VNET Group - Q1 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by for the first quarter 2024 earnings conference call for VNET Group Inc. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Management from our management today include Mr. Gavin Shen, Rotating President, Mr. Qiyu Wang, Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Xinyuan Liu, Investor Relations Director of the company. Please note that today's conference call is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to first speaker today, Ms. Xinyuan Liu. Please go ahead.

Xinyuan Liu (Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Our earnings release was distributed earlier today, and you can find a copy on our website as well as our newswire services. Please note that today's call will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. For detailed discussions of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our latest annual report and other documents filed with the SEC. VNET does not undertake any obligations to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable laws. Please also note that VNET's earnings press release and this conference call include the disclosure of unaudited GAAP and non-GAAP financial matters.

VNET's earnings press release contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to the unaudited GAAP measures. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, a webcast of this conference call will also be available on our website at ir.vnet.com. Before we start today's presentation, let me briefly introduce Mr. Gavin Shen. Beginning in May 2024, Gavin has undertaken this role of Group's Rotating President, while also serving as the General Manager of the IDC Strategic Business Group. Gavin joined VNET as our Vice President in 2017, and in January 2020, became Senior Vice President, bringing nearly 20 years of business operations management experience in IT strategic planning, cloud computing, and data centers. I will now turn the call over to Gavin. Please go ahead.

Gavin Chenggang Shen (Rotating President)

Thank you, Xinyuan. Good morning and good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. Before diving into our first quarter performance, I'd like to remind you of the decoding refinement that we mentioned in our last call. To enhance information transparency and help the public better understand our business, starting from this quarter, we will report total revenues and operational metrics for our wholesale and retail business separately. Our CFO, Qiyu, will go over the details. Now, let's move on to our first quarter initiatives and the business progress. Solid first quarter results marked a good start for this year. We continued to execute our effective dual core strategies while pursuing high-quality development. Our robust operating and financial results once again demonstrate our ability to grow our business by leveraging our cost base to capture ever-evolving demand in the area of AI.

Macro-wise, the policies and measures the government decided to foster our favorable market environment are creating more opportunities for us and the IDC industry as a whole. Computing power is widely seen as a crucial component of China's high-quality development. Per the government work report 2024, which calls for accelerating the formation of a nationwide computing power network. The telecom regulator, MIIT, has strengthened policy initiatives to further optimize computing power resources and infrastructure systems across the region. We believe those initiatives will empower us to allocate and manage our data centers more efficiently, and better meet the soaring market demand for high-performance computing power. Additionally, interest in greener computing solutions is on the rise. In April, we signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Wucheng County Local Government and Shandong Hi-Speed Holdings to build a green AI supercomputing data center cluster.

The three parties will work together to promote the digitalization and green development of Wuhan town. We are confident our green data center business will resonate with customers and elevate our market competitiveness as those trends take hold. While IDC development remains our primary focus, we were keenly aware of how AI-related demand for high-performance computing is reshaping the data center landscape. Our quality data centers and the high-density power capabilities enable us to tailor high-performance computing solution to seamlessly meet customers' rapidly growing AI needs. By the end of the fourth quarter, over 90% of our wholesale capacity in service is high power density. Meanwhile, we continue to see increased AI-driven demand from industries like chip design, autonomous driving, financial service, and logistics, and education.

As an industry pioneer, we are exploring AI data center, AIDC, development, and actively upgrading our computing power infrastructure to capture market opportunities. AI workload require massive computing power, enforcing a transition from CPU-based to GPU-based infrastructure. Apart from a few top internet enterprise and AI technology enterprise with established GPU resource of their own, most small and medium-sized enterprise were outsourcing this upgrade, given the high cost, limited channels, and other challenges in purchasing GPU infrastructure outright. AIDCs can meet enterprise computing power needs while minimize their capital investment, a significant advantage in the current environment. Now, let me go through some updates on the IDC front. We continued to win new orders for both wholesale and retail business during the quarter.

