It had been anticipated, and now it is official: the European Commission intends to submit AWS and Azure to the DMA.
We are at the preliminary opinion stage. Amazon and Microsoft can therefore present their defenses.
Although their respective clouds had up to now escaped designation as “essential platform services,” that was because they did not meet one of the quantitative thresholds defined in the DMA. Specifically, at least 45 million monthly active end users established in or located within the EU.
The regulation, however, authorizes the Commission to conduct a market investigation to determine whether a service that does not meet this threshold nonetheless constitutes a “major access point allowing business users to reach their end users.”
If so, it can designate it as an essential platform service under two other conditions. First, that the provider has a substantial footprint in the European market — either by its turnover (at least €7.5 billion over the last three financial years), or by its market capitalization or equivalent fair value (at least €75 billion). Second, that it enjoys a “solid and durable position,” meaning it would have reached both thresholds in each of the last three financial years.
A DMA investigation launched in late 2025… numbers to back it up
The European Commission had opened investigations into AWS and Azure in November 2025. The broad outlines of its reasoning were laid out.
Regarding its heft in the domestic market, it emphasized that AWS’s fair market value exceeded €75 billion, while Amazon’s market capitalization hovered around $2.7 trillion. The same view applied to Azure, with Microsoft worth nearly $4 trillion.
Based on Statista data, the Commission recalled that AWS held 29% of the global infrastructure cloud market. And that Azure captured 20%. For the European market, it drew on figures from the French competition authority and its British counterpart, subsequently echoed by the OECD. Among them: 46% market share for AWS in France in 2021, versus 17% for Azure.
AWS, indispensable? The outages speak for themselves
For both AWS and Azure, Brussels flagged economies of scale: development and maintenance costs appeared only weakly dependent on the number of users, and could be passed on to other services, including non-cloud offerings.
Another shared feature: a conglomerate structure and a degree of vertical integration enabling cross-subsidization. The Commission also mentioned lock-in effects, reinforced by the ecosystem of third-party software and services.
One remark was specific to AWS: the scale and magnitude of outages confirm that its services are indispensable for businesses to reach their customers. By contrast, Azure benefits, through Windows and Office 365, from network effects and advantages in data collection.
AI tools and partnerships weighed in the balance
The Commission has not yet published its preliminary opinion. The announcement it issued nonetheless lists several arguments that supported its decision.
Beyond substantial revenue and lock-in effects, it cites operational capabilities and investments that “seem to have largely surpassed” those of competitors. It also mentions “vast and well-established user bases.” At the same time, it states that the AI tools and partnerships portfolio has become a “decisive factor” in procurement decisions.
