Yahoo Finance 21Vianet Group, Inc. (VNET) Q2 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript
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21Vianet Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: VNET)
Q2 2018 Earnings Conference Call
Aug. 16, 2018, 8:00 p.m. ET
Contents:
Prepared Remarks
Questions and Answers
Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good morning and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you and welcome to 21Vianet Group's Second Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will be hosting a question-and-answer session after management's prepared remarks.
With us today are Mr. Alvin Wang, Chief Executive Officer and President, Ms. Sharon Liu, Chief Financial Officer, and Ms. Rene Jiang, Investor Relations Director of the company. I will now turn the call to Ms. Rene Jiang, IRD of 21Vianet. Please go ahead, ma'am.
Rene Jiang -- Director of Investor Relations
Hello, everyone. Welcome to our second quarter 2018 earnings conference call. Before we start, please note that this call may contain forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions for the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and observations that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors not under the company's control, which may cause actual results, performance, or achievements of the company to be materially different from the results, performance, or expectations implied by these forward-looking statements.
All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements, risk factors, and details of the company's filings with the SEC. 21Vianet undertakes no duty to revise or update any forward-looking statements for selected events, or circumstances after the date of this conference call.
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I will now turn the call over to Mr. Alvin Wang, CEO and President of 21Vianet.
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Rene. Good morning and good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us for the earnings call today. This is the third quarter since we completed the divestiture of our loss-making MNS business. Our strategy to focus entirely on our core hosting and related services business, including IDC, cloud, and VPN services, has proven to be a key driver of our growth.
During the last nine months, we saw continued improvements in both our financial and operational results. We are particularly pleased to achieve a 29% year-over-year growth of our adjusted EBITDA this quarter, expanding the adjusted EBITDA margin to 26.7% from 23% in the same period last year.
The healthy trajectory of our financial performance is fueled by our relentless efforts to optimize our operational efficiency. With our attention and resources fully focused on our core business, we were able to make marked improvements in the management of our cabinets' capacity, power usage, and the human resources. As for results, we have significantly enhanced the efficiency of our cost and expand structure, making our business leaner and stronger than ever before.
Furthermore, in the first half of 2018, we introduced a series of incentives to our employees called Performance Stock Units. We believe our incentive plans, based on very detailed KPIs, are well-designed to further motivate our team and to boost their productivity. We will continue to implement this incentive program in the coming quarters.
Our improvements in operational efficiency build upon our already robust capability in network reliability, service quality, and carrier and cloud server neutrality, allowing us to capture new opportunities in the rapidly growing Chinese IDC markets. During the quarter, we welcomed new customers in Chinese internet and the financial services sectors, including R&D Cloud, a subsidiary of China Merchants Bank, Salo Data, an Asia-listed service and solution provider for investment banks, Syntac, and other financial institutions, and Ding Dung Kayo, an auto pharmacy.
In addition, as our existing customers expanded their own businesses, they consequently increased their appetite for our data center capacity. Examples of shelf requests came from companies, including BMW China and A Day Later.
As our customer base grows and their demand increases, we took measures to ensure that we have sufficient capacity to serve our customers, especially those ones in Tier 1 cities. We added around 300 cabinets to our self-built network in the second quarter, bringing the total number of our higher margin producing self-built cabinets to 24,167. The recent surge in customer demand has also prompted us to expand our capacity. We have reached an agreement to deliver an additional 1,000 cabinets in Shanghai in the second half of this year.
In addition, we recently signed a long-term lease agreement to obtain the rights to use over 20,000 square meter property in Beijing. The new location is estimated to add another 3,000 to 4,000 cabinets to our data center network. We are now waiting for the electricity and the fire appliance approval from related authorities and we expect the first batch of cabinets to be delivered in the second half of 2019.
After conducting extensive market research on the wholesale data market, we are convinced of the tremendous growth opportunities it offers. Consequently, we have decided to enter the wholesale markets, albeit in a very disciplined manner. We have thoroughly examined potential property resources, the consensus was current and the potential customers, evaluated financial terms and return on our investment. We are confident that entering the wholesale market should lead us to sustainable growth and improving profitability for the long term.
