Chindata Group Holdings Limited (Nasdaq: CD), a leading carrier-neutral hyperscale data center solution provider in Asia-Pacific emerging markets, announced its unaudited financial results for the third quarter ended Septemper 30, 2022. With the increasing demand for digital infrastructure globally, as well as the catalyst provided by the “East Data West Computation” policy, the company continued its solid business performance in the third quarter of 2022. Total IT capacity of the data center by the end of the third quarter of 2022 increased to 821MW.
The close collaboration between the team in China and South East Asia led to a record nine-straight-quarters of upbeat financial performance. Revenue was RMB1,202.7 million in the third quarter of 2022, which was a 62.4% year over year (“YoY”) growth.
Adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter of 2022 increased by 66.8% YoY to RMB614.5 million, with a margin of 51.1%. GAAP Net income was RMB241.0 million in the third quarter of 2022, which was a 207.4% YoY growth, with a margin of 20.0% at new high. Revenue in the first nine months of 2022 has surpassed that of the full year of 2021.
The company also raised its full year guidance for the second time in the year, which currently expects the full year revenue to be in the range of RMB4.33 billion to RMB4.43 billion, representing an increase of RMB200 million in mid-point compared with the previous guidance.
By the end of the third quarter of 2022, Chindata Group has added one new project with an additional 45MW new capacity, bringing the total capacity to 821MW, and total number of data centers to 31.
The Company continued to serve its existing clients and support their healthy growth as a trusted partner, and the momentum on the overall demand from its unique client base remained strong and healthy.
Total contracted and “Indication of Interest” (IOI) capacity increased by 50MW during the third quarter of 2022 to reach 700MW, representing a 41.9% YoY growth.
The emerging market is one of the key areas of Chindata Group’s global layout. In the third quarter of 2022, a hyperscale data center located in India was successfully delivered to support the Company’s key international clients.
On October 20, 2022, the Company celebrated the grand opening of project MY06 in Sedenak, Johor, Malaysia. The entire MY06 project holds a designed capacity of over 100MW, among which 19MW was recently put into service in October. Excluding the delivery of MY06-1, by the end of the third quarter of 2022, the Company had 40MW in-service capacity, and another 120MW under construction in Asia-Pacific emerging markets, as well as the Thailand project to be further expanded.
Chindata Group believes that its early judgement in site selection in the Greater Beijing Region and its differentiated way of doing business and continuing to do the right thing in the correct manner, are consistently generating healthy resources, which further enable the Company to tap into different regions for business opportunities and to establish a more diversified business layout.
At present, Chindata Group has a layout in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, the Yangtze River Delta Area, the Greater Bay Area, and Gansu, which is highly consistent with the national “East Data West Computation” policy, and becomes one of the largest third-party hyperscale data center enterprises in eight computing “hub nodes” in China. In Asia-Pacific emerging markets, Chindata Group has two hyperscale data centers in service and four under construction in India and Malaysia, as well as the Thailand project to be further expanded.
The company also maintained a healthy capital structure under the current challenging market environment. Chindata Group’s prudent financing policy, healthy cash generation, asset return and profitability have together made this possible. These combined financial performance on both output and input sides resulted in an unlevered pre-tax Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) at around 17% level, which will provide a safe and long-term sustainable value to the investors and creditors.
In the third quarter of 2022, Chindata Group continued to devote to its innovation and research & development for better data center solutions. The total approved and pending patents by the end of the third quarter of 2022 reached 400, compared with 361 by the end of the second quarter of 2022.
Regarding other effort on sustainability, the Company entered into a green loan agreement in September with a bank on project financing for its project in one of its Hebei campuses. The loan is aligned with Green Loan Principles (2021 Edition), with all loan proceeds intended for green building, renewable energy and energy efficiency related to the project.
Mr. Huapeng Wu, Chief Executive Officer of Chindata Group, commented, “The Company continued its solid business performance in the third quarter of 2022. The close collaboration between our team in China and South East Asia led to a record nine-straight-quarters of upbeat financial performance. Revenue in the first nine months of 2022 has surpassed the revenue in the full year of 2021, and we are raising our full year guidance for the second time this year. With the increasing demand for digital infrastructure globally, as well as the catalyst provided by the “East Data West Computation” policy, the Company sees its advantages in hyperscale business to be even more apparent. We will continue to do the right thing in the correct manner, to consistently build our capability, to strengthen our research & development, to enhance our competitive power and to operate our business in a prudent manner, so as to create long-term value for our clients, partners, investors and other stakeholders in a sustainable way.”
