Equinix Injects Some Caution

It’s been a busy earnings week.  Yesterday datacenter specialist Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) reported earnings, with fourth quarter revenues of $190.7M inline with guidance and adjusted EBITDA of $84.1M which was a little better than guidance.  Diluted net income per share of $2.74 was inline with expectations.  However, the company reduced its revenue projections slightly for 2009, to $855M-875M from their original projection or $870M-892M in October.  This still represents 23% growth during a particularly nasty recession, but the market was disappointed with the number.

Does this represent a slowdown in the datacenter space?  An end to the torrid growth we have seen for the last couple years?  I would say that nobody really knows yet, but certainly a deep enough recession will affect everyone – even Equinix.  Certainly some of the pullback in IT and network spending is going to come out of datacenter projects.  Even if they aren’t seeing it yet (Q1 projections seem ok), nobody can be certain what 2009 holds so Equinix is right to be cautious in their projections.  Heck, being able to make projections of 23% growth in times like these is still pretty darn good.

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Categories: Datacenter · Financials