Now turning to our cloud business, as we recently announced, our wholly owned cloud business subsidiary, Shanghai Blue Cloud Technology, has entered into distribution partnership agreements with four world-class service providers in July. We will be responsible for the localization, marketing, and distribution of our partners' cloud services in mainland China. This is an important milestone for our cloud business, as we have not only expanded our own services offerings, but also establish ourselves as a highly sought-after partner for international cloud solution providers seeking to commercialize their product safely and effectively in China.
Finally, I'd like to give an update on our VPN business. Our close communication with the relevant authorities regarding VPN compliance has resulted in important progresses. Our subsidiary has signed cooperation agreements with China Mobile International and has submitted the agreement to China Academy for information and communications technology for a regulatory review and approval. Once the agreement is approved, we will be among the first batch of companies that have become 100% compliant with the new regulations on VPN. We strongly believe that the new regulations should raise the industry standards, ensure service quality, and target rate market growth in a healthy manner.
We are confident our own commitment to network safety, availability, reliability, neutrality, and quality should lead us to continuously gain market share and solidify our industry leadership.
In summary, we expanded our data center capacity, achieved new customer wins, and improved our operating efficiency during the second quarter of 2018. We have also expanded our business scope to the wholesale data center market and laid a solid foundation for accelerating and sustaining our growth. We are confident that we will further strengthen our market leadership in the world's fastest growing IDC market in the world.
Now I would like to turn the call to Sharon Liu, CFO of our company, to give you more details of our financial results.
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you and hello, everyone. As Alvin mentioned earlier, we divested MNS business by the end of the third quarter of 2017. Since then, all of our revenues and expenses are currently generated by our core hosting and related services. To make our year-over-year comparisons relevant and meaningful, in the following remarks, we have excluded our revenues and expenses related to the MNS business from our second quarter of 2017 results. We believe this would offer better clarity and insight into the true performance of our core business.
Please also note that we will present non-GAAP measures today. Our non-GAAP results exclude certain non-cash expenses which are not a part of our core operation. The details of these expenses may be found in the reconciliation tables included in our press release. Please note that all the financial numbers we are presenting today are in RMB terms and that percentage changes are on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise stated.
During the quarter, we remained focused on enhancing the efficiency and the effectiveness of our operations while sustaining our strong top and bottom line growth momentum. Our net revenue in the second quarter increased by 11.4% year-over-year to RMB828.3 million, driven by the writing cash amount for more cabinet capacity.
Hosting MRR per cabinet for the second quarter was RMB8,271, compared to RMB7,697 in the same period of last year, and RMB7,905 in the first quarter of 2018. The increase in MRR was mainly due to an increased amount of hybrid IT services and other added services that our customers purchased during the quarter.
Our adjusted cash gross profit, which excludes depreciation, amortization, and share-based compensation expenses, increased to RMB364 million this quarter, representing an increase of 14.4% from RMB318.2 million in the prior year period. Adjusted cash gross margin further expanded to 33.9% from 32.8% in the prior year period. The improvement in adjusted cash gross margin was mainly due to our solid revenue growth and a series of efficiency enhancement initiatives that were implemented.
Adjusted operating expenses were RMB161.9 million, a slight increase of 1.2% from RMB160 million in the prior year period. As a percentage of net revenues, adjusted operating expenses reduced to 19.5% from 21.5% in the prior year period, driven by our ongoing efforts in optimizing our cost and expense structures.
As our economy of scale improves, our adjusted EBITDA increased by 29.1% to RMB221.1 million from RMB171.3 million in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 26.7% from 23% in the prior year period. Our net loss was RMB95.5 million compared to RMB119.3 million in the same period of 2017. Our net loss in the second quarter included a RMB73.4 million foreign exchange loss due to depreciation of RMB, which was unrealized non-cash in nature.
Basic and diluted loss per share was RMB0.14 in the second quarter of 2018, which represents the equivalent of RMB0.84 per ADS. Each ADS represents six ordinary shares.
