The global phenomena of growing urbanization and ICT technological advancements enable the digital transformation and renewal of cities embodied in the ‘Smart Cities’ concept. A myriad of conceptualized models and frameworks have been proposed by multiple stakeholders; however, an easily adaptable, widely applicable and robust smart city model is not yet available, which leaves space for yet untapped fields of research. This article attempts to explore the factors hindering SC developments for European medium-sized cities based on a sample of Hungarian medium-sized cities. The study utilizes Porter's Five Forces Framework from the field of strategic management, which is currently rather neglected in the discussion of ‘Smart Cities’. Findings show that the main barriers are ‘Knowledge gaps’, ‘Availability and Quality of Data’, ‘Vendor Lock-in’, ‘Biased Approaches’ and the ‘Lack of Standards’.