Equinix, an American digital infrastructure company, announced on Monday it has completed its deal to acquire West African data centre and connectivity solutions provider MainOne for a value of $320-million. Equinix says that this new acquisition marks the beginning of its expansion into the African continent.
The completion of this acquisition has bolstered Equinix’s efforts into being able to bring a full range of technologies and connectivity to Nigeria, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire.
This acquisition will extend Platform Equinix into West Africa, giving organizations based inside and outside of Africa access to global and regional markets. Nigeria has both the largest population and the largest economy of any country in Africa, with approximately 142 million active internet subscribers. Home to new innovative digital ecosystems in fintech and content and digital media, it has a great opportunity for the expansion of digital services.
MainOne
Equinix believes MainOne, headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, to be one of the most exciting technology businesses to emerge from Africa, and Lagos is rapidly becoming a key connectivity hub for the wider West Africa region.
Founded by Funke Opeke in 2010, the company has enabled connectivity for the business community of Nigeria and now has digital infrastructure assets, including three operational data centres, with an additional facility in Lagos expected to open in April 2022.
MainOne’s assets include four operational data centres, which will add more than 64,000 gross square feet of space to Platform Equinix, in addition to 570,000 square feet of land for future expansions.
An extensive submarine network extending 7,000 kilometres from Portugal to Lagos, Accra, and along the West African coast, with landing stations in Nigeria, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire. MainOne will now operate under a new brand “MainOne, an Equinix company.”
The closure of the MainOne acquisition marks the latest in a series of strategic acquisitions for Equinix. Following the announcement of intent to acquire MainOne in December 2021, Equinix recently announced expansions in South America with its intended acquisition of three Entel data centres to accelerate digital transformation opportunities for local businesses and multinational companies.
Both acquisitions followed announcements to acquire 13 Bell data centres in Canada and two highly interconnected data centres in Mumbai through the acquisition of GPX India in October 2020 and September 2021, respectively.
Edited by Zintle Nkohla
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