Equinix and Digital Realty raise 2026 guidance as dividend ratios diverge
Equinix and Digital Realty each raised full-year 2026 guidance in separate earnings releases, with Equinix citing a $5.16 quarterly dividend against $42.99 midpoint AFFO guidance and Digital Realty citing a $1.22 quarterly dividend against $8.175 midpoint Core FFO guidance excluding net promote.
The Print Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ: EQIX ) and Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: DLR ) each raised full-year 2026 guidance in earnings releases six days apart, and each dividend now sits against a different share of that higher number. 64.
11. 0% of that midpoint. 22 quarterly dividend on Aug. 88.
10. 7% of that midpoint. 7 percentage points apart. What produces that gap is not the same at each company’s own quarter.
65 per diluted share. 0% payout. The company also disclosed that it recognized $188 million of net promote income within that Core FFO figure. 13 per share for the quarter.
3%. 2 percentage point difference produced entirely by which Core FFO line the payout is measured against. Digital Realty’s second-quarter results separately disclosed a $94 million insurance settlement, net of income tax, of which approximately $27 million was recognized in Core FFO as business interruption recovery. Equinix’s Quarter Is Not A Clean Number Either Digital Realty is not the only one of the two whose quarter resists a single reading.
78 per diluted share. 8%. Equinix said second-quarter revenue, operating income and AFFO growth were driven by strong underlying performance and one-time xScale fees, without separately quantifying a dollar contribution from those fees. The second-quarter AFFO figure cannot be split the way Digital Realty’s second-quarter Core FFO can.
What The Full-Year Ratios Do Not Carry Equinix defines AFFO as funds from operations adjusted for a list of items that includes non-real-estate depreciation, stock-based compensation, straight-line revenue and rent impacts, and recurring capital expenditures, and states that the measure may not be directly comparable to similar measures used by other companies. Digital Realty defines Core FFO on its own basis and states that other REITs may calculate Core FFO, and Core FFO excluding net promote, differently, so its own figures may not be comparable to other REITs’ Core FFO. Neither company presents its guidance denominator as a standardized figure against the other’s.
00 when first issued alongside fourth-quarter 2025 results on Feb. 20 alongside second-quarter results on July 23. Each of the three ranges is tied to a different quarter’s earnings, not to the same guidance restated. Equinix also raised its longer-range outlook, projecting 2027-2029 AFFO per share growth of 9% to 12% annually and stating that dividend per share growth is intended to approximate AFFO per share growth over that period.
0 billion. The full-year ratios shift the denominator away from a single quarter. They do not make the quarter-specific items irrelevant. 7% full-year figure the same way.
That figure sits on the excluding side of the quarter’s own split. Equinix’s full-year guidance carries no equivalent exclusion for the one-time xScale fees. 18 per share foreign-exchange impact. 46 adjustment reflects the one-time xScale fees recognized in the same quarter.
Neither ratio ranks the two companies. Each describes what one dividend claims against that issuer’s own stated basis for what the rest of the year is expected to produce. Source: Equinix second-quarter 2026 results, Form 8-K accession 0001101239-26-000145, filed July 29, 2026; Equinix dividend declaration announcement dated July 29, 2026; Digital Realty Trust second-quarter 2026 results and supplemental, Form 8-K accession 0001104659-26-086270, filed July 23, 2026; Digital Realty Trust 2026 outlook summary, investor relations; Digital Realty Trust dividend declaration announcement dated Aug. 11, 2026.
Payout calculations by Dividend Forensics Bureau from company-reported per-share figures. Both dividends are quarterly; the annualized figures used here are four times the most recently declared quarterly rate. Equinix defines AFFO on its own basis; Digital Realty reports Core FFO, and Core FFO excluding net promote, on its own basis. The two measures are issuer-defined and are not strictly comparable.
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