Equinix Strides Easily Into Q2

Colocation specialist Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) shrugged off the effects of the economy and posted some nice results.  Revenues of $199.2M met guidance and were up 4% sequentially and 26% over this quarter last year.  EBITDA of $91.4 was above guidance of $86-88M, leading to a minor raising/tightening of full year guidance from $365-385M to $370M-385M.  Revenue and EBITDA for Q2 are projected to be $206-210M and $92-94M, respectively.  Equinix had started the year somewhat cautiously due to the difficult economic conditions, but it seems to have a very good handle on things.  

Overall, a solid quarter and a great lead in for the rest of the datacenter space.  The worry has been that with people buying fewer and fewer servers they will need less colocation space to put them in.  This certainly would have to happen eventually, but for now this factor remains more than balanced by a shortage in datacenter space and steadily rising prices.  For more metrics and analysis of Equinix, I recommend a look at Paolo’s excellent forecast over on Nortia Research.

Equinix’s expansion continues, consuming $65.7M with some $200-250M to go for the rest of 2009 on existing projects in Amsterdam, Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris and Singapore.   Capex for current business is of course much smaller than that,  Equinix is using its strong operating cash flow to fund expansion while the capital markets can’t or won’t elsewhere in the sector.  That can only help them in this environment.

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Categories: Datacenter · Financials