Equinix is planning to build its eighth data center in the New York metropolitan area and to expand substantially its data centers in Chicago and Frankfurt.

Equinix president and CEO Steve Smith said in a statement the three locations were in critical markets for many of the company's customers, especially financial services and media firms, as well as enterprises and network providers.

"We continue to experience strong demand for colocation and interconnection services in these markets. The planned expansions are in response to this demand and will enable our customers to grow their businesses in these markets and globally."

The global retail colocation provider announced its US$240m capacity-expansion plan as it set a goal to exceed $2bn in revenue in 2013. The company's total 2010 revenue was about $1.22bn.

Equinix expects to invest about $140m in the build-out of its new New York data center, slated to open its doors in the second quarter of 2012. Phase I of the facility will add about 156,000 sq ft of gross space or 2,200 cabinet equivalents.

The site has room to expand up to about 380,000 sq ft of gross space total or 7,100 cabinet equivalents.

Addition of about 19,000 sq ft of space or 600 cabinet equivalents to Eqjuinix's CH3 data center is expected to cost about $30m. The company plans to bring the new capacity online in the fourth quarter of 2011.

The $70m expansion in Frankfurt represents Phase III of the FR2 facility. The plan is to add 102,000 sq ft of gross space or 1,900 cabinet equivalents in Phase III build-out total by sometime in 2012.

The company plans initially to bring online 480 cabinets during the fourth quarter of 2011.

The expansion announcement came one day after Equinix said it had expanded into the South American market by teaming up with private-equity firm Riverwood Capital and acquiring Brazilian data center provider Alog. The $83m deal gave Equinix two active data centers in Brazil and a third one that is scheduled to come online in June 2011.

Equinix reported a net income of $25.1m on sales of $363m for the first quarter of 2011. The figures represent a 46% increase in revenue and a 77% increase in net income year over year.