Turk Telekomunikasyon AS

IST:TTKOM.E

Earnings Call Analysis

Turk Telekom Sees Strong Q3 Growth and Improved Financial Metrics

In Q3, Turk Telekom reported consolidated revenues exceeding TRY 40 billion, marking a robust 16% year-over-year growth. EBITDA surged 31%, with margins improving by 470 basis points to nearly 41%. Subscriber growth accelerated with net additions of 800,000, driven by a surge in mobile subscribers. The company anticipates an EBITDA margin of 38% for Q4, maintaining a full-year revenue growth guidance of 11% to 13%. Capital expenditures increased to TRY 10 billion, reflecting continued investment and infrastructure expansion, while net leverage fell below 1x, signaling a strengthening balance sheet.

Strong Revenue Growth Amidst Economic Challenges

In the third quarter of 2024, Türk Telekom reported consolidated revenues exceeding TRY 40 billion, reflecting a robust 16% year-over-year increase. This growth comes despite the challenging economic backdrop marked by inflationary pressures, with annual inflation rates fluctuating around 49% to 48.6%. The resilience of revenue growth is attributed largely to the performance in mobile telecommunications and a strong rebound in fixed broadband, which saw revenue increases of 19% and 23%, respectively. This indicates a solid demand for the company’s services, Nicknaming 'elephant in the room' economic pressures have not deterred performance as they strengthened their financial metrics through dynamic pricing strategies.

Substantial EBITDA Increase

The company reported a significant EBITDA increase of 31% from the previous year, reaching TRY 16.5 billion. The EBITDA margin improved to 41%, an increase of 470 basis points from the same period last year. Excluding accounting impacts, the EBITDA growth retains its solid trajectory, enabling Türk Telekom to enhance its profitability effectively. This performance is expected to be sustainable as operational efficiencies are further realized in the coming quarters, marking a strategic turnaround from previous challenges.

Subscriber Growth Highlights Market Position

In Q3, Türk Telekom enhanced its subscriber base significantly, reaching a total of 53.2 million subscribers. This total includes a net addition of 568,000, primarily within the mobile segment which added 651,000 subscribers—a noteworthy achievement as it represents the highest number of additions since Q3 of 2022. The company's focus on improving the average revenue per user (ARPU) has paid off, with mobile ARPU rising 17.5%. Investors should note that the mix of postpaid and prepaid subscribers is moving favorably, with postpaid subscriptions now making up 74% of the total base. This reinforces long-term value as postpaid contracts typically yield higher returns.

Capital Expenditure and Cash Flow Generation

Capital expenditures surged to TRY 10 billion in Q3, driven by ongoing network infrastructure improvements and expansions. The unlevered free cash flow also improved, hitting TRY 5 billion as operational performance strengthened. This reflects a substantial increase from previous quarters, indicating that the company is effectively balancing its investment in growth while maintaining healthy cash generation capabilities. With a CapEx intensity ratio set at 21% year-to-date, the company anticipates continued investment acceleration as it scales operations.

Guidance and Outlook

Moving forward, Türk Telekom has updated its guidance with EBITDA margins expected to achieve a low range of 38% for the fourth quarter. The company maintains its full-year CapEx intensity guidance between 27% and 28%. This projection is indicative of the company's commitment to further investments that enhance and expand service offerings. However, they also caution that fourth quarter results traditionally exhibit lower margins due to seasonal factors. Overall, they remain optimistic about delivering on their long-term growth objectives and maintaining positive financial momentum.

Market Dynamics and Competitive Landscape

The competitive environment for Türk Telekom has intensified, particularly in the mobile segment, where aggressive promotional activities have recently been a characteristic feature. As operators fight for market share, Türk Telekom has successfully retained a healthy balance between subscriber growth and ARPU enhancement. Adjusted pricing strategies alongside robust customer retention initiatives have enabled the company to navigate this challenging landscape effectively. The management's focus on quality and investment in customer service and technology solidifies their position in a competitive marketplace.

