Iron Mountain third-quarter FFO rises amid strong data center demand

(Reuters) - Iron Mountain on Wednesday posted a rise in its funds from operations (FFO) for the third quarter, driven by robust demand for its data centers.

The Boston, Massachusetts-based real estate investment trust's adjusted funds from operations, a key measure of cash flow, rose 11% to $1.13 per share in the quarter ended Sept. 30, from the year-ago period.

Despite weak enterprise spending in an unstable economic climate, businesses continue to invest heavily in data centers, driven by the need to manage growing AI workloads and support ongoing cloud migration efforts.

This bodes well for companies such as Iron Mountain, which leases data centers and counts cloud service providers such as Oracle and Akamai Technologies among its clients.

Peer Digital Realty posted growth in its third-quarter FFO last month on the back of resilient demand for its data center services.

Iron Mountain reported quarterly revenue of $1.56 billion, ahead of analysts' estimates of $1.55 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

The company's storage rental segment, its largest by revenue share, rose 9% to $936 million from a year earlier.

(Reporting by Rishi Kant in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)