Research Study Finds an Increasing Number of European Companies Planning to Expand Datacentres

press release by DLR:

Independent Survey Commissioned by Digital Realty Trust Indicates that Datacentre Projects for the Coming 12-24 Months Have Increased and Expanded in Scope Despite Economic Conditions

DUBLIN, Feb. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: DLR - News), the world's largest wholesale datacentre provider, has released the results of a new study of the datacentre market in Europe that assesses the datacentre plans of European companies and the trends that will shape the datacentre industry in the near term. The study, which succeeds the one Digital Realty Trust released in early 2008 about the European datacentre market, is based on a detailed survey of senior decision makers who are either directly responsible for datacentres or influence significant decisions related to datacentre operations at large European organisations. The research was conducted for Digital Realty Trust by the respected research firm Campos Research and Analysis.

Key findings of the new study include:

• More than four out of five companies surveyed are planning datacentre expansions within the next two years.
• More than a quarter of surveyed companies are actively planning immediate datacentre expansion projects that are commencing in 2009, and 69 percent of companies are planning projects that will commence in 12-24 months.
• Compared to last year's survey results, there has been a 117 percent increase in the number of firms that will seek more than 2,500 square metres for their datacentres, indicating that the scope of datacentre projects has grown significantly.
• Compared to last year's survey results, there has been a 22 percent increase in projected average datacentre space requirements from 1,300 square metres to 1,600 square metres - a significant increase that will impact the balance of supply and demand for datacentre space in European markets.

"Despite the dramatic changes in the economic climate, this year's results indicate that an even larger proportion of European companies are planning datacentre projects. Moreover, these projects are bigger by every measure," said Bernard Geoghegan, Senior Vice President at Digital Realty Trust who oversees International Operations. "These trends corroborate what we are continuing to hear from so many of our customers - that datacentres have become critical corporate assets that ensure competitiveness in difficult times and that will drive growth when economic conditions improve."

Other findings of note in the new study include:

• A 21 percent increase compared to last year's survey in average power capacity per rack (4.7kW v. 5.7kW) that companies are projecting, which is a significant metric for datacentre power requirements.
• More than 60 percent of companies plan to use a partner to expand rather than taking a do-it-yourself approach to these large datacentre projects.
• Companies identified London as the top location for the datacentre projects being planned. Paris was identified as the second most popular location for upcoming datacentre projects.

"This survey supports the strong demand for datacentre space we are continuing to see in London and Paris. These markets already have a significant imbalance between demand for datacentre facilities and very limited supply, and this study indicates that those will continue to be key locations for corporate datacentre projects over the next two years," Geoghegan added.

About the Methodology

Metrics reported in this study are based on Web-based surveys of IT decision makers at large corporations in four European countries: the U.K., France, Germany and Ireland. All surveyed companies have annual revenues of at least euro 1.0 billion and/or at least 2000+ employees. All survey participants are directly involved in the process of managing corporate datacentres, executing contracts for new datacentres, implementing new datacentres or expanding existing datacentres. All participants were senior level executives, including CxOs, in MIS, IS or Finance. The survey was conducted in October 2008.