M&A, LatAm, global markets, MSP, managed public cloud
The past week was highlighted by M&A activity, movement in the managed public cloud market, JV formation and more expansion activity in support of hyperscale expansions.
Equnix continues to use M&A to expand into global markets. It made a second acquisition in South America with the purchase of four data centres from Chilean telco Entel. The deal gives it presence in both Chile and Peru. The publicly traded data centre peer group has shrunk as a result of investors taking them private and positioning for long-term growth and expansion. Switch Communications could be the next as the rumour mill around it is starting to swirl. On the MSP side, Netrix and Thrive continue to consolidate assets and recently closed deals.
There were a pair of notable developments on the strategic side in APAC. Canada Pension Plan teamed up with Pacific Asset Management to form a JV to develop a hyperscale data centre in Seoul, while Japan’s SCSK and NEC formed a data centre JV to operate a data centre facility in Inzai, outside Tokyo. Elsewhere in APAC, Equinix acquired land in Chennai, India and CtrlS broke ground on a third data centre in Hyderabad, while GDS revealed expansion plans for the Hong Kong market.
The managed public cloud market continues to progress. Rackspace disclosed wins for AWS and Google Cloud, while Bespin Global won a cloud management deal.
There were also a few public cloud deals of note. Google Cloud is working with BT on a big digital transformation project and GoTo is using Oracle Cloud. And in hyperscale expansions, AWS is investing more in UK-based data centres, while Vantage Data Centers is investing in more capacity to accommodate hyperscale requirements in Canada.
We also take a closer look at Cloudflare’s earnings. Cloudflare continues to release new products, with a new API security service, and its results reflect how growth and expansion is a higher priority than profits. In that sense, it is trying to follow the path of the hyperscale cloud platforms.
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