Telefónica - Q3 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning. Thank you for standing by and welcome to Telefónica's January-September 2024 Results Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. We will kindly ask you to ask a maximum of two questions per participant. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Adrián Zunzunegui, Global Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Adrián Zunzunegui (Global Director of Investor Relations)

Good morning and welcome to Telefónica's conference call to discuss January-September 2024 results. I'm Adrián Zunzunegui from Investor Relations. Before proceeding, let me mention that the financial information contained in this document has been prepared under international financial reporting standards, as adopted by the European Union. This financial information is unedited. This conference call and webcast, including the Q&A session, may contain forward-looking statements and information relating to the Telefónica Group. These statements may include financial or operating forecasts and estimates, or statements regarding plans, objectives, and expectations regarding different matters. All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the final developments and results to materially differ from those expressed or implied by such statements. We encourage you to review our publicly available disclosure documents filed with the relevant securities market regulators.

If you don't have a copy of the relevant press release and the slides, please contact Telefónica's Investor Relations team in Madrid or London. Now, let me turn the call over to our Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Ángel Vilá.

Ángel Vilá Boix (COO)

Thank you, Adrián. Good morning and welcome to Telefónica's Q3 results conference call. With me today are Laura Abasolo, Markus Haas, Lutz Schüler, and Eduardo Navarro. Before going into the results presentation, we would like to express our condolences to the families of victims of recent flash floods in Spain, and our gratitude to Telefónica teams who are working 24/7 to restore communications to all those affected. God bless them all. And now, let us first walk you through the slides, and we'll then be happy to take any questions. We are pleased to report solid Q3 results that prove strong operating and strategic progress. Across our key markets, underlying performance remains strong. Spain delivered the best net adds in six years with record low churn, and Brazil sustained its growth momentum across all key metrics in local currency.

One of the quarter's key highlights is the acceleration of free cash flow, growing by close to 90% in Q3 and 28% in nine months, and is already above our target of more than 10% growth for the year. Beyond expected backlog phasing, our free cash flow benefited from our industry-leading CapEx intensity of 12% up to September, reflecting optimized investments and enhanced operating leverage. Sorry. We invest more efficiently. We continue deploying next-generation networks at pace, with 5G coverage in our core markets reaching 71%, and fiber-to-the-home expanding to 82 million premises fast. Importantly, we made significant progress on near-term catalysts across our core markets. In Spain, we strengthened wholesale visibility through today's announced definitive fiber co-agreement with Vodafone Zegona, and the long-term fiber-to-the-home IRU signed with MasOrange. Brazil's migration to the authorization model is expected to complete in Q4.

In Germany, we enhanced our wholesale position via the Lebara contract renewal and new Lyca agreement, while expecting Veneza's update on details of the spectrum extension in early 2025. And in the U.K., NetCo continues to progress well, supporting our fiber strategy. Finally, we remain confident in achieving our financial outlook for the full year 2024 despite FX headwinds. Going into greater retail on the next slide, we continue to build a stronger Telefónica through network leadership, customer centricity, and operational excellence. We accelerated our fiber-to-the-home rollout with 2.7 million premises in the quarter, while our 5G coverage expanded by 6 percentage points in the last three months, achieving our 2026 target more than two years ahead of schedule. These milestones strengthen our network leadership while capital efficiency improves, supported by AI-driven solutions. On Open Gateway, we continue making progress on industry collaboration.

The API NewCo Venture will greatly simplify the process for telcos worldwide to expose their network APIs, enabling seamless integration with hyperscalers and developer platforms through a single connection point. Our customers, their experience and satisfaction remain a priority, and AI is further improving this. Our recent investment and commercial partnership with Perplexity will further improve customer service across our markets, driving cost efficiencies, productivity gains, and faster resolutions. This quarter, we added 1 million accesses to reach 393 million, while achieving a record NPS of 34. Operational simplification and asset optimization remain key priorities. In Spain, we've closed approximately 8,000 central offices and remain on track to complete our copper network shutdown. We continue scaling AI across the business, having prioritized six key use case clusters. Meanwhile, in Hispam, we are executing on our strategy, as evidenced by the non-binding MOU with Millicom in Colombia.

