The creative industries sector plays a key role in a thriving UK economy. In fact, statistics released last year showed it’s now worth about $113 billion per year to the UK economy, generating a staggering $12 million an hour. That’s more money than the fashion, automotive and music industry combined.
With further growth ahead, industry members of the Creative Industries Council (CIC) recently unveiled a plan that sees businesses and government working together to maintain the UK’s position as a world leader for the creative industries, which include businesses such as advertising, gaming, film and animation. The new plan aims to double the value of exports from the creative industries to $49 billion by 2020. The five-point plan focuses on various sectors, including education and skills, finance, intellectual property, international exports, and – perhaps the most important – infrastructure.
In today’s cloud and mobile environment, a reliable and supportive infrastructure is arguably the most essential component for new growth in the creative industries. British consumers lead the way globally in both smartphone ownership and spending on mobile shopping and entertainment, downloading more than 250 million apps a month. Today, consumers want to stream live events from their mobile devices, play online games on the move and share videos with friends in remote locations. They want access to the content they need, when they want it, and they expect the quality and the experience to be faultless.
For the creative and digital industries, this means a robust infrastructure is vital. Poor performance degrades revenues and customer loyalty – just think of the uproar when Facebook goes down for a few minutes. So it’s imperative that the UK creates one of the world’s most advanced, reliable communications infrastructures. Equinix is a good place to start.
Our 100-plus data centers are spread over five continents. Later this year, we’ll expand our footprint in Asia-Pacific, the Americas and Europe, including by opening the new LD6 facility in London. That’s a critical addition to our data center roster, because as the UK’s digital content industry grows, so will the amount of data stored and transmitted. Companies will need a data center that can expand to meet increasing demands, and LD6 will offer space regionally, and access to wherever a company needs to be.
A data center provider that offers dense interconnections is also an advantage, and Equinix is home to 4,500 companies including 1,000 network service providers. There are tangible benefits for creative and digital companies that are located in the same data center as their partners, such as social networks, ISPs and mobile data providers. By operating within this ecosystem, companies can connect to existing and new partners rapidly, securely and cost-effectively. This direct connectivity reduces bottlenecks between content and end users and improves performance levels.
At Equinix, we advise content and digital media customers how to deploy their technology platforms and infrastructures and provide ways to connect to their partner services. As the creative industry continues to push the boundaries of growth, more businesses will look to the data center to provide the superior interconnection they need to succeed, and Equinix is equipped to support them all along the way.
To learn more about how we’re helping the content and digital industry reach their ambitious growth targets, visit our website or read our Brightroll customer success story.
Click here to learn more about LD6.
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