According to the latest data from Synergy Research, five metros comprise more than a quarter of the worldwide colocation market and the top 20 account for 59% of worldwide retail and wholesale colocation revenues.

London, New York, Shanghai, Tokyo and Washington were the top five metros, with Chicago, Dallas, Frankfurt, Silicon Valley and Singapore comprising the top 10. Amsterdam, Atlanta, Beijing, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Paris, Phoenix, Seattle, Sydney, and Toronto were in the top 20.

On the vendor side, in Q3 Equinix was the market leader by revenue in eight of the top 20 metros. Digital Realty will comprise five more once their acquisition of DuPont Fabros operations reaches a full quarter. Other vendors in the mix include 21Vianet, China Telecom, and CyrusOne.

“While we are seeing reasonably robust growth across all major metros and market segments, one number that jumps out is the wholesale growth rate in the Washington/Northern Virginia metro area,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst and research director at Synergy.

“It is by far the largest wholesale market in the world and for it to be growing at 20% is particularly noteworthy.

“The broader picture is that data centre outsourcing and cloud services continue to drive the colocation market, and the geographic distribution of the world’s corporations is focusing the colocation market on a small number of major metro areas,” Dinsdale added.

Earlier this month, Synergy Research argued that data centre mergers and acquisitions in 2017 surpassed 2015 and 2016’s figures combined, producing 48 transactions last year compared with 45 for the previous two years.