Turning to our cash flow and balance sheet, we generated RMB111.4 million of positive cash flow from operating activities during the second quarter. In addition, our cash and cash equivalents, particularly cash and short-term investments, were RMB2,657.5 million at the end of June 2018. With our solid cash position and our strong cash generation capability will well-position us to capitalize on new market opportunities in the blooming IDC industry in China.
Before I give you our forward-looking guidance, it's important to note that we have been able to achieve or exceed our own guidance three quarters in a row. As a company, we have always been prudent in managing our financial budget and conservative in giving our growth forecasts. We're also vigilant to maintain stringent internal control and ensure full disclosure of accurate information.
Now, for the third quarter of 2018, we expect net revenues to be in the range of RMB840 million to RMB860 million. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of RMB230 million to RMB 250 million. The midpoint of guidance range indicates year-over-year increase of 5% in revenue and 36% in adjusted EBIDTA.
Based on solid first half 2018 results, we are raising our full-year guidance for both net revenue and adjusted EBITDA. For the full year, we now expect net revenue to be in the range of RMB3.28 billion to RMB3.38 billion, RMB30 million above the original guidance range. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year is now expected to be in the range of RMB800 million to RMB880 million, RMB15 million above our original guidance range. The midpoint of the guidance range indicates year-over-year increase of 12% in revenue and 25% in adjusted EBITDA.
This forecast relies on our current and the prevailing rate on the market and operational conditions, which are subject to change.
This concludes our prepared remarks for today. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press "*1" on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you need to cancel that request, please press "#". But, once again, to ask a question, it is "*1" on your telephone.
Our first question comes from Yang Liu from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yang Liu -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Good morning, management. Thanks a lot for the opportunity to ask questions. And first I would like to congratulations on the strong results and also the upward revision of our guidance.
I have four questions. The first one is related with MRR. I noticed that it's up almost 5% quarter-on-quarter, 7.4% year-on-year. And the management mentioned that it was driven by the hybrid IT and the VAS. I just want to make sure the hybrid IT and the VAS are all recurring revenue and I'd like to know if managing the high level of MRR in the second quarter is sustainable going forward or not. That's my first question.
The second one is that we are very happy to see the good cooperation with Tus-Holdings in the IDC pipeline. So will this capacity be for retail business or wholesale business expansion? And are the two projects within the current guidance of around 3,000 or 4,000 new cabinets per year or is that on top of the current guidance? And how about the CapEx plan to build the two new projects?
The third question is related with the execution of the incentive program, the employee incentive program. Though I know it is still in the early stages, we'll appreciate if management could share some progress or something you observed in the execution of the whole management team.
The last question is related with FX loss. I guess it's due to the U.S. dollar rebound but I would like to know if the company has further or future hedging strategy to control the risks. Thank you.
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
Okay. Thank you, Yang. This is Sharon. I will take your first question on MRR. First, I want to emphasize that over 90% of our revenue is on a recurring basis and the increase of MRR of this color, nearly 5% compared to Q1, the increase was contributed by sequential demands for variety and added service from customers. Our MRR is a blended rate, which includes different product and customer mix, besides co-location power. These customers like more connectivity, hybrid IT or hybrid cloud services, and other value-added service. Our MRR per cabinet mix will increase accordingly.
We are trying to add more value-added service to the customer, not only to increase our revenue but also to enhance our customers' stickiness. In the second half of 2018, you asking me that MRR will remain at the same level of Q2 with little fluctuations. Okay. So Alan will take your next two questions.
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Regarding the cooperation with Tus-Holdings, we are happy to see that we achieved very good progress, not only in Shanghai but also in Beijing this quarter. And also regarding that property that currently we are targeting both wholesale and retail customers as well. And the majority of our focus will be retail customers in the city area of Beijing. And regarding the CapEx, actually the majority of the CapEx will be in 2019. So currently that's 3,000 to 4,000 cabinet CapEx plan is beyond our current plan. And also the delivery of the cabinets will be in three phases. Sorry, in two phases. So the first batch will be in 2019 and the second batch will be in 2020.
Regarding PSU, currently, as you mentioned, we already started the implementation of the PSU program. And currently the program covers the management team and key personnel of the 21Vianet Group. It's around 68 people covered. And so we see very positive feedback from our key tenants and also to move forward, we will continue to implement this program based on our performance and also based on the new tenants added.
