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Equinix (NASDAQ: EQIX) is a leading provider of data center and co-location services. Despite being the world’s largest provider of data center colocation services, this Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) stock has tended to fly under the radar of many investors. When many investors think of playing the cloud, leading cloud vendors such as Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Google (NASDAQ GOOGL), and IBM (NYSE: IBM) are what come to the top of the mind. Yet, Equinix stock has handily outperformed these cloud titans over the past 12 months, with the exception of Amazon. EQIX shares have tucked on gains of 34.5% over the past one year compared to 61.3% for Amazon, -4.9% for Microsoft, 14.3% for Google, and -23.1% or IBM (Sept 15 closing prices).

Source: Amazon Stock Price vs Equinix stock price data by amigobulls.com

Equinix shares have gained 7.4% over the past five days after the company made a $280 million bid for Japan’s Bit-isle, one of its top competitors in the Japanese data center market, a move that will create the fourth largest data center operator in the country. Although Equinix is the world’s largest data center services provider with about 12% market share, it’s not nearly as dominant in the fast-growing Asia-Pacific market. Equinix is currently ranked the 15^th largest data center services provider in Japan while Bit-isle is the seventh-largest. The latest acquisition comes closely on the heels of the company’s Singapore and Hong Kong datacenter expansion, and will give Equinix a strong foothold in one of the world’s largest trading hubs. Gartner has predicted that growth in the cloud services market in Asia-Pacific in 2015 will clock in at 14%, the world’s fastest growth.