occurrences
The company released its 2022 annual report: the company achieved revenue of 1.46 billion yuan, an increase of 16.9% over the previous year; due to the impact of the company's asset-heavy business model and the increase in short-term depreciation caused by large-scale delivery of data centers in the early stages, it achieved net profit of 115 million yuan, a decrease of 5.45% over the previous year; and achieved net profit of 95 million yuan after deducting non-return mother's net profit of 95 million yuan, an increase of 13.7% over the previous year.
Key points of investment
EBITDA is growing steadily, and the leading position in the industry is stable
In 2022, as demand from end customers increased, the company's data center cabinets already in operation were gradually electrified, speeding up revenue growth. The company achieved an EBITDA of about 1.02 billion yuan, an increase of 21.5% over the previous year. As a wholesale customized data center service provider, the company showed a steady development trend through short-term fluctuations in the industry. Through the gradual release of production capacity of data center projects that have been put into operation, a gradual increase in performance has been achieved. According to the “China Third-Party Data Center Operator Analysis Report (2022)” released by the Institute of Information and Communications Technology, the overall scale of the data port has jumped to second place in the industry, demonstrating the company's leading position. On the other hand, the company responded positively to the national “digital China” strategy and gradually promoted the construction of the first phase of the China Unicom (Huailai) Big Data Innovation Industrial Park project, the Hebei Langfang project, and the Shanghai Minhang project. It is expected that the completion of future construction will further lay the foundation for the company's development.
AI injects significant momentum into IDC
The company built and operated a total of 35 data centers on the “counting from east to west” hub nodes in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The number of megawatts of IT operating reached 371 MW, an increase of 445% over 68.1 MW in 2018. Converted to about 74200 5KW standard cabinets, it can support customers with computing power of 20 billion computations per second, and can widely support the development of artificial intelligence, AIGC and other fields. Recently, ChatGPT has shown the potential for big AI model applications, and “opening a new era of AI” is gradually moving from concept to lifestyle. As an important infrastructure that carries data storage, transmission, and computing power requirements, demand for intelligent computing is rising, driven by large-scale AI model applications such as ChatGPT. In the past 5 years, the total scale of computing power CAGR has exceeded 25%, and in 2022, the scale of China's intelligent computing power reached 268 billion times per second (EFLOPS), exceeding the scale of general computing power; it is estimated that in the next 5 years, the compound annual growth rate of China's intelligent computing power scale will reach 52.3%. With the commercialization of AI, large-scale demand for computing power will bring additional space to data centers.
Profit forecasting
The company's revenue for 2023-2025 is estimated to be 1.92 billion yuan, 2.46 billion yuan, and 3.08 billion yuan respectively, and the EPS is 0.44, 0.67, and 0.96 yuan respectively. The current stock price corresponding to PE is 86, 56, and 39 times, respectively, giving a “buy” investment rating.
Risk warning
Risks such as macroeconomic environmental risks, high customer concentration risks, risks of industrial policy changes, and AI growth falling short of expectations.