Turkcell - Q2 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Konstantinos, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Turkcell conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the Turkcell second quarter 2023 financial results conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Ali Serdar Yağcı, Investor Relations and Corporate Finance Director. Mr. Yağcı, you may now proceed.

Ali Serdar Yağcı (Investor Relations and Corporate Finance Director)

Thank you, Konstantinos. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Turkcell second quarter 2023 results call. Today, our CEO, Mr. Murat Erkan, and acting CFO, Mr. Kamil Kalyon, will be delivering a brief presentation covering operational and financial results, which will be followed by a Q&A. Before we kick off, I'd like to kindly remind you to review our safe harbor statement placed at the end of the presentation. Now, I'm handing over to Mr. Erkan.

Murat Erkan (CEO)

Thank you, Serdar. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We delivered outstanding result in the second quarter. Our determined inflation pricing strategy plays an instrumental role in delivering an ever-accelerating performance. Outpacing the inflation, our revenue growth ramped up to 74% on a record ARPU growth and expanding subscriber base. Strategic focus area also supported top line growth as always. On the profitability side, our EBITDA almost doubled, reaching TRY 9.5 billion, driven mostly by strong top line growth and reduced energy prices in Q2. We achieved a remarkable 44% EBITDA margin. This strong operational performance, coupled with dynamic and prudent risk management, enabled a solid net profit of TRY 3.2 billion on a 70% year-on-year rise. Considering this result, we further increased our full year guidance. Next slide.

Let's take a closer look at our mobile operational performance. Our focus on post-paid subscriber yielded a sustaining substantial gain of 404,000 subscribers in Q2, topping at 70% post-paid share of the mobile base. Following the gloomy Q1, we resumed price adjustment in April, and as the competitors followed us, overall price level escalated in the market. However, temporary competitive offers were observed in the market, triggering an increase in MNP volume. Rising [subscriber] acquisition price during the second half of the year Accordingly, we raised our prices in August. As anticipated, the ripple effect of preceding price adjustment and intact upsell efforts propelled a remarkable 84% acceleration in mobile ARPU. The ARPU versus CPI spread widened further.

Despite a slight increase due to line closure deferral from Q1, our mobile churn rate stood at 1.9%. Next slide. In the fixed broadband, our focus persists on fiber. Accordingly, we gained 40,000 fiber subscribers in Q2. The IPTV platform, a supportive factor in subscribers retention, grew with 35,000 net addition. We achieved 165,000 additional homes passed during the quarter. We are delighted to exceed our annual target of 300,000 in the first half, benefiting from more favorable FX rates. In line with our fiber expansion, the take-up ratio decreased to just below 40%. It is fair to expect the rate to rebound for the remainder of the years as we aim to monetize these investments.

This quarter, residential fiber ARPU grew strongly by 49% yearly, surpassing quarterly average annual inflation after a long break, thanks to price adjustments. The longer contract duration and the reluctance of incumbent operator to make price adjustments have been affecting this segment adversely. To mitigate this factor, we have shifted our focus over the past year to offering 12-month contract or contract-free tariffs, resulting in 53% of our fiber customer opting for this plan by June. Lastly, we are pleased to see continuing interest in high-speed plans. The weight of these packages in the total fiber portfolio has increased by 11 percentage points year on year. Next slide. On strategic focus areas, let's start with Digital Services and Solutions. The standalone revenue of Digital Services and Solutions grew by 87% year on year, due to price adjustment and expansion of paid users.

We have reached significant milestone in our flagship services. OTT TV services has surpassed the one million mark, while the cloud storage service exceeded two million users. By surpassing one million active user in Pakistan, BiP further expanded its user base through the partnership with Jazz. Our standalone paid user base reached 5.5 million, rising 22% annually. On the other hand, TV+ is intensifying its collaboration with both local and international digital platforms and partnering with leading global studios. Moving on to our next focus area, Digital Business Services, constitute 10% of Turkcell revenue, having registered 83%, 82% year-on-year growth. The main growth drivers were system integration projects, data center, and cloud businesses, each doubling their revenues annually. Notably, the backlog from system integration projects has reached TRY 2.9 million. Next slide.

