continue to burn. So shortly after Ali entered the cloud computing market, he invested 6 billion yuan to fight against the more powerful AWS.
If it is said that in the overseas market, Alibaba Cloud falls under the lead of AWS. But in the Chinese domestic market, local operations + early entry + rich product lines have helped Alibaba Cloud take the absolute lead in the domestic and even Asia-Pacific markets.
The latest cloud computing market tracking data released recently by the international research organization Gartner shows:
In 2019, Amazon, Microsoft, Alibaba Cloud and Google ranked the top four in the global cloud computing market. Alibaba Cloud’s global market share rose from 7.7% to 9.1%. In the Asia-Pacific market, Alibaba Cloud ranked first, with market share rising from 26% to 28%, close to the sum of Amazon and Microsoft.
The domestic coverage of 40%+ and the coverage of 28% in the Asia-Pacific region undoubtedly prove the strength of Alibaba Cloud. In order to support this expansion war, Alibaba Cloud obviously needs more input of “grass and grass”. This is also an important reason why Alibaba Cloud announced that it will invest 200 billion yuan in the next three years. This investment means that the size of Alibaba Cloud’s data centers and servers will triple again, and it will sprint to the world’s largest cloud infrastructure.
03 “the Race of Thousand Sails”of Tencent Cloud
Although Ma Huateng’s initial position on Tencent Cloud was not as firm as Ma Yun,but he is not as cavalier as Robin Li.At least in the conversation of these three big brothers, Ma Huateng believed that “the topic of cloud computing is more technical, it is a relatively advanced concept.” But what is faster than what he expected to be “a few hundred years, a thousand years later, to the’Avatar’ era” is that the development of Tencent Cloud is not slow.
Giants contend for hegemony, each with its own defenses and fears.Tencent has never really taken alibaba’s competition lightly.Although Ma huateng said the time of cloud computing power is still early, but as early as 2010, Tencent has secretly studied cloud computing.In the year when Aliyun announced its investment of 6 billion yuan, Tencent Cloud also followed up with a high profile, announcing that it would invest 10 billion yuan in the next five years to develop Tencent Cloud and catch up with Aliyun.
Now, Tencent relies on the broad layout of the C end market, and WeChat, QQ provides a strong flow entrance, early launched the industrial Internet ecological war.The connection between enterprise WeChat and individual WeChat is amazing that only Tencent can transform more than one billion C terminal traffic into B terminal market.
Tencent’s qianfan plan and SaaS ecological alliance are expected to set up a C-end circle in China’s ToB market. With the same account and interworking code, more vertical SaaS applications will be brought into the platform of Tencent Cloud to better rely on the main road provided by Tencent Cloud to serve tens of thousands of vertical track users.
Although several authoritative reports show that Tencent Cloud’s market share in the Chinese market is less than half that of Aliyun,but what we can see is that the competition between the two giants is basically in the same dimension.And it is not known who will die and who is the winner.
04 decisive battle 5G JS Yun
After Luckin’s “explosion”, JS Yun was given high hopes as the first Chinese company to IPO in the US.JS Yun also struggled with its stock price rose 40% on the first day of listing, the market value was close to 4.8 billion US dollars. Although the media always complains that JS Yun failed to make a profit, but the basic cloud market looks at the long-term value.
How many of the famous public cloud companies in China have achieved profitability?Based on this background, many people think JS Yun could be the third cloud in China.After all,JS Yun also have a big manufacturer backed by Boss Lei,who owns Xiaomi and he decided to invest JS Yun 1 billion dollars as early as 2014.
Lei Jun once said: “We must attack in an all-round way and not defend. Today’s Internet industry is untenable and we can only rush forward. If we are not squeezed out by giants, we are more ruthless and dare to burn money to survive. If you dare to burn money to survive, don’t dare to do it. Cloud service is more tragic than video service.But as far as current development is concerned, JS Yun may not be the third cloud in China.In the simplest sense, JS Yun has few distinctive bright spots and can be remembered by the outside world.
