Chinese data centre developer GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: GDS; HKEX: 9698) has reported net revenue growth for the second quarter of 2021 in the order of RMB1,863.9 million (US$288.7 million), a 38.9% increase over the second quarter of last year.

Service revenue in the second quarter of 2021 was RMB1,863.0 million (US$288.5 million), a 39.6% increase over the second quarter of 2020 of RMB1,334.5 million and a 9.3% increase over the first quarter of 2021 of RMB1,704.5 million.

The increase over the previous quarter was mainly due to full quarter revenue contribution from additional area utilised in the previous quarter and the contribution from 29,371 sqm of net additional area utilised in the second quarter of 2021, mainly related to the Shanghai 10 (SH10), Shanghai 14 (SH14) Phase 1, Langfang 6 (LF6), and Chengdu 2 (CD2) Phase 1 data centres and to the Beijing 15 (BJ15) data centre acquired during the quarter.

Gross profit was RMB439.9 million (US$68.1 million) in the second quarter of 2021, a 21.8% increase over the second quarter of 2020 of RMB361.1 million, and a 10.8% increase over the first quarter of 2021 of RMB396.9 million. Gross profit margin was 23.6% in the second quarter of 2021, compared with 26.9% in the second quarter of 2020, and 23.3% in the first quarter of 2021.

William Huang, GDS’ chairman and chief executive officer, said: “During the second quarter, we added net additional area committed of over 44,000 sqm, including over 25,000 sqm of organic sales, maintaining our run rate. We are delighted to win several first-time orders with new strategic hyperscale customers to further strengthen and diversify our customer base.

“On the resource side, we continued to scale up our supply by adding new capacity in Tier 1 markets which is always a key to success. Additionally, we took the first step in our regionalisation plan to expand our platform to Southeast Asia, laying the groundwork for capturing incremental growth opportunities in one of the world’s fastest developing digital regions.”

At the end of Q2 2021, GDS’ data centre footprint covered 393,885 sqm/4,239,742 sqft, compared with 266,260 sqm/2,865,998 sqft at the end of the second quarter of 2020 and 332,534 sqm/3,579,366 sqft at the end of the first quarter of 2021, an increase of 47.9% Y-o-Y and 18.4% Q-o-Q.

In the second quarter of 2021, SH12, SH17 Phase 1, LF3, LF9, LF10 and BJ15 (through acquisition) data centres came into service.

Area under construction at the end of the second quarter of 2021 was 161,287 sqm/1,736,078 sqft, compared with 133,208 sqm/1433838 sqft at the end of the second quarter of 2020 and 161,611 sqm/1,739,566 sqft at the end of the first quarter of 2021, an increase of 21.1% Y-o-Y and a decrease of 0.2% Q-o-Q, respectively.

In the second quarter of 2021, construction commenced on the SH17 Phase 2, CS2, Shenzhen 8 (SZ8), BJ16 and Tianjin 1 (TJ1) data centres.

Commitment rate for area in service was 95.9% at the end of the second quarter of 2021, compared with 94.1% at the end of the second quarter of 2020 and 94.6% at the end of the first quarter 2021.