Regulatory and Market Developments

Türk Telekom's management mentioned ongoing efforts to navigate regulatory frameworks and market dynamics, particularly with respect to its concession contract extension, which they expect to conclude by the end of 2024. Additionally, developments regarding a potential secondary public offering (SPO), driven by the Türkiye Wealth Fund’s stake in the company, remain uncertain but indicative of ongoing strategic evaluations by shareholders. Monitoring these developments will be crucial for investors looking at long-term value creation strategies.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Vasilios, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Turk Telekom conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the 2024 Q3 financial and operational results. We are here with the management team, and today's speakers are CEO, Ümit Önal; and CFO, Kaan Aktan.

Before starting, I kindly remind you to review the disclaimer on the earnings presentation. Now I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Ümit Önal, CEO. Sir, you may now proceed.

[Ümit Önal, executive]

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our 2024 Third Quarter Results Conference Call. Thank you for joining us today. Whilst the inflation outlook and interest rate decisions varied in different parts of the world, continued news flow on geopolitical tensions in the Middle East led significant volatility in oil prices. U.S. elections and geopolitical developments as well as their implication on global growth remains on top of the watch list. At home, the CBRT kept its policy rate at 50% in its October meeting, after the September annual inflation data, which, although maintaining a downward trend, surprised to the upside at 49.4%. Recently, October inflation followed a similar path to 48.6%, this time slightly above expected 48.3%.

Once again, the pace of decline in annual inflation over the next couple of months will be critical in shaping the 2025 inflation expectations and budgeting processes.

Mobile once again delivered beautifully with stunning subscriber and ARPU dynamics in continuation of solid trends in the postpaid segment, which were further supported by a better-than-expected recovery in the prepaid segment. Fixed broadband geared up performance as June, July price adjustments and continued recontracting of the subscriber base paved the way for a superb comeback that we expect to extend into the final quarter of the year and beyond.

Data consumption moved with routine seasonality and stayed generally elevated across the board, confirming relatively inelastic demand to our products. Usage per LTA subscriber grew at a healthy 10% rate year-on-year in mobile, albeit slower compared to prior quarters. Fixed Internet data usage, on the other hand, contracted 6% year-on-year from last year's high base. Although standing broadly in line with our expectations, third quarter performance is thrilling with outstanding KPIs across the board. Revenue growth has picked up as we have foreseen, adding further momentum to the EBITDA and cash flow generation.

Starting with third quarter financial and operational overview on Slide #3. Consolidated revenues rose above TRY 40 billion, with an accelerated 16% increase year-on-year. Excluding the IFRIC 12 accounting impact, Q3 revenue growth was also 16%. Consolidated EBITDA surged 31% annually as EBITDA margin improved by 470 basis points year-on-year to 41% almost.

We generated TRY 1 billion net income in the quarter. CapEx spending expectedly accelerated in Q3, reaching TRY 10 billion. Our network free cash flow was TRY 5 billion, underlining an improving trend, both Q-on-Q and year-on-year, thanks to a robust operational performance across the board. Finally, net leverage fell below the 1x mark.

Slide #4, net subscriber additions. We closed Q3 with 53.2 million subscribers in total, 568,000 higher from the prior quarter end. Excluding the 233,000 loss in the fixed voice segment, total net additions surged to 800,000, with a broad acceleration in the high season. Fixed broadband base inched up to 15.3 million as of the third quarter. We added 59,000 subscribers on a net basis with similar contributions from the wholesale and retail segment.

Although we have seen some pickup in new acquisitions over the back-to-school season, the impact compared with limited to previous years as new demand remains softer in general. Activations remain short of our expectation in the retail segment but surpassed our target in the wholesale segment. Churn rate picked up Q-on-Q, but remains nearly unchanged in annual comparison, with number of churning customers surpassing our forecast on the wholesale side, but staying in tune on the retail side.

While operators focus on subscriber acquisition has been increasing in mobile market over the past 1 year period, this tendency became even more evident in the third quarter. The competition, driven largely by promotional activity, peaked especially in August, pushing our churn rate higher, both year-on-year and Q-on-Q. Still, net subscriber addition was significantly above our targets.