On slide four, our underlying performance remains strong, with all three core units showing local currency growth in Q3 in line or above what's seen in the first half of the year. This proves that our core business momentum continues. Reported figures were impacted by FX headwinds, particularly from the depreciation of the Brazilian real against the euro, reducing revenue growth by 4.2 percentage points and EBITDA growth by 4.7 percentage points. Nevertheless, nine months' EBITDA minus CapEx growth stands above our 2024 guided range in reported terms despite FX headwinds, demonstrating the strength of our operating model. And most importantly, our free cash flow grew significantly year on year in both Q3 and nine months, largely protected from currency volatility through natural hedging strategy. Moving to slide five, underlying revenue growth has been solid, reflecting strong commercial traction, and is underpinned by the increase in high-value accesses, especially fiber.

At the same time, we continue to see strong demand on B2B, with IT services seeing double-digit growth. Profitability remains a focus. Operating leverage improved versus Q3 2023, as CapEx declined 6.3%, driven by legacy network switch-offs, AI implementation, and other digital transformation initiatives. These efforts, among others, continue supporting our margins. On sustainability, our free cash flow trends continue to strengthen, growing at a pace that reinforces our confidence in achieving our target of more than 10% growth for the full year. On slide six, we review the positive performance of the KPIs and financials at Telefónica Spain. Q3 marked an excellent commercial quarter, with the best net adds in six years and all accesses showing year-on-year growth. Telefónica Spain continued to excel in a competitive market, leveraging its superior quality and customer service, and achieved the lowest churn level in a decade and the best-ever NPS.

Our focus remains on protecting our high-value conversion customer base with a balanced combination of churn and ARPU. We believe that a rational approach is the right strategy to sustain revenue growth. Revenue growth continued in Q3, in line with prior quarters, while EBITDA growth improved up to 1% year-on-year on the back of further transformation efficiencies. This EBITDA growth, together with a quarter-on-quarter stabilization of leases, translated into a further visible sequential improvement in EBITDA that stabilized year-on-year in Q3 already. Finally, let me highlight two relevant topics that enhance our business sustainability. We are pleased with the recent success in the wholesale business. Leveraging our superior network quality and expertise, we extended all existing agreements and incorporated new ones with rational and value-accretive terms. Hence, our wholesale business is secure for the long term, and we have further visibility and stability in the overall market.

For the future, we believe that the ongoing deregulation process is creating new opportunities in the Spanish market. Telefónica Brasil continues to enhance customer value, driven by a robust expansion of its contract access base and fiber connections, which support ARPU growth and keep churn rates very low. To highlight that we have the largest network across LATAM. Revenue increased by 7.1% in local currency, boosted by the strong performance of mobile service revenue, the growth in fiber-to-the-home, and the ongoing expansion of digital services. Despite the higher contribution from digital services, both EBITDA and EBITDA minus CapEx margins showed year-on-year increases of 0.2 and 2.1 percentage points, respectively. Finally, we remain very optimistic about the migration from a concession to an authorization, with a final agreement expected in Q4 2024, as mentioned before.

Our German operations maintain strong momentum in Q3, with consistent growth in contract net adds quarter on quarter and low O2 contract churn of 1%, reflecting our brand appeal and network quality. On the network front, 5G population coverage reached 97%, with 5G Plus celebrating its first anniversary, and the O2 network was rated excellent in the latest smartphone magazine test. We further strengthened our position with the relaunch of O2 TV and a tariff simplification, reinforcing our value-for-money leadership. We also strengthened our B2B positioning, refilling freed-up network capacity through the renewal of contracts with Freenet, Lebara, and a new agreement with Lyca Mobile. Financially, revenue faced headwinds due to MTR reductions and the shift in the 1&1 business model, with revenue declining by 1.6% year-on-year in Q3.

However, sustained EBITDA growth of 3% year-on-year was achieved through focused execution of the accelerated growth and efficiency plan and disciplined cost management. Moving to slide nine to review our U.K. operations at VMO2. In Q3, we remained committed to our strategy to invest in our foundations and key drivers for future growth. We returned to fixed-line customer growth in Q3, adding 16,000 broadband customers, and at the same time, fixed ARPU increased by 2.2% year-on-year. In our wireless business, O2 mobile contract churn improved to 1.1%. Furthermore, fiber deployment has significantly accelerated, with a notable 44% year-on-year increase in our build rate in the first nine months of 2024. We also established a new long-term partnership with Cellnex UK to provide our infrastructure and associated services and monetized a further 8% stake in CTIL while returning co-control.

