India data centre co-location, hosting market to reach $609.1 mn in 2012: Gartner

The data centre co-location and hosting market in India is estimated to reach $609.1 million in 2012, and data center capacity is poised to touch 6.6 million square feet by 2016, with service providers driving majority of the growth.

The market will experience consistent growth through 2016 and is forecast to total $1.3 billion, according to a study by global information technology research and advisory firm Gartner Inc. Gartner Inc.

''Indian telecommunications service providers such as Reliance (Reliance Communications), Tata (Tata Tele), Airtel (Bharti Airtel) and Sify have rapidly expanded their data centre business during the last three years, adding several hundred square feet of data centre space in the Tier 1 cities - primarily in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore,'' said Naveen Mishra, principal research analyst at Gartner.

''Carrier-neutral hosting providers such as Netmagic and CtrlS have had strategic investors funding them to expand their operations by building new sites in cities such as Mumbai and Bangalore,'' he added.

Other players are entering the market, including telecom service providerss like Tulip, Bharat Sanchar Nigal Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd; and system integrators such as Dimension Data (earlier Datacraft Asia), SIS and Trimax.

"A virtualisation-led consolidation strategy seems to be the  common thread across most data centres in India, which would lead to moderate capacity growth,'' said Naresh Singh principal research analyst at Gartner.