Mobile segment added 651,000 subscribers on a net basis, marking the highest performance since Q3 '22 and expanding its reach to 27 million customers in total. Driven by a solid acquisition performance, the postpaid base recorded 568,000 net additions. Refreshing its historic high, postpaid net adds in the last 12 months exceeded 2 million in total for the first time. Surprising us positively both in activations and churn, relative to our quarterly targets, the prepaid base secured 83,000 net additions. In the aftermath of these dynamics, the ratio of postpaid subscribers in total portfolio further rose to 74%, reaching its highest level.

Slide #5, fixed broadband performance. Competitive environment remains largely unchanged in the fixed Internet market over the third quarter. Starting in mid-June, we updated our new acquisition prices in Retail segment, followed by the adjustments in wholesale prices in early July and retail prices for existing subscribers in early August. Although competition followed suit, the widely distorted retail price parities hardly moved away from the levels they have settled on since second half of '23.

On the contracting side, we have moved to a simplified 15-month flat fee structure, both in recontracting and new acquisitions in August, September, placing the earlier 3 plus 12 structure introduced in mid-June. Under these dynamics, we have carefully balanced pricing, acquisition and churn and ARPU growth, preserving our somewhat greater focus on the ARPU side. As such, the subscriber activity remains subdued over the third quarter, driven both by our strategy and the prevailing soft demand overall.

Recontracting and upsell performances remained strong and within our targets. 50 megabits and above packages made 67% of new sales and 35 megabits and above packages made 66% of recontracting, both confirming a very strong trend in demand for high-speed packages and no signs of softening among the existing subscriber base. Average package speed of our subscriber base increased by 45% year-on-year to 61 megabits. 44% of our subscribers now use 50 megabits and above packages compared to 31% a year ago.

We have successfully managed market dynamics, thanks to our solid positioning in the fixed Internet domain, proven track record as the best-in-class Internet service provider and advanced capabilities in customer retention in a highly competitive environment. In line with our budget, our strategy produced a very strong 21% ARPU growth, moving up from 6% a quarter ago. We expect this remarkable performance to prevail in the coming quarters.

Moving on to mobile performance, Slide #6. We managed to sizably expand our subscriber base without diluting our ARPU growth during the quarter. Although all operators revised their mobile tariff prices around end June, early July, sizably discounted promotional offerings overtook most of the quarter. We secured our best-ever net add performance in July, followed by an inclusively elevated competition in August. At last, September was the month when the breathless pacing has toned down a bit with focus shifted towards regional campaigns. The MNP market has swollen to its largest size seen since Q1 '20. Although the picture has varied across months, once again, we topped the MNP market as the most preferred operator overall in the quarter.

Postpaid tariffs continued their popularity, but we have also observed a better-than-expected recovery in the prepaid segment. It is yet to be seen if the pickup in new sales will turn into a lasting trend, given the volatile performance in the prepaid market in general over the past few quarters. Accelerating from last quarter's 15%, annual growth in mobile blended ARPU surged to 17.5% with respective 1% and 21% increases in the prepaid and postpaid segments. Over 3% annual growth in average number of subscribers in addition paved the way for 19% growth in mobile revenue.

Let's take a look at our year-to-date performance and full year outlook now on Slide #7. Our operational and financial performance has been on an improving trend every quarter, but Q3 results are particularly satisfying with an orchestrated solid contribution from all lines of business. 11% real growth in operational revenue, more than 500 basis points improvement in EBITDA margin, 25% real growth in EBITDA and TRY 10.5 billion cash flow within the past 9-month period altogether. It's an obvious manifestation of our efforts turning into real value.

And accelerated operational revenue formation over the course of Q3 brought us closer to our maintained guidance of 11% to 13% growth. We remain confident that we will achieve our guidance, but Q4 inflation will be one of the important factors determining where in the range we will close the year. EBITDA margin nicely exceeded the high end of our earlier target of 36% to 38%. Filled with more confidence from Q3 performance, we now set our EBITDA margin expectation at 38%, slashing the low end of the range.

Fourth quarter's tendency to deliver a lower margin compared to other quarters of the year, due to low seasonality in some of our businesses as well as some one-off revenue and OpEx items materializing in the final months of the year, explain the rationale for a lower target compared to 39% achieved in the 9-month period.