Regarding financials, revenue fell by 0.7% year-on-year in Q3, mainly affected by hardware weakness. Despite this, we have achieved stable combined consumer fixed and mobile revenue, excluding handsets. EBITDA also decreased by 2.7% year-on-year due to ongoing investments in IT and nexfibre initiatives. Telefónica Tech on slide 10 continues to show steady progress. Tech is a crucial growth driver for our B2B business. Tech, in the last 12 months, reached EUR 2 billion revenues at a 12% annual increase. Both final and bookings show an even higher growth rate than revenue, which gives us a very good visibility of the future business. Q3 bookings increased 40% year-on-year, mostly driven by large contracts from the private sector awarded from financial, healthcare, and manufacturing customers.

Solid commercial activity is increasing the backlog of higher-value contracts, which will bring more recurrent services and revenue flows in the future, enhancing the sustainability of the business. The ongoing improvement is not only evident in the visibility of the tech business, but also in our revenue mix, with a stronger contribution from managed and professional services, and own platforms, and a higher weight of hard currency revenue, already 87% of revenue in nine months of 2024. With all these positive developments, we remain optimistic for the future. Telefónica Infra on slide 11 continues to drive growth and accelerate digital inclusion through the efficient deployment of next-generation infrastructure. FTTH rollout by FiberCos progress at paced, having passed more than one million premises in the quarter to 24 million, advancing well to the target of around 30 million in 2026.

In Germany, UGG reached an agreement to acquire InfraFiber Germany, strengthening UGG's position as a fiber infrastructure provider throughout selected rural areas and accelerating the planned expansion to two million premises passed. Telxius, our global connectivity provider, maintained a double-digit growth rate in traffic and a high profitability level of close to 50% in the first nine months of the year. I will now hand it over to Laura, who will guide you through Hispam performance, the main financial situation, and ESG topics.

Laura Abasolo (Chief Financial and Control Officer)

Thank you, Ángel. We are continuously working to try and build a more rational environment in Hispam, reducing network overlap and use of invested capital more efficiently. Additionally, we are exploring potential opportunities for in-market consolidation, and we will keep you updated on any developments.

Q3 2024 results are impacted by the depreciation of the Mexican and Chilean peso among other currencies and strong competition in Chile and Peru. In the latter, where we saw a sequential deterioration, reported results are hit by a EUR 314 million non-cash impairment charge. Despite these challenges, Q3 2024 EBITDA minus CapEx remained virtually flat compared to Q3 2023 in reported terms, thanks to a reduction in leases, expenses, and CapEx. Moving on to free cash flow on slide 13. As anticipated, our free cash flow generation saw significant momentum in Q3, delivering levels four times higher than the second quarter. These accelerations follow a typical seasonal pattern and have driven nine months' growth to 27.7% year-on-year. Importantly, this performance is enabled by our hedging strategy implemented at the beginning of each year to protect the majority of our free cash flow, which ultimately drives shareholder remuneration.

This puts us in a strong position and gives us confidence in delivering both our 2024 target and our broader 2023 to 2026 ambitions. As of September 2024, net financial debt declined by roughly EUR 0.5 billion from EUR 29.2 billion in June 2024 to EUR 28.7 billion in September 2024, mainly due to the solid free cash flow generation in the quarter. Net debt to EBITDA was slightly reduced from 2.78 times to 2.76 times as of September 2024, and it is expected to be further reduced towards year-end. We are committed to reduce leverage and remain on track to meet our targets. Additionally, we will receive the proceeds from the sale of a stake in CTIL. Meanwhile, Telefónica maintains a solid liquidity position of EUR 19.9 billion that, together with a light maturity profile, allows us to cover 10 maturities over the next three years.

Our debt is nearly 75% linked to fixed rates, with an average life of close to 11 years, which places us in a comfortable position to face any market environment. Furthermore, we lowered our debt-related interest cost to 3.61% versus 3.80% in December last year, thanks to the active refinancing exercise undertaken in previous years, the robust position at fixed interest rates in strong currencies, and lower interest rates in Brazilian real. This quarter, Telefónica continued to make solid progress in ESG. To show how we are decarbonizing the economy, we have published a new report quantifying how our B2C customers avoid emissions thanks to our services. On the supply chain side, we have led an ambitious initiative within the sector to train suppliers on lowering emissions. On gender diversity, we are progressing well. Just over one-third of our executives are now women.

Meanwhile, we are addressing the needs of B2B customers who require sustainability reference, with EcoVadis ranking us in the 99th percentile of all companies assessed. Finally, on the governance side, we have been recognized for our reporting and transparency, and we continue to lead the way in ethical AI as active participants in the development of the European Code of Practice. I will now hand back to Ángel, who will wrap up.

