Businesses with digital-first strategy moving 4x faster than pre-pandemic levels finds Equinix

The latest Global Interconnection Index, an annual market study published by Equinix, reveals that the pandemic has forced economies into digital overdrive, with digital leaders, businesses who were already implementing a digital-first strategy, moving four times faster than pre-pandemic levels. These businesses in Europe, Middle East and African (EMEA) region have compacted the time to deploy their digital infrastructure to multiple regions, expand to multiple edge locations and integrate multiple clouds—what might have taken two years is now achievable within six months.

This accelerated pace of digital transformation is predicted to continue to fuel the rapid growth in interconnection bandwidth. According to the GXI Vol. 5, the EMEA region is expected to grow at a 46% CAGR by 2024, contributing with 5,327 Tbps to make up 25% of the global interconnection bandwidth. This growth is aligned with the increasing demand for the digital infrastructure needed to bring more businesses online, facilitate electronic integration with partners and supply chains, and reach more people in distributed hybrid work environments.

• Close to 30% of enterprise infrastructure deployed in carrier-neutral facilities has moved to the edge, in proximity to points of data consumption. Service Providers are also expanding at the edge, growing their edge infrastructure 2x faster than their core infrastructure, enabling them to support increasing demand from enterprises.
• Digital leaders are interconnecting with 10 times as many partners, enabling them to ride the wave of digital transformation and enjoy best-of-breed services from a vast pool of Service Providers and partners. The trend has been tracked across 12 industries and three regions for traditional companies, born in the cloud, Service Providers and even hyperscale providers.
• Among industries, the Financial Services sector is expected to deploy more than 50% of Enterprise interconnection bandwidth, with Manufacturing as the second-largest industry.
• The Public Sector, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Industrial Services and Transportation industries are expected to experience the fastest digital infrastructure growth, which is forecast to drive a 48% or more CAGR in interconnection bandwidth from 2020 to 2024 globally. These industries that were previously lagging in interconnection adoption are now leading in interconnection growth rate as a result of the pandemic.

“While COVID has forced businesses to innovate in many ways, by both expanding existing and introducing new digital services, the infrastructure underpinning these services must keep pace,” said Claire Macland, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Equinix. “As a result, savvy businesses are now moving four times faster than pre-pandemic levels in deploying this necessary digital infrastructure.”

“As we emerge from the immediate impact of COVID-19, the MENA region is embarking on a continuous transformation journey that is massive in scale and extremely fast paced. The Global Interconnection Index shows that the digitally powered companies are now moving four times faster than pre-pandemic levels and are using interconnection and distributed infrastructure to shape and scale the global digital economy” said Kamel Al-Tawil, Managing Director for Middle East and North Africa, Equinix.

Courtney Munroe, Research Vice President, Worldwide Telecommunications Research, IDC: “Companies that have adopted a comprehensive digital strategy as a core business pillar—connecting with and leveraging digital platforms with partners, ecosystems, and customers, consistently emerge as disruptive market leaders. Adopting digital platforms and services is essential to achieve the level of agility and resiliency that is required to outpace and out-innovate the competition.”