If you are a cloud-service provider looking to get a toehold in the vast China market, it's probably best you're a local. Foreign players don't get much of a look in.

According to Q2 data compiled by Synergy Research Group, China's top six cloud service providers by revenue – with Alibaba leading the six-pack – are homegrown (see table below).

Figure 3:

In research covering the broader APAC region, however, Synergy finds easier pickings for US players Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, IBM and Microsoft.

"Beyond China there is strong competition between a range of global and local companies," remarked John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy.

AWS is doing particularly well, enjoying frontrunner status in four of the five APAC sub-regions covered by the research firm (although not the market leader in every country).

Figure 1: Home team advantage: In news that will shock no one, Chinese cloud providers led by Alibaba are leading the pack in China. (Source: Charles Chan on Flickr CC 2.0)

Dindale had a word of warning for local players with global ambitions, however.

"The challenge for local players is that in most ways cloud is a truly global market, requiring global presence, leading edge technology, strong brand name and credibility, extremely deep pockets and a long-term focus," he said.

"For any local cloud companies looking to expand significantly beyond their home market, that is an extremely challenging proposition."

Give me some numbers
Synergy's number crunching shows APAC cloud infrastructure service revenue topping $9 billion in Q2. That translates into 40% annual growth.

While each APAC sub-region is growing strongly, observes Synergy, it is South and Southeast Asia that has the highest growth rate, thanks mainly to India.

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Although APAC doesn't account for a third of the worldwide market – at least not yet – Synergy says the region is growing much more rapidly than either North American or EMEA.

Within APAC, Synergy says public IaaS is "by far the largest segment in the region," followed by public PaaS and managed private cloud services.

— Ken Wieland, contributing editor, special to Light Reading