Ángel Vilá Boix (COO)

Thank you, Laura. On our guidance, we are on track to achieve our full-year 2024 targets despite FX headwinds impacting our reported revenue and EBITDA figures. Our underlying business performance remains strong. We are controlling the controllables, and our free cash flow is well protected from FX volatility through effective hedging.

This is evident in our nine-month results, while EBITDA minus CapEx and free cash flow are already trending above targeted ranges, while CapEx to sales remains fully aligned with guidance. Moreover, using our guidance FX assumptions, nine-month results would be well within our guidance, with more than 1% EBITDA growth and more than 2% EBITDA minus CapEx growth. Our robust free cash flow generation continues supporting our deleveraging trajectory towards our 2026 target range. While currency fluctuations may create short-term volatility in reported figures, our nine-month performance and strategic execution reinforce our confidence in both our 2024 targets and the 2023-2026 plan. To wrap up, on slide 17, first, we delivered one more quarter of solid business momentum across our core markets. Second, the significant acceleration in free cash flow this quarter reinforces our confidence in delivering 2024 and 2023-2026 targets of more than 10% growth.

Third, our natural hedging strategy effectively protects our free cash flow from currency fluctuations. Fourth, our strategic investments in fiber and 5G infrastructure continue driving premium customer experience and satisfaction. Fifth, we maintain disciplined balance sheet management and capital allocation, focused on meeting targets, sustaining our dividend, and investing in key growth areas. And finally, we see clear catalysts ahead, particularly the authorization model in Brazil and increasing market rationalization in Europe through deregulation and reduced fragmentation. Thank you very much for listening. We are now ready to take your questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one one on your telephone keypad. Once again, that's star one to register a question. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again.

We will kindly ask you to ask a maximum of two questions per participant. There will be a short silence while questions are being registered. We will now take the first question from the line of Ondrej Cabejsek from UBS. Please go ahead.

Ondrej Cabejsek (Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the presentation and congratulations on the results. I've got maybe two questions that are kind of related, I would say. If we look at Spain, you're obviously posting very good KPIs in terms of net adds that are accelerating. Your churn is decreasing. There has been this year a bit of a dilution to your convergent ARPU.

So I was just thinking if you can maybe reflect on all the changes that we've seen in competition throughout this year from the merger to the latest kind of rounds of back-to-school promotions by Zegona and then the recent price cuts that Digi did. How is the market shaping up over the past three or four quarters in Spain? Because the trends are largely good, but not all of them good. And then related to that, just if you can comment on, again, Digi's price cuts where they followed the closing of the deal that you presented last quarter. So is there any relation, and then how do you think the kind of competition in the lower end would unfold from here? Thank you very much.

Ángel Vilá Boix (COO)

Thank you for this question on Spain. On the competitive environment and dynamics recently, we are seeing some players repositioning their products and strategy, which is creating maybe some more commercial intensity, but mainly in the low end.

We believe that the market continues to be segmented and rational. We had soft summer campaigns. Market portability was very much reduced with clear winners and losers, and we were between those winners and low market churn levels. Portability has been the lowest in 10 years if we accept, of course, the 2020 pandemic lockdown. And we should not forget that all players implemented price increases this year. And yes, there is some intensity in the low end, but we maintain a rational approach with value-based services, best-in-class infrastructures, which allow us to show very consistent performance in all the KPIs, as you have seen. We have net adds in all the main services.

Now it's the fifth quarter in a row of growth, best net adds and portability in six years. We have the best churn in a decade. It's 0.8%. If you combine this with the ARPU, which remains above EUR 90, we have stronger customer lifetime value, which is around double our closest follower. The ARPU evolution, yes, in the year-on-year has a decrease of 0.4%, but this is due to a larger O2 penetration. But it remains very consistently above EUR 90, and it's differential with respect to our competitors. We believe that one needs to look at all these KPIs altogether, and these results, as I was saying before, are the strongest value of our customer base compared to any of our competitors. Regarding Digi, we signed, as you know, with them a combination of roaming and network sharing agreement. This is value-creating. It's an agreement for the next 16 years.

The revenues of this contract are going to be at least at the same level of the existing roaming contract that we have, and this sharing will be progressively implemented when Digi has full ownership of the spectrum that they will get from Orange.

Ondrej Cabejsek (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, Ángel. Can I maybe follow up on the Digi, so as you mentioned, you were expecting or you're saying that the contract view is actually value-enhancing, so were you surprised at all about the fact that a couple of maybe weeks or months later, Digi again cut prices, and what does this mean for the kind of composition in the market from their side?