Prior to this, JS Yun had always publicized itself as “neutral cloud”. The so-called neutrality means that JS Yun is different from other leading Internet cloud service providers engaged in competing with customers in China. There is no conflict of interest or competition between Kingsoft Cloud and its customers. Neutrality is indeed a feature, but neutrality is not necessarily an advantage. As we all know, the powerful players on the battlefield are basically opposites, such as the US and the Soviet Union.
If the business conflicts with Ali, it can choose Tencent Cloud. There is a conflict with Tencent, it can choose Alibaba Cloud. If it has conflicts with Alibaba and Tencent, is it possible to choose from AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud? So, neutrality is just a rhetoric. Not standing in line is a small giant, and standing in line loses. Is this explanation also ok?
Another tag of JS Yun is the video cloud. After the advent of the 5G era, the content and format of the video will be greatly updated. Therefore, the layout of the video cloud market in advance can achieve rapid development in the future. Compared with other cloud computing vendors, Kingsoft Cloud is the only vendor that takes out the video cloud and talks about it alone. In related reports, Kingsoft Cloud has indeed done a lot in the video cloud market. From a clear perspective, JS Yun’s technical strength and number of products in the field of video cloud may not necessarily be stronger than Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud. Therefore, in the 5G era, whether JS Yun can drive the overall increase in market share through the video cloud is still debatable.
05 “Technical Light” Huawei Cloud
Huawei Cloud entered the public cloud market too late. And since it announced in 2017 that “Huawei’s public cloud must exceed Alibaba Cloud in three years”, it has been “thunder and heavy rain”. Although judging from various reports in 2020, Huawei Cloud did rush into the top five, but the gap between them and Alibaba Cloud is still not a little bit.
However, in an era where technology is king, it is possible that the accumulation and background will usher in an outbreak. This is undoubtedly the biggest advantage of Huawei Cloud. The latest report released by IDC also confirmed this trend.
Data shows that Huawei Cloud maintained the first growth rate among China’s top cloud vendors in the fourth quarter of 2019, with a year-on-year increase of more than 180%; Huawei Cloud’s market share in IaaS increased from 5.2% in the first quarter of 2019 to the fourth quarter 8.2%.
Ren Zhengfei once said that “Huawei should not compete positively with BAT.” Because he is very clear that Huawei’s strength lies in security, and the company’s high reliability requirements are Huawei’s strengths, but it is a weakness that BAT does not have. Although this is Ren Zhengfei’s opinion on WeLink, it is clear that in the cloud computing road, Huawei has to take a different path from BAT.
The future is a new infrastructure and an era of 5G, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Huawei’s advantages in cutting-edge technologies such as chips, enterprise networks, and optical transmission will be much stronger than those of Ali and Tencent. Powerful technology coupled with a profound background in government and enterprises will help Huawei Cloud achieve rapid growth. If we have to say who is China’s third cloud, we are willing to vote for Huawei Cloud.
06 Can Baidu cloud rise?
Baidu Cloud has lost its lead, but it does not mean that Baidu Cloud has never achieved rapid growth. Zhang Yaqin, president of Baidu, once said at the annual Baidu Cloud Intelligence Summit on September 15, 2017: “Although Baidu Cloud comes late, its growth rate is still considerable. There will be at least three clouds in China in the future. BAT can be made every Home is different.”
According to the fourth quarter 2018 earnings conference call report, Baidu Cloud’s revenue for the quarter was 1.1 billion yuan, an increase of more than 200% year-on-year. By 2019, Baidu’s intelligent cloud revenue target is 10 billion yuan, which is a two-fold increase from 2018’s 3.3 billion yuan revenue. It can be seen that in the past few years, Baidu’s smart cloud has grown terribly fast.
Baidu, which used to be All in AI, is indeed possible to use its powerful AI strength to become what Li Yanhong said: “ABC is a deeply integrated intelligent cloud based on artificial intelligence as the center, relying on big data, and based on cloud computing.” But Baidu Intelligent Cloud slowed down unconsciously. At the end of April this year, Interface News reported that Baidu Smart Cloud failed to reach its revenue target in 2019, only 70% completed, and it is still losing money.
