Economy Watch: Top Data Center Markets

Nine of the top 20 markets generating more than 59 percent of worldwide retail and wholesale colocation revenues are in the U.S., according to a new Synergy Research Group report.

By D.C. Stribling, Contributing Editor

Source: Synergy Research Group, January 2018

Source: Synergy Research Group, January 2018

Worldwide, the data center business is highly concentrated, with only 20 major metro areas around the globe accounting for 59 percent of worldwide retail and wholesale colocation revenues, according to a new report by Synergy Research Group. Of these, nine markets are in the United States, and 10 are in North America.

Ranked by third-quarter 2017 revenue, the top five metros are Washington, D.C., New York, Tokyo, London, and Shanghai, with those metros representing 26 percent of the entire market. The next five metros, accounting for 15 percent of the global market, are Chicago, Dallas, Frankfort, Silicon Valley and Singapore.

The third slice of the pie—markets 11 to 20 in terms of retail and wholesale colocation revenue—are Amsterdam, Atlanta, Beijing, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Paris, Phoenix, Seattle, Sydney and Toronto. All together, these 10 markets account for an 18 percent share of the worldwide data center market, Synergy reported.

In the third quarter, Equinix was the market leader by revenue in eight of the top 20 metros, while Digital Realty would be the leader in five more if a full quarter of the acquired DuPont Fabros operations were included in its numbers. Other colocation operators featured in the top 20 metros include 21Vianet, @Tokyo, China Telecom, CoreSite, CyrusOne, Global Switch, Interxion, KDDI, NTT, SingTel and QTS.