Ángel Vilá Boix (COO)

In general, and this applies not only to the Digi agreement, we have been very careful in renegotiating all the wholesale agreements and the new ones in such a way that they bring rationality to the market and visibility to the market. We have been extremely careful not to create conditions in wholesale contracts that may create distortions. Spain is already a very competitive market, and there is full availability of wholesale offers to the different players. We have been working at this with a mentality of being very rational in the renegotiation of contracts. The Digi contract, the roaming is structured around a scheme that depends on the number of subscribers and the consumption of traffic. Given the projections that we have, we feel comfortable in that. The RAN sharing will depend on the number of sites Digi eventually decides that it will eventually share. Sorry.

Ondrej Cabejsek (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Mathieu Robilliard from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Mathieu Robilliard (Analyst)

Yes, good morning, and thank you for the presentation. I had a question about the guidance and how you qualify it. I understand that you say you have reiterated all the guidances despite the fact that there's an FX headwind, but at the same time, it seems to be a bit nuanced in the way you comment, possibly for the EBITDA and the revenue growth for this year. So I just wanted to clarify if at this stage you still believe you could reach, despite where the FX is, the full-year guidance for revenues or EBITDA and whether your level of confidence remains stable or decreased a bit because of the FX.

Sorry, it may seem a bit pedantic, but just wanted to make sure I understand exactly what you're saying there. And then the second question was about the German market, where clearly you're posting a strong performance. We've seen quite a few moves in the market, some initiated by competitors, some initiated by you. And I was wondering how you saw the competitive environment developing both on mobile but also on fixed where we've seen some aggressive offers for high-speed broadband. Thank you very much.

Laura Abasolo (Chief Financial and Control Officer)

Thank you, Mathieu, for the question on guidance. Please let me emphasize that we are not qualifying nor changing the guidance. As the capital days, we change our focus and guidance into reporting and current terms, and we aim to growth in euro terms. This applies, I remind you, only to revenue and EBITDA, as free cash flows have always been in current terms.

For that, obviously, we make our own FX assumptions, and my variations will not affect that. We are now in a moment that in the Q3, there was a more abrupt change in the Brazilian real with a depreciation year-on-year of more than 12%, and that can temporarily affect our headline reported growth. But we are really, really confident on the Brazilian operation. Let me remind you that Brazil is growing both in euro terms and even more in local currency. And in local currency, they are growing above 7%, both revenue and EBITDA, which is well above inflation, and that's the best way to compensate any FX changes. So we are really committed on keep on with the very strong underlying performance of our core business unit, which is not only Brazil, as we saw in the presentation and in the first question, Spain's EBITDA growth is accelerating.

There has been really strong commercial results, and same for Germany. EBITDA continues growing, low- to mid-single-digit in Q3, and operating cash flow EBITDA minus CapEx is growing almost 8% year-on-year. I must admit, Spain remains. Hispam remains more volatile with less linear performance, particularly in Peru and Chile, but some countries are definitely doing better than others. But going to the guidance specifically question, based on our current FX assumptions for the year, we are fine with the guidance we see, we say, and that's why we have confirmed. It is true that we cannot speculate on potential FX moves. We have to see now the reaction to the U.S. election. But again, what we need to protect is our free cash flow. Free cash flow is the focus. Free cash flow is much more hedged. The impact in free cash flow is minimal.

First, because we have a natural hedge. Second, because we also do financial hedges, and we are also having debt in local currencies, which is also helping on our debt to EBITDA ratio and in the solvency ratio. So very high level of confidence. We expect the core business units to keep on doing, being in the same good line of direction for Q4. And based off our current FX, we definitely feel we can make the guidance.

Mathieu Robilliard (Analyst)

Thank you. If I may just to make sure I fully understood, so based on your current FX guidance, you believe that or rather not guidance, forecasts, you believe that the guidance is safe. But are your assumptions for FX that, for instance, Brazilian real trajectory would move in a more positive territory, or is that based on what it is today and what you think of all the businesses on a local currency basis? Hopefully, that's clear.

Laura Abasolo (Chief Financial and Control Officer)

We have assumptions on the real, which could be similar to what we have today, but it definitely may vary, and it also depends on the average. But as I said, it's very difficult to speculate on potential FX moves. So we will focus attention on the strength of the operations. We will focus attention on Brazilian growing both in local and euro terms, growing locally so strong, overperforming inflation with no doubt, and we'll put all our focus on the free cash flow. You have seen how strong has been the first nine months of the year, regardless of the FX moves.

