Cloud: the provider's country of origin is becoming increasingly important

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82% of companies in Germany would like to see large cloud providers from Germany – because 78% consider Germany to be too dependent on US hyperscalers. This is the result of a recent survey for Bitkom's Cloud Report 2025. The focus is on the fact that 62% of German companies believe that they would stand still without cloud services. At the same time, 50 percent of cloud customers feel compelled to rethink their own cloud strategy due to the current US policy.

The reason for this change is that for 97% of companies using or considering cloud offerings, a trustworthy country of origin plays at least some role in the selection process. The dominant USA is only in sixth place in terms of preferred origin with just 6 percent – behind European non-EU countries (14 percent), Japan (12 percent) and India (8 percent). However, 100 percent clearly prefer a provider from Germany. How compelling this trustworthiness is has also increased within a year: from 58% to 67%.

But not at every price

However, there are limitations to this: only 8 percent would find it acceptable to forego functions in comparison to international hyperscalers. And at 12 percent, hardly any more companies would be prepared to at least wait longer for such features. There is also little room for maneuver when it comes to costs, as only 7 percent would pay 10 to 20 percent more for local cloud offerings. In contrast, 65% believe that they would not accept any of these disadvantages. Bitkom President Ralf Wintergerst concludes: "A German cloud must be just as good and just as cheap as the offerings of other providers. If it is not, it will remain a niche product."

The size of the market is not surprising: 90% of respondents are already using cloud applications, while the remaining 10% are planning or discussing their use. There are practically no companies left in Germany for which the cloud is not an issue. However, the private cloud is significantly more popular in Germany (74%) than the public cloud (59%). 29% combine hybrid offerings, while 41% also obtain services from several providers.

What's more, while 47% of all IT applications already come from the cloud, this figure is set to rise to 58% in five years' time. In 2024, it was still 38%. In particular, companies that have hardly relied on the cloud to date are catching up. Bitkom predicts that 10% of respondents still obtain less than 10% of their IT applications from the cloud, but in five years' time this will no longer be the case for any company. And while more than half of 34 percent of their IT applications currently come from the cloud, this is expected to apply to 63 percent in five years' time. Wintergerst assumes that "companies [...] will not move all IT applications to the cloud, but in future no company will be able to manage without the cloud".

However, the move to the cloud is not always voluntary. A full 60 percent also feel forced to do so because applications are only offered as cloud versions. The increasing cloud investments should also be seen in this context, explains Bitkom. 46% want to invest more this year compared to 2024, with 14% expecting a sharp increase in investment and 32% expecting an increase. 39% expect expenditure to remain unchanged. And only 8 percent expect them to decrease, and only 4 percent expect them to decrease significantly.

Where growth is (not) taking place

Money is increasingly flowing into AI services: Currently, 26 percent of companies use them, according to the survey, and 51 percent in five years' time. Bitkom also sees growth in the areas of CRM (38% to 57%), video conferencing (50% to 65%), software development (31% to 45%), security (56% to 70%) and databases (62% to 75%). The current frontrunners in cloud use are applications for HR, accounting and financial planning (77%, up 1%), office programs (77%, up 1%), email services including storage for files (76%, up 5%). Computing power in general is currently used by 62%, with a forecast increase to 68%.

In comparison, the Cloud Report 2025 sees significantly less growth in IoT services (39% to 37%), collaboration software (56% to 48%) and ERP programs (44% to 37%). However, Wintergerst interprets these results with caution when asked: using ERP as an example, he states that the cloud is already the standard. Accordingly, little growth is still to be expected here. However, he qualifies his own interpretation by referring to the CRM sector –, where the cloud is also already the standard and yet high growth is expected.

When asked why companies are moving to the cloud, digitalization is now the top priority: 68% hope to do so, compared to just 45% in 2023. 60% also want to increase their IT security. The latter is also the most important criterion for 99% (including data protection and compliance) when selecting a cloud provider. 96% also mention the option of data encryption.

Lock-in and cloud constraints

However, only 55% want to reduce IT costs – and accordingly, low costs are only particularly important for 45% when selecting a provider. Consequently, the fact that 53% still feel at the mercy of cloud providers when it comes to prices and contracts and 51% expect higher operating costs for their booked cloud services this year is only of limited importance. Wintergerst clearly speaks of lock-in effects: "Customers are currently finding it difficult to leave a cloud provider once they have chosen it due to the high effort and high costs involved in a migration."

When it comes to selection criteria, only global availability (39%) ranks below costs. In contrast, interoperability (69%) and sustainability (67%) are more important. The provider's country of origin (67%) and data center locations in Germany or the EU (64%) ranked in the middle of the field. Wintergerst sees the fact that US hyperscalers such as AWS are also currently responding to this preference as positive: "Europe [is] apparently an interesting and important market." Nevertheless, "AWS will struggle with the same difficulties [...] namely with many individual markets." However, Wintergerst qualifies that "the question [...] is not only whether the data centers are here, whether it is operated via a European company and then goes to European customers, but where the technology stack actually comes from, whether it is also sovereignly European at its core."

All details of the Cloud Report 2025 can be found at Bitkom. 604 companies with 20 or more employees in Germany took part in the representative survey.

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