Elisa Oyj

OMXH:ELISA

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q1

[Vesa Sahivirta, executive]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Elisa's First Quarter 2023 Conference Call. My name is Vesa Sahivirta, and I'm Head of the Investor Relations. And here, again, we have very familiar team, CEO, Veli-Matti Mattila; and CFO, Jari Kinnunen. Following the normal practice, we start this meeting with a presentation followed by Q&A. And in Q&A, we take first questions from the audience if we have and then from the conference call lines. But now we are ready to start.

So, I give word to Veli-Matti. Please?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Thank you, Vesa, and welcome to Elisa's Interim Report Q1 2023 on my behalf as well.

Let's get started by the highlights. Our revenue was growing by 5.5%, while the EBITDA growth was 3.5%. Mobile service revenue increased 4.9%, and the post-paid churn was decreasing further to 14.9% this quarter. We had post-paid subscriptions growing by 19,400. Machine-to-machine and IoT subscription base, especially was growing by 26,400. Also, fixed broadband subscription base increased by 2,600, and the good momentum in 5G continues. Now, our network covers 88% of Finnish population in over 200 towns and cities.

Revenue growth is driven by the good development in all of our business domains; mobile, fixed services and digital services. Also, equipment sales was strong. And of course, the good development in EBITDA is the result of revenue growth, but also our continuous productivity improvements, long termism of Elisa. In the mobile service revenue side, the growth is driven with our continuous success for providing faster speed and upselling the subscriptions not only to 5G, but also within 4G, and also contribution comes from some of the product and price changes we've done. The year-on-year ARPU growth was 4.3%. There still is campaigning, especially in the 4G continuing, and the competition in the market is keen. However, we have seen some focus maybe more by operators and the churn has come down a bit this quarter.

When looking at our business segments, Consumer Customer revenue was growing by 4% and EBITDA by 1 percentage point. And in the Corporate side, revenue growth was 8% and the EBITDA 9%. In both segments, all the business areas were contributing positively; mobile and fixed, digital services and equipment sales. And the regulatory-driven price decreases in interconnection meant that the interconnection revenue was coming down, but also the interconnection cost was coming down. So from the profit point of view, it was quite neutral. Also, the traditional fixed line business is continuing the slight decline further.

We continue to execute our strategy with 3 focus areas, and we foresee great potential and opportunities in each of the 3 focus areas in our strategy. In the mobile side, more than 200 megabit per second speed. Voice subscription base is approximately 45% at the moment of the total base, continuously growing. Speed matters to the customers. And in this more than 200 megabit per second customer base, the share of 5G is growing. The share of 4G customers is slightly decreasing.

Of all the devices at Elisa's and smartphones at Elisa's customer base, 42% are now 5G capable. We continue to build our coverages in Finland and Estonia. In Finland, 88% population coverage. In Estonia, over 70% population coverage. And we are able to monetize 5G with our business model so that the billing increase is over EUR 3 per month in 5G upgrades and continues to be intact.

We have been also deploying Europe's first distributed and fully automated 5G edge commercial solutions, paving the way for a new type of edge solutions in 5G services. Also different kind of other applications, for example, a world-class concept experience in Finland that we provided virtually to the remote audience who took part together with the help of 5G and virtual reality solution. We also continue to make actively investments in our fiber network, and our fast connections are already available to more than 1 million locations via fiber or cable modem.

The strong growth continues also in our international digital services and Elisa Polystar and IndustrIQ. And as we told in our Capital Markets Day in a couple weeks ago, we have started to give out the revenue for the combined Polystar and Elisa IndustrIQ businesses. Now the revenue for this quarter was altogether EUR 25 million, which has provided 20% revenue growth. And even in the order intake, we had better year-on-year growth of 35%. And our aim is to continue strong double-digit organic growth and accelerate the growth with M&A.

In Elisa Polystar, we had a record high quarter in data management orders, and there was really high, good interest and good customer feedback at MWC tradeshow in Barcelona. For Elisa IndustrIQ, we have also gained several new deals globally, including 2 new customers in Finland for production planning, environmental, health, safety and quality solution, and the strong year-end order intake and increased demand for customer deliveries continues.

And also our domestic and other digital services are moving forward well. In entertaining video services in Finland, Estonia, especially our original series, higher quality original series are successful, getting recognition and customer demand. In IT services and solutions, Elisa is now 1 of the 3 companies entitled to be called A Solutions Partner of Microsoft Cloud in Finland. It's quite extensive, 6 much of the designated competencies that we have achieved. And we have done locally available the capabilities to our customers, which makes us a very strong IT vendor.

Also, we have seen increasing interest among customers in speeds as a source of data for AI applications, and we have AI deployment expanded from natural language processing capabilities to integration of ChatGPT to our customers. So, we are providing capabilities to our customers to experiment and test these new foundation technologies that are a very hot topic at the moment. In visual communications, Elisa Videra is moving forward well. The demand for visual communications solutions remains strong. And during first quarter, Elisa Videra delivered to the over 30 unique countries across over 40 customers.

A year ago, we started the report of our KPIs for sustainable future development in 4 areas of our sustainable future objectives in the digital, social environment on financial. And our performance for change in energy consumption has got to the level of 9%. So the energy efficiency is increasing. We have increased the population coverage to the fast connections to provide availability to digital access to all things, and also the proportion of female supervisors is increasing at Elisa, so that we can get the full potential of leadership talent at Elisa more. And the patent portfolio is also growing up with new patents, altogether 8 new