The global collocation market will soar to $36.1 billion in annual revenues by 2017, according to 451 Research’s latest quarterly Datacenter KnowledgeBase (DCKB) release

Current annual revenues in the industry reached $22.8 billion in the first quarter of 2015, with 74.8% of these belonging to local providers with sub-$500m in annualised collocation revenues. This will mean that in the space of two years the worldwide collocation market will have grown 58%.

The DCKB database covers 3,796 individual data centres operated by 1,094 data centre companies worldwide.

Equinix, which yesterday opened its sixth data centre in London, represents 8.42% of global annualised wholesale and retail collocation revenue making the company the current market leader.

Despite owning more commercial space than any of its competitors (9.62%), Digital Realty is the second largest supplier in terms of revenue with 5.65%.

This was also the first quarter the APAC collocation market grew larger than the EMEA.

From today’s 108.9 million sq ft, the company estimates the global collocation market to reach 149.7 million sq ft by the end of 2017.

Kelly Morgan, research director for North American Data Centers, said: "This remains an extremely fragmented industry.

"The majority of collocation facilities are provided by local operators with only one to three facilities each. However, it is becoming harder for them to compete with the more geographically diverse providers that are now entering many local markets. We will see continued consolidation in this sector."