Hyperscale CAPEX Reached $22 Billion In Q4 And Is Still Growing Rapidly
New Q4 data from Synergy Research Group shows that the CAPEX of hyperscale operators totaled $22 billion in the quarter and reached almost $75 billion for the full year, representing 19% growth over 2016. Much of that hyperscale CAPEX goes towards building and expanding huge data centers, which have now grown in number to 400. The top five spenders are Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook, which in aggregate account for over 70% of Q4 hyperscale CAPEX. Across all hyperscale operators, 2017 CAPEX equated to just over 7% of total revenues, although the ratio varies greatly by company, from a low of 2% to a high of 17% depending on the nature of the business. The research is based on analysis of the CAPEX and data center footprint of 24 of the world’s major cloud and internet service firms, including the largest operators in IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, search, social networking, and e-commerce.