Presence in all four major European markets, and power supply will differentiate winners in the data centre market by 2016. However, outsourcing growth across the next 3 years will fall only slightly short of the US level of 30%. The conclusions are drawn in a major new report by consulting firm BroadGroup, Datacentres Europe IV.

In this new update of the 2010 report, data centre market forecasts across 17 Western European countries, key suppliers and industry issues have been analysed. The report believes that Europe is now in its third stage of evolution with datacentres targeting vertical segments such as cloud, media, and other financials presenting a more challenging marketing proposition.

The report predicts that huge focus will be sustained on the “Big 4” markets of London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris which in the first quarter of 2012 represented around 85% of datacentre Capex. Regional expertise is a competitive differentiator, and as obsolescence will threaten poor quality facilities who fail to improve their PUE rates, pan-Europeans have the opportunity to advance their vertical market expertise and leverage cost, technical and managed services differentiation.

The report forecasts that the importance of the “Big 4” markets will increase over the next three years before ending in 2016 at virtually the same share of 3rd party datacentre space. This reflects the continuing focus on the major markets, and the current investment plans of the major players. Significant growth will occur in the wholesale datacentre segment and carrier neutral facilities across the next 3 years.