Let me remind you that the FX hedge we do for the Brazilian real is not flowing through free cash flow yet. It's flowing through P&L, but when we close the derivatives at year-end, we will have all the compensation impact for Q4. Very focused on free cash flow, Brazilian free cash flow, and Brazilian core business units.

Ángel Vilá Boix (COO)

In Germany, we have been simplifying and sharpening our portfolio to remain leaders in value for money. Markus, you could help me elaborate on this question.

Markus Haas (CEO)

Thank you, Ángel. Our Q3 performance has clearly shown that our focus on value for money and the segmentation of the market has delivered very strong commercial results. Also, the new portfolio that we launched yesterday shows that we focus on customers around the EUR 30 upper price point. This is all mobile service revenue accretive.

So from that perspective, we fully focus on our value for money strategy, consequently, as in the past, and clearly believe in segmentation and value growth. On the fixed question that you raised, Telefónica Deutschland has access to all infrastructures in the German market, so we also have the possibility clearly to join promotional activities also on the cable networks in order to shift also volumes between technologies. And we clearly also have been able to show very strong fixed service revenue growth with the Q3 results.

Mathieu Robilliard (Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Luigi Minerva from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Luigi Minerva (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my two questions. The first one is on tower leases and the potential opportunities in the Spanish market.

I was referring to the press rumors about negotiations between Vodafone Spain and Totem, where Vodafone Spain is trying arguably to get better terms, perhaps getting out of anchor tenancy terms, switching towards secondary tenancy terms. So I was wondering if your agreement with American Tower can offer at some point some upside. And if I remember well, there is no all-or-nothing close at renewal of the current agreement with American Tower. So yeah, I'd be interested in hearing your views on that. And secondly, on one question on free cash flow, if I may, yeah, the reported one is 27% up year to date, well ahead of guidance of 10%. However, as usual, in the Telefónica free cash flow, there are many moving parts. Some are organic, some are not.

But particularly, I'm wondering if it's appropriate to keep the EUR 298 million of rural 5G subsidy in your free cash flow definition for what guidance matters? Because if I simply adjust the year-to-date free cash flow by those EUR 298 million, you're actually down 10% year-to-date compared to 2023. Thank you.

Ángel Vilá Boix (COO)

Thank you for your questions. I'll take the first one on tower leases. We cannot comment on competitors' intentions to renegotiate their lease contracts with third parties. What I can say is that all our agreements with telcos in Spain are flexible, allowing us to renegotiate and capture efficiencies. And we don't have, in the vein that you alluded to, all-or-nothing clauses.

Laura Abasolo (Chief Financial and Control Officer)

Yes, on the free cash flow, yes, we did have a good performance. We said, as usual, it will be backloaded in the year.

It's been very strong for the first nine months, and it will be even more stronger for Q4. We will hit the 10% guidance we provided. It's, again, bits and pieces. We have a delta of more than EUR 200 million year-on-year, and one-third of that approximately comes from operating cash flow, EBITDA minus CapEx. If you go below working capital, and I will talk specifically about the subsidies question you mentioned, let me remind you that working capital is still negative, so we are still consuming, but it has a better year-on-year comparison. We also are benefiting from the lower leakage as we made the operation on Telefónica Deutschland. We also have financial payments that you see really, really controlled and even lower. We remain working on the tax payments.

There we have last year? No, this year, we have the Peruvian tax payments, and we also have the back and forward of the taxing advance in Spain that it also has some seasonality, but we are very happy with our free cash flow, strong growth, and we anticipate that growth to continue in Q4. Again, based on the continued momentum on EBITDA, the solid operational rates, working capital should reverse, and the continuous optimization on interest, leases, and tax payments. On the 5G subsidies, this is working capital movement, no doubt, which happens not specifically this year. It's part of the rural deployment and part of the UNICO program. This is ultimately less CapEx, and it is true that it concentrates in certain times of the year.

But if we talk about things, last year, we also had the benefit of the judicial review in Brazil, and this year, we have nothing in that regard. So it's not just a matter of taking this out. So this, as I said, is another working capital element, as many others. Working capital is seasonal. Every quarter has its ups and downs. We are still consuming. It will reverse, and this is very related to our operations. So again, we are very confident on the free cash flow for the year. I'm very satisfied with this year-on-year performance.

Luigi Minerva (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, thanks for the call.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Fernando Cordero from Banco Santander. Please go ahead.

