Equinix

Overview

Equinix is a US-headquartered REIT based in Redwood, California. Founded in 1998, it is one of the pioneers of colocation and it is the world’s largest retail colocation operator. It also owner of the worlds busiest private network or Internet Exchange Point (IXP), Equinix Exchange, with an average of 9,900Gbps throughput. For comparison, the London Internet Exchange (LINX) has a throughput of 4,170Gbps.

For this reason Equinix describes itself more broadly as both a connectivity and data centre provider. Equinix is a highly acquisitive company. In the UK its purchases include Telecity in 2016 for $3.8 billion, and IXEurope in 2007 for $550 million. Internationally we have tracked more than $9.5 billion in M&A activity by Equinix since 2012.

As a condition for approving the acquisition of Telecity, the European competition commission required them to divest a number of assets which were acquired by Digital Realty.

Equinix operates across 63 metros and counting. During 2020, Equinix’s revenues increased by 8% compared to 2019. EMEA revenues continued to be lead by colocation at 75% of all revenue, followed by interconnection services at 11%. Equinix also registered a 6% increase in its 2020 Gross Profit compared to its results in 2019.

In 2020, Equinix expanded into India with the acquisition of GPX India as well as completing the acquisition of thirteen Bell Canada data centres.

In 2021, Equinix acquired Main One, a West African data centre and connectivity solutions provider for $320m.

In 2022, Equinix expanded into Chile and Peru with the acquisition of four data centres from Entel for $758m. Also in 2022, Equinix announced its market entry into Malaysia investing approximately $41 million.