Our third focus area is TechFin. In the second quarter, Paycell revenue rose 95% year-on-year. Pay Later has more than doubled its volume and remained a key driver of Paycell revenues. This growth was supported by increased payment in mobile app stores and expanded user base and volume of ready-to-use limits. Paycell Card has also supported this remarkable performance, thanks to increased money transfer and higher card fees. In May, the nationwide joint QR project was launched, which enabled our customer to make payment using Paycell app at any location with QR code. Turning to Financell, its revenue grew by 87%, with an expanding loan portfolio and rising interest rates. The loan book reached TRY 4.7 billion on an 88% growth. Next slide. Now, international subsidiaries.

The Turkcell International segment, which accounts for 10% of the group top line, grew by 48% year-on-year in Q2. Excluding the currency impact, the organic growth was 38%. Thanks to increasing data roaming revenue and also price adjustment, lifecell revenue in Ukraine rose 36% year-on-year in its local currency, well above the inflation. The EBITDA margin improvement of 1.2 percentage points was mainly driven by lower interconnection and energy expenses as a percentage of revenue. BeST revenue rose 22% year-on-year in its local currency, comfortably exceeding the inflation. The MTR rate revision at 2022 year end and a disciplined OpEx result in a 20 points margin improvement. Next slide. I would like to end my presentation by sharing our updated guidance for 2023.

Taking into consideration our outstanding first half performance, we have revised our revenue growth target to around 71%. EBITDA guidance to around TRY 37 billion, and maintain CapEx intensity at around 22%. I will now leave the floor to our CFO, Mr. Kamil Kalyon.

Kamil Kalyon (Acting CFO)

Thank you very much, Murat. Let's dive into our financial results. Our group revenues had an incremental rise of TRY 9.2 billion, corresponding to 74% growth year-on-year. Turkcell Turkey revenues were the main driver of the performance, thanks to expanding subscriber base and solid ARPU growth. Digital Services were also supportive on the remarkable performance. Turkcell International revenue grew by 48%, lower than overall group, due to lower inflation and limited currency depreciation. TechFin business grew by 93% year-on-year, with an incremental rise of TRY 383 million, as evident by the traction in financial services companies, Paycell and Financell. Next slide, please. Let's look at our EBITDA performance. Turkcell Group EBITDA reached TRY 9.5 billion, reflecting on the solid revenue growth. In Q2, EBITDA margin expanded by 3.7%.

Increase in employee expenses was offset by decreasing interconnection expenses, cost of goods sold, and energy costs as a percentage of the revenue. Of note, 15% reduction in the electricity prices, which was introduced for industrial consumers in April, supported the margin. We shall inform you that following the minimum wage increase in July, we have also increased our rates by around 37%, which will be weighing on our financials starting from Q3. Next slide, please. Let's take a closer look at our CapEx management. In second quarter, we kept implementing our disciplined CapEx plan, which brings our last 12-month CapEx intensity ratio to 20.7%. Mobile and fixed investments in total accounts for more than 70% of the total CapEx....

Mobile CapEx investments had a higher share in total CapEx compared to last year, as we had to make around TRY 420 million one-off CapEx due to earthquake. We managed to keep single-digit intensity. On the fixed side, even though we slightly exceed our annual target, it was lower than previous years. We have mentioned before, this year we mostly focus on monetizing our fixed investments for the rest of the year. Next slide, please. Our cash position increased by TRY 7.8 billion in second quarter. FX movements had an impact of TRY 6.2 billion in the cash position. Our gross debt position grew by TRY 18.7 billion in Q2. The increase in gross debt is mainly due to TRY 14.8 billion currency depreciation.

