Equinix Tops AFFO Estimates And Raises Guidance A Third Time As Record Bookings And Pricing Power Offset A One-Time Fee Boost And Rising Leverage

Equinix delivered a clear beat on its primary REIT earnings measure. AFFO per share was $11.64, ahead of the $10.51 consensus by 7.3% and above the $10.85 Earnings Whisper number, while growing 18.4% year over year. Revenue of $2.571 billion matched the $2.57 billion consensus and rose 11.0%. The headline beat is real, but the more important development sits underneath it: bookings, pricing and capacity are all moving in the right direction at the same time. Management raised full-year guidance for the third consecutive quarter. The tension is that the growth engine now runs on more debt, more capital spending and, this quarter, a non-recurring boost.

The quality of the beat deserves scrutiny. Part of the AFFO upside came from a non-recurring fee tied to the atNorth joint venture, which shows up in $54 million of other income. Excluding that fee and on a normalized, constant-currency basis, AFFO per share grew 12%, not 18%. That is still solid, but it is a different growth rate from the headline. GAAP diluted EPS of $4.93 (+29%) carries the same lift. Total revenue fell sequentially from $2.625 billion because non-recurring revenue dropped from $248 million to $129 million. Recurring revenue, the better gauge of the franchise, rose to $2.442 billion from $2.377 billion. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 51.4% expanded 180 basis points year over year, though it was below Q2's unusually strong 53%. Operating income grew 27%.

The call preserved, and arguably strengthened, the growth story:

• **Bookings:** Annualized gross bookings hit a record $533 million, up 35%. That follows $424 million (+23%) in Q2 and $378 million (+9%) in Q1, a clear acceleration. Total sales activity grew 38%, the third straight quarter above 30%.
• **Pricing:** Management disclosed for the first time that new-deal pricing rose 12%. It also framed renewal mark-to-market repricing as a lever.
• **Recurring revenue and churn:** MRR grew 11%, its fourth double-digit quarter. Churn improved to 1.7%.
• **Mature assets:** Stabilized-asset revenue grew 7%, well above the 3-5% norm the CFO described at the start of the year.
• **Interconnection:** Revenue growth improved to 10%, with Fabric up 24%.

The soft spot was net interconnection additions, which fell to 6,900 from a record 9,700 in Q2.

Guidance carried most of the forward signal. Full-year revenue growth is now about 12%, up from a 9-10% range at the start of the year. AFFO-per-share growth moved to 11-12% from 8-10%, and MRR growth to 10-11%. Capacity is also running ahead of plan:

• Retail cabinet deliveries for 2026 are tracking roughly 40% above the original plan.
• A record 13,000-plus cabinets are slated for Q4, more than 20% of them pre-sold.
• 15% of 2027 capacity is already spoken for.
• 60% of the Q4 bookings target was closed by the call, versus 45% at the same point last quarter.

Beyond the core business, liquid-cooling bookings rose more than tenfold. The Inference Exchange with NVIDIA and Fabric One with AWS and Google give Equinix a clearer AI inference narrative.

Bears have legitimate ammunition. Net leverage climbed to 4.1x from 3.6x in Q2, and total debt principal rose to $25.2 billion from $21.4 billion at year-end. Quarterly interest expense increased to $163 million from $128 million a year ago. Free cash flow stayed negative through nine months as capex heads toward $5-6 billion for the year. Management also flagged power constraints, legislative and community pushback, a delayed Dubai project and higher rates. It noted that mark-to-market repricing could deliberately lift churn. Q4 EBITDA margin is guided down seasonally to 49-50%. The 2027-29 outlook was reaffirmed rather than raised, and the full-year churn guide stayed at 2-2.5% despite better run-rates.

Investor sentiment became meaningfully more positive heading into the report, rising from 0.16 to 0.40. The stock did not reflect that improvement. Shares entered earnings at $999.38, down 5.9% since the open after the July report. They sat just below the 200-day moving average of $1,006.34 and roughly 10% under the August 17 high of $1,109.22, though 7.3% off the October 22 low of $931.20. The trend readings are mixed: sequential growth and momentum are positive, while price and AVWAP remain negative. That mix fits a stock whose fundamentals improved faster than its share price.

The bottom line is that Equinix's quarter was better than the in-line revenue suggests and somewhat less pristine than the 18.4% AFFO growth implies. Accelerating bookings, explicit pricing gains, capacity running ahead of plan and a third straight guidance raise point to a business gaining momentum. The atNorth fee, rising leverage and an unchanged long-term outlook keep the debate centered on whether that growth can be funded efficiently. With shares hovering near their 200-day average, the fundamental story has moved ahead of the market's recent treatment of the stock.

Read our earnings preview for Equinix, Inc.: https://www.earningswhispers.com/article/EQIX/20930

This earnings review was originally published on Earnings Whispers.

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