Fernando Cordero (Head of European TMT Equity Research)

Hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. My question is related with Telefónica Tech. Thank you for the update on the top-line performance. But I would like to understand as well how is the profitability of Telefónica Tech performing, particularly within the different product services segments within Telefónica Tech, which are the ones that are performing strongly and which are the ones that are lagging right now? Thanks.

Ángel Vilá Boix (COO)

Thank you, Fernando. As you saw in the presentation, Telefónica Tech continues to be growing above comparables and above the growth rate of the group. It's a crucial growth driver that helps us to outperform in the B2B segment. The revenue growth had a slight slowdown in Q3 in the growth rate versus previous quarters for a reason of displacement of some projects because there are some seasonal fluctuations in revenues and sales activities, and also linked to the change of mix.

We are getting into greater weight of more complex projects with more consulting and professional services elements, which on one hand have longer term of revenue conversion, but also will have a positive impact on the recurrence and predictability of the revenue. So we are moving into contracts that have more time to prepare and then start giving the operations, but then become recurrent and give us long visibility to the future. Bookings are very strong in Q3 in particular, 40% of bookings. And with this change of mix of projects into more complexity, more value added, this is also improving the margins and the profitability of Telefónica Tech, which is going in the direction that we want it to be in the three-year plan.

And we are progressing nicely towards the objective of reaching the target that we stated at the capital market day of EUR 3 billion revenues by 2026.

Fernando Cordero (Head of European TMT Equity Research)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Keval Khiroya from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Keval Khiroya (Telecoms Equity Analyst)

Thank you for taking the questions. And I have two, please. So firstly, your Q3 EBITDA grew 1%, but estimate it fell 4%, roughly excluding the account reduction benefit, which is a deterioration on last year. What do you think are the main barriers to achieving a better EBITDA performance, and how do we think about the 2025 EBITDA trajectory in Spain? And then secondly, you've mentioned the IRU with MasOrange. Will there be any upfront payments from MasOrange as part of the agreement?

And will you include that in your EBITDA and free cash flow, and will it count towards guidance? Thank you.

Ángel Vilá Boix (COO)

Thank you, Keval. On the EBITDA, first in Spain, it's growing 1% year-on-year in the third quarter. We managed to get it into positive in the final quarter of last year. We guided for growth for the full 2024. And you saw in the first quarter, it was growing 0.2%, the second quarter 0.6%. In the third quarter, it's growing 1%, and this reflects revenue growth and efficiencies, including the redundancy plan and the copper switch-off. This is improvement or acceleration in the growth rate on the back of several moving parts. So on one hand, we have the additional revenue, some of them coming with lower margin. On the other hand, we have efficiencies coming from headcount resizing and realization AI initiatives.

We have, on the other hand, because one could even expect a bit higher EBITDA growth, we have some elements that are not either annualizing or no longer contributing to growth, so for instance, the energy prices that in part we are passing through to customers no longer help or drag in any direction. The price of the content that we are reselling in La Liga also has changed, but we had suppressions of fees like the one that we had to finance the TV in Spain, so all in all, lots of moving parts, but EBITDA for a Spanish operation to grow, and this, by the way, combined with the stabilization of leases, is getting our EBITDA, the EBITDA after leases, into the positive territory, as we said, would be in the second half of the year. We already achieved that in Q3.

On the contract regarding Orange, we cannot disclose these type of details. This was a contract that was signed in the month of August. The fiber network agreement replaces deals that we had independently with Orange and with MásMóvil. We are evolving this towards a single relationship on a full nationwide deal, and we have entered into new IRUs agreements, but there is some CPI indexation, but I cannot disclose more information because of confidentiality clauses in the agreement.

Keval Khiroya (Telecoms Equity Analyst)

That's understood. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of James Ratzer from New Street Research. Please go ahead.

James Ratzer (Founding Partner and Managing Director)

Yes, good morning. Thank you very much indeed for taking the question, so I have two questions, please.

I suppose you had your centennial celebration back in April of this year when the copper shutdown of the network was a big kind of milestone for you. So what I'd be interested in understanding is, can you help us to give an update on how that process is going? How many exchanges have you now shut down? How much of the kind of cost savings from this have you already been able to achieve? And in particular, then how much more could there still be to come over the next few years, cost savings from the copper shutdown? And then secondly, just be interested to understand what's happening with your stake in Telefónica Brasil, because I noticed this quarter, it's now gone up to 76.2%. So it's been gradually increasing over the year.

Could you just explain what's going on there, and do you have some target here where you're trying to take your stake in the asset too? Thank you.

