Strongest Q1 take up in six years

Data centre operators in Europe have continued to benefit from an improving business environment in the first quarter seeing strong market interest amount to the best first quarter results since 2008, according to the latest research from CBRE, the global real estate advisor. Across the major markets, Q1 2014 take-up totalled 16,712 sq m, 90% higher than the same time last year. Continuing strength of the Cloud Service market has meant that IT Infrastructure providers remain the principal source of larger transactions and are proving to be a vital part of the modern data centre community.

The strongest activity was in Frankfurt which recorded the highest quarterly take-up since 2009 accounting for 39% of the European total. Amsterdam remains an attractive market, viewed as the ideal location to centralise operations aimed at servicing cross border demand.During the quarter Amsterdam take-up was the second highest of the major markets and four times higher than that achieved in Q1 2013. In London total take-up for the first quarter was 3,748 sq m, 61% higher than that achieved in Q1 2013.

Andrew Jay, Executive Director, EMEA Data Centres, CBRE, commented: “The broadly positive nature of economic growth forecasts in Europe bodes well for the prospects of the data centre industry across the continent. IT Infrastructure companies remain an integral driver of growth for the data centre industry with an increasing trend for enterprise businesses to move elements of their information technology services, applications and infrastructure to a cloud-based platform.

“In the UK, the managed services provider, Adapt, announced results from a survey that suggested opportunities for cloud providers are unlikely to diminish in the near future. Therefore, whether it is through third party outsourcing partners, or direct corporate operations, it would appear that the drive of cloud computing uptake is set to continue to underpin the expansion of the European data centre market through 2014.”