Equinix NASDAQ: EQIX reported third-quarter results marked by double-digit growth in recurring revenue, interconnection revenue and adjusted funds from operations per share, while management raised its full-year 2026 outlook and highlighted accelerating sales activity, higher pricing on new deals and expanded capacity plans.
CEO and President Adaire Fox-Martin said the company’s customer demand remained broad-based, supported by its interconnected data center ecosystem and a diversified customer base. No individual customer accounts for more than 2.5% of Equinix revenue, she said. During the quarter, Equinix completed more than 25,000 transactions across more than 3,200 customers.
“Demand is strong, it is broad-based, and it is durable,” Fox-Martin said, citing enterprise investment in both traditional infrastructure and artificial intelligence-related workloads. She said large enterprises, particularly those in financial services, are building hybrid AI infrastructure and increasingly need connectivity, compute and deployment solutions across multiple environments.
Revenue, Bookings and Pricing
Chief Financial Officer Olivier Leonetti said monthly recurring revenue increased 11% year over year on a normalized, constant-currency basis, while total revenue rose 12%. Adjusted EBITDA margin reached 51.4%, up 180 basis points from a year earlier, reflecting revenue growth, cost discipline and operating leverage.
Normalized AFFO per share increased 12% from the prior year. Including the closing of the atNorth transaction, AFFO per share increased 18%, according to the company.
Equinix recorded annualized gross bookings of $533 million, up 35% year over year and its first quarter above $500 million, Fox-Martin said. Total sales activity, including pre-sales, rose 38%. The company had already closed 60% of its fourth-quarter bookings target at the time of the call.
Management also pointed to increasing pricing power. Pricing on new deals rose 12% year over year in the third quarter, while monthly recurring revenue churn was 1.7%. Fox-Martin said Equinix is increasingly focused on renewing existing customer contracts at higher rates where appropriate, while also pursuing opportunities for upselling services and higher-density deployments.
“There is no question this is becoming a more meaningful lever for us, and we expect that trend to continue,” Fox-Martin said of pricing.
Leonetti said customers that left during the quarter averaged 5 kilowatts per cabinet, while incoming customers averaged 7 kilowatts per cabinet, reflecting rising power densities associated with AI workloads. Net interconnections increased by 6,900 during the quarter, and net cabinet billings increased by 5,700. The company’s sold-but-not-yet-installed backlog reached a record level.
Capacity Expansion and Development Pipeline
Equinix said it increased the number of cabinets planned for delivery during the second half of the year and now expects to exceed its full-year retail capacity plan by nearly 40%. The company expects to deliver more than 13,000 cabinets in the fourth quarter, its highest quarterly delivery level on record, with more than 20% of that capacity already pre-sold.
Management said 15% of retail capacity scheduled to come online in 2027 has already been pre-sold. The company has 3 gigawatts of developable capacity, including projects underway, with about 80% located in its top 25 metropolitan markets. Fox-Martin said land, power and permitting are largely secured for that development pipeline.
The company currently has 48 projects under development across 32 markets. Since the previous earnings call, Equinix opened six projects across six metropolitan areas, including Dubai, Frankfurt, Miami, Paris and Sydney. Quarterly capital expenditures totaled about $1.6 billion, with roughly 90% directed toward capacity expansion.
Fox-Martin acknowledged industry pressures involving power availability, regulation and local community sentiment, but said Equinix’s projects generally range from 40 megawatts to 60 megawatts and are often located in established industrial zones or existing campuses. She said the company’s geographically diversified development portfolio helps it manage project-specific delays or changes.
Equinix also cited a 20-year agreement with Central Georgia Electric Membership Corporation under which it will fund a new substation and transmission lines for its campus. The company said the arrangement protects local ratepayers while providing reliable access to power, and is expected to generate up to $20 million in annual local property tax revenue and nearly 1,000 local jobs.
Technology Offerings and Financial Position
During the quarter, Equinix introduced Equinix Inference Exchange with NVIDIA and Together AI, designed to provide enterprises access to more than 200 open AI models. It also introduced Equinix Fabric One, a connectivity offering intended to automate network configuration based on customer-defined outcomes. AWS and Google Cloud are the lead integration partners for Fabric One, which is entering beta ahead of planned general availability early next year.
Fox-Martin also said the company opened a global network of innovation centers where customers can test liquid-cooled AI infrastructure. Liquid-cooling bookings increased more than tenfold year over year in the third quarter.
The company’s stabilized portfolio of 193 assets was 83% utilized and generated a 27% cash-on-cash return. Interconnection revenue within those assets increased 10% year over year, compared with 7% growth in colocation revenue.
Equinix ended the quarter with net leverage of 4.1 times, $9.1 billion of available liquidity and a 3.2% blended in-place borrowing rate that is primarily fixed, with an average maturity of more than six years. Leonetti said the company aims to double the size of its portfolio with only a modest increase in leverage while retaining investment-grade credit ratings.
Raised 2026 Outlook
For the fourth quarter, Equinix forecast normalized, constant-currency monthly recurring revenue growth of 10% to 11% year over year and total revenue growth of 12% to 13%.
For the full year, the company raised its outlook for total revenue by $100 million, targeting approximately 12% year-over-year growth. It raised adjusted EBITDA guidance by $70 million, targeting an EBITDA margin of about 51%, and increased AFFO guidance by $90 million, including a $31 million contribution from atNorth. The company expects AFFO per share growth of 11% to 12%, representing an increase of $0.92 in its outlook.
Equinix maintained its expectation for capital expenditures, excluding real estate acquisitions and xScale, of $5 billion to $6 billion for the year.
About Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX)
Equinix, Inc is a global digital infrastructure company that operates data centers where businesses, cloud providers, telecommunications carriers and other organizations can securely house and connect their information technology systems. Its International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers provide colocation services, allowing customers to place equipment in highly connected facilities without building and operating their own sites.
The company also provides interconnection and networking services, including Equinix Fabric, which enables customers to establish virtual connections among data centers, cloud platforms, networks and business partners.
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