We ended the quarter with a net debt position of TRY 28.2 billion. Thanks to the strong EBITDA generation, our net leverage remains around 1x, and excluding Financell, it is 0.8x. Remaining FX debt service is around $156 million this year, which is manageable given the cash position and committed credit lines. The majority of our cash continues to remain in hard currencies. Excluding FX swaps, 58% of our cash is in US dollars and 10% in EUR. Next slide, please. Lastly, I will go into the management of foreign currency risk in Q2. We have continued to keep majority of our cash in FX and also utilized hedging instruments as part of our prudent financial risk management approach.

Looking at the FX position composition, we had $1.9 billion equivalent of FX financial liabilities on our balance sheet. On the asset side, we had $1.4 billion equivalent FX financial assets and $645 million derivative portfolio, mainly comprised of proxy hedge, namely futures and forwards. Overall, we ended up with a long FX position, $84 million, which is within our neutral FX position definition. This concludes our presentation, and we can now open the line for questions. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Ece Mandaci with Ünlü Securities. Please go ahead.

Ece Mandaci (Director)

Hi, thank you very much for the presentation, and congratulations on the strong results. I have a couple of questions on your guidance and potential ARPU growth going forward. The first is about the subscribers additions in the mobile side. We are seeing a slower increase compared to previous years or previous quarters. Is that stable performance will be sustainable for the second half? How would you think about or guide about the subscribers addition? The second question is about the mobile ARPU growth. We have seen a significant recovery, was there any price adjustment on the mobile, or was it just fixed side as of August?

Should we think about 90% ARPU levels or more, normalized level, given the high base of last year for the second half, on particularly on mobile ARPU? Thirdly, I saw that you have upgraded your guidance for full year. On the EBITDA margin side, I'm seeing that you are a bit more cautious regarding EBITDA margin performance for the second half. Is this due to expectation of higher cost inflation because you're also making price adjustments? Could you please provide some more color about these questions, please, please? Thank you very much.

Murat Erkan (CEO)

Thank you. Thank you, Ece. First of all, regarding subscriber growth and subscriber growth target, in the mobile segment, we experienced net add of 165,000 subscribers in the second quarter. This is supported by the seasonality effect, which is lower than the normal trend. Essentially, 404,000 net addition post-paid was partially offset by the net loss in the pre-paid segment. Rising new acquisition price level and alternative data solution for tourists particularly impacted the price sensitivity pre-paid subscriber. However, we believe that these alternative solution could pose security risks. On the fiber and IPTV side, net subscriber add continues as usual, supported by net add. Also for this year, we expect a net add of around one million subscribers as well.

Regarding second question, mobile ARPU growth and price increase, we did increase for the mobile during August. Mobile and fixed, they are not in the same time.

... we increase our, our price during the August, and we will closely follow the inflation. We, as everybody knows, our strategy is based on inflation pricing, so we're gonna closely follow the inflation, and during the inflation increase, we're gonna increase our price. For the EBITDA guidance, I think this is mainly... There are two reasons, actually. One of them, in the first half, the energy price decreased. It's, it is decreased 15%, I believe, in April. For the next half, we put some expectation on the price increase for the energy price. The second thing is, because of the inflation, for the employee salary, we had to increase our employee salary in July, towards 7%.

This is gonna impact also second half, EBITDA for the employee salary increase as well. These are the things that makes us a little bit cautious. Obviously, we're gonna follow up closely to, to recover the EBITDA. It is, you know, it's gonna be around 40% level anyway.

Ece Mandaci (Director)

Thank you.

Murat Erkan (CEO)

Okay.

Operator (participant)

As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. The next question is from the line of Cemal Demirtaş with Ata Invest. Please go ahead.

Cemal Demirtaş (Head of Research)

Thank you for the presentation. My question is about the financial expense side. When we look into details, we see significant increase in financial expenses, as far as we know, we don't, you don't have very big, long, you know, short FX position. You have some net debt position. Even if we come up with, you know, the FX changes, from first quarter to second quarter, and we multiply it, by your net debt position, we come up with, TRY 10 billion financial expense. Could you, give us more detail, how should we approach to your financial, expense side? Because, you know, your EBITDA is strong, it's good, and your guidance is revised up, and the FX impact is possibly on that numbers also.

