Latin America data center infrastructure market to surpass $1 billion in 2013

The data center infrastructure market is forecast to grow at an average annual rate of roughly 10% through 2016.

By IHS Inc. March 22, 2013

IMS Research’s (recently acquired by IHS Inc.) latest report titled The Latin American Market for Data Center Infrastructure – 2013 Edition forecasts that the Latin American market foruninterruptible power supplies (UPS), data center cooling, rack power distribution units (PDU), and IT racks and enclosures will surpass $1 billion by the end of 2013.

The data center infrastructure market is forecast to grow at an average annual rate of roughly 10% through 2016. The UPS market accounts for the greatest share of revenues, at nearly three-quarters of the total market. Next in size are IT racks and enclosures, cooling, and rack PDU.

According to IMS Research analyst Andrés Gallardo: “The Latin American economy is rapidly evolving to compete in the global market, and there is no exception to the digitalization and efficiency trends that drive the data center market. Nonetheless, it is well-known that up-front costs are of greater concern than operational costs throughout the region. For this reason, lower cost products tend to have a greater share of revenues than in more advanced economies like the US or Europe.

“It is not surprising that the two fastest growing products are rack PDU and cooling equipment for two reasons. Primarily, the need to increase efficiency within a data center is a global trend, and Latin America is no exception. Secondly, poorly equipped data centers and server rooms historically used rack PDUs and cooling equipment not specifically designed for data centers. This means that these products are the first ones to be replaced when updating the data center.” Gallardo added.

The market is becoming increasingly competitive, with the top vendors acquiring local companies and distributors in order to increase local presence. IMS Research estimates that APC by Schneider Electric, Emerson and Eaton combined accounted for nearly 60% of the total Latin American data center infrastructure revenues during 2011.