VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call March 28, 2024 9:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Xinyuan Liu - Director, IR
Jie Dong - CEO
Qiyu Wang - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Yang Liu - Morgan Stanley
Edison Lee - Jefferies
Timothy Zhao - Goldman Sachs Group
Huiqun Li - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Operator

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, and thank you for standing by for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call for VNET Group, Inc. [Operator Instructions].

Our participants from our management team includes: Mr. Jeff Dong, Chief Executive Officer; 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. And I will now turn the call over to the first speaker today, Ms. Xinyuan Liu. Please go ahead.

Xinyuan Liu

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Our earnings release was distributed earlier today, and you can find a copy on our IR website as well as on 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 obligation 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 measures. 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 IR website at ir.vnet.com. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Jeff.

Jie Dong

Thank you, Xinyuan. Good morning, and good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. I'd like to begin by providing an overview of our fourth quarter and full year 2023 performance. We ended 2023 on a solid note that made the steady economic recovery, demonstrating effective execution of our dual-core growth strategy. We meet our 2023 delivery targets with 8,321 self-built cabinets delivered during the year. As of year-end 2023, we had grown our total cabinets under management to approximate 93,600 compared with approximately 87,300 a year ago. The number of utilized cabinets increased by 2,827 to 55,235 in the fourth quarter, driving our overall utilization rate to 59% compared with 55% a year ago. Our Retail IDC MRR per cabinet remained stable in the fourth quarter at RMB 9,477. In terms of our financial performance, we continue to focus on high-quality revenues during the quarter, driving our net revenues to RMB 1.9 billion as well as a 3.8% year-over-year increase in our adjusted EBITDA to RMB 440.2 million.