The departure of Yin Shiming,who is vice president of Baidu and general manager of Baidu intelligent cloud business group, and Zhang Zhiqi, who is deputy general manager of intelligent cloud business group, also cast a cloud on the prospect of Baidu cloud intelligent cloud. Although in May this year, Baidu Intelligent Cloud welcomed its new vice president Liu Yawen and its vice president Zhu Yali,and two directors responsible for pre-sales solutions. Baidu CTO Wang Haifeng also defined Baidu’s intelligent cloud strategy as “based on cloud computing, using AI as the starting point, focusing on important tracks.”
However, the outside world generally believes that Baidu’s intelligent cloud stall in 2019 and 2020 is likely to make Baidu lose to the third best card battle. And what puzzles us is that the official website interface of Baidu Intelligent Cloud is very different from that of other cloud computing vendors. What is the purpose of this sign-in lottery activity, we hope to have Daniel help to answer.
07 Ten tools for UCloud and QingCloud
As the first share of China’s cloud computing, UCloud officially landed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board on January 20, 2020, with a market value of more than 30 billion yuan, which is comparable to Jinshan Cloud. As a public cloud vendor with no giant background and no big customer support such as the Xiaomi system, UCloud can achieve such results, which is really impressive.
It is similar to Jinshan Cloud, UCloud has also been talking about the concept of “neutral security”. Hua Kun, co-founder and chief operating officer of UCloud, also mentioned that compared with giants such as Alibaba and Tencent, it is difficult to form a monopoly among customers with scattered needs, UCloud can provide higher cost-effective services. UCloud’s CBA strategy is roughly the same as Baidu’s intelligent cloud’s ABC strategy, all of which are the trinity of cloud computing (Cloud Computing), big data (Big Data) and artificial intelligence (AI).
In addition to these basic information, the biggest feature of UCloud may be “going out to sea”.
Official information shows that UCloud has 33 data centers and 29 dedicated lines in the world, and its business covers five continents. In terms of time and breadth of coverage overseas, UCloud is indeed ahead of most Chinese cloud computing vendors. However, in recent years, Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud have both released overseas strategies. There are also AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud in the foreign markets, and UCloud’s large navigation plan must be under great pressure.
Compared with UCloud, another QingCloud, which also has no giant background, also submitted a prospectus to the Science and Technology Board in April this year, intending to raise funds of 1.188 billion yuan. This cloud computing vendor that integrates cloud, network, edge, and end services has released more than ten products such as Qingcube®, QingStor®️, and Guangge Network from dimensions such as hybrid cloud, hyper-converged system, and software-defined storage. . These have become Qingyun QingCloud’s “ten tools”.
Although in the overall dimension of competition, QingCloud is only the second-gradient cloud computing manufacturer in China, but in the report released by IDC and other organizations, QingCloud’s “ten tools” do indeed have relatively advanced market positions in their respective fields. .
Unfortunately, no matter whether it is UCloud or Qingyun QingCloud, there is no absolute strength to compete with Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud. Judging from the current market structure, in the card battle of China’s third cloud, the chances of these two companies qualifying are not great. But there is no doubt that these two companies are excellent cloud computing vendors.
08 Ranking is not so important
Market ranking is indeed an important proof of brand strength, but there has never been a winner-take-all situation in the market. Besides the companies that can do IaaS services, there are no giant companies that are not rich in money.
AWS is such a bull, but it has long believed that private cloud has no future. In the end, wasn’t it forced to launch hybrid cloud products? So, don’t be blindly obsessed with market position or look down on companies with relatively low rankings.
How do we better combine business and service to provide better service at a lower cost is what every company needs to think about. The diversification of the market demand and the complexity of the demand also provide a broad space for different types of cloud computing vendors. Since the development of China’s cloud computing market has been magnificent in the past decade, the next decade is still worth looking forward to.
Market ranking is not so important. After all, this is not a 20-minute game, but a protracted battle related to China’s digital transformation. Ali, Tencent and Huawei can rely on their strong strength to lay out the main roads and provide water and electricity.
For more subdivided fields and vertical needs, it will require tens of millions of companies to meet together. Therefore, in the future, all the monarchs encourage each other!
