"The British data center services company Telecity Group is carrying out a large-scale expansion plan that is taking it further into Europe as it builds new facilities and increases existing data center space in response to growing demand for Internet services across the continent.
The company’s multi-year expansion plan focuses on increasing its capacity across all markets by building new infrastructure and adding on to existing facilities to ensure that it can support its growth. In May, Telecity Groupannounced that it acquired the Turkish data center services provider Sadece Hosting, giving it control of what it called the premier data center and hosting service in Istanbul, where the company expects to capitalize on Turkey’s high Internet traffic growth rate.
In addition to Istanbul, Telecity Group owns data center space in London, Manchester, Paris, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Milan, Dublin and Frankfurt. The company’s earnings have remained strong and grew by about 2.1 percent in the first half of 2013, as it earned slightly more than $7,600 per square meter of data center space during that period, according to the company.
“Telecity Group has made good progress during the first half of 2013,” CEO Michal Tobin said in a press release. “We will continue to develop our key customer relationships and expand across Europe, both on an organic basis and through selective M&A, in response to the growing customer demand that we are seeing.”
Reaching New Markets
Telecity Group’s expansion comes at a time when Internet usage among Europeans has soared, with Turkey’s growth tracking faster than in many other countries. Europeans spent an average of about 27 hours online per month in 2012, according to comScore. Users in Turkey spend about 31 hours online per month, second only to the United Kingdom with 37.3 hours.
There were about 23.9 million internet users in Turkey last year, a number that increased by 2 percent since 2011 figure. Nearly 37 percent of those Turkish Internet users are younger than 35.
“Turkey is one of the fastest growing digital economies in the world and Sadece has played a major role in enabling this growth,” Tobin said. “The combination of our data center expertise and Sadece’s service leadership creates a highly attractive choice for customers, both from the domestic Turkish market and international businesses seeking to grow in this region."
