[summary]
The data center is similar to the real estate rental business, so companies with data center assets in the core area have greater value. The layout of Shanghai Athub Co.Ltd(603881) data center is mainly concentrated near China’s first tier cities such as Hangzhou / Shanghai / Jiangsu / Beijing / Hebei / Guangdong. In addition, the company is deeply bound to bat and other Internet head major customers. As of 2021, Shanghai Athub Co.Ltd(603881) has provided double 11 data center operation and maintenance support services for major customers for 11 consecutive years, with stable demand.
IDC enterprise business model analysis
Data center (IDC) is a subdivision of Internet infrastructure. It mainly provides a space for large Internet companies, cloud computing enterprises, financial institutions and other customers to store servers, including necessary network, power, air conditioning and other infrastructure. At the same time, it provides maintenance and other value-added services to obtain space rental fees and value-added service fees. IDC industry naturally has the attribute of real estate, which is to provide customers with business premises and then charge rent.
IDC is an industry with relatively high added value. For example, in July 2018, Beijing Sinnet Technology Co.Ltd(300383) acquired Kexin Shengcai and disclosed the rent price of the data center in Beijing. Taking 20A cabinet as an example, the monthly rent of a 20A cabinet located in Taihe bridge, Yizhuang, Beijing is about 6000 yuan (including electricity, excluding broadband).
Assuming that the area of a standard cabinet is about 2.5 square meters, and the average area is about 7 square meters after the sharing of air conditioning, ups and other supporting facilities, the rental price of Yizhuang data center is about 29 yuan / day / square meter, which is basically the same as that of Beijing Financial Street Holdings Co.Ltd(000402) office building! According to experience, the cost of water and electricity in the data center accounts for about 30% of the rental price. After excluding the cost of water and electricity, the rental price of Yizhuang data center is about 20 yuan / day / m2, which is much higher than the rental price of Yizhuang Local Industrial Park (3-5 yuan / day / m2).
According to different business operation modes, China’s IDC industry can be roughly divided into three categories: self built computer room mode, leased computer room mode and large customer demand undertaking mode.
business model 1: self built computer room model
The mode of self owned computer room refers to that IDC service providers provide IDC services on the basis of the property right of self owned computer room. This mode is completed independently or under the leadership of itself from the aspects of site selection, docking of land and hydropower resources, review and project approval, civil engineering, installation of supporting facilities, project acceptance and so on. The core difference between the self built computer room mode and the leased computer room mode is whether it has the complete property right of the computer room (both the property right of the computer room plant and the property right of the supporting facilities in the computer room).
The first feature of self built computer room mode is that the construction progress of the project is independent and controllable. All links of the project construction are completed independently or under the leadership of the government. Generally speaking, in addition to the uncertain time of negotiating the connection of land and power resources with the government, civil engineering, supporting facilities installation and other links are relatively fast. Self built mode the whole data center construction cycle is basically one to two years.
The second feature of self built computer room mode is that it has heavy assets and large initial investment. Compared with the latter two modes, IDC service providers in self built mode need to invest in land auction and civil engineering in the early stage. If the local power and water resources are insufficient, it may even involve the investment in power stations and water plants.
business model 2: renting computer rooms to provide services
Due to the relatively heavy assets and long project cycle of the self built machine room model, many IDC service providers provide services by renting existing IDC machine rooms or renting industrial park plants for processing and transformation in order to pursue the rapid expansion of scale, so the model of renting machine rooms has been formed.
The first feature of the rental computer room mode is that the project cycle is short, which is conducive to the rapid expansion of scale. Even for the transformation of leased plants, because there is no need for land auction, housing civil engineering and docking with government resources (general industrial parks are equipped with basic resources such as power and water conservancy), the transformation cycle of the whole data center is between half a year and one year.
The second feature of the rental machine room model is that the assets are relatively light, but the factory rent or sublease rent needs to be paid. Compared with the self built computer room mode, the second mode abandons all or part of the property rights of the computer room, thus saving the early-stage investment such as land auction, house civil engineering and power station construction, but needs to pay the plant rent or computer room Sublease Rent for the property owner.
business model 3: key customer demand undertaking
The demand undertaking mode of key customers mainly refers to IDC service providers undertaking the highly customized demand of data centers of some large Internet giants such as bat in China. Generally speaking, key customers will complete the early site selection of the data center, the docking of land and hydropower resources, project approval, and even the civil engineering of the computer room, and then put forward the specific design scheme inside the computer room. IDC service providers will undertake the investment and installation of supporting facilities in the later stage, and provide the operation and maintenance services of the data center after the completion of the data center.
The demand undertaking mode of key customers is a relatively passive mode, and most links are completed under the guidance of customers. The main difference between this model and the previous two models is that its depth depends on the needs of single or several customers, and the degree of customization is higher.
