Carl Murdock-Smith

Carl Murdock-Smith from Citigroup asked about the service revenue trends in "Other Europe," focusing on the step-down in Portugal due to competition from Digi and the outlook in Greece, where a stronger bounce-back was expected.

Answer

Group CEO Margherita Della Valle stated the competitive pressure in Portugal from Digi was expected, impacting ARPU through retention actions, a trend she expects to continue. Group CFO Luka Mucic added that despite this, the "Other Europe" region is expected to remain in growth for the year, with an accelerating B2B performance and a stronger second half expected in Greece.

Carl Murdock-Smith from Berenberg asked for more detail on the drivers behind the U.K.'s broadband net add decline, questioning the specific impacts of one-touch switching, AltNet competition, and price rises.

Answer

An executive from VMO2 explained that the impact of one-touch switching is growing quarterly, and aggressive competitor offers, particularly from AltNets, are pressuring the market. The executive noted that VMO2 is adapting its AI-driven retention and prevention systems to this shift and is seeing early positive signs, including 1.9% fixed service revenue growth before the recent price increase and slight improvements from April onwards.

Carl Murdock-Smith inquired about the Virgin Media O2 fiber rollout, asking for specifics on how many of the 5 million premises passed are ready for sale and the number of customers on the new fiber infrastructure.

Answer

Executive Michael Fries explained that of the 5 million homes passed, approximately 1.3 million are via nexfibre, with the rest from VMO2's own upgrades. He stated that the company is not disclosing fiber penetration rates at this time and is being deliberate about migrating HFC customers to fiber. Executive Lutz Schüler added that the existing HFC network remains strong and there is no immediate pressure from churn to accelerate fiber sales. Executive Charles Bracken confirmed no specific penetration numbers have been released.

Carl Murdock-Smith of Berenberg questioned whether the market is fully recognizing the value of the Ventures portfolio and asked about the long-term strategy for the portfolio: monetization versus continued investment.

Answer

Michael Fries, CEO of Liberty Global, defended the portfolio's third-party valuation, citing the recent All3Media sale at 12x EBITDA as proof of underlying value. He described a flexible strategy of monetizing certain assets to fund strategic initiatives (like the Sunrise deleveraging), while simultaneously investing in high-growth areas like infrastructure where Liberty has a 'right to play.'

Carl Murdock-Smith asked for more color on why Orange missed its annual bonus targets for B2B service quality and employee engagement rate in the previous year, and what actions are being taken to improve these metrics.

Answer

CEO Christel Heydemann explained that the B2B service quality target was very stretched and was partially missed due to the impacts of portfolio pruning. For employee engagement, she noted that while the participation rate goal was met, the target for improving the overall engagement score was missed, though it did improve slightly. She affirmed that both metrics are followed carefully and are objectives for the management team going forward.