Equinix (EQIX) will increase its quarterly dividend by 7.9 percent to $2.46 per share in the first quarter of 2019. This marks the fourth consecutive year of dividend increases by the data center REIT.

The next quarterly common stock dividend will be paid on March 20, 2019, to shareholders of record on February 27, 2019. A new annualized dividend rate of $9.84 per share yields 2.3% at a stock price of $421.39.

Equinix, Inc. is a data center REIT, connecting companies directly to their customers and partners across its interconnected data center and interconnection platform. The company's customers include enterprises, cloud and IT services providers, media and content companies, financial services firms, IoT and big data providers, and network and mobile services providers. The company has operations in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Equinix became a public company in 2000 and elected to be taxed as a REIT for federal income tax purposes effective January 1, 2015.