COTY vs GDS Comparison

Coty is a global beauty maker that focuses on fragrance (59% of sales) and color cosmetics (28%), with limited exposure to skincare (5%) and body care (8%). For the fragrance business, Coty licenses luxury and high-end brands including Gucci, Burberry, Hugo Boss, Davidoff, and Calvin Klein, while its consumer cosmetics business focuses on acquired mass brands such as CoverGirl, Max Factor, Rimmel, Sally Hansen, and Bourjois. It also collaborates with social media celebrities Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner to launch makeup products bearing their names. By region, Coty generates close to 44% of sales from Europe, 42% from the Americas, and 14% from Asia-Pacific. German investment firm JAB is a controlling shareholder, with a 53% stake.

GDS Holdings started as an IT service provider in 2001 then moved to the data center business with its first self-developed data center opening in 2010. The company now develops and operates data centers in China and also builds, operates and transfers data centers for other clients. It offers colocation and managed services and mainly targets hyperscale cloud service customers who take large areas of its data centers or even whole data centers under long-term contracts. It has aggressively raised capital over the past four years for expansion. Its data centers are located predominantly in and around the Tier 1 cities in China and it has also started an expanding into Southeast Asia. GDS listed on the Nasdaq in 2016 and completed a secondary listing in Hong Kong in 2020.