Canalys reported growth in spending for China’s cloud infrastructure market fell below 20 per cent for the first time during Q2, mainly due to Covid-19 (coronavirus) lockdowns.

Spending on infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service grew 11 per cent year-on-year to $7.3 billion, accounting for 12 per cent of global outlay.

Canalys stated the global growth rate during the period was 33 per cent.

In addition to Covid-19 restrictions, analyst Yi Zhang noted China’s biggest cloud equipment vendors “are no longer focused on just revenue scale and business growth, but more on high-margin, standardised products” along with channel development.

Alibaba Cloud, Huawei, Tencent and Baidu maintained their respective positions as the market leaders, accounting for 79 per cent of total spend despite a slowdown in their individual rates of growth.

Canalys VP Alex Smith noted cloud equipment vendors in China “typically emphasise having strong vertical focuses”, creating specific systems for “certain industries”.

He noted the approach “comes with high customisation costs that can be challenging to navigate when economic pressures increase”.