Equinix today announced its Q3 2021 earnings and provided updates on its data center portfolio, interconnections, development pipeline, and leasing activity at its xScale (hyperscale) facilities.
Q3 2021 Results – Equinix
Equinix operates a global footprint of 237 data centers, representing 324k cabinets of power capacity. Additionally, these data centers comprise 27.7 million sqft, across 65 metros around the world, and support 10k+ customers.
Revenues
Equinix generated revenues of $1.68bn in Q3 2021, a 2% increase over Q2 2021 and an 8% increase over Q3 2020 (constant currency basis). Specifically, breaking this down by region, Equinix’s revenue and growth was as follows (constant currency basis):
- Americas: $763m of revenue, implying a 2% increase quarter-over-quarter and a 7% increase year-over-year
- EMEA: $545m of revenue, generating a 2% increase quarter-over-quarter and a 6% increase year-over-year
- Asia-Pacific: $367m of revenue, producing a 1% increase quarter-over-quarter and an 11% increase year-over-year
Bookings
In Q3 2021, Equinix delivered consistent bookings, with strength in the Americas region, particularly in Canada, resulting in a total of 4.2k+ deals across 3.1k+ customers. Additionally, the company’s channel program again contributed 35%+ of Equinix’s bookings.
Utilization
At quarter-end, Equinix was billing on 256k out of its 324k cabinets of power capacity, representing a utilization rate of 79%, which was stable quarter-over-quarter. Geographically, Equinix’s utilization is 75% in the Americas, 84% in EMEA, and 78% in Asia-Pacific.
Utilization in both the Americas and EMEA improved by ~1% during Q3 2021, while Asia-Pacific declined by ~4%. However, Asia-Pacific’s decline was attributable to 5.2k cabinet equivalent capacity being added, which has not yet reached a stabilized utilization rate. Indeed, this may in-part be attributable to Equinix closing its $161m acquisition of GPX India in September 2021.
Interconnection
Equinix added 7.8k net interconnections during Q3 2021, bringing the company’s total interconnections to over 414k at quarter-end. Of this total, 379k are physical cross connects and 35.7k are virtual connections.
Overall, the company’s growth in interconnections resulted in interconnection revenues increasing 1.2% quarter-over-quarter and 11.6% year-over-year.
Development Pipeline – Equinix
Equinix has 31 major builds underway in 23 markets across 16 countries, including 8 xScale builds in all three regions of the world. Following significant development, the company anticipates ending 2021 with 331k cabinets of power capacity, a 2% increase from current levels.
Development Focus (excluding xScale)
During 2021, Equinix anticipates spending of $2.1bn to $2.3bn in development capital expenditures, excluding xScale-related projects. Additionally, as part of its Q3 2021 earnings release, Equinix approved expansions of 2.3k cabinets of power capacity at four data centers, namely Madrid (MD6), Milan (ML5), Frankfurt (FR5), and Melbourne (ME2). Finally, during the quarter, Equinix opened 11 new data centers in 9 metros. These openings were in Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Istanbul, New York, Osaka, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Sydney.
xScale Joint Ventures – Hyperscale Builds
In October 2021, Equinix expanded its xScale (hyperscale) data center program with a new partner, in a new geography. Specifically, Equinix formed a $575m joint venture with PGIM Real Estate to develop and operate two facilities in Sydney, Australia with 55+ megawatts of power capacity.
At full build-out, the total investment across Equinix’s xScale data center joint venture with both GIC (Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Americas) and PGIM Real Estate (Australia) will be over $7.5bn, across 34 facilities globally with 675+ megawatts of power capacity.
Overall, xScale-related capital expenditures during 2021 will be between $425m and $475m. Of this total, Equinix will be re-imbursed 80% by GIC and PGIM for the xScale developments.
xScale Leasing
As shown below, 113 megawatts of xScale capacity has been leased to-date, an increase of only 4 megawatts quarter-over-quarter. Particularly, Equinix only secured xScale leasing of 2 megawatts at its Frankfurt 11x facility during Q3 2021.
The other 2 megawatts derives from Equinix’s Madrid 3x data center. However, Equinix notes that it will lease a portion of Madrid 3x, from its EMEA 2 JV (i.e., with GIC), for the retail IBX Madrid 6. Therefore, Equinix has not secured a hyperscale tenant for this capacity but is rather leasing it as retail colocation space.
Finally, across all of its xScale facilities, Equinix has 53 out of 166 megawatts of power capacity available to lease.