You know, what's the, how, how should we think, when we try to reach the bottom line? Because EBITDA is strong, but huge financial expense. If you didn't hedge, what would be the, you know, the result? I would like to understand, you know, the, the, the, the effect of all those hedges on your, you know, bottom line. How does it save you, and how did it save you? If you didn't hedge, what would happen in second quarter? If you have any, you know, just color on that. Thank you.

Kamil Kalyon (Acting CFO)

Thank you very much, Cemal, for the question. As you know, following the sharp currency movement in the fourth quarter of 2021, strike levels of some of the call options that we hold, we had sold as part of our participating cross currency swaps were exceeded. Consequently, in order to maintain the protectiveness of our hedging portfolio, we opted for short-term derivative instruments, as the current market conditions have not been ideal for the long term. We have a net long FX position in the amount of $84 million at the end of the second quarter, as you say, which is in line with our neutral position definition. The hedging costs of short-term instruments have normalized after the elections, but we saw an increase in the FX rate, unfortunately.

Accordingly, the majority of our FX gain has arisen from the increase in the FX rate, which offset the loss arising from the valuations of our short-term derivative contracts, due to the normalization of the TRY interest rate curve. Despite this negative impact from the interest rate curve, our derivative portfolio printed a positive MTM valuation, which helped us to keep our FX loss limited. Going forward, the movement of swap curve will also have an impact on FX, FX gain loss. However, we aim to stick around our FX neutral definition, as we declared previously, ±$200 million. I should also note that we continue to evaluate market conditions. If we can find favorable conditions, we might consider restructuring our portfolio.

Cemal Demirtaş (Head of Research)

you know, in the, in the third quarter, you, you're gonna use the, the, you know, similar instruments. And if you assume that, you know, the currency will be more stable, should we also assume, you know, your EBITDA will remain high and your financial expense will go down? Is it, you know, the, the, is it the model, we can take?

Kamil Kalyon (Acting CFO)

Yes, might be, but it depends on the economy management, interest policy. If the interest is, especially for, for, currently, the interest rates for Turkish lira loans are very high, as you know. It might be going higher in the next term. If the interest expenses increase like this way, maybe we can wait a kind of, extra additional financial, finance interest expenses.

Cemal Demirtaş (Head of Research)

As a follow-up question, rather, on to the operation side, we see, you know, the, the, the price are increasing. When we, look at competitors, they are also, you know, they're increasing, the prices to just, match the increasing cost. How do you see the, you know, the, the third quarter outlook? You revise your guidance, but, how, how do you see, from your side, you know, about the, the, the pricing and, at least, also the, you know, the, additions, subscribe additions? You know, what could be the, trend, for the, for the third question? One other question about the strategic perspective. You know, the both Türk Telekom and Turkcell are all, you know, like, controlled by the Wealth Fund.

At some point that, you know, there is 5G issue, there is a licensing of Türk Telekom. These are all on the, possibly on the agenda. As far as we know, in the past, before, you know, finding a solution to 5G issues or others, licensing of, you know, Türk Telekom would be also, you know, linked to that, about the full, you know, regulatory system. At least from Turkcell perspective, what should we expect in the regulatory environment, for the next, you know, one year? Could we expect, and already we, you know, the, the elections, are completed. What should be the, the, the, you know, the issues, going forward for telecom sector, also, you know, for your side? Thank you.

Murat Erkan (CEO)

Thank you. First of all, regarding the price increase and competition follow-up, you know, so far, we increase... As a market leader, we increase our price, based on inflation, and it seems our competition also following up us. On the fixed line side, it is, it is really difficult to, to see or foresee, what's gonna happen. We see some movement, on the fixed side, which is, which is good for us, so we can, we can increase our prices. For the mobile side, I, I think, as a leading operator, in the mobile, our priority in a high inflation environment is to adjust our price in a timely manner. We're gonna continue what we did so far, and then follow the, follow the inflation.

