Digital infrastructure company Equinix Inc. impressed investors today by reporting first-quarter revenue and earnings that exceeded expectations, while also raising its full-year revenue guidance.

For the fiscal 2025 first quarter that ended on March 31, Equinix reported adjusted earnings of $3.50 per share, up from $2.43 per share in the first quarter of 2024, on revenue of $2.25 billion, up 5% year-over-year. Analysts had been expecting $2.95 per share on revenue of $2.22 billion.

Net income jumped 48%, to $343 million, primarily thanks to higher underlying income from operations. The company ended the quarter with a total of 291,300 cabinets across its global footprint, maintaining a solid 78% utilization rate. The cabinet usage drove Equinix’s recurring revenue figure to $2.087 billion, accounting for 94% of total revenue.

Business highlights in the quarter included Equinix rolling out enhancements to its Fabric and Fabric Cloud Router platforms in February. The updates introduced term-based pricing for virtual connections, enhanced observability tools, including bandwidth alerts and webhook integrations and a redesigned port inventory interface. New routing and connectivity features were also added, including support for route aggregation policies and Z-side service tokens to expand provider options.

Equinix also announced a new collaboration with Dell Technologies in January to strengthen artificial intelligence infrastructure offerings. The partnership focuses on integrating Dell’s high-performance computing hardware with Equinix’s global data center and networking services to meet the rising demand for scalable AI environments.

“Demand for our digital infrastructure and services remains robust,” Chief Executive Adaire Fox-Martin said in the company’s earnings release. “This, together with a healthy balance sheet and customer momentum across a full breadth of geographies, industries, segments and products, reaffirms our confidence in our strategy and ability to create even greater value.”

As a result, she added, “we raised our guidance across our key financial metrics. I believe our focus on serving our customers even better and innovating the solutions and capacity they need to execute their AI, cloud and digital strategies will continue to unlock considerable value in the near and long-term.”

For the full year, Equinix now expects adjusted earnings per share of $37.36 to $38.17 on revenue of $9.175 billion to $9.275 billion. The revenue outlook is a 5% to 6% increase over the company’s previous outlook.

Adam Berlew, chief marketing officer at Equinix, spoke with theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, in March, where he discussed the company’s blueprint for an AI-ready world:

Photo: Equinix