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The absence in China is costing Google's core cloud business around the world, which makes it much harder for the company to challenge its rivals like Microsoft and Amazon, according to CNBC recently.
In March this year, Google announced that it planned to open three more data center regions in the world by the end of 2018, namely the Netherlands, Canada, and California. China, the world's second-biggest economy, is still not on Google's list this time.
Missing Opportunities
In fact, Google has already realized that its service's absence in China has hindered its business in the field of big data, where Microsoft's Azure and Amazon's AWS services are booming.
As one of Google's main cloud clients, Snap earlier this year pointed out that the Google Cloud's unavailability in China may be a reason preventing Snap from entering local market. Later, Snap disclosed a big deal with Amazon's AWS cloud service.
At present, Amazon has built data centers in Beijing and Ningxia, and Microsoft has such facilities in Beijing and Shanghai. Both of them have already partnered with local Chinese tech companies to promote their cloud business.
Potential Market
According to statistics from IDC, the market for cloud infrastructure and software in China is expected to climb to 9.8 billion US dollars by 2021 from 2.4 billion US dollars in 2016. Compared to rival companies, Google is reportedly falling behind in the field of cloud business development.
According to Synergy Research, the company trails Amazon, Microsoft as well as IBM, with a share of only five percent of global cloud business market.
"Google today is in so few countries -- they have a lot of other fish to go fry," Lydia Leong, an analyst at Gartner told CNBC.
Eager for the huge potential market in China though, Google's "no plans to bring Google Cloud to China" is placing itself in a dilemma. If the company indeed wants to make a big push in its core business, China is a significant market that they couldn't and mustn't ignore.
(CGTN)
