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Indian data center colocation services is one of the fastest growing markets in the world largely driven by demand for colocation services from hyperscale cloud segment, OTT players, and content providers. The demand for hyperscale data center capacity has been growing at a good pace in India for the last couple of years. The growth is attributed to multiple factors, such as enterprises moving their IT infrastructure to the public cloud, high consumer demand for app-based/OTT services running on the cloud, and rapid increase in internet data consumption. In addition, the government’s mandate on data localization is encouraging the public cloud providers and big tech companies to host their data in the data centers situated within India. Hence, it is also contributing toward the demand for hyperscale data center colocation.

While hyperscale demand is expected to drive majority of data center colocation growth in the coming years, enterprise/retail demand from BFSI and IT verticals will drive a sustained contribution to the growth of data center colocation market in India. Enterprises are shifting from their captive establishment to colocation data centers to reduce capital expenditure, achieve higher operational efficiencies, and leverage state-of-the-art infrastructures of colocation facilities. The outbreak of COVID-19 has further strengthened enterprise movement from captive data centers to colocation facilities to ensure business continuity.

Competitive intensity in India is increasing rapidly with the entry of new domestic participants, such as Yotta Infrastructure and Adani Group, and global firms, such as Equinix and Colt, leading to emphasis on service differentiation. Increasing complexity in data center operations and high cost of real estate and power are the two major restraints for colocation service providers, and also act as key barriers for new entrants.