On the wholesale side, as we mentioned on our last call, we secured a new order from one of extremely exciting clients for approximately 15 MW, scheduled to be completed within 2024. We also won an order of approximately 2.5 MW in our data center in the Yangtze River Delta region for a new customer, one of China's largest restaurant companies. On the retail side, we continued to attract new customers in financial services, local services, and manufacturing, and deepen existing relationships. Notably, we won a new order of approximately 1.5 MW in our data center in the Greater Beijing area for an existing customer, a leading player in local service sector. Moving to our non-IDC business, we also made progress with our VPN service.

Our wholly-owned subsidiary, DYXnet, has successfully expanded its global network coverage with a new point of presence established in Dubai in the fourth quarter, and in South Korea and Mexico more recently. The new POPs broaden our VPN service global network coverage of our VPN service, and the new POPs will provide enterprise customers with comprehensive and integrated network cloud security service, enable them to capitalize on emerging markets and global expansion opportunities. Turning now to our ESG performance. In April, we issued our fourth annual ESG report detailing accomplishments in 2023 efforts and progress in sustainability, including verified carbon inventory results. During 2023, we continued to execute our shared sustainability system and achieved various performance across employee diversity and equality, green power engagement, and efficient energy consumption.

We also highlighted achievements such as our average annual power usage efficiency of 1.29, a total green power purchase of about 56.9 million kWh during the year, and an increase in our percentage of female employees in our management position to 31%. Moving forward, we will remain dedicated to integrating ESG-based practice company-wide, advancing the coordinated development of green economy and the digital economy, driving sustainability, and creating value for our stakeholders and our society. To conclude, our solid first quarter performance underscores our core strengths a broad and growing array of innovative IDC service, outstanding high power density development capabilities, and our loyal and expanding customer base. Looking ahead, we will continue to drive our dual core business strategies and pursue high quality goals while advancing the development of China's digital economy. Thank you, everyone.

I will now turn the call over to Qiyu to discuss more about our operating and financial performance.

Qiyu Wang (CFO)

Thank you, Gavin. Good morning and good evening, everyone. Before we start the detailed discussion of our first quarter performance, please note that, as Gavin just mentioned, we have enhanced our disclosures with more detailed operational and financial metrics starting this quarter. We believe these new metrics will provide shareholders with greater insight into our business. Specifically, beginning in the first quarter of 2024, our IDC business was subdivided into wholesale IDC business and retail IDC business based on the nature and scale of our data center projects. Prior to 2024, the subdivision was based on the types of customer contracts. You may find a detailed list of all wholesale projects in our IR presentation for this quarter. Accordingly, for operating metrics, we have presented them by retail and wholesale separately.

For the wholesale business, the metrics are measured in terms of power capacity instead of cabinets, which we believe will more meaningfully reflect our business development. In addition, our wholesale capacity is present across three different stages, including in service, under construction, and held for future development, which we believe will provide a clear and more comprehensive picture of our wholesale capacity, boosting the high growth potential of our wholesale business. For financial metrics, we have subdivided our net revenue into revenues from IDC business, which include retail revenues and wholesale revenues, and revenue from non-IDC business, which consists of our cloud and VPN business. Now, let's move on to our first quarter results. Please also note that unless otherwise stated, all the financials we present today are for the first quarter of 2024 and are in renminbi terms.

Furthermore, all the growth rates and revenue are on a year-over-year basis. We kick off 2024 with solid operating and financial results. Our wholesale IDC business continued to gain momentum, driven by rapid customer movements. Capacity in service was 332 MW as of the end of first quarter. Capacity utilized by customers increased by 17 MW to 236 MW in the fourth quarter, primarily driven by increased demand for the customer in N-OR06, N-HB03, and E-JS03 data center. As a result, the utilization rate of wholesale capacity improved to 71%, with the utilization rates for mature capacity reaching around 95%, and the ramp-up capacity reaching around 34%.