We maintain our full year guidance for 27% to 28% CapEx intensity in expectation of a typical acceleration in investment spending over Q4. As we fast approach year-end, we prepare our sales for the next year, which we believe will be an equally, if not a more exciting year than '24 for Türk Telekom. Unabated our focus, we will further strengthen our position in the markets we operate, augmenting our engagement with customers and preserving a vigorous financial performance.

Moving on to the next slide. At Türk Telekom, we are working to improve our financial performance, integrate our sustainability efforts into our company strategies and grow our environmental and social contributions. Hence, we embarked on a new journey this year and presented our first Integrated Annual Report. This report differs from our previous annual and sustainability report in 3 important aspects.

Firstly, we deep-dive into explaining Türk Telekom Group's approach to creating value and driving sustainable growth. Secondly, in the environmental investments and contribution section, we shared comprehensive information with our stakeholders in a more holistic and transparent way, we believe. We focus on our environmental contribution through energy and emissions management, responsible use and management of natural resources, circular economy and waste management as well as our concrete plans for the future. Further, we elaborate on our social contribution through our leadership in digitalization and digital inclusion, fueled by our unabated investments, both in fiber and mobile technologies across Turkey. And finally, we present our full carbon inventory, including Scope 1, 2 and 3 at Türk Telekom Group level.

The calculation, for the first time, encompassed all companies within Türk Telekom Group and was comprehensive in all respects. In this way, we aim to develop carbon reduction strategies at the scale of Türk Telekom Group. All emission calculations have been verified by an independent third party.

Last, but not the least, we have submitted our 2023 report to the Carbon Disclosure platform in an expanded coverage. CDP report should always be considered complementary to our Integrated Report in order to build a more complete understanding around our climate-related initiatives.

This concludes my part. Thank you. Kaan, over to you now.

[Kaan Aktan, executive]

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. We are now on Slide 10 with financial performance. Consolidated revenues rose to TRY 40 billion from TRY 35 billion a year ago with an accelerated 16% increase. All our business lines except for the fixed voice segment posted real revenue growth in this quarter, thanks to our strategy devised to overcome macroeconomic and other challenges paying off in time, and there is reasonably fulfilling high season.

Fixed Internet at this time came to the fore in growth as mobile remains a very strong contributor. Excluding the IFRIC 12 accounting impact, the third quarter revenue was TRY 38 billion, also up 16% year-over-year, including the 23% increase in fixed broadband, 19% in mobile, 15% in TV, 9% in international and 4% in corporate data, and the 6% contraction in fixed voice. The gap between consolidated and operational revenue growth disappeared in this quarter with the normalized trend in IFRIC 12 revenues.

Excluding the IFRIC 12 accounting impact, 9 months revenue was TRY 104 billion, up nearly 11% year-over-year, compared to 7% a quarter ago, advancing nicely towards the guidance range. Fixed Internet and mobile together made almost more than 74% of operating revenue in this quarter. The 2 lines of business made significant contribution to growth with almost TRY 5 billion higher revenues in total year-over-year. Revenue acceleration was largely a result of impressive ARPU growth performances of 21% in fixed Internet and 17% in mobile.

Corporate data continued its advance quarter-over-quarter and expected to move to positive territory in year-over-year comparison. Its 4% increase, thanks to repricing of long-term contracts in certain product groups and some one-time project revenues. International revenue was another line of business that shifted to positive growth year-over-year with 9% increase.

Moving on to EBITDA. On the OpEx front, direct cost rose nearly 3% year-over-year, together with interconnection and equipment and technology sales costs contracting 12% and 8%, respectively. Commercial costs also declined 6% year-over-year, whereas other costs rose 10%. Annual trend in commercial cost can largely be attributed to prior year's high base, but we also observed some minor deceleration quarter-over-quarter. Finally, rising other cost year-over-year was mostly driven by increased personnel and network costs at respective rates of 7% and 3%. The expected pickup in these items was a result of electricity tariff hikes and salary adjustments, which became effective from July and August. Still OpEx-to-sales ratio dropped to 59% compared to 61% in second quarter this year and 64% in the same period of last year, thanks to an improving operational leverage.

As a result, consolidated EBITDA surged 31% annually to TRY 16.5 billion with EBITDA margin expanding by 470 basis points year-over-year to almost 41%. Excluding the IFRIC 12 accounting impact, EBITDA margin was close to 43%. Looking into 9 months performance, OpEx-to-sales ratio dropped to 61% from 66% in the same period of last year, paving the way for a 520 basis point improvement in the margin year-over-year to 39%. 9-month EBITDA expanded by 25% year-over-year to TRY 43 billion. Excluding the IFRIC 12 accounting impact, EBITDA margin was 40% on a year-to-date basis.

Further down, operating profit was TRY 6 billion in this quarter comparing significantly higher to less than TRY 1 billion of the same quarter of last year. That brought the 9-month figure to TRY 10 billion mark recovering significantly from almost TRY 2 billion of operating loss in the same period of last year, driven by macroeconomic volatilities and the earthquake.

Coming to the bottom line. TRY 6 billion of net financial expense grew 29% year-over-year in this quarter due to a 28% higher FX rate on average compared to a year ago and much higher interest rates driven by a major shift in monetary policy. That said, financial expense line has been pretty stable over quarters this year since the beginning of the year, with even some 4% decline quarter-over-quarter. As such, 9 months net financial expense increased moderately by 7% to TRY 19 billion, thanks to the maintained comp in financial markets and successful management of financial risks in this environment.

Finally, we recorded TRY 2 billion of tax expense moving to quarterly effective tax rate from 18% in the second quarter to 66%. The increase, which has no major implications for this year's cash flow was largely driven by the indexation of last year's tax assets to third quarter '24 as per the inflation accounting principles and the widening gap between producer price index and consumer price index in the third quarter. Net profit for the period was TRY 1 billion as a result, carrying the 9-month figure to TRY 4 billion in total.

As you know, there has been some important changes in Turkish corporate tax legislation lately. It's worth noting that the new regime would likely have some implications for our balance sheet and P&L statement. That's what it will be reasonable to expect this impact materializing in our last quarter '24 reporting period, then we will also take into consideration the results of our regular and annual assessment of future utilization of existing tax assets in light of our long-term business plans.

We are now moving on to Slide 11. CapEx spending expectedly accelerated in the third quarter, reaching TRY 10 billion with respective increases of 26% quarter-on-quarter and 15% year-over-year. 9-month CapEx increased to TRY 23 billion, carrying the CapEx intensity ratio to 21% on a year-to-date basis.

And now we are moving on, Slide 12 with debt profile. Net debt-to-EBITDA fell below 1 multiple from 1.1 a quarter ago and 1.2 as of the end of last year, thanks to a stable macro environment and a continuously improving operational performance.

Cash and cash equivalents of which 48% is FX-based, totaled TRY 8 billion. This excludes the $260 million equivalent of FX-protected time deposits that we book under financial investments. The share of local currency borrowings within the total debt portfolio was 14%. The FX exposure included U.S. dollar equivalents of TRY 1.8 billion of FX in denominated debt, TRY 1.7 billion of total hedge position and over TRY 100 million of hard currency cash. The hedged amount included a USD 260 million equivalent of FX-protected time deposit, which was unchanged from the last quarter.

As a reminder, the outstanding balance for the upcoming Eurobond maturity in February 2025, is now USD 200 million. We feel rather comfortable about servicing this debt at maturity, thanks to the ample liquidity in hand and also the improving cash flow outlook. We also believe that our strong balance sheet improved operating metrics and much promising debt market would support us in case we need fresh financing as a result of potential license payments under 5G or fixed line concession.

We are now on Slide 13. We closed the third quarter with a neutral FX position, excluding the ineffective portion of the hedge portfolio, namely participating cross-currency swap contracts. Foreign currency exposure was USD 190 million short. According to the sensitivity of the P&L statement to exchange rate movements, a 10% depreciation of lira will have a negative TRY 600 million impact on third quarter. Assuming all else constant, similarly, a 10% appreciation of lira will have positive TRY 900 million impact.

Unlevered free cash flow was TRY 5 billion compared to TRY 3.5 billion in the second quarter and TRY 3 billion in third quarter, underlining an improving trend both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year. With that, unlevered free cash flow surpassed TRY 10.5 billion in the 9-month period, more than tripling year-over-year.

Well, this will conclude my presentation. We can now open up the Q&A session.

[Operator]

The first question comes from the line of Mandaci Ece with Unlu Securities.

[Ece Mandaci Baysal, analyst]

First, I would like to thank you for all your efforts and your disclosures in your excels that you are providing in your Investor Relations website because you are providing the historic quarterly figures and you are rebasing them every quarter. That's really helpful for analysts, for us. I very much appreciate your efforts. Thank you again for that.

I have a couple of questions. One is about the competitive environment, as you have mentioned. So after July's price adjustments, you have mentioned that there is more competition ongoing. But how should we think about the price adjustments going forward? Will there be a price adjustment maybe with the minimum wage increase in January? And could there be the continuation of this above CPI or real growth going forward in the upcoming quarters?

My second question will be about the current ongoing process regarding your application for the extension of the concession. When should we see a concrete development there because we were expecting this to conclude by year-end latest?

And the third question is about would you have any comments regarding the recent news on Turkey out fund regarding their intention for an SPO in Türk Telekom in the long run?

[Ümit Önal, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much for your questions. First of all, allow me to answer your first question by saying a couple of words related to competitive environment and pricing. As you know, we have been following a dynamic pricing issue, and we are definitely on a basis following this issue. And we are following the market dynamics. We always aim to have a healthy ARPU and subscriber growth. I mean this is the center of our dynamic pricing, and we are preserving it.

And with that, we have been following what's going on the inflation front. And in 2025, we will be following the same path just like before by preserving the balance between ARPU and subscriber side.

When you have a look at our results, we can easily say that we have been following a very healthy subscriber acquisition. It's an ongoing trend, and we are also able to keep up with good growth numbers. So we will be following the same performance in line with the market dynamics in 2025.

Related to your second question, I mean, in terms of this concession issue, we still preserve our faith that this concession matter will be sorted out by the end of 2024, and we have been following this situation very closely. And just like we have mentioned before and in previous quarters, we have been working very closely with the privatization authority and other institutions, this Industrial Development Bank, which is also affiliated to the Ministry of Finance and Treasury. So they have been following their processes. They are evaluating the process right now officially. And we are waiting for this process to come to a conclusion.

And with that, allow me to answer your third question as well. From today, I mean, with the hats that we carry on top of our heads as of today, we can't say anything or I can't comment on anything related to an IPO or an SPO. It wouldn't be correct because I cannot say anything binding from today at this point.

I can clearly state that there is no development related to an IPO or an SPO that came to our side as of now. So I can clearly state that we don't have any information to that.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Campos Gustavo with Jefferies.

[Campos Gustavo, analyst]

Okay. Perfect. I was wondering if you could just provide -- I understand that there -- that you may not be able to comment on this at this point on the privatization or -- but could you please elaborate if you have like a time line on when should we expect it? Or what is the current goal around that? If you could provide any updates as well on the 5G tender rollout that would be much appreciated. That's my first question.

[Kaan Aktan, executive]

Regarding your first question, are you referring to a potential SPO process?

[Campos Gustavo, analyst]

Yes.

[Kaan Aktan, executive]

All right. Well, in the orders when the Wealth Fund acquired the majority stake in the company, when it combined -- it was combined with the already the shares that the treasury already holds. So the government overall came to a 87% shareholders holding level in the company. And probably with that number on hand, Wealth Fund in these days was saying that there will be many ways to create value from their investment in this company. And one of them may be a future SPO project. But at the same time, I think there are certain conditions that the company -- and not only company, but the market with the economic environment in the country should meet. So in that context, we are not hearing anything new since then. But also, we are seeing that the economic conditions are improving. The metrics -- operating metrics in the companies are improving. And in some future date, that may be, again, an option for creating value or a return from their investment. But the rules of the games are definitely -- are clearly not defined, which also include the timing of such projects. So when we hear something or Wealth Fund has something to say, I think that they will clearly inform the market.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Evgeniya Bystrova with Barclays.

[Kaan Aktan, executive]

I'm sorry, just before that, I think there was a question on 5G is the second part.

[Operator]

Mr. Gustavo's line has dropped. We are moving forward with the next participant.

[Evgeniya Bystrova, analyst]

Yes, I also had the same question, so we could go to that. Congrats on the results. And yes, as a follow-up on the 5G tender, if there is a time line for the rollout or any other details, if you could share, it would be very helpful.

[Ümit Önal, executive]

[Interpreted] I mean we can say that the latest information we shared with you regarding the 5G calendar and the auction, it's still up to date. There are no different issues that have changed and nothing new as far as I can say. The statements made by the relevant administrative that the first half of 2025, there will be the auction for 5G. And during 2026, we will have the first commercial use. That's the information.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Pradyumna Mishra with HSBC.

[Pradyumna Kumar Mishra, analyst]

I have two questions. So can you give us what was the quantum of price increase during the last quarter? And the second one is around since the balance sheet looks in good shape now, what is the scope of dividend assumption?

[Gulsen Ayaz, executive]

[Interpreted] Sorry, can you repeat your second question?

[Pradyumna Kumar Mishra, analyst]

So the second question is about dividends. So balance sheet looks in better position now. So what is the -- is there any scope for dividend assumption?

[Ümit Önal, executive]

[Interpreted] Allow me to answer -- to answer your question relating to pricing first. We had a similar kind of maybe a question before. You know that the balance between subscribers and ARPU is very important for us, and it is very important for us to great the dynamic pricing and we are very good at it as an operator. Therefore, in the coming periods, we will be also manage our pricing actions in line with dynamic pricing, both considering the competitive environment and the market conditions.

For example, on the broadband side in the retail segment for the retail portfolio, we have implemented our 6 plus 12 and 9 plus 9 contract structures and the revised prices as of the 1st of December of 2023 and the 3rd of January 2024, respectively.

And as a continuation of that, as we have planned on 14th of June, we have revised our prices on the SCV side. And 1st of August, we have also revised the tariff prices of our current customers.

And in August, we have had a linear -- a more simpler contract structure for the existing customer contracting in August. And in September for the new sales, we have turned the previous 3 plus 12 contract structure into a 15-month plus fee structure.

In mobile, we can roughly say that we had a 15% increase -- around 15% increase in mobile as of the third quarter.

And on the FBB side, we had our price increases on the wholesale side in July, and we had a price increase the retail side at 20%.

[Kaan Aktan, executive]

I just want to make a remark here. So I think the more difficult part for the company for creating a revenue growth momentum was what we did -- not only in the last quarter, but in the many quarters before that. Because as you know, we are operating on fixed-price long-term contracts with our customers and especially longer contraction in fixed broadband created certain challenges in the sense that the price increases that we made did have only a limited impact on the overall revenue growth. But now there is clearly a strong momentum in both mobile and fixed line businesses, even the fixed line business now growing at 23%, which is higher than 20% of mobile.

So that momentum is very critical because going forward, what we will need is make more moderate adjustment to the prices to keep that momentum in line rather than having significant increase to create the inertia. So we are in a much better position compared to a year ago, and that also being reflected into our numbers. And we were very confident this since the beginning of the year, constantly giving the message that you will see a better revenue growth in every new quarter. And also that fixed broadband will be a major supporting factor in that. We will definitely come closer to mobile revenue in the later quarters of the year. And this is really the quarter which is -- which everything is falling to the right place.

And the second question was, I think, around dividends. Again, it's a little early to make a comment and give you a direction on the dividend performance. Let's see how we will close the year, especially on the net income. As you see, there are some moving parts that sometimes we are a bit challenged in making a reasonable forecast because now we are operating with inflation adjustment standards, and there is a different index used in the statutory accounts versus different index used in the reporting accounts, and that creates some unpredicted impact on the bottom line. Let's see how it goes at the year-end and there will be a better understanding of what it might be.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Türk Telekom management for any closing comments.

[Gulsen Ayaz, executive]

Thank you, everyone, for being with us today. We'll see you next time. Thank you. Have a nice day. Bye-bye.

[Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]