(BFM Stock Exchange) – The European Cloud specialist has led to his title last week. The market has identified OVHCloud as a credible alternative to the American digital giants, in a context of trade war with the United States. However, analysts are shared on the repercussions for OVHCloud of a possible taxation of the services of the American giants by the European Union.

While the global markets were in the midst of a collapse, OVHCLOUD was undoubtedly the star of the Paris Stock Exchange last week.

The title of the dematerialized IT specialist (Cloud) won 34.3% in two sessions (Thursday and Friday), almost 20% on Friday, and almost 44% in five sessions, carried out by the prospect of a taxation of the digital services of the American giants. This measure could be taken by the European Union in reaction to additional customs duties announced by the United States.

The European Union does not intend to let itself be jostled by the new massive customs taxes of the Trump administration, which will be 20% for products arriving from the old continent. As part of the trade war launched by Donald Trump, American tech giants are clearly in the sights of Brussels.

A taxation of the digital services offered by Google, Microsoft via Meta or Amazon is possible on Thursday April 3, French government spokesperson Sophie Primas.

This would tap in particular the cloud services, a rapidly growing market but widely dominated by American “hyperscalers” like Azure (Microsoft), Amazon Web Services, or Google Cloud.

The German authorities also do not rule out the idea of ​​a European tax on American “tech”.

Political decisions favorable to OVHCLOUD?

“Such a decision could weaken, the ultra-dominant market share of Amazon, Microsoft and Google in cloud services in Europe,” said Oddo BHF in a note published at the end of last week.

The digital services of American groups are widely used by European companies and taxation could therefore bring these same companies and the states to favor European offers whose relative competitiveness would have been improved.

OVHCLOUD, one of the largest European cloud groups, could therefore take advantage of “these political decisions”, judges Oddo BHF. The design office notes, however, that the French group is already practicing lower prices than American hyperscalers thanks to its integrated production model.

ODDO BHF adds that OVHCLOUD does not have internal resources to finance a significant acceleration of its growth, given a net debt ratio/gross operating result greater than 3 following the public share buy -back offer (OPRA). Oddo also notes that the French group does not have an offer as wide as the American groups, pointing to an “absence in the IA segment of model training” and the “delay in paas diversification (‘Platform as a Service’, a form of cloud structure where the platform is managed by a supplier, editor’s note).

Guest of BFM Business this Tuesday, April 8, the director general of the company, Benjamin Revcolevschi, insisted on the important transformation of the group.

“We have changed in recent years. OVHCLOUD has doubled in size and we have a billion euros in turnover. We have 43 datas centers (data centers) worldwide, half of which is based internationally,” he told OVH director, at the Good Morning Business.

“We have developed offers that 80% of people need on the cloud, that is to say data storage, calculation power, open source IA engines, the resilience of the centers that ensure data protection,” explains the manager.

An exaggerated increase

In a note published Monday, April 7, TP ICAP Midcap wanted to set the record straight. Without ambage, the design office has considered “exaggerated the spectacular rebound in the title” last week, believing that Ovhcloud “should not particularly benefit from European taxation”.

“We believe that a taxation of GAFAMs or American Hyperscalers would not change the competitive environment of cloud and AI services in Europe. Indeed, these services are different from each other by specific components and an ecosystem and are not easily interchangeable. There is a very high level of adhesion of customers to these services”, develops Veneta Nikolova OVHCLOUD cover for TP ICAP Midcap.

According to her, a taxation of the products and services of American giants will result in price increases. “Many large European companies use the services of ‘hyperscalers’, and it is very unlikely that they change their supplier only on the price argument. OVH could certainly assert its lower prices than those of the Hyperscalers’, but we believe that this argument, already put forward, seduces above all SMEs,” warns the analyst.

In addition, TP ICAP Midcap believes that the level of debt of OVHCloud does not allow it to capture all opportunities in the European Union, even in the United States. Recent obtaining of the Certification Secnumcloud is not enough, according to the design office, to reduce the weight of hyperscalers.

“Finally, if SecnumCloud has established itself in France, no“ sovereign ”security standard has imposed itself in Europe, and discussions on European standard Eucs have bogged down for lack of consensus, knowing that Orange and Deutsche Telecom have made the choice of Microsoft (and Thales Google) for the sovereign cloud, and Oracle and Aws develop their own sovereign clouds”, concludes It remains to “sell” on the file, with a price target of 6 euros.

On the Paris Stock Exchange, OVHCLOUD increased from 4.4% to 11.04 euros this Tuesday around 3:30 p.m., bringing its annual gains to 26.5%.