In addition, the capacity under construction was 139 MW, with a pre-commitment rate of around 75%, and the capacity held for future development was 557 MW. For our retail business, capacity in service was around 52,000 cabinets, remaining flat compared to last quarter, with utilization rate stable at 64%, with the utilization rate for mature capacity reaching around 73%. MRR per retail cabinets was CNY 8,742 in the fourth quarter, compared to CNY 8,759 for last quarter, and CNY 8,874 for the same period last year. Moving on to our financial performance, we remain focused on high-quality revenue business, and our efforts continue to generate positive outcomes.

Our net revenue increased by 5.1% to CNY 1.9 billion, mainly driven by the continued growth of our core business. To highlight, our wholesale revenue increased by 59.1% to CNY 361 million, mainly contributes by E-JS Campus 01, phase one....E-JS Campus 02A, E-JS Campus 02B, N-HB 03, and E-JS03 data centers. On the other hand, retail revenue decreased by 7.1% to CNY 923.7 million, mainly due to our consolidation and redevelopment of several data centers since the second quarter of 2023. Adjusted EBITDA was CNY 539.8 million, with adjusted EBITDA margin of 28.4%. Net loss attributable of VNET was CNY 187 million.

Turning to our balance sheet, at the end of first quarter, the total amount of the company's cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, was CNY $2.1 billion. Meanwhile, net cash generated from operating activities was CNY $267.6 million. Our CapEx was CNY $971.3 million. For updates on our financing, as we mentioned last quarter, on February 1, 2024, we completed the repurchase payments relating to our convertible senior notes due 2026, in a total principal amount of CNY $600 million. In the current capital market environment, this strategic move reflects our resilient business fundamentals and our commitment to long-term sustainable development. Now, moving to our full year guidance for 2024.

We expect net revenue to be in the range of CNY 7.8 billion-CNY 8 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 5.2%-7.9%, and adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of CNY 2.22 billion-CNY 2.28 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 8.9%-11.8%. This unchanged from our previous guidance. Given the last market conditions, we have increased our delivery plan to 100-140 MW from previously stated 100-120 MW. CapEx is expected to be in the range of CNY 3.7 billion-CNY 4.2 billion. This is unchanged from our previous guidance and may further increase according to market conditions. Looking ahead, our focus will remain on high-quality growth.

We will continue to execute our effective due cost strategy and further enhance our core capabilities to capture market opportunities driven by the AI boom. This concludes our prepared remark for today. Operator, we are now ready for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. To withdraw your questions, please press star one one again. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, please ask your questions to management in English and then repeat in Chinese. One moment for the first question. The first question comes from Edison Lee from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Edison Lee (Head of HK/China Tech, Telecom, and Software Research)

Hey, thank you, management, for the presentation and very good disclosure. I have three questions. Number one is about the definition of retail and wholesale. I think a lot of investors would like to know what exactly the definition is, because the retail MRR that you are presenting today for historical numbers are actually lower than previously disclosed. So that's why I would like to get a clarification on the definition. Number two is on operating cash flow. Can you comment why 1Q 2024 operating cash flow is so much lower than 1Q 2023? And number three is on your retail cabinets redevelopment. Can you tell us how many cabinets are actually being affected by the redevelopment? And what will be the outcome of the redevelopment?

Does it mean that these cabinets will actually become wholesale, or they will also be still for retail and with much higher power? So can you explain that? So, let me repeat in Chinese...

[Foreign language]

Qiyu Wang (CFO)

Okay, thanks, Edison. I answer the question in Mandarin and let the translator help me to translate to English [Foreign language]

Speaker 8

Thank you for the question a lot, and I want to share with you more information. To it boost up the information transparency of the company as well as best for the purpose of, let the capital market better understanding our business development. Starting from Quarter one of 2024, we began to add a new disclosure matrix as well as new indicators. For instance, according to the revenue, we have classified them into three major classes, including wholesale, retail, and non-IDC. At the same time, we've also added a new business indicators for the wholesale, including the operationals with in-service as a hashtag, and we also put under construction as held for the future development and megawatts for your better understanding.

