The growing demand for data centers has paved the way for the success of data center REITs whose properties are being increasingly utilized by cloud service providers, large enterprises, media companies, telecommunication giants and internet service providers. In the past five years, data-center REITs have delivered an average of 25 percent total annual return which is significantly higher than the average annual return of the REIT sector over the same period.
In Q1 2019, data center REITs outperformed the S&P 500 index by about 8.5% and they have offered dividend yields that were twice as