In conjunction with its earnings report for last year's final quarter, global data center provider Equinix announced the launch of two new European data centers and a plan to expand an existing one.

Equinix CEO Stephen Smith said in a conference call on Wednesday that the company's "earn-it-before-you-spend-it mind set" has allowed it to secure enough capital to continue expansion over 2009, at a time when most others in the space were hard-pressed to finance footprint growth, which has given the provider a competitive advantage.

Equinix expanded by building new facilities, expanding new ones and through acquisition. The company took a big step in October, when it announced a $689 million deal to acquire Switch and Data, a move expected to increase the buyer's portfolio by 34 data centers in US and Canada instantly.

"Equinix currently expects to close the transaction in the second quarter (of 2010)," Smith said.

One of the two brand new facilities announced Wednesday is located in the southwestern region of Frankfurt and brings the size of the company's Frankfurt portfolio to four facilities. Equinix has launched the first phase of the new $30 million facility, expanding its capacity in the market by about 1,700 cabinet equivalents sitting on 65,000 square feet. The data center will yield about 130,000 square feet of cabinet floor at full build-out.

The expansion announced this week is also in Frankfurt, albeit at a different facility located in the city's north. Equinix will invest $18 million in the 27,000 square foot expansion of its FR2 data center, expecting to bring the additional capacity online by September 2010.

The second new data center whose launch Equinix announced this Wednesday is located in Dusseldorf - the company's second in the area. The new data center (DU2) provides 29,000 square feet of computer floor, or enough space to support 560 IT cabinets. A fiber network will connect the company's two facilities in the city, allowing customers at DU1 "to seamlessly grow their data center operations."

The company continued expansion 14 out of 18 markets it operates over the course of 2009. Currently, expansion projects remain underway in eight of those markets. The investment is part of an ongoing $1.4 billion expansion program, expected to last from 2007 through 2010.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, Equinix reported total revenues of $242.55 million, a seven percent jump from the preceding quarter. The company's net income during the quarter was $17.7 million, a decrease from the prior quarter's $18.8 million.