Qiyu Wang (CFO)

[Foreign language]

Speaker 8

For the first question of the definition of the wholesale and retail, I want to give you a re-explanation. As you have already noticed that we have already redefined the two terms of wholesale and retail as we did before. In the, in before, we put the major clients, the big customers, into the wholesale, while the small clients into the retail. But now we've made a small change to better serve the capital market, as well as to boost up the information transparency, as I did say. Right now, in terms of the wholesale, we make them into the size of more than 40 megawatts, and in Chinese, literally translated into the base type project. For those projects, they have the potentials to expand their capacities in the long run in terms of the land, the buildings, as well as the power supply.

In most of the cases, those wholesale projects are targeting the major clients and customers. However, we are also selling part of them, a small proportion of them, to the middle size enterprises and clients. And on the other side, the retail projects, which will be literally translated into the city type projects, are located many in the core cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Shenzhen, and et cetera. Generally speaking, the total size usually is smaller than 20 MW, without any potentials to extend the capacity of expanding its stacks and cabinets. And for most of the cases, those projects are targeting the small and the medium-sized enterprises. But please be noted, we are also offering the retail projects to the major and the big clients as well, to satisfy the needs to provide, to ensure the low latency.

As you have already noted in our numbers, that due to the fact that 10% of the committed cabinets have been redeveloped and a small proportion of the retail projects are offering to the larger clients, the MRR is not included. That is why you are seeing the data discrepancy in the disclosed numbers and records.

Qiyu Wang (CFO)

[Foreign language]

Speaker 8

For the question 2, you raised the question of why in 2024 Q1, the operational capital was smaller than that of, in 2023. Generally speaking, in Q1 of 2024, the company observed a stable and normal cash flow. However, back in 2023 Q1, there were some one-off projects, such as the projects incentivized by the government grants, as well as certain payback from the VAT. Those two items did not happen in Q1, 2024.

Qiyu Wang (CFO)

[Foreign language]

Gavin Chenggang Shen (Rotating President)

[Foreign language]

Speaker 8

For the third question, the question was answered by the CFO. In Q1 2024, the retail data centers are operating in a stable and normal manner, and you have already observed certain changes. Generally speaking, we were redeveloping those cabinets from the low density power cabinets into the high density power cabinets. In that sense, the total numbers are on the decline. This is due to the purpose of better utilizing these resources to maximizing the offering capacity to meet the market demands. And in the upcoming months, we will also make constant adjustment to better meet the market requirements. For instance, according to the demand of a certain market, we will increase the number and redevelop the new cabinets to better serve the local market. Operator, next question.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next question. Our next question comes from Yang Liu from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Yang Liu (Executive Director)

Thanks for the opportunity. And great, thanks for the more disclosure, which is very helpful to us. I have two questions. The first one is regarding the three business out growth outlook. Clearly, I think the wholesale will be a key driver and the retail looks like a dragger. But management quantify the growth rate of the three business or what is behind the current guidance of around 5%-8% full year growth in the three business lines? That's my first question. The second question is G&A expense. We saw is a pretty big increase year-over-year. What is behind that? And whether that is one-off or sustainable?

[Foreign language]

Qiyu Wang (CFO)

[Foreign language]

Speaker 8

Thank you for the question and I will give you more information about different lines on the revenue side. In light of the wholesale, we maintained a 55% growth. For the retail, as you have observed, it is remained very flat, but the non IDC 5%.

Qiyu Wang (CFO)

[Foreign language]

Speaker 8

I want to give you more information about the EBITDA. It is, it is compared to the revenue, it did a better job. For instance, despite the fact that the retail revenue remains very flat, but the EBITDA is growing, is providing us a better figure due to our strategies on the cost operation and cost control.

Qiyu Wang (CFO)

[Foreign language] G&A。

Speaker 8

For the G&A in Q1, I have the explanations as follows: In the beginning of this year, in 2024, the company paid out a large amount of the debt, and out of that, the agency service fee was due to the reasons why you are seeing the final outcome on the GAAP. The other event was the stock expenditures for the employees.