The self built computer room mode is equivalent to earning the profit of plant leasing, with the highest gross profit margin; The reason why the gross profit margin of the rental computer room model is low is that the rent of the computer room occupies a large cost; The demand undertaking mode of major customers has the least investment and less relative depreciation. Many have no plant rental cost, but the rent of single cabinet is the lowest, so the gross profit margin is in the middle.
Beijing Sinnet Technology Co.Ltd(300383) is the representative company of self built computer room, Wanguo data is the representative company of renting computer room, and Shanghai Athub Co.Ltd(603881) is the representative company of large customer demand. Today, let’s talk about the data center business of Shanghai Athub Co.Ltd(603881) .
main logic:
1. The data center is similar to the real estate rental business, so companies with data center assets in the core area have greater value. The layout of Shanghai Athub Co.Ltd(603881) data center is mainly concentrated near China’s first tier cities such as Hangzhou / Shanghai / Jiangsu / Beijing / Hebei / Guangdong.
2. The company is deeply bound to bat and other Internet head major customers. As of Shanghai Athub Co.Ltd(603881) 2021, it has provided double 11 data center operation and maintenance support services for major customers for 11 consecutive years, with stable demand.
3. In terms of operation scale, the company added 6 self built data centers with operation conditions in the first half of 2021. As of the middle of 2021, Shanghai Athub Co.Ltd(603881) has built and operated 31 data centers, with a total it load of about 325.12 MW, which is converted into about 65024 standard cabinets of 5 kW.
3.08 million {3.08 million} leading cabinets. In terms of project reserves, according to the existing announcements, the company currently reserves large projects such as Shanghai Minhang, Hebei Huailai and Hebei Langfang, with rich project reserves.
main business analysis
According to the company’s 2021h1 report, the company’s main business is divided into data center business, with a revenue of 548.5 million, accounting for 99.75%.
According to the report, the company’s data center business is dominated by wholesale data center services, supplemented by retail data center services. In addition, the company also provided a small amount of data center value-added services during the reporting period, mainly including planning consulting, design consulting, operation management outsourcing, acceptance verification and other services.
Wholesale data center services provide customized server hosting services for large Internet companies or telecom operators, and usually do not provide network bandwidth services. Specifically, telecom operators or large Internet companies put forward specific data center planning, design and operation service level requirements for the company, and the company invests in the construction of data center according to the requirements;
End users place their servers and related equipment in the data center, and the company will carry out 365 of the infrastructure of the data center according to the operation service level agreed with users × 24-hour uninterrupted technical operation and operation and maintenance management ensure that the infrastructure of the data center is in an effective and safe working state, ensure the safe, stable and continuous operation of user servers and related equipment, and charge the server hosting service fee according to the power on quantity of cabinets used by the server.
Retail data center services provide relatively standardized server hosting services and network bandwidth services for small and medium-sized Internet companies, general enterprises and other customers (all end users).
According to the 2021 semi annual report, from January to June 2021, a total of 6 self built data centers with operation conditions were added, the new it load was about 74.82 megawatts (MW), and a total of 31 completed and operated data centers were added. The total it load was about 325.12 megawatts (MW), which was converted into about 65024 standard cabinets of 5 kilowatts (kw); From January 2021 to August 2021, the disclosure date of this report, the company added a total of 7 self built data centers with operation conditions, and the new it load was about 87.72 megawatts (MW);
A total of 32 data centers have been built and operated, and the total it load is about 338.02 megawatts (MW), which is converted into about 67604 5 kW standard cabinets. The newly put into operation data center project will gradually realize revenue and profit with the power on progress of end customers. Among A-share listed companies, Shanghai Athub Co.Ltd(603881) pure data center operating income accounts for 96.7%, which is the company with the highest proportion.
core competitiveness: professional IDC service provider with outstanding core business capabilities
The company is one of the few professional cloud data center service providers recognized by world-class Internet companies in China. The company has won the two international awards of “large data center Innovation Award” and “Data Center annual task specific team award” issued by datacenter dynamics, a well-known professional organization in the global data center industry. In terms of overall technical level and operation ability, the company has also been highly recognized by a number of third-party international and Chinese authorities.
In the first half of 2021, the company won the “bay area digital infrastructure technology leader” award jointly issued by the data center committee of China Communication Industry Association and the Organizing Committee of China IDC industry annual ceremony, and the “DC tech outstanding innovation pioneer” award jointly issued by China Institute of information and communication and the news and publicity Center of the Ministry of industry and information technology.
valuation analysis
At present, the Shanghai Athub Co.Ltd(603881) static PE (according to the profit expectation of 2021) is about 84 times, the dynamic PE (according to the profit expectation of 2022) is about 55.4 times, the historical valuation center of the company is about 89 times, and the lower limit range of valuation (mean value – 1 standard deviation) is about 50 times. The dynamic PE of the company in 2022 is near the lower limit range of the company’s valuation, which has a certain margin of safety.
