Telefônica Brasil - Q4 2022

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Vivo's Q42022 Earnings call. This conference is being recorded, and the replay will be available at the company's website at ri.telefonica.com.br. The presentation will also be available for download. This call is also available in Portuguese. To access, you can press the globe icon on the lower right side of your Zoom screen, and then choose to enter the Portuguese room. After that, select mute original audio for a better experience. Para acessar nossa conferência em português, clique no ícone do globo localizado no canto inferior direito da sua tela Zoom e selecione a opção Portuguese room. Ao acessar a nova sala, certifique-se de silenciar o áudio original para uma melhor experiência.

We would like to inform you that all attendees will only be listening to the conference during the presentation, and then we will start the question and answer section when further instructions will be provided. Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statement that may be made during this Conference Call regarding the company business prospects, operational and financial projections and goals are the beliefs and assumptions of the Vivo Executive Board and the current information available to the company. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties as they relate to future events, and therefore, depends on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should be aware of events related to the macroeconomic scenario and the industry, and other factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the respective forward-looking statements.

Present at this conference, we have Mr. Christian Gebara, CEO of the company, Mr. David Melcon, CFO and Investor Relations Officer, and Mr. João Pedro Carneiro, IR Director. I'll turn the conference over to Mr. João Pedro Carneiro, Investor Relations Director of Vivo. Mr. Carneiro, you may begin your conference.

João Pedro Carneiro (IR Director)

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Telefônica Brasil's Conference Call to present the Q4 and full-year 2022 results. The call will start with our CEO, Christian Gebara, commenting on Vivo's financial and operating highlights, followed by an update on the progress of our digital ecosystems and ESG initiatives. Our CFO, David Melcon, will go through our cost and CapEx evolution, net income, free cash flow, and shareholder remuneration. I now hand it over to Christian.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

Thank you, João. Good morning. Thank you for joining our earnings calls. I start by presenting the highlights of the Q4 and full-year. 2022 was a transformational year for Vivo in the telecommunications industry in Brazil. With the initial deployment of 5G Standalone and the mobile market consolidation, both of which are bringing significant improvements to the quality of service and the customer experience. We closed the year with 112 million access, up 13.7% year-over-year, reinforcing our position as one of the Brazilian companies among all sectors with the largest number of clients. Our 58.7 million access in postpaid and 5.5 million in FTTH, give us a very solid recurring revenue base, protecting our results from inflation impacts.

In this sense, our total revenue grew 10.1% year-over-year in the Q4, driven by the expansion of 13.6% of our mobile service revenues and by the best fixed revenue results since the Q4 of 2015, with a growth of 2.9%. As a result, our EBITDA expanded 6.1% year-over-year, reaching 41.3% margin. The strong operating performance delivered during 2022 was culminated by a relevant amount of free cash flow, closing the year with BRL 7.3 billion. The robust cash generation, which is one of the key elements of our equity story, allowed us to declare over BRL 5 billion in dividends and interest on capital during 2022, on top of the BRL 600 million invested in buy back our shares.

We firmly believe our shares to be undervalued. We are starting a new share buyback program aiming to invest an additional BRL 500 million during the next 12 months. To continue enhancing and differentiating our shareholder remuneration capability, yesterday, we filed with Anatel a request that if approved, will allow us to potentially reduce our capital stock by up to BRL 5 billion. This will give us further flexibility to decide on future cash distribution and how to improve our capital allocation. We go to slide four, where you can see that for the second straight quarter, our top line grew well above inflation. The 10.1% year-over-year expansion results from the 13% growth of our core revenues that already represent 93% of our total revenues.

This is particularly important as our non-core business, which for years served as a drag to our revenue performance, now weighs less than lines with potential to keep double-digit growth rates for years to come, such as FTTH and B2B data, ICT, and digital services. Moving to slide 5. On the left-hand side of the slide, you can see that our mobile revenues increased 13.4% year-over-year, as postpaid, prepaid, and handset revenues all grew double digits. The mobile market consolidation and our leading commercial performance have been the main drivers here. On the right side, we detail our fixed core performance in which we had revenues climbing 11.9% year-over-year. The core products already represent 76% of our wired line business, up 6 percentage point on an annual basis.

Our total fixed revenues grew 2.9% year-over-year in the Q4. This being the best early growth rate we reached since the Q4 of 2015. As usual, the main drivers were FTTH and data ICT and digital services. Services that are hard to replicate and provide us with a robust platform for continued improvement of our fixed business going-forward. On Slide 6, we detail the operating performance on mobile and fiber closing a year that probably was the best in our recent history regarding our customer base evolution.

On mobile, we added 14 million new customers during 2022, reaching 98 million access, up 16.8% year-over-year, even after carrying out the disconnection of 3.4 million inactive lines coming from Oi Móvel's acquisition, of which 339,000 were eliminated during the Q4. Our postpaid base grew at an even higher pace, up 18.2% year-over-year, as the migration of prepaid users to our hybrid plans continues to be very successful. While churn remains at record low levels, close to 1%. Also, we continue to be net gainers in portability of postpaid lines, clearly leading with the best value proposition.

As a result, we closed the year with a mobile market share of 38.9%, up almost 1 percentage point since April, which was the first month in which Anatel reported the consolidation of Oi's access with the buyers' bases. In fiber, we ended 2022 with 23.3 million homes passed with FTTH after rolling out the network to 3.7 million new premises. Moreover, we added 874,000 FTTH access during the year, expanding our customer base by 19% to 5.5 million homes connected. Our convergent offer, Vivo Total, has been very successful, representing around 70% of the add FTTH net adds we registered during the Q4.

Being the only player capable of providing 5G plus fiber flat unique offering on a nationwide basis is a key differentiator, enabling us to keep on improving our operating performance and reducing postpaid and fiber churn. Moving to slide 7. During 2022, our digital B2B revenues grew 29% year-over-year, reaching BRL 2.7 billion. These revenues that aggregated products such as cloud, cybersecurity, IoT, digital B2B solutions, among other, already represent 5.6% of our total top line and will soon outweigh non-core revenues. These services and solutions are in great demand as companies of all sizes are becoming more and more aware of how beneficial it is to invest in digitalization of their business.

We'll continue to deliver on our leading brand, complete portfolio, channel and rich capabilities to be the preferred partner of Brazilian companies in their digital transformation, capturing this unique opportunity. Moving to the right-hand side of the slide, you can see that we continue to develop our presence as a digital finance hub, taking advantage of the dozens of millions of commercial relationships we have with individuals through our connectivity services to increase our share of wallet and customer monetization. Apart from Vivo Money, which closed the year with a loan portfolio of over BRL 180 million, growing by almost seven times year-over-year, we are also offering co-branded credit cards in partnership with Itaú and handsets and home insurance products.

In addition to that, Vivo Ventures, our corporate venture capital fund, made its second investment in a fintech by investing BRL 10 million in Klubi that act as a consortium administrator with financing model that's becoming increasingly relevant in Brazil. On slide 8, we update you on our ESG initiatives. During 2022, we were able to deliver solid results on all fronts. In environment, we reduced by 50% year-over-year our direct greenhouse gas emissions and increased by 20% the collection of electronic waste through our Recycle with Vivo program. On diversity, we reached a 22.4% occupation of leadership roles by Black people, growing 3 percentage points year-over-year. During 2022, Fundação Telefônica Vivo invested BRL 58 million to support students and teachers of the public education system in developing their digital capabilities, benefiting 2.2 million people.

We were also recognized as a leading telecom company in terms of corporate sustainability by S&P in their 2023 sustainability yearbook. We are pleased to announce we had the second-highest score among 83 participants in B3's ESG 2022 process, being the only telco within the top 10 best-qualified companies. This is an improvement vis-à-vis the fourth place achieved in 2021, reflecting the efforts we make to create a more inclusive, green, and sustainable company. David will take us through the financial highlights of the quarter.

David Melcon (CFO and Investor Relations Officer)

Thank you, Christian. Good morning, everyone. Moving to slide 9, the continued transformation of our cost-based structure remains underway as we accelerate revenues related to the digital B2B and B2C services and solutions that led to increased lifetime value of customers. Looking at the cost of services and goods sold that represent 35% of our OpEx in the quarter, it grew 11% year-over-year, driven by the ongoing transformation of our business mix as revenues coming from the sale of digital solutions and services, handset, and accessories outpaced total top-line expansion, leading to an improved growth profile. Cost of operations, which comprise the remaining 65% of our OpEx, increased 14% year-over-year in the quarter.

Here, even though we continue to reduce costs such as commissioning, billing, call centers, and back offices, assisted by the increased usage of digital channels and payment platforms, this was compensated by the effects related to higher personal costs and lower recovery of taxes and sale of unused network equipment in the quarter. Another positive note, we expect to incorporate Garliava, the SPE that held the assets we bought from Oi Móvel during the Q1 of 2023, unlocking additional savings while also allowing for the tax amortization of the goodwill arising from this acquisition. Moving to slide 10. In 2022, we invested BRL 9.5 billion, which is the highest ever annual CapEx, excluding licenses, made by us.

These years were particularly pressured by investment made to incorporate Oi Móvel assets of around BRL 500 million, and by the initial deployment of 5G to key cities to start building a network that was recently considered as the one delivering the fastest 5G in Brazil. We also accelerated our FTTH Compass footprint, taking the opportunity to further consolidate our leadership in fiber. Our operating cash flow expanded 4.4% year-over-year, reaching BRL 9.8 billion. For 2023, we just provided a market guidance on CapEx that will bring strong revenues in the coming years, committing to invest less than BRL 9 billion in the period, thus allowing for an important improvement of our CapEx per sales ratio.

This year's investment will be focused on the continued expansion of our 5G coverage, on the reinforcement of our overall mobile capacity, and on the increase of our FTTH penetration. Moving to slide 11. In 2022, our net income reached BRL 4.1 billion. The year-over-year comparison was impacted by some positive non-recurrent events that benefited the previous year results, as well as by the higher average interest rate seen in 2022 versus 2021, which coupled with our increased level of net debt, directly penalized our financial results. On the other hand, we deliver once again an excellent result in terms of free cash flow, with a generation of BRL 7.3 billion in 2022, representing 15.2% of our revenues.

This 11.3% free cash flow yield is among the very best in the sector and denotes how resilient our business is under any circumstance. Now going to slide 12. Here we detail the components of our 2022 shareholder remuneration, as well as discuss the additional levers that will allow for a continuation of a strong cash return going-forward. Considering the dividend and interest on capital events declared with record date in 2022, our total distribution reached BRL 5.1 billion, of which BRL 2 billion were already paid out to our shareholders in October 18th, 2022, while the remaining BRL 3.1 billion will be paid out on April 18th and July 18th, 2023.

In addition, we invested over BRL 600 million to buy back our own shares, resulting in a total of BRL 5.7 billion of shareholder remuneration, equivalent to 8.9% of the company market cap as of December 2022. We keep working on ways to maintain the cash returns to our shareholders. As such, yesterday, our board of directors green-lighted the following. First, the proposal to our 2023 general shareholder meeting to be held next April of a dividend based on 2022 results of BRL 827 million to be paid out on July 18th, 2023. Second, the deliberation of BRL 106 million in interest on capital based on January 2023 results.

Third, the cancellation of 13.4 million shares held in treasury on December 31st, 2022, equivalent to 0.8% of our capital. Fourth, the creation of a new share buyback program to be executed from February 2023 to February 2024, with a potential to invest up to BRL 500 million to buy back our stock. Fifth, the request to Anatel of a prior consent to potentially reduce our capital stock by up to BRL 5 billion, which if approved, will bring important flexibility to decide on the future remuneration of our shareholders and capital structure.

As you can see, we remain highly committed to maintain our differentiation as one of the few companies that combine important growth avenues, such as the one presented by the mobile consolidation, fiber capillarity, and soaring demand for digital B2B and B2C solutions with a rock solid balance sheet and cash flow generation capacity while providing leading shareholders deals. Thank you. Now we can move to the Q&A.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We are going to start the question and answer section for investors and analysts. If you wish to ask a question, please press the button raise hand. If your question has already been answered, you can leave the queue by clicking on the same button. Wait while we pull for questions. Our first question comes from Fredy Menge of the Bank of America. Please, Mr. Freddy, your microphone is open.

Fredy Menge (Analyst)

Hello. Good morning, everyone. Thanks. Thanks for the questions. I have two here on my side. The first one is related to capital reduction. I mean, I think was a good move, doing the capital reduction, most likely to increase the dividends. The question is why BRL 5 billion? I mean, why not more considering the equity of BRL 65 billion you guys have? That'll be my first one. As a second one, at least with the scenario we have today, it looks like 2023 is gonna be a year of lower inflation, right? Which I think is particularly good for the telcos. How do you see the opportunity to reduce costs here, eventually, increasing margins further in 2023? Thank you.

David Melcon (CFO and Investor Relations Officer)

Hi, Fredy. Thank you for the question. Look, our free cash flow generation, I mean, exceeds the annual net income. It has been like this for many years now. We have limited distributor reserves left. Therefore, we believe a capital reduction address this situation, allowing us to create a platform to distribute more cash than the annual net income, no? I mean, we had a 100% payouts over the last few years. With this capital reduction, if it's approved, we should be able to have a higher payout than 100%, you know? We believe BRL 5 billion is the right amount to have a story for the next few years, you know? Also regarding timing, no?

I'm sure your question is also about this. I mean, we need to wait around 6 months for Anatel prior consent approval, we will need to go through also all the internal governance approval, such as board and general assembly, no? I can take the beginning of the 2nd question and then Christian can also elaborate. Look, we are showing the OpEx breakdown showing the cost of service and goods sold and cost of operation. On the 1st one, I mean, we have been growing 11% in the last quarter.

If you look to the revenues that are linked to those costs, which are mainly have to do with digital service and handsets, we are growing more than 50%, not just the B2B digital services, they grow 29%. In the other, in the other part of the costs that have to do more with operation, there are few things that happened in the second half this year. The first one is the acquisition on Vita IT, which is a company, B2B company that's allowing us to accelerate the growth in B2B. This is bringing additional costs, particularly on personal costs. That's why we are seeing an increase on personal costs that year-over-year. Next year, we shouldn't see such a growth. Also, we have the cost from integration of Oi.

Just to remind you that we are paying BRL 146 million for the transition service agreement to Oi, which is more than BRL 12 million per month. This will finish at the end of the Q1, 2023. It's something that we would not have in the nine months of 2023. Also, inflation for next year, we are expecting to be lower than 2022. This is also a lever. Also we are seeing that the new revenue streams are coming with higher OpEx, but without CapEx. This is also an upside because we look to operating cash flow margin that we will see that will be an expand for next year. Also that's...

it's also linked to the story of the integration of Oi, is that we are planning to incorporate, to merge, Arliala which is a company that we acquired the assets from Oi Móvel, in the next, let's say one month or one month and a half. This not only will bring savings in OpEx, but also this will unlock the tax benefit coming from the amortization of the goodwill. This, just to remind you, is more than BRL 1 billion cash that will come through in the next five years, no?

All in all, we see an expand on margins and also a growth in operating cash flow for the next year also because the CapEx, as Christian mentioned, I mean, we are going to also to have below 9 billion, no?

Christian Gebara (CEO)

just to complement the two, no? The second is exactly what he said, no? there is the impact on the inflation personal cost that is important part of our cost of serving. it's gonna be positive in that way, the operations that we have that are related to personnel. of course, there is this change in mix that we mentioned, Fred. of course, now when we start also selling more digital service, there is cost of goods sold, that is different cost mix. in absolute numbers in the EBITDA, we are very positive about our growth. so... also digitalization. Now we are increasing a lot, the digitalization and the representativeness of our channels, both the app and also WhatsApp.

Of the user, more artificial intelligence that we're increasing the usability, especially now with the new developments of artificial intelligence that we're going to start impacting our way of serving customers through these channels. In the first question about the capital reduction, it's good also to bear in mind that in 2025, the concession, the solution about the concession will be there. The migration, that is what we expect. In this case, we're going to have much more flexibility also to capital reduction. For two years, that's the proposal that we have.

Fredy Menge (Analyst)

Perfect. Very clear, Christian and David. Thank you. Just if I may do a follow-up on the concession idea, 2025, the base case, in your mind is to finish the concession without paying anything extra for it, right? That's the base case.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

Look, we are in the middle of the process. There is, as you know, there are two processes that are going parallel. First one is the value that Anatel decided that would be required for the migration. That is at the moment, is being analyzed by the TCU. Okay, that's something that is public, and there is a number of the figure. We have our questions about the methodology and the number, but that's something that's gonna be discussed in this way, you know, between TCU and Anatel. There's a second one that is our claim for the sustainability and the financial balance of the concession. That is also being discussed with Anatel, but at this time, in the arbitrary chamber that we have for this topic.

In this case, we are claiming for a value that it's higher than the value that was firstly declared as the one that we need for the migration. We're still in the beginning of the process. We had the first hearing the end of the year, we are optimistic about the arguments and the unsustainability and the lack of balance of the concession at the moment and for so many years. We need to define what's gonna be the outcome, these 2 processes, and the idea is to come into an agreement that's gonna be beneficial to the market, to the country, and of course, to Vivo.

Fredy Menge (Analyst)

Very clear. Thank you, Christian.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Lucas Teremossi, from UBS. Please, Mr. Lucas, your microphone is open.

Lucas Teremossi (Analyst)

Hey, thank you for having my question, my question is especially on CapEx that you guided us. Where do you see the bulk of investments going to? I know you disclosed about 5G and fiber, but especially on fiber, would you be pursuing more client connections or CD expansion? Could you also give more color also on the division between 5G and fiber? Thank you very much.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

Hi, Lucas. This is Christian. I can start. You may complement if you want. Yes, it is in fiber. Expansion is one of the lines that we're gonna increase investment. Here it's both in connecting customers and expanding network. It's again, I think our network is already close to 24 million homes pass. We said that we would reach the end of 2024 with 29. There is 5 million homes to increase our footprint. Most importantly, is to connect customers. We've been doing that in a very accelerated pace, being the leading company in net adds of the market. Now, the churn is very reduced, being able to capture most of the market. As you could see, there are almost 1 million new customers in the last year.

We're gonna continue with this strategy, you know, increasing footprint up to the 29 that we already declared by end of 2024, and connecting more customers. Here is also good to highlight that we've been very strong in connecting customers with Vivo Total, our convergent offer. 70% of the new adds come with the Vivo Total offer that also protect our post-paid base. That's why we have also a very reduced churn as we presented earlier. In the 5G, we are ahead of the obligation of the auction. Apart from the 27 capitals, we already have 26 cities above 500,000 inhabitants. We're gonna continue expanding in the cities that we are already there. We need to expand also some other new cities, but that's not what I'm gonna share here.

We're gonna expand a little bit beyond what's required by the auction. We are gonna do that in a very intelligent way, following the penetration of 5G smartphones. Today, we have 18% of 5G smartphones as our customer base. We're gonna continue deploying network where we see that there is a customer base requiring 5G connection. It's gonna be a very, as we did in the past, using big data to be very precise, and we're gonna deploy our CapEx. That's the main lines of CapEx. It's gonna be below 9. We don't have the money that we spent to implement 5G to start with the technology.

we don't have also, this year, the money that we spent to integrate mobile customers for Oi, that is fully integrated in our customer base. we are now, totally, on the speed to continue growing customer base, both in mobile and in fiber.

Lucas Teremossi (Analyst)

Thank you very much. That was very clear.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

Thank you, Lucas.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Marcelo Santos from JP Morgan. Please, Mr. Marcelo, your microphone is open.

Marcelo Santos (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning, Christian, David, Pedro. Thanks for the question. I have two questions. The first is if you could provide a overview of how the competitive environment is in mobile. I saw that you recently raised prices for the at least on the website. The second question is regarding Vivo Money. Your portfolio is growing a lot. Could you share a bit more details about APRs, NPLs, how these loans behave? Thank you.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

Hi, Marcelo. Let's talk about the mobile dynamics. Also, as we presented, you know, commercially speaking, it was a great year for Vivo. We continue to expand our market share, and we continue to expand both in prepaid and in postpaid. You know, when you see the number that we have today of access, 980 million access compared to 83.9 that we had one year before. Of course, you consider that the 12 million that we got from Oi, but the 3.3 that we disconnected. Also in real numbers, in absolute numbers, was very extremely positive. In that ads, we were the leading company in portability as well. That's also again, an example of our perceived superior value proposition.

When we add that to the fiber one, that the Vivo Total that I mentioned before, also put us in a unique position to be the leading company of both technologies. You know, the 4G, 5G plus fiber. Our return reflects that. The 1.05 of the last quarter was the lowest one and the market share of almost 39%. Having said that, we are very keen on monetizing all the investment that we're doing in the last years. We are the one increasing prices. We did that last year. We are doing again in the entry plans for all our postpaid plans. Give you an example. Now in January, our entry plan for hybrids was adjusted to BRL 57. It used to be BRL 50.99.

That was an important increase. When I compare to others, we are above them in price and in what we offer by this price. I think it's a normal behavior that we expect to be followed by others because we are giving back what inflation is at the moment, and also giving back to customers what was the benefit that they got from the ICMS reduction. We did the same in the entry point of our individual postpaid plan. Today, our first plan is BRL 122 per month. The same we did in the family plans, that is also a good plan for us, that we increased to BRL 242. Doing the same in the Vivo Total, also increasing Our bundle that I said is responsible for 70% of our FTTH sales.

Again, here we increase price. The first one is at BRL 200. We're putting the market in a different price point, expectation that our peers follow this movement because what we're doing here is passing through inflation. In the fiber, in FTTH, 50% of our customer base will be increased in price. We have now the entry price of BRL 120 with 300 megabits as a speed for the fiber service. Would like to do the same. I think the prepaid price has been the same level for many years. We just have the benefit of the ICMS reduction with more data that's offered to the customers. We need to move this price up, especially when you move the hybrid price up.

If you don't do that in the prepaid, it will be difficult to continue with the successful strategy that we are, we've been all following of migrating prepaid to hybrid. Here again, we expect market to move up in prepaid as well. I think that was the first question. The second one was-

Marcelo Santos (Equity Research Analyst)

On Vivo Money.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

We will complement the Vivo Money. We are very. Sorry. Do you want continue the first one, Marcelo? Should I move to the second?

Marcelo Santos (Equity Research Analyst)

No, no. The first one is perfect. I was just reminding the Vivo Money question. Thank you.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

Okay. The Vivo Money, we are highlighting here now that our loan portfolio, it reached BRL 183 million. Is like seven times higher than it was one year before. It's almost six times higher in number of contracts. That's a combination of many factors that David could give you more light on that. We are very satisfied with the performance of these loans. Also, I think Vivo has been investing a lot in models, in credit models, not only for money, but also for our own customer base. That's been successful for the bad debt number that we have and also for the performance of Vivo Money that is growing. We are growing that also combining more services. We have Vivo Pay, our digital wallet.

We are selling more and more insurance. We have this co-branded plan card, sorry, with Itaú that's also been very successful, increasing sales of smartphones and other devices using this card. We now, as I said, we invested in a consortium company because we're launching something here. We see that our capability of selling other services, combining our customer base, our low customer acquisition costs, our brand, our billing capability, our credit capability is giving proof that the potential that we have expanding, not only in financial services but beyond that. That's why we're also gonna do more in health with our service, more in education and other lines that we're gonna give more color in the next calls as we are doing now with money.

I don't know, David, if you want to comment on this.

David Melcon (CFO and Investor Relations Officer)

Yeah, Marcelo, no. Just to add that, I mean, we are very positive and optimistic about the evolution of this, of this business that's growing very fast. We are monitoring very carefully always the greatest scoring to make sure that, I mean, the bad debt is under control with very low levels. Positive to keep these trends that we have seen over the last 12 months to keep like this for the future, no.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

Anything else, Marcelo?

Marcelo Santos (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

Thank you.

David Melcon (CFO and Investor Relations Officer)

Thank you.

João Pedro Carneiro (IR Director)

Our next question comes from Phani Kanumuri from HSBC. Please, Miss Funny, your microphone is open.

Phani Kanumuri (Analyst)

Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. My first question is regarding the dividends. Typically, you have stated before that you'll distribute 100% of the net income as dividends. Yesterday's announcement of requesting prior consent from Anatel, do you see that you'll be increasing that dividend payout ratio as your target dividend payout ratio? The second question is regarding the risk of concession. If you cannot reach an agreement with Anatel by 2025, do you see a scenario where you'll lose the concession agreement? You know, what could be the potential impacts on your operations because of that? Thank you.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

I'll go to the second one. We are very optimistic that we're gonna find a solution for the concession. I think it's gonna be positive for everyone, especially because we're talking about a concession of more than 20 years that is related to wide services and public telephony, that we all agree that is a service that is not demanded anymore. We work in a very optimistic scenario that it reach an agreement. I think all the parts are very reasonable about the outcome that we are pursuing here. At the moment is what only thing that I can share. It's important also to see as we call, you know, the core revenues and non-core revenues. We're talking about a service that has a very low share in our revenue mix.

The impact is gonna be even lower if we talk about 2 years from now. Again, optimistic about the solution. We are working on that in different fronts. Let's wait for the next quarters to see the outcome of that. I'll give it to the dividends to David.

David Melcon (CFO and Investor Relations Officer)

Hi, Phani. Just regarding the first question. If you look back the last 2 years, Telefônica Brasil would generate more than BRL 7 billion free cash flow per year, you know, 2021, 2022. The net income is a lower amount because some of the elements, particularly investments, have already been paid but are still being depreciated, you know. Particularly purchase special location and so on. The capital reduction, in case it's approved, will allowed us to have a higher number of dividends pay, higher than the net income. That mean that the payout will be, you are right, above 100% in the future.

Phani Kanumuri (Analyst)

Thank you. That's very clear.

David Melcon (CFO and Investor Relations Officer)

Thank you.

João Pedro Carneiro (IR Director)

Our next question comes from Soomit Datta from New Street Research. Your microphone's open.

Soomit Datta (Analyst)

Yeah. Hi there. Thanks very much. A couple of questions, please. One on the on the free cash flow, there was a very favorable working capital movement in Q4 and again in 2022. I just wondered what was driving that, and can you give any steer as to kind of future direction of working capital? It was, it was kind of quite a big component of the of the BRL 7.3 billion free cash flow. That would be helpful. Thank you. Secondly, just on the on the cash return policy, you mentioned you thought your shares were undervalued. There is a buyback of BRL 500 million, but it's relatively small compared to the presumed overall dividend and IOC payment. I wonder, how did you kind of think about forming the mix of buyback and dividend?

Could there be a higher buyback component? Just finally, sorry, on that buyback, is Telefónica participating in the buyback, Telefónica parent, participating in that? Thank you.

David Melcon (CFO and Investor Relations Officer)

Okay, Soomit, let me take the question. First of all, the positive working capital. I mean, you're right. The Q1, we have BRL 268 million. For the full-year, BRL 3 billion. The previous year was already also positive, you know? The main drivers for having this positive working capital first is a positive tax asset recognition that we had in previous years. This is a positive effect that will not be reversed in the future. Will not be reversed in the future. Because in 3, 4 years ago, we have a positive in the net income that we didn't bring cash. Now we are seeing the cash coming from that effect. Also, another one is the effect of FISTEL. FISTEL.

We have a liminal, we have a decision, legal decision not to pay FISTEL over the last 3 years. This is BRL 700 million per year. This is also something that is benefiting not only Telefônica Brasil, but all the sector in Brazil, the working capital. I mean, the second question regarding the share buyback, I mean, we have been having over the last, particularly the last year, BRL 600 million. We believe, I mean, this is the right number just to give more liquidity to our share. Looking for 2023, we believe that BRL 500 will address the strategy that we had in the previous year, no. Regarding, I mean, share Telefónica, we believe no, there is, we are not aware of anything, so we are just buying on the market BRL 500 million per year as we did last year.

Soomit Datta (Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

João Pedro Carneiro (IR Director)

Our next question comes from Felipe Cheng from Santander. Please, Mr. Cheng, your microphone is open.

Felipe Cheng (Analyst)

Hi, Christian, David, Pedro. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Two on my side. The first one regarding if you guys could provide a little bit more details on the opportunity for additional growth in B2B digital services. This is definitely one of the revenue lines which has been growing at a faster pace and caught me a lot of attention. If you could provide a little bit more detail where the future opportunities are, how big the addressable market is, and if you continue to see room to grow at this high double-digit pace that you have been growing in the past few quarters. The second question regarding M&A, if you can talk a little bit about potential M&A opportunities in the short term, where would they be concentrated, in which segments? Any color on that would be great. Thank you so much.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

Let's go. The M&A, you refer to fiber M&A?

Felipe Cheng (Analyst)

Fiber or digital services, where do you see more opportunities for M&A?

Christian Gebara (CEO)

Look, there are different ways, you know, of seeing M&A, you know. Like in the B2C digital services, what we are doing is basically investing through our corporate venture capital fund. That is a Vivo Ventures. Now that I said that we made 2 investments in fintech, and that we have 320 million AIs to do, to spend, and we envision investing in 12 companies along the years. That's gonna be minority stake. It's not an acquisition. We are also looking for potential acquisitions in the same areas that we are considering for the venture, our corporate venture capital.

We were talking about B2C, we are talking about health, fintech, education, energy, and some new areas that we are now researching and to see how do we could leverage. Again, knowing the attributes that we believe are unique in Vivo, that is the superior brand, the customer base, the billing capability, the channel capillarity online and offline, and other attributes that we normally discuss. We are very open, and we are talking to different companies, and we're gonna be bringing news, I think, along the quarters. In the B2B is the same. We acquired a company called Vita IT last year. It's a network integrator, one of the key partners of Cisco in Brazil. It's been a very smooth integration, and we are very positive about the returns that we're gonna capture with this acquisition.

The same way, Telefónica is acquiring companies globally. Telefónica Tech is the initiative that Telefónica has for B2B digital services. They are creating independent business for that. It focuses in the product development or product partnership. It's not in the sales. The sales is done by the operator in our case. We have these three companies in Brazil. One focus in cyber, another one focus in cloud, and the third one focus in big data and IoT. These three companies, we have established the same three companies that Telefónica has in Spain here in Brazil, and we are working very closely to them.

Going forward, when you talk about B2B digital service, that we said the 2.7 billion, and there is a growth of 29%, we continue to see a very, very optimistic growth for the next quarters. Especially because we are the only one with the channel capillarity among not only our sector, but all sectors, even the big players of this industry. They need our capillarity. Here I'm not talking just about the large companies of the country. The possibility that we foresee here as the growth is because we reach even the small companies of the country.

With this capability and with all the companies now searching for digitalizing their operation, and that I think was accelerated by the pandemic, everyone wants to be in cloud, everyone is worried about cybersecurity, everyone wants to have new notebooks and no rely just in desktops, and all these new ideas, not counting on the IoT that we also see developing very, very strongly with the arrival of 5G, we see ourselves prepared because we have the teams to develop the products, leveraging on the Telefónica's group capability, and we have the channel already in place to respond to this demand. The growth here, we don't give trends. We only see positive in all lines of the services in B2B and also in B2C.

We talked about money, we're gonna talk about many other services that we see also growing here, not only growing in revenue, but also protecting and reducing churn that we see entertainment. For instance, we are, I think, one of the largest seller of OTT video services in Brazil. What we see here is it increase ARPU, but at the same time, it reduce churn because the customer gets committed to Vivo in more than one service. Two services, if it's Vivo Total. Three services, he has a digital service with us as well. The vision is clear, and we only see upside in both B2B and B2C. I don't know if I answer you, Felipe. It was long because there are lots of things to say here.

Felipe Cheng (Analyst)

Perfect. If I may just make one quick follow-up on the M&A side. If you could maybe talk a little bit about consolidation prospects here for the FTTH segments. How active do you plan to be if you see this market starting to consolidate a little bit quicker in 2023? Just get your overall perception regarding this topic. Thank you.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

I think the market needs to be consolidated. I think that's clear for everyone. We started with fiber before everyone. We now have 24 million homes passed. We have 5.5 million customers, we are the only one able to offer with the size of operation, the convergent offer. We are in a very unique and leading position. Having said that, we believe that there's no sense of having three fiber networks in the same city. We need to be much more rational. I think there was in the past, in the market, a feeling that everyone could build a fiber network, everyone would be successful. I don't think that's gonna happen anymore.

I think with the numbers that we see of the market or total net add of the market is making what I say real. Now we don't see the market growing the same way. When we see the leading one in net adds of the market, share of net adds, we see Vivo is standing out. It's also a business that requires CapEx. It's not only CapEx of deploying the network, but it's also the CapEx to connecting the customers. It needs a lot of things to make it happen in a successful way. When you talk about neutral networks, they need anchor tenants and someone that is really able to occupy this network in a good percentage.

Having said all that, I believe that consolidation needs to happen and may happen, especially in the context of high interest rates. In our case, we generate cash. As we said before, knowing our free cash flow is very strong, as you all could see in our presentation, but others may be they have a different situation. With the new needs, investment to continue to grow and with interest rates at that level, the cost of capital is not going to be that low as it used to be in the past. We are open to see what's the opportunity. We have 24 million homes passed. We may have a lot of overlap with most of the players. That could be a reason not to buy if the overlap is very high.

That's something is one of the criterion that we have in M&A. The second and the third that are very important is the quality of the network that we are acquiring. We are not gonna give up the best quality network that we have both in mobile and fiber. If you decide to buy something, it needs to be in the level of quality that we expect to offer to our customers, not only the network but also the CPE. That's the important part of the investment. Of course, finally, we only look for companies that has all the fiscal and labor and all the other assets that we believe are correct to be in place in a due diligence that would fit the way we manage our company. Again, open to see.

We haven't found anyone so far. I think the market it's a little bit more open to discussion than it was one year ago.

Felipe Cheng (Analyst)

Perfect. Very clear. Thank you, Christian.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

Thank you, Felipe.

Operator (participant)

The question and answer section is over. We would like to hand the floor back to Mr. Christian Gebara for the company's final remarks. Please, Mr. Christian.

Christian Gebara (CEO)

Okay. Thank you everyone for participating in our call. As you could see, we have like, apart from the very strong results in all the lines, we have a very domestic and strong perspective for the year. We have many other things going on that we described here coming from new businesses like expansion of the current business and also our capital structure that we have new things coming up. We are here, all the team, at your disposal to discuss in more detail any question that you must have. And again, we've a positive perspective for the next quarters. Okay? Thank you all for participating.

Operator (participant)

Vivo's Conference Call is now closed. We thank you for your participation and wish you a very good day.