The, the other question was regarding strategic perspective of Turk Telekom, Turkcell, controlled by the Wealth Fund. I think for the 5G, everybody's expecting for next year, the, the license, not this year. We'll see what's gonna happen, but Wealth Fund is, has, I believe, 22 companies underneath. For the licensing side, I mean, we're competing with Turk Telekom, so Wealth Fund is a strategic investor for both party. I don't see any issue on, on this side. For the, for the, as I said, for the 5G, we expect 2024, as a, a licensing or spectrum tender as well.

Cemal Demirtaş (Head of Research)

Thank you very much. Okay.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from the line of Kayahan Demirak with Ak Investment. Please go ahead.

Kayahan Demirak (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, thank you very much for the presentation and opportunity to ask questions. I have a couple of them. The first one, I mean, did you penciled in any other price increases this year in formulating the guidance? Or another way of asking this, when should we expect, I mean, another price increases given the, I mean, direction of your cost inflation? That will be my first question.

Murat Erkan (CEO)

Okay, for, for, for this question, I mean, we, we just increased our prices. We're gonna follow the inflation, but my feeling is, by, by the end of the year, one more price increase we can expect. Obviously, this price increase for the next year, not this year's, you know, not this year's numbers or revenues, anything. We, I think we can expect, in price increase for last quarter, in Q4.

Kayahan Demirak (Equity Research Analyst)

thank you. Would it be possible to give any direction in terms of the, the expected CapEx intensity for the next year? I mean, would it be, in your view, would it be, should we expect something lower than this year or a bit higher, given given the expansion plans, the maintenance?

Murat Erkan (CEO)

Yeah. To, to be honest, it is very difficult to, you know, see for, for next year CapEx guidance. Obviously, our aim is decreasing our CapEx ratio, sales CapEx ratio, revenue ratio. My expectation would be little lower, but not too much on this side. It's too early to say because we don't know the effects, because our CapEx, 75% of our CapEx depends on foreign exchange. It is really difficult to forecast for next year CapEx. Macro conditions also is gonna give us sometimes hard times, sometimes good times. We'll see. It is too early to say anything about 2024.

Kayahan Demirak (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Okay, thank you. Understood. The final question for the international operations. I mean, the numbers in Ukraine looking quite strong, given the difficult operating environment. There's a, I mean, decent growth in USD terms, margins are going up. Should we expect this to continue going forward? How do you see the situation over there?

Murat Erkan (CEO)

Obviously, Kayahan, you are asking difficult question because Ukraine is under war. Based on existing, you know, behaviors, I mean, we will see, we will see, you know, successful operation over there. You know, this is sometimes it's really difficult to speak while ongoing war is happening over there. We are happy about Ukraine lifecell performance. Things getting easier, but it, it doesn't mean like before the war. As everybody knows, that Ukraine had, you know, around eight to maybe 10 million people move out from Ukraine, this makes, you know, ... Are they gonna come back or not? We'll, we'll see. It is really difficult to forecast for, for next year or coming years, but so far we are good.

If things stable, we're gonna continue as good as today, but, you know, it is under war, so it's difficult to comment on this one.

Kayahan Demirak (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, understood, thanks for taking the time, and congratulations on the strong results.

Murat Erkan (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Once again, to register for a question, please press star one on your telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Turkcell management for any closing comments. Thank you.

Murat Erkan (CEO)

Thank you very much for, for joining us, and, and, have a good day, have a good night, whatever it is. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Ali Serdar Yağcı (Investor Relations and Corporate Finance Director)

Thank you for joining us. We hope to see you in the next one.

Kamil Kalyon (Acting CFO)

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded. You may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling. Have a pleasant evening.