Interxion closes in on Equinix in battle for Emea colocation market supremacy

Interxion appears to be closing in on colocation market leader Equinix in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea), according to Cloudscene’s fourth-quarter datacentre sector tracker.

Cloudscene create its leaderboard by using public data to rank more than 5,800 colocation providers according to the number of facilities and points of presence they operate.

Its data shows that Interxion’s leaderboard score increased by almost 25% over the past year, buoyed perhaps by the expansion of its datacentre campuses in Frankfurt, Stockholm and Zurich.

Cloudscene ranks Interxion second in Emea behind Equinix. Telehouse, Digital Realty and Global Switch made up the rest of the top five. This is the fourth quarter in a row that Equinix has retained top spot in Emea, along with North America, Oceania and Asia.

In recent years, the global provider has made a number of acquisitions to boost its worldwide footprint. In December 2016, it bought 24 datacentre campuses from telecoms company Verizon for its presence in the US and Latin America. And in February 2017, Equinix bought IO’s business in Slough to extend its number of datacentres in that location.

For North America, Cloudscene ranked Digital Realty in second place, with CoreSite, Zayo and Cologix also in the top five.

In Oceania, Equinix was joined by NEXTDC, Vocus Communications, Global Switch and Macquarie Telecom Group as the most successful providers.

Global Switch also made the top five for Asia, ahead of GPX Global Systems, NTT Communications and Netmagic.

Cloudscene changed the selection process for its fourth-quarter rankings by putting only carrier-neutral datacentre operators on the leaderboard. These are providers run datacentres that can interconnect with other colocation suppliers.

Cloudscene founder Bevan Slattery said this decision was made after speaking with industry figures and and it resulted in the removal of SUNeVision’s MEGA-i and MEGA Plus datacentres in Hong Kong, along with PIPE Networks’ and AAPT’s facilities.

“Carrier-neutrality is an area that continues to be a critical consideration in the colocation decision-making process,” said Slattery. “We need to focus on and celebrate datacentre operators and facilities that embrace customer and carrier access on a non-discriminatory basis.”

Cloudscene has also ranked the top 50 markets to colocate this year, based on the number of datacentre facilities and its providers. Europe leads the way, with London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam in the top three spots. Washington DC and Hong Kong completed the top five.

Slattery said despite Hong Kong being on the radar in the past, this latest ranking “is a testament to the great things to come from this market in 2018”.

European regions made up 40% of the top 50, including cities such as Paris and Stockholm. The Asia-Pacific region made up 18% of the list, including Sydney and Tokyo.