Infrastructure firms dominate European data centre market

The knock-on-effect of the IT Infrastructure companies moving across markets is affecting overall market dynamics. For instance, pricing is becoming more disruptive as operators are seeing proof that having IT infrastructure firms in a facility will actively draw in new enterprise customers. As such, securing these deals is increasingly competitive.

As a whole, the European colocation market has grown by nearly 6% since the beginning of year with supply increasing by 11MW in the quarter to reach 816MW. This follows investment into the sector hitting $8.7 billion in the second quarter driven by increased M&A activity. In terms of take-up, Europe will need a particularly strong fourth quarter to reach the 60MW level of annual take-up which is considered par for the major markets.

Andrew Jay, EMEA Head of Data Centre Solutions, at CBRE explains:

“IT infrastructure companies, at present, are dominating the European data centre market. We’ve seen overall demand dynamics mirror what these firms are doing. The implications are wider as well, operators are now seeing proof that deploying an on-off ramp to the cloud in your data centre will attract enterprise customers so securing the IT Infrastructure providers to your premises is becoming vital.

“Separately, the issue of data protection has developed significantly since the Safe Harbour ruling.  Such concerns have been important in keeping demand strong in Frankfurt, exemplified by Microsoft’s announcement of its partnership with Deutsche Telekom and the expectation is that this theme will persist in the coming months with some markets gaining significantly.”