The survey was conducted by IDC on behalf of co-location and managed service provider , and it polled 401 enterprises across the four largest European countries (Germany, UK, France and the Netherlands)

IDC estimated that the combined carrier-neutral colocation market in those countries was worth 725 million euros (£632 million) in 2008, and but in 2013 it will reach 2.01 billion euros (£1.75bn), which equates to a 23 percent CAGR (compound annual growth rate).

Despite this, companies expect their total data centre capacity (by number of racks) to shrink 1.1 percent in the year to March 2010.

The survey found that nearly all 95 percent of companies operated their own data centre. Around 20 percent of the companies surveyed used an IT outsourcer's data centre, and 11 percent used a colocation service.

IDC thinks that the main reasons for expecting capacity to shrink are IT consolidation and the combined response of utility/cloud computing or server virtualisation (with the need for less servers). This is attractive in the current climate, thanks to the need to cut costs and reduce duplication and overlap.