Report Synopsis

This is the first report that assesses the Latin America marketplace for data centres. It identifies key trends across the seven main markets: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Peru with a total of more than 200 data centres (excluding enterprise data centres). Research results provided a mixed service perspective for data centres across the continent, with basic colocation and wholesale space typically provided. This means there is much to go in terms of introducing more valuable managed services and could represent a significant opportunity for cloud services. Data centre growth will be particularly intensive in Sao Paulo and Santiago de Chile, where the economies remain more predictable.

What the report accurately portrays is the vast geography of the continent as well as its potential, and the way in which metro areas are progressively being connected using dark fibre and submarine cables. Conversely, power generation networks and grid connections remain an immense challenge as does the development of clean and renewable energy. Argentina for example has large untapped hydroelectric potential.

Moves are afoot to build wind power plants and introduce green energy across the continent. But the investment required to do so probably means this will only occur in the longer term. Nevertheless research did uncover evidence of plans for some of the new data centres under construction to be powered by renewable energy.

The report finds that although data centre businesses have largely flourished over the past two years, significant infrastructure challenges lie ahead, particularly those resulting from a lack of investment by the utility firms in power transmission, but also a lack of diversity in supply.

Having weathered the last global financial crisis, the Latin American economies are gaining new momentum. These economies are not homogeneous but data centres have generally fared well across the key metro areas of Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago de Chile, Mexico DF, Queretaro, Monterrey, Bogota, Lima and Panama. Apart from Argentina, evidence of investment in data centre new build is provided. The report suggests there is no threat of over-supply of facilities and in most cases there could be space shortages in the next few years.

Sources for growth in demand are reviewed for each country in the report. Apart from new customer segment growth and demand, it was interesting to note that in Brazil for example, a high percentage of revenue is derived from online gaming.

Demand from enterprises and multinationals present on the continent is placing new pressure on data centres – dominated by telecoms operators, systems integrators and ISPs - to upgrade their facilities at a time when they also are engaged in reviewing the need to change their business model. Research for this report has been conducted at an interesting juncture in data centre market evolution in Latin America, where although participation by carrier neutral data centres is still very limited, business models are changing and the prospect of new market entrants is increasing.

The report also discusses service development and limitations, the pricing of data centres in each country, and power pricing.

Brazil remains the largest market by space and revenue for the data centre sector. The country’s power consumption alone is more than double the combined consumption of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Uruguay.

Each country contains a detailed taxonomy of data centre location by player, service delivery capacity, data centre facility profiles, and total space. It also covers critical issues of infrastructure and power availability for each country and key player profiles.

The location of facilities determined by proximity to power plants, concentrations of business headquarters, geographically stable is quite pronounced across the continent. Locating outside the main metro areas appears to be a growing trend.

Overall the report forecasts an overall increase of 61% in space to 2014.

Contents

Tables and Charts