Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

But truly, the demand is across the board. It’s across the board in terms of the entirety of the powertrain and thermal chain. So just like we were expecting, there are some technologies that are specific to high-density compute or anyway GPU-based compute, but there is a market demand expansion that is simply more megawatts being deployed that is impacting the entire range. Again, it’s not just one piece of the portfolio. It’s the entire range. It’s still early in many respects for the industry, and the industry and the design of future — exact structure is still unfolding, but we are pleased to be able to follow our customers and to support our customer across the entire spectrum of their decision structurally.

Jeffrey Sprague: And then just kind of widening the lens on supply chain. So it sounds like yours is where you need it to be. I’m sure you’re working hard to keep it that way. But just kind of the general big picture here, Gio, in terms of site preparation, craft labor, utility feeds to deliver these megawatts and the like. What are you seeing or hearing from the field in terms of the ability to kind of drive revenues higher kind of into ’25 and ’26? It seems like the demand is there, right? My question is really about being able to put the product in the ground.

Giordano Albertazzi: Jeff, I’ll be very brief considering the second question. The situation has not dramatically changed from what we were saying — we were seeing last time. Again, the industry is growing. Could there be kind of a bigger growth in absolute terms? Yes, but let’s not forget that this is about building data center. This is about getting permits and getting power. So there is a lot, of course, of public also debate about this. So I’ll reference to that.

Operator: Our next question comes from Amit Daryanani of Evercore.

Amit Daryanani: I guess, Gio, I was hoping you could put some context around [Technical Difficulty]…

Operator: Amit, your line has — you still there? Amit, please go ahead.

Amit Daryanani: Hopefully, you can hear me well.

Giordano Albertazzi: We can hear you now.

Amit Daryanani: All right. Perfect. Gio, I guess my question was really around the order growth number at 60% is extremely impressive and I get the compares a bit easier. But nonetheless, I was wondering if you could talk about how much of this growth do you think is driven by the duration kind of expanding versus unit uptick that’s happening. Is there a way to think about those 2 metrics? And then as you think about these orders really becoming revenues, should we start to think about revenue growth accelerating versus your longer-term targets in ’25 and beyond at this point?

Giordano Albertazzi: Well, good one. Amit, thank you for the question. Certainly, we’re very happy about our order number. The majority of the order overage, let’s say, as I was saying in — when we were going through the slides is indeed and the majority of the acceleration is coming from large projects, indeed. And what we have seen in the large projects, that there has been some extension, if you will, of the requested lead time or delivery date.

So in the past, I was more talking about a 9- to 18-month window in terms of the requested delivery. Now this — what we are serving is a little bit longer. So think in terms of 12, 18 months or so. That has been a little bit of a window of coverage changing behind us. But it’s good. I mean we have more visibility of what our customers do, and that gives us the possibility to execute even more orderly and punctually, if you will, on everything and align supply chain.

What does that mean in terms of the future years? It’s probably premature. But again, while we stick still to the conversation we had at Investor Day in terms of the general dynamics of the market, what we see today is on the — is fairly on the upper end of the ranges that we shared with you. So positive in that respect.

Operator: Our next question comes from Steve Tusa of JPMorgan.

C. Stephen Tusa: Just a question on the market, I guess. What’s your — you guys cover a lot here, and you talked to all the consultants, I mean, what’s your estimate of like the kind of quarterly rate of gigawatt adds for the industry here in the U.S., the kind of the run rate we’re at just roughly?

Giordano Albertazzi: Well, look, going into this detail would be given an updated view of what we shared with you back in — at the end of November. So I will go back to comments I made answering, Amit. So we see that the projection and expectations that we shared with you were still hold through. We gave some headwinds. We see that the tailwinds that, again, we shared are happening. We’re happy with what we see. There is so much debate and literature exactly how many gigawatts have been deployed in North America and other parts of the world that I think it’s better we reference to that as the market is still in a very dynamic situation right now.

C. Stephen Tusa: Okay. And then just on orders, I would assume from this level that backlog will absolutely continue to grow every quarter. I mean you talked about the book-to-bill of 1.5x not being sustainable, but that’s kind of a wide range. Should we assume that it should remain above 1x every quarter? And then just I know you’re not going to particular here. But is the price at this stage now decelerating, stable or accelerating relative to what you guys have talked about in the fourth quarter as far as the orders are concerned?

Giordano Albertazzi: So second and third question. So on the orders and backlog, I go back, if I’m not so surprised, Steve. So second and third question, backlog we believe for the remainder of the year, we’ll be on or above 1x when it comes to book-to-bill. Whether that happens every quarter, it’s a little bit premature to say. There are a lot of dynamics at play.

Price, I go back to the comments we made in February. What I said, okay, we’re not disclosing price. We’re talking about price/cost. We’re satisfied with the price/cost that we see and certainly is consistent, on the one hand, with the guidance we are giving you now obviously, but also is consistent with, let’s say, the direction of travel and the vision that we shared with you at Investor Day.