NextDC racks up year of growth
Australian-listed datacentre-as-a-service provider, NextDC, today revealed that it expects to report a 201 percent year-on-year increase in orders — to 722 — and a 21 percent, AU$25 million, increase in its revenue pipeline, to AU$144 for the financial year ending June.
Today's announcement (PDF) precedes NextDC's 2014 financial report, which will be released on 25 August, and outlines a number of non-financial key performance metrics for the full financial year ending 30 June 2014.
The company has also revealed that it expects to report 132 percent growth in customers, to 302 — picking up an extra 172 customers over the course of the year, and a 190 percent boost in cross connects, recording 975 for the year, bringing its total up to 1,488.
While today's market update does not indicate what the company expects its operating profit for the year to be, it does set a reassuring scene for investors in advance of the company's final FY14 results.
In February, NextDC told investors that, despite a sixfold rise in revenue for the second half of last year, it had recorded a AU$3.4 million loss in earnings before interest and tax (EBITDA) for the six months ending December 2013 — a whopping 150 percent tumble from the previous year's result of AU$7.3 million for the same period.
NextDC also revealed today that its contracted customer utilisation rate for the year at the end of June had increased by 22 percent, or 2.12 megawatts (MW), at an average rate of over AU$5 million per MW per annum, up to 11.86 MW.
Meanwhile, NextDC's increase in contracted utilisation in the second half was 24 percent higher than the increase in the first half, up to 1.18MW at AU$5.6 million per MW from 0.94MW at AU$4.7 million per MW.
The market update comes only a day after NextDC announced its admission to the Australian Government Data Centre Facilities Supplies Panel, administered by the Department of Finance — enabling the company to contract with Australian Government departments and agencies for the supply of datacentre services at any of its five collocation facilities.
Besides NextDC, the government named three other companies this week to be added to the panel, including Canberra Data Centres, Australian Data Centres, and Datapod.
This week also saw SubPartners sign a deal with NextDC to use the company's P1 datacentre in Perth for the landing station of its APX-West and PAX-Central submarine cables.