NTT and Equinix lead APAC co-location market

NTT and Equinix are leading the Asia-Pacific (APAC) market for datacentre co-location services in a fragmented region dotted with local and global players, according to new data from Synergy Research Group.

The two companies laid claim to having the strongest pan-regional presence, with each having a substantial market share in major APAC economies. NTT took the overall pole position and leads in in Japan and India, while number two player Equinix leads in Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong.

The companies ranked third to fifth in the region are all Chinese firms that are focused almost exclusively on their home market – China Telecom, GDS and 21Vianet.

While those companies benefit from the sheer scale of their home market, other well-established co-location providers who feature strongly in two or more country markets include KDDI Telehouse, STT GDC, Global Switch, Digital Realty and Keppel.

Relatively new entrants to the multi-country scene that have aggressive growth plans include AirTrunk, Princeton Digital Group and Chindata.

The diverse nature of the leadership rankings reflects the structure of the APAC market. While it is home to the massive Chinese and Japanese co-location markets, which are bested only by the US in terms of scale, those two countries account for less than 60% of regional revenues.

The next biggest country markets in the region are Singapore, Australia, India and Hong Kong, all of which feature in the worldwide top ten ranking for co-location. Outside of these top six APAC countries, South Korea is a substantial market that is currently seeing very strong growth.

Relative to other regions, APAC is just behind North America in terms of current scale but well ahead of Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea).

Synergy noted that APAC is growing much more rapidly than the other two major regions and its growth will continue to outpace them over the next five years. In 2022, APAC will overtake North America to become the largest regional co-location market.

“APAC is a really interesting market. While at first glance the region might appear to share some characteristics with the European market, it is actually very different,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research Group.

“APAC is less homogeneous than Europe in terms of regulatory, cultural, economic, business and operational issues. China is an extremely difficult business proposition for non-Chinese datacentre operators while both Japan and India are also difficult markets to penetrate.

“But the fact remains that it is a high-growth region and the amount of focus it is getting from hyperscale operators will help to drive future growth, especially on the wholesale side of the co-location market,” Dinsdale added.

In June 2021, Equinix secured additional funding from Singapore’s state investment company GIC to expand the number of xScale datacentres that cater to hyperscale cloud suppliers. In APAC, Equinix plans to open three new xScale datacentres in Osaka and three other similar facilities in Tokyo.

Charles Meyers, CEO of Equinix, said: “For years, the world’s largest cloud service providers, including Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, have partnered with Equinix to leverage its global platform of more than 220 datacentres to directly connect to their strategic business partners and customers. With our xScale programme, these hyperscalers can continue to grow at Equinix while in close proximity to an ecosystem of 10,000 customers.”