Ángel Vilá Boix (COO)

Thank you, James. I'll take the first question on the copper shutdown. We have already shut down all the retail copper. What we have still pending is with third parties that were wholesale buying copper from us. We need to have some switches, but we are leading the copper switch-off in Europe. We have accomplished more than 90% of the shutdown of the copper network. Switching off is the right decision. This has brought us significant savings in terms of OpEx, but also of CapEx. This is allowing us to maintain EBITDA margins above 36% that is quite consistent with what we have been having in the last year and all along this year.

With respect to CapEx, our Spanish operation is already benchmarking in terms of CapEx to revenues, and we committed in the Capital Markets Day to reach 10% CapEx over revenues intensity for the Spanish operation, which would be leading in Europe. We have behind us the two waves of CapEx that come with fiber migration. One is passing, and the other one is connecting. We see other players that still need to do the wave of passing. Some others need to do the wave also of connecting. We have both waves behind us. So this allows us to be efficient in terms of energy consumption, in terms of maintenance, in terms of CapEx, and therefore, we were able to commit, and we are on track to this CapEx intensity reduction in the Spanish operation.

James Ratzer (Founding Partner and Managing Director)

That's clear. Thank you. Do you have any idea of what the kind of still the incremental EBITDA margin upside might be just from the copper shutdown that's still to come?

Ángel Vilá Boix (COO)

Well, we don't guide on CapEx margins per OIBDA, and we don't guide forward-looking CapEx margins per OIBDA, but you should expect us to stay on these levels and on a downward trend on CapEx intensity, which we have been very public about. Thank you.

Laura Abasolo (Chief Financial and Control Officer)

Hello. The increase in the stake of Brazil is a consequence of the share buyback that Brazil is undertaking. They have recently increased from BRL 1 billion to BRL 1.5 billion, and share buyback has become part of the remuneration scheme of Telefónica Brasil. They do a combination of interest on capital, dividends, capital reduction, and share buyback. So that's the result of them doing that, and automatically, our participation in Brazil increases.

James Ratzer (Founding Partner and Managing Director)

Is that Laura? That's a conscious decision to not participate pro rata to your stake. So do you expect that to continue, and therefore, your stake will continue to rise?

Laura Abasolo (Chief Financial and Control Officer)

Say that if now it only applies to Brazil, but in general, if I had applied also for Germany, if the companies decide to remunerate through share buyback, our general course of action is not to go for that share, but just increase. So I think it's a natural action that we don't take part of that, and we just automatically increase. Even more in the case of Brazil, which the company is doing so well, and we see growth there, as I mentioned in one of my questions.

But it's more than a conscious decision is that if share buyback is part of the remuneration policy, as this is the case, this will increase automatically our, and we don't go and go for those surges.

James Ratzer (Founding Partner and Managing Director)

That's clear. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Ángel Vilá Boix (COO)

We have time for one very last question, please.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Thank you. Our last question comes from the line of Joshua Mills from BNP Paribas Exane.

Joshua Mills (Executive Director and Sector Head of Telecoms Research)

Hi, guys. And thank you very much for taking the question. First one, very quickly, on the 5G subsidy benefit of EUR 300 million, is that something we should expect to continue next year and in subsequent years, or is it a one-off? I'm just getting a bit of guidance around that specific item to be helpful.

And then secondly, could you just give a quick update on the progress on the Brazilian regulatory changes and when we might get an update there? As I understand it, it could be quite a meaningful opportunity for you to reallocate capital more efficiently in that market. But some sense on timing and the granularity of the guidance you'd be able to provide once you do get that change would be helpful. Thank you.

Laura Abasolo (Chief Financial and Control Officer)

On the 5G subsidies, it could. It depends on future deployment cases and so on. It has been a more concentration in this year and particularly in this quarter. But this is something which is business as usual, and it could definitely continue. Probably not at this size, but it really depends on more processes in this line.

Ángel Vilá Boix (COO)

And regarding the move from concession to authorization in Brazil, Anatel approved the agreement already in June.

The company's board of directors also in June. The proposal is moving from a different regulatory regime that allows the termination of some proceedings and some obligations. This will allow us to dispose of reversible assets. It comes with some commitments for investment, but at the same time, gives us lots of flexibility to conduct our business and should be very accretive for our Brazilian business. We expect it to be finally approved in the fourth quarter of this year, the latest early next year, but we believe it will be fourth quarter of this year. So thank you very much for attending this call. We expect that we have provided you with answers to your questions. Please address to our IR department any further needs of information that you may have. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Telefónica's January-September 2024 results conference call is over. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you.