Yang Liu (Executive Director)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

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

Daley Li (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, Madison. Thanks for taking my question. Firstly, it's great to see a more closer disclosure about the segments breakdown. I have two questions. First one is about the overall demand for China IDC data center market. How does management see the overall demand outlook for this year compared to last? And what kinds of clients we have seen could have better demand? And how management could give more color? My third question about the wholesale business. Management already discussed the expansion plan for this year, and could management update us on the move-in progress from the clients and for full in the following quarters and for the total expansion target we have.

Maybe let me quickly have a quick translation [Foreign language]

Qiyu Wang (CFO)

[Foreign language]

Speaker 8

For the first question, you raised the trend of the IDC development, and we are collecting the business requirements from our clients, especially from the conventional business. We can say that it was growing stably and we are now translating our capacities to meet the market demands. For most of them, there was strong demand to increase their AI capacities.

Qiyu Wang (CFO)

[Foreign language]

Gavin Chenggang Shen (Rotating President)

[Foreign language]。

Speaker 8

At the end of the first quarter of 2024. In the wholesale side, almost 90% of the requirements are on the high-density power cabinets demand, which is relating to the AI-related needs. In light of the industries and sectors, this strong demand comes from the chip manufacturing side, the autonomous driving companies, the financial service agencies, the logistic companies, as well as the educational firms. They have a high demands on developing and using the AI-related services.

Gavin Chenggang Shen (Rotating President)

[Foreign language]

Speaker 8

And now you also raise the questions and comments on our potential expanded capacities in 2024, and our plans to do that. According to our understanding, now we will follow the CapEx plan and targets made in made before targeting the 2024. However, we are still negotiating new projects with potential clients, and that might improve our targets to deliver, and we are also targeting our plans, many on the wholesale clients, as we have already determined.

Gavin Chenggang Shen (Rotating President)

[Foreign language]

Speaker 8

You also ask questions about the wholesale clients for the company. As a business, as usual models, the contract will also last 2-3 years before we are going to calculate the total fees. However, we are also signing up new clients, which, under that new contract, the installment of cabinets could be finished within half a year.

Daley Li (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, management.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next question. Our next question comes from the line of Timothy Zhao from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Timothy Zhao (Equity Research Analyst)

Great! Thank you, management, for taking my question, and also thank you for the more transparent disclosure, which is quite helpful. I have two questions here. One is on the, I think on your full year guidance, I think compared to the first quarter results, just wondering, I think, especially on the top line, I think we are assuming an acceleration in terms of revenue growth for the rest of this year. Just wondering, if management can elaborate on what is the key driver and and just the breakdown between wholesale, retail, IDC and also the non-IDC segment, which line could be like a growing faster in the upcoming quarters?

Secondly, I think given the more transparent disclosure, I think a follow-up question is on like, I'm just wondering if management has any target or like a goal in terms of the wholesale versus retail capacity or revenue breakdown by year-end or in the midterm?

And that will be very helpful. Let me quickly translate myself. [Foreign language] disclosure [Foreign language]

Qiyu Wang (CFO)

[Foreign language]

[Foreign language]

Speaker 8

The answer is as follows: The wholesale business is a main source of our revenues, as you have already seen in the plans. We also see that the retail business and the retail projects are declining on a year-over-year basis. However, as we all see that starting from last year, Q3, we began the retrofitting, from retrofitting on the retail side to deploy more high-density power cabinets. By the end of this Q2 and Q3, this retrofitting may be completed, which will pick up our retail projects revenue as well.

Qiyu Wang (CFO)

[Foreign language]

Speaker 8

In light of the ratio of the revenues, the retail against the wholesale is standing at two to one. Still, the revenue from the retail is taking the major proportion from the ratio and the figures. In light of the capacity ratio, the retail and wholesale is approximately standing at five to three, in light of, using the numbers of cabinets to make these calculations.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for the questions. Seeing no more questions, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our conference call today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines.