GDS - Q4 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for GDS Holdings Limited Fourth Quarter And Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Today's conference call is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to your host, Ms. Laura Chen, Head of Investor Relations for the company. Please go ahead, Laura.

Laura Chen (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for standing by for GDS Holdings Limited Fourth Quarter And The Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Welcome to the Fourth Quarter And The Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call of GDS Holdings Limited. The company's results were issued via newswire services earlier today and are posted online. A summary presentation, which we'll refer to during this conference call, can be viewed and downloaded from our IR website at investors.gds-services.com. Leading today's call is Mr. William Huang, GDS Founder, Chairman, and CEO, who will provide an overview of our business strategy and performance. Mr. Dan Newman, GDS CFO, will then review the financial and operating results. Ms. Jamie Khoo, our COO, is also available to answer questions.

Before we continue, please note that today's forward-looking statements are made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, the company's results may be materially different from the views expressed today. Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties is included in the company's prospectus as filed with the U.S. SEC. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as required under applicable law. Please also note that GDS earnings press release and this conference call include discussions of unaudited GAAP financial information, as well as unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. GDS press release contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to the unaudited most directly comparable GAAP measures. I'll now turn the call over to GDS Founder, Chairman, and CEO, William Huang.

Please go ahead, William.

William Huang (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Thank you. Hello, everyone. This is William. Thank you for joining. The number one priority of GDS management, and drive share price recovery. Today, we are delighted to announce the landmark $587 million equity raise for our international business. This is a big step forward in our strategy... on a standalone basis. The equity raise also highlights how much value we have already created for our shareholders through international expansion. We have been developing our business in China for many years. We are a market leader with over 1.5 GW of capacity in service and under construction. Confident that we will maintain our competitive position and enjoy further growth, particularly when AI demand takes off. We initiate our in period of time.

It has become a second growth engine with over 330 MW in service and under construction, equivalent to 20% of what we have in China. GDS China and GDS International are obviously at very different stage of development. We are therefore pursuing distinctive strategies for each part of our business. For China, we have two major financial objective. Objective number one is to grow EBITDA at a steady rate. In 2023, our Adjusted EBITDA grew by 9% year-on-year, all of which was from China. Objective number two is to deleverage our balance sheet. Our target is to get to below 5x within three years. In order to achieve these objectives for China, we are targeting new business which fits our capacities. We are increasing asset utilization by delivering the backlog.

We are spending CapEx only where it is needed for customer moving, and we are preparing for asset monetization when the market allows. For international, our ambition is to create an exceptional data center platform, which emulates our success in China. By leveraging our industry leader capability, strategic business relationships, and the scale, and scale economics. In 2022, we set up a new international holding company, headquartered in Singapore. It acts as the vehicle for all our assets and operations outside of mainland China. We have assembled a standalone management team, and today we announced that Jamie Khoo, our very capable COO, will transfer to become the CEO of GDS International. As we started to expand overseas, we focused initially on two region hub market, Hong Kong and Singapore, Johor Bahru, which is the hub for Southeast Asia.

These two markets rank in the top 10 data center market globally. We collectively anticipated where demand will flow. We secured the right resource and executed it well. As a result, we quickly established a market-leading presence in both places. We have secured over 200 MW of commitments and the reservations for from global, as well as China customers, as well as China customers. As of today, we already have over 70 MW in service and the revenue generating. We see tremendous opportunities for growth in these markets. We are very well-placed with our proven track record, development pipeline, and the time to market to build on this success. We are actively evaluating several new markets and expect to make further commitments in the near future. Now, let's review our performance in more detail.

In 2023, we won 68,000 sq m of new customer commitments. 50,000 sq m came from, which was similar to the prior year, and then nearly 20,000 sq m, or 30% of total bookings, came from international. During 4Q 2023, we won two large orders in China and one for international. Both of the China orders fit our strategy of matching commitments, which with the capacity and have move-in period of less than two years. The international order was from a global cloud service provider for the whole of our Hong Kong 2 project. As a result, our first two projects in Hong Kong are effectively sold out with long-term binding commitments. Looking forward, the demand outlook in China has not yet picked up noticeably. AI demand is coming, but it will take more time.

Meanwhile, our sales pipeline in Southeast Asia is very strong. We expect a significant new booking for both of our campuses in Johor in the near future. AI is undoubtedly a big factor driving a demand in this market. In 2023, the gross move-in was around 69,000 sq m, 20% higher than in 2022. China move-in was around 56,000 sq m, which once again was similar to the prior year. On top of this, there was the first time contribution from international of 12,000 sq m, as one data center in Hong Kong and the three data centers in Johor came into service and started ramping up.

In 2023, we brought around 57,000 sq m of new capacity into service across seven data centers, four in China and three international. By the end of the year, these three data centers had an overall utilization rate of 77%, which is consistent with our target for fast move-in and higher utilization. During 2024, we expect to bring about 81,000 sq m into service, driven by delivery commitments to customers. The overall commitment rate for this capacity is 92%, and the move-in schedule is confirmed. I will now pass on to Dan for the financial and operating review.

Dan Newman (CFO)

Thank you, William. Turning to slide 17. We just announced today that our wholly owned subsidiary, DigitalLand Holdings, which we refer to for now as GDS International or GDSI, has entered into definitive agreements with certain institutional private equity investors for the new issue of $587 million of Series A convertible preferred shares. This first external equity capital raise for GDS International demonstrates our ability to access dedicated financing for our international business without further funding from GDS Holdings. The Series A subscription price implies a pre-money equity valuation for GDS International of $750 million.... In terms of our share price, this is equivalent to approximately $3.92 per GDS Holdings ADS.

The implied post-money enterprise valuation of GDSI, including forecast net debt of around $935 million, as at the end of 2024, is around $2.3 billion. This is equivalent to around 24 times GDSI's forecast Adjusted EBITDA for the full year 2025. As mentioned by William, GDS International currently has over 330 MW of data center capacity in service or under construction across strategic locations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Johor, Malaysia, and Batam, Indonesia. The total development cost for this portfolio is around $2.5 billion, out of which approximately 40% has been incurred up to the end of 2023.

As of the end of last year, GDSH had provided a total of around $595 million of intercompany funding to GDSI, comprising $411 million of paid-up share capital and $184 million of shareholder loans and other payables, which will be repaid immediately out of the proceeds of the Series A new issue. This will benefit GDSH in terms of higher liquidity. On a pro forma basis, including $411 million of permanent equity from GDSH and $587 million from the Series A, GDSI will have total paid-up share capital of approximately $1 billion. As a result, GDSI will be sufficiently well capitalized with equity to complete the development of its current 330 MW portfolio.

Post-closing, GDSH will own approximately 56.1% of GDSI in the form of ordinary shares, and the remaining 43.9% equity will be held in the form of Series A shares by investors including Hillhouse Investment, Rava Partners, Boyu Capital, Princeville Capital, and Tekne Capital. GDSH and certain investors will have the right to appoint directors to the board of GDSI, proportionate with their ownership. William will continue in his role as Chairman of the Board of GDSI, as well as Chairman and CEO of GDSH. Other key deal terms, including lockup, QIPO, and liquidation preference, among others, can be found in the transaction documents, which we will file with the SEC. With this capital raising, it starts to make sense for us to look at GDS business in two parts.

As we go through the financials, I will highlight selected numbers for international on a standalone basis and for GDS Holdings, excluding international. Turning to slide 18. For 2023, revenue increased by 6.8%, and adjusted EBITDA increased by 8.8% year-on-year. In 4Q 2023, revenue increased by 6.3%, and adjusted EBITDA increased by 5.7% year-on-year. For the full year 2023, international had negative adjusted EBITDA of around RMB 100 million. The year-on-year growth rate for GDS Holdings, excluding international, would have been two percentage points higher than the consolidated number. International recorded positive adjusted EBITDA for the first time in 4Q 2023. Turning to slide 19, I will discuss the two main drivers of revenue growth, namely, area utilized and MSR.

For 2023, net additional area utilized was 48,000 sq m. The annual net add was slightly less than 2022 as a result of higher churn. Nonetheless, total area utilized at year-end was 13% higher than at the end of the prior year. During 4Q 2023, we achieved net additional area utilized of 20,000 sq m, which is the highest level for many quarters. This was mainly due to ramp up of our first two data centers in Johor and a minimal level of churn. For 2024, we expect net additional area utilized to be higher than last year's 48,000, with steady growth in China and increased contribution from international. Turning to the MSR metric. Over the course of 2023, comparing 4Q to 4Q, MSR decreased by 5%.

For 2024, we expect MSR in China to decrease by around 3%... which shows it is bottoming out. The MSR for international is currently higher than for China. Hence, on a consolidated basis, we expect MSR to remain at around current levels. Turning to slides 22 and 23. For 2023, our consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin was 46.4%, which was slightly higher than for 2022, despite the fact that power tariffs in China increased again during last year. For 2024, the midpoint of our guidance range implies a consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin of 43.7%, which is a more than two percentage point drop compared with 2023. The margin for GDS Holdings, excluding international, should be similar to 2023. The expected drop in the coming year is therefore mainly due to international growth drag. Turning to slide 24.

In 2023, our China CapEx totaled RMB 3.5 billion. We have brought China CapEx down significantly from historic levels, and we are only spending where it is necessary to generate growth. In 2024, as William mentioned, we plan to bring a further 58,000 sq m of new capacity into service in China, most of which is committed to customers with firm move-in schedules. Meanwhile, our CapEx guidance for China in 2024 is only RMB 2.5 billion. The very low implied CapEx per sq m is because we have already incurred a substantial part of the development cost. What is left is cost to complete. This pattern will continue over the next few years, giving us the ability to grow in China with relatively low incremental CapEx. In 2023, our international CapEx was around RMB 2.8 billion.

Our current backlog for international stands at over 130 MW of committed and reserved capacity, a large part of which is yet to be built. Our CapEx guidance for international in 2024 is RMB 4 billion, which is largely driven by fixed delivery commitments to customers. On slide 25. In 2023, GDS Holdings, excluding international, had negative cash flow before financing of just over RMB 1 billion. Our objective is to maintain positive cash flow before financing on an organic basis. We have already been positive in some quarters, and for 2024 as a whole, we expect to be close to breakeven. In 2023, international, on a standalone basis, had negative cash flow before financing of over RMB 3 billion. In 2024, we forecast RMB -4 billion, which can be fully financed by the equity raise and project debt.

Looking at our leverage on slides 26 and 27, at the end of 2023, our consolidated net debt to last quarter annualized adjusted EBITDA multiple was 8.5x. Excluding international and pro forma for the repayment of shareholder loans, the multiple was 7.5x. Turning to slide 28. During 2024, we have RMB 2.3 billion of project loan amortization for China. We expect to generate an equivalent amount of new financing cash flow as a result of the repayment of shareholder loans from GDSI to GDSH, and draw down under existing facilities to finance around 50% of China incremental CapEx. Turning to slide 29. Before I talk about guidance, I would like to flag the impairment loss of long-lived assets of around RMB 3 billion, which we recorded during 4Q 2023.

We are required to test for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstance indicate that the carrying amount of long-lived assets may not be recoverable. The impairment loss was mainly associated with data centers located in properties which we leased for a fixed term, and a few data centers which we plan to consolidate. Turning now to guidance. For the full year 2024, we expect total revenues to be between RMB 11.34 billion-RMB 11.76 billion, implying a year-on-year increase of between approximately 13.9%-18.1%. We expect Adjusted EBITDA to be between RMB 4.95 billion-RMB 5.15 billion, implying a year-on-year increase of between approximately 7%-11.4%.

On its standalone basis, we expect international business to contribute around RMB 100 million-RMB 150 million of Adjusted EBITDA in 2024. As I mentioned earlier, we expect total CapEx of around RMB 6.5 billion for the full year, comprising RMB 2.5 billion for China and RMB 4 billion for international. I'd now like to open the call to questions. Operator, please?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer sessions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. If you would like to cancel a request, please press star one one again. For the benefits of all participants on today's call, please limit yourself to one question. If you have more questions, please reenter the queue. One moment for the first question. Our first question comes from the line of Frank Louthan from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Frank Louthan (Managing Director)

Great, thank you. Just really quickly, when can we expect to see some more full breakouts of the international business? That would be the first thing. And then secondly, if you can characterize the move-in schedule of the international customers relative to what you've seen historically in China, and how quickly we could expect to see those customers billing inside the new development. Thank you.

Dan Newman (CFO)

This is, it's Dan. Today, we've started to provide a breakout of the CapEx and of the leverage, where there's clearly a significant difference, looking at GDS Holdings consolidated or GDS Holdings in two parts. I did verbally give the numbers for EBITDA. I said that last year, international had negative EBITDA of RMB 100 million for the full year, and this year we expect positive EBITDA of RMB 100million-RMB 150 million. It's not yet material, that material, in the context of GDS Holdings numbers, so when we don't propose to report segment financials. But as we move through this year and the materiality increases, we will certainly consider that. You want to comment about move-in?

William Huang (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Our move-in, compared with China, right?

Dan Newman (CFO)

Yeah.

William Huang (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

I think what we'd see is international move-in is better than what we have in China. In general, I think the people all want time to market more faster than other regions. So it's very good and the general revenue more, more, more faster than China.

Frank Louthan (Managing Director)

Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for the question. One moment for the next question. Our next question comes from Eunice Liu from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Eunice Liu (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, management, for taking my question. This is Eunice asking a question on behalf of Timothy Zhao. My question is, has company seen a fast ramp up of the AI-related demand, especially for GDS International? And also another question is, what it takes to achieve the high end of your guidance, in terms of revenue guidance for next year? Thank you.

William Huang (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Yeah, I think in the international business, of course. Actually, we don't know what our customer will be, because it's confidential. They all very confidential. So based on our current product profile, I think we do have see some high density rack requirement. Plus, but I think the international requirement demand is very various, because including a lot of the internet company, OTT, and also traditional GPU cloud as well. So it's mixed. I think that we do see maybe AI type demands is already there. Yeah.

Dan Newman (CFO)

Yeah. You know, so, Eunice, the question about how do we achieve the high end of our guidance? So we split the guidance into two parts. For China, we're expecting standalone Adjusted EBITDA growth rate of around mid-single digits. This is consistent with the run rate that we've seen over the past couple of years in terms of quarterly move-in and, you know, the trend in MSRs and EBITDA margins. But we've forecast, assuming that current market conditions continue through this year, maybe next year, I think the outlook could be more positive in 2025. For the international part of business, clearly, the turnaround from RMB -100 million to RMB +100 million-150 million is quite significant, and that elevates the growth rates.

For international, we're forecasting bottom-up based on the time schedule for individual data centers to enter service and the customer contracts associated with those data centers, which have a fixed move-in schedule. So we base the forecast largely on what are the terms of those contracts? The international business is very dynamic. It's in an early stage, albeit that's already achieved significant scale. But typically, for business at this stage of development, there could be a wider range of outcomes just because things are moving so fast. So I think there's yeah there is potential upside in the international business as it as more data centers come into service.

Eunice Liu (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for the questions. Our next questions will come from the line of Yang Liu from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Yang Liu (Analyst)

Thanks for the opportunity. I have three questions. The first, in terms of the overall, international revenue contribution, could management elaborate or break down, in the current guidance, for 2024? Yeah, international revenue contribution. The second question is that, I made some comparison versus your disclosure at the end of third quarter last year. You had 372 MW data center pipeline in overseas market, and now it increased dramatically, just in one quarter. Could management update us, or, in terms of the pipeline, development, where is the new pipeline, and, yeah, what will be the potential, timeline to deliver that?

What will be the type of business, a hyperscaler or a retail business, et cetera? That is for the incremental overseas pipeline. The third question is regarding the additional sales for 2024. Do you think that the total sales or area booked in 2024, if there's any chance to see a turnaround? Or from the MW perspective, there could be a turnaround. Yeah. Thank you.

Dan Newman (CFO)

Revenues. Yeah, so I'll take the first question. Yeah, so, hi, Yang, it's Dan here. I think we provided revenue guidance for the full year of RMB 11.34 billion-RMB 11.76 billion. Expect the revenue of international stand-alone to be about RMB 1.1 billion±, as I explained in answering the previous question.

Operator (participant)

Second question.

Dan Newman (CFO)

The second question about the growth in pipeline, yeah.

William Huang (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Yeah, I think the pipelines are very, very strong in general. I see the orders from all over the world, global, and also we see a lot of pipelines from China as well. So I think this shows the international business has a huge momentum, big, very big momentum. So I think... In fact, the current, a lot of customer asking for delivery as fast as possible. So I think this is the overall demand profile. On the other hand, I think the customer type, actually, as I just mentioned, very varies.

There's a local, a lot of local tech company, a lot of the global tech company, and also a lot of the e-commerce company as well. So this is not only from China, it's what we have been seeing is from the globally. So I think this is a very. Let us feel very, very excited. So I think the international business will grow very, very fast than what we expect.

Dan Newman (CFO)

I think, yeah, Yang Liu was also asking about your bookings, expectation of bookings.

William Huang (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Yeah. We don't want to set up the, because every quarter is changed, frankly speaking. So I think it is to maintain the last two years' average level, which means 50 MW per year-

Dan Newman (CFO)

Yeah

William Huang (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

... is our base. But, based on our current pipeline, we can maybe go very, very high number, maybe double, something like that. But, we don't want to set up too much high expectation on that. But, 50%, 50 MW is our base in the international market. Yeah, but of course, as I just mentioned, this is just a Southeast Asian market. We're also very, we look very closely for other new market like North Asia, and also European market as well.

Dan Newman (CFO)

I think, Yang Liu. Just want to check, your question about increase in pipeline, if you were referring to the secured development pipeline, the reason why that's gone up very significantly is because, at our established campus, that we refer to as NTP, we acquired additional land and secured additional power. And at the same time, we have established a second campus in Johor, called KTP, where we have started construction around 20 MW. But we plan in a single phase to go to around 100 MW, and we also look forward to obtaining some commitments for that site in the next few quarters.

Yang Liu (Analyst)

Got it.

Dan Newman (CFO)

Thanks.

Yang Liu (Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for the questions. Our next question comes from Daley Li from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Daley Li (Analyst)

Hi, [Foreign language]. Thanks for taking my question. I have two questions. The first one about the China data center business. Could management share some of the demand trend for our clients, maybe for public cloud providers and the internet companies and some financial companies, how the demand trend? And given right now, government is supporting, publishing more policy to support the AI data center, et cetera, and how do we see the competition? And my second question about the overseas business. Congrats on the, you know, the this recent fund raising. How do we see future, you know, like a financial channel in the overseas market?

As we, you know, try to develop some more business after, like, two to three years, in terms of financing channel? Thank you.

William Huang (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Okay, I take your first question. I think in China, we do see some signal that AI demand is increasing. But based on the current chip supply issue, I think the demand actually is already there, but not fulfilled by the all chips. So what we can tell is the chips supply in terms of like a new version of the NVIDIA like H20, and also some China chips supply profile. What we can see is maybe the end of this year or early of next year, China's data center demand will recover in a significant way.

So what I think that this year, still, you can see a lot of the demands are flying right now, but, actually, every people is waiting for the chips. So impact to our data center, real demand, I would say it will start from next year.

Dan Newman (CFO)

Yeah. Your question about the financing requirements and options for international. So the rationale behind the capital raising, which we announced today, is to ensure that we have adequate equity capital for the existing portfolio, which is in service and under construction. But we are moving forward rapidly, and the requirement for additional capital will depend on how the business plan evolves. Yeah, we will take a view as new opportunities come up and new commitments are made. I think we've spoken before about a strategy of limiting the amount of capital which GDS Holdings allocates to international. We've allocated $411 million. Now we're starting to leverage our equity investment with external equity at a premium valuation.

I think this first Series A capital raising has required us to establish GDS International on a standalone basis and put in place the governance and all the aspects of the intercompany relationships and so on, which is quite a challenge. I think it's after having done this deal and with the investor group who are now partnering with us, I think GDS International is very well placed to do further capital raisings, and that could either be at a country level, as we've done already in Indonesia with our joint venture with INA, or it could be at the international holdco level.

Daley Li (Analyst)

Thank you, management.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for the questions. Our next question comes from Robert Hsu from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Robert Hsu (Analyst)

Okay, thanks. Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Roland. So I'm asking on behalf of Gokul. So I have two parts of my questions. First one is on the competitive landscape and the IR. So can you help us understand for what the IR looks like for the international business, given we've seen many like the original players or local players or Chinese players competing in this market? Secondly, I think you kind of guided the international business revenue contribution for this year will be probably 9%-10%. So you mentioned that you are considering to expand beyond these Southeast Asian markets, probably Europe or North Asia. So how should we think about the revenue contribution from international business in probably three to five years' time? Yeah, thanks.

Dan Newman (CFO)

Yeah. Thank you, Robert. First of all, for the IRRs, you know, we've undertaken projects in Hong Kong and in Johor and in Batam. Each market has a different cost of capital. But if we look at it in a very general way, the IRRs have been within the range that we target, have targeted historically. You know, unlevered post-tax IRRs of not less than 10%, up to IRRs in the low teens. This currently compares really quite favorably with what is achievable in China at the current stage in the cycle.

Laura Chen (Head of Investor Relations)

Contribution of in-

Dan Newman (CFO)

Yeah, for the contribution of international. Without giving out forecasts, I think we've talked before about hitting 15% of consolidated revenue or Adjusted EBITDA within three years. I think that is definitely achievable. There may be a, there may be maybe higher than that.

Robert Hsu (Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next question. The next question comes from the line of Bora Lee from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Bora Lee (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. Hi, this is Bora on for Jon Atkin. So, I believe Roland had mentioned GDS expects to enter additional markets. Can you elaborate on how you're thinking about the markets or regions in which you'd like to expand and the timeframe you had in mind? And secondarily, any update on the Singapore developments? Thank you.

Speaker 11

Market. Your marketing.

William Huang (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

I think our strategy is, first of all, I think we see the tremendous growth in the Southeast Asia and Asia, whole Asia Pacific, which the market we are very familiar with. I think the first step, we will still focus on the Southeast Asian to gather the maintain the market-leading position, right? So I think this is our first priority. In the meanwhile, we already start to get back to Japan market for a while, and I think we're maybe in a in near future, maybe we can announce some progress. So I think the Japan market, Korea market, also very attractive. It's the top market data center market in the world, and we see the demand.

So in general, we follow up the big market. We will also follow up the high growth market in the future. But as I just mentioned, we do have, see some opportunity in Europe as well, but it would. This is another future target market. But of course, including Middle East.

Laura Chen (Head of Investor Relations)

Singapore.

William Huang (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Singapore, yeah, we target to deliver the launch the data center by the end of 2026. So that's our time frame, and we made some progress. We have, there's a couple of shortlist, we already try to do the final decision to choose the site, so I think we will tell the investors once we make the final decision.

Bora Lee (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for the question. One moment for the next question. Our next question, we have Sara Wang from UBS. Please go ahead.

Sara Wang (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions. First one is on China business. So, what's the trend of MSR or churn rate when you renew contracts with existing customers, say, over the past two quarters? And then how shall we think about the trend going forward? Second question is still on AI. Maybe for both China and international projects, because AI requires a higher density racks or even more advanced cooling methodology. So is there any difference between maybe high density power racks in terms of revenue or margin profile compared to maybe cloud demand we have seen previously? Thank you.

Dan Newman (CFO)

Yeah, I'll answer the first question, maybe when-

William Huang (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Yeah, yeah. I think in general, I think the current AI, of course, I think AI will definitely in the future will be the main driver to drive the data center demand. This is what's happening in the U.S., what's happening in Europe and also the Southeast Asia and the Japan market already. But it's just a start. In terms of the difference, I think the AI guys need a more big capacity. We historically, when we talk to cloud guys, demand is if we use the single deal size, let's say, internet always ask for 10 MW, 20 MW, that's the maximum. And the cloud guys normally ask for, let's say, 30 MW, 40 MW. But now what we can see that the deal provides a total difference.

A lot of our customers, they ask for 100 MW or 200 MW per campus. So that means they need more power capacity in one site. So this is the one difference. Second of all, of course, I think in general average power density is going very high. So we are well prepared for that. In terms of cooling, I think everybody knows, once you get the... If you want to get the launch your product, like, per rack above 20 kW per rack, it's better to start to use, try to start use the liquid cooling, right?

So, in terms of technology, we are very familiar of the liquid cooling, because five years ago, we start to use the liquid cooling solution for in China. So I think we are well prepared for catch up the AI demand in the future, whatever size in term of size, capacity of the size or a power density or cooling technology. We're all good at that.

Dan Newman (CFO)

So your question about MSR, I always answer this in the same way, and say, you know, MSR can be affected by a number of different factors. It's not just a reflection of change in market pricing, it's also dependent on location and type of data center. Rather than talk about pricing on renewals, you know, I always give some guidance or direction on the trend in MSR. As I mentioned during the prepared remarks, over the past four quarters, that's 4Q 2022 to 4Q 2023, the MSR decreased by 5%. Over the next four quarters, that's 4Q 2023 to 4Q 2024, we expect the MSR to decrease by 3%. Most of that decrease is due to delivery of the backlog.

A smaller part is due to lower pricing on renewals. But if we were to look further forward beyond 2024 to 2025, the MSR is bottoming out, which means that as you project further into the future, our revenue growth will be mainly driven by the increase in net additional area utilized with MSR decrease becoming less and then becoming flat.

Sara Wang (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for the questions. We have come to the end of the Q&A session. I would like to now turn the call back over to the company for closing remarks.

Laura Chen (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact GDS Investor Relations through the contact information on our website and The Piacente Group. Bye. See you next time.

Operator (participant)

This concludes-

Dan Newman (CFO)

Bye-bye.

Operator (participant)

the conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.