So regarding the fourth question, I will turn it back to Sharon.
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
Okay. I will answer the fourth question regarding the foreign exchange loss. You are right. The loss was mainly due to the depreciation of RMB for foreign exchange. The reason that we raise capital offshore and purchase equipment and property on shore in RMB. People have had two ways of offshore capital transferring across border, which have both have earned approvals of safe. One is equity method, which is investing paid-in capital from offshore subsidiary to onshore subsidiary. Under this method, the offshore subsidiary's long-term investment and onshore subsidiary's paid-in capital will be entirely eliminated during the consolidation of the financial statement. The other way is loan method. Offshore subsidiary lends capital to onshore subsidiary. Under this method, offshore subsidiary, you as receivable cannot be entirely eliminated by the onshore subsidiary's payable. So we recognize for any change, gain, or loss accordingly based on the quarterly end foreign exchange.
In the hedge, we like to use both the two measures, both the equity and loan method, for the cross-border capital injection. Under the loan method, once RMB depreciates, we recognize loss. Once RMB appreciates, we recognize gain. So we recognized gain in Q1 and recognized loss in Q2. But I want to emphasize that all this amount is unrealized non-cash amount. Because the loans are between our subsidiaries, we can roll over the loan very easily. For the $300 million U.S. loans you concern, we are now holding over two-thirds of that loan in U.S. dollars and we are also doing some hedging to avoid for any exchange rates.
Okay. Thank you. I hope I clarified your concerns.
Yang Liu -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Thank you. Actually, I have one follow-up question regarding the new project. Given the quite tight power consumption quota in Beijing or Shanghai, do management team expect any difficulty to secure the power consumption quota for the two new projects? Thank you.
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Regarding the new projects in Shanghai, we mentioned it was 1,000 cabinet capacity. Actually, we got our approval. So basically that's why we will deliver the cabinets in the second half of this year in two batches. And regarding the projects in Beijing, we're still waiting for the final approval from the related authorities but we have very strong confidence that we can have all the approval in the coming quarters since we have pre-communications and other measures in place. So there's a risk but it's manageable.
Yang Liu -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Thanks a lot.
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
I will add more color on your questions about the two new projects' CapEx. Actually, the Shanghai project, we generally will deliver around 3,500 cabinets. So the CapEx is over RMB400 million. And we already spent RMB20 million last year and there will be additional spend around RMB30 million this year, which is included -- which are not included in our CapEx guidance, which is RMB400 million to RMB500 million this year. And for the Beijing project, the target cabinet delivery is from -- in the range of 3,000 to 4,000 cabinets. So the CapEx is also around RMB400 million. We will factor that CapEx in the next year CapEx.
Okay. Thank you.
Yang Liu -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Got it. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Justin Zhang from China AMC. Please go ahead.
Justin Zhang -- China AMC -- Analyst
Hi, management. Congrats on a strong quarter. I have probably two questions here. First, may I have what the capacity of your Beijing project -- how many cabinets you will provide? And can we see some revenue acceleration in the second half of this year? And the second, based on your guidance, it seems that the EBITDA in 4Q will be slightly down Q-on-Q from the third quarter. Can you provide more color on this? Thank you.
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Sorry. Thank you, Justin. It's Alvin here. I will address your first question regarding the new projects in Beijing. For that project, we have 3,000 to 4,000 cabinet capacity and the majority of the customers will be retail customers. So the ramp-up periods will be around six months to 24 months. So the majority of the revenue will come from -- start to come in in 2020. Thank you.
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
Hi, Justin. Regarding your question on our guidance, I want to say that our cash results beat proved the healthy financials of the company. We will continue to optimize our operational efficiency. So based on current looking, we raised our guidance. As Alvin and I, the co-management of 21Vianet, is a conservative way to communicate with the public. So we raised the revenue and the EBITDA guidance in that range. Currently, we have full confidence to beat that raised guidance for both revenue and EBITDA. Thank you.
Justin Zhang -- China AMC -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Harsh Agarwal from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Harsh Agarwal -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. I have a few questions actually from my side as well. One is your cash balance that you have, the RMB2 billion-odd cash balance, how much of this is actually in U.S. dollars versus RMB roughly?
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
Okay. So over two-thirds of the cash balance is in the U.S. dollar currently.
Harsh Agarwal -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Okay. That's good. And also in your cash flows, there is a big inflow in the investing cash flow section. I think the amount is RMB357 million, where you say it is proceeds from other investing activities. I'm just curious what exactly is this? It's in the investing cash flow section.
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
Okay. So you're asking about the investing activities, right?
Harsh Agarwal -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Correct. The RMB357 million.
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
That's related to our arrangement between we and Warburg Pincus. Actually we settled the third project with Warburg Pincus and we received their cash for the 49% of our third project's validation.
Harsh Agarwal -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Okay. And this is for the -- this is like a data center joint venture project with Warburg or what exactly is it? I'm sorry. I don't know about it.
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
Actually, we set up a joint venture with Warburg Pincus to mainly focus on the closeout project. We have a joint venture -- we have two joint ventures with them. Under one joint venture, we own 51% of the equity and that amount is because of Warburg Pincus bought the 49% of equity for a property in Beijing. And we will inject that amount in Q3 to the joint venture, too, and working with Warburg Pincus to further data center expansion.
Harsh Agarwal -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Okay. So this is for the first joint venture, you're saying. Is it? The RMB357 million?
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes.
Harsh Agarwal -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Okay. And the second joint venture, how much stake do you have and how much stake does Warburg have?
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
Actually, after we injected the over RMB300 million capital in the joint venture, they will have over RMB800 million on hand to do the further expansion.
Harsh Agarwal -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Okay. So the second joint venture hasn't started yet, basically?
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes. There are several pipelines in that joint venture.
Harsh Agarwal -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Okay, OK. Got it. Okay. And one last question for me was there are some headlines about the Chinese government is looking to reform a lot of universities in China. And there are talks about Tsinghua University might actually sell Tus-Holdings. I'm just curious. Any thoughts on that side? Is it likely that we'll see changing ownership in Tus-Holdings and what does that mean for 21Vianet?
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
I will hear some sort of a question that's regarding the information you mentioned. We haven't received any formal instructions from Tus-Holdings. And we do have some communications with Tus-Holdings and their final controlling stakeholders. And the message was received that -- whatever changes are happening in Tus-Holdings, still 21Vianet will remain as one of the keys of the Tus-Holdings group. And also that Tus-Holdings group will continue to support 21Vianet. So it's in their best effort. Thank you.
Harsh Agarwal -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Alright. Thank you so much.
Operator
Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press "*1" on your telephone. Our next question comes from Evelyn Cheng from Citi. Please go ahead.
Evelyn Cheng -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Hi, management team. Good morning. So I only have one question. I just want to ask if there's any progress on the wholesale business. Can you please share more details? Thanks.
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your question regarding wholesale. As we mentioned previously, we have very strong confidence to address the wholesale markets. As you know, we haven't put a lot of effort in the last two to three years in this domain, so it should take us a little while to establish our internal team and also especially raise the right resources or property to serve the leading customers. And in the past two quarters, we do see very strong pipeline progress ongoing, especially with the top public cloud providers here in China. And in the past quarter, we do see a lot progress, especially in won projects. We had very in-depth discussions with that leading customer and we are very close to sign legal binding agreements. But still, since we haven't reached agreement yet, we cannot disclose any further information from that perspective. Thank you.
Operator
Once again, if anyone would like to ask a question, please press "*1" on your telephone. Our next question comes from Hans Huang from Huizhi International. Please go ahead.
Hans Huang -- Huizhi International -- Analyst
Hi, management. I've just got one follow-up question on the Beijing new project. Is it a wholesale or retail focused project? And will it be 100% controlled by your company or owned by the JV with Warburg Pincus. Thank you.
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you for the question. For the new Beijing projects, for the whole project, the land we lease, finance lease, from a Tus-Holdings subsidiary and the whole project is owned by 21Vianet rather than the joint venture with Warburg Pincus. And for the customers, the main focus will be retail customers since we do see very strong demands and especially this property has a very good location in Beijing. So we have quite strong confidence to address retail customers with higher profitability. Thank you.
Hans Huang -- Huizhi International -- Analyst
Thank you. Actually, I have one follow-up question. Can you briefly comment on the supply and demand for the data center in Beijing and Shanghai respectively? Thank you.
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Okay. Thank you for your question. From our view, we see very strong demand from Beijing and Shanghai and also we see very strong supply from Beijing and Shanghai at this moment. So we do see very strong competition in this space in Beijing and Shanghai. Going forward, we see even stronger demands coming up and we see relatively limited supply from both Beijing and Shanghai. So going forward, we are very optimistic regarding the whole business, especially in Beijing and Shanghai. Thank you.
Hans Huang -- Huizhi International -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
This is the final call. If you would like to ask a question, please press "*1" on your telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Charles Li from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Charles Li -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Hey. Thanks for the management sharing on today's earnings call and congratulations on the numbers. And we would like to know more about your cooperation with Warburg Pincus going forward and what's the plan for the JV and how the whole strategy played out in your outlook, both in financials as well as strategic operation. Thanks.
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you for the question regarding the joint venture. We see formed the joint venture one year ago. Currently, the whole joint venture team is fully established and we do see very strong pipeline progress ongoing in Tier 1 cities, especially in the central part of China. And we do have one project already signed a legal binding agreement. So it is the property owner. So we will acquire that property in Shanghai with 7,000 cabinet capacity in total in three cities. So looking forward, this joint venture will be one of the main platforms for 21Vianet to address the wholesale markets across China. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Stanley Chan from China Orient. Please go ahead.
Stanley Chan -- China Orient Asset Management -- Analyst
Thanks for taking my question. So I'd like to clarify further about the Warburg Pincus joint venture. So how many CapEx are we going to spend in each year for that wholesale business and how much will be contributed by our side and their side? Thank you.
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Okay. So regarding the joint venture, currently the share structure for the new projects, 21Vianet owns 49% and Warburg Pincus has 51%. And both sides will contribute cash into that joint venture. And we still have the option to have another -- to acquire another 2% on each single project. So basically, going forward, we will continue to address wholesale markets. And in selected projects, we have the power and we have the right to consolidate those projects into 21Vianet Group.
And regarding the CapEx, as I mentioned, we have many pipeline projects ongoing. So the capital plan for this year is quite flexible. We still have enough -- we have very strong cash position in this joint venture. So for this year and for the coming year, we have very strong confidence to cover the whole CapEx with our own capital. Thank you.
Stanley Chan -- China Orient Asset Management -- Analyst
And so what would be the target for this year and next year? Do you have a rough idea of the CapEx amounts?
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Sorry. Can you repeat your question? Sorry.
Stanley Chan -- China Orient Asset Management -- Analyst
I mean, what is the estimate about the amount of CapEx you will spend this year and next year?
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
For the joint venture, right?
Stanley Chan -- China Orient Asset Management -- Analyst
For the whole company as a whole, including joint venture equity part.
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
Let me clarify this. Actually for just the joint venture, we only own 49% of the equity share and the joint venture already has over RMB800 million on hand as paid-in capital. We think for each of the pipeline projects, they can do the project financing themselves in the joint venture.
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
So basically we will not inject any further capital into that joint venture for new projects on that platform.
Stanley Chan -- China Orient Asset Management -- Analyst
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Operator
Just one final call. If you would like to ask a question, please press "*1" on your telephone. There are no further questions. I will now turn the call back to management for further comments.
Rene Jiang -- Director of Investor Relations
Thank you once again for joining the call today. If you have any further questions, please contact us at IR@21vianet.com. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the conference for today. Thank you so much for your attendance. You may all disconnect.
Duration: 47 minutes
Call participants:
Rene Jiang -- Director of Investor Relations
Alvin Wang -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Sharon Liu -- Chief Financial Officer
Yang Liu -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Justin Zhang -- China AMC -- Analyst
Harsh Agarwal -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Evelyn Cheng -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Hans Huang -- Huizhi International -- Analyst
Charles Li -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Stanley Chan -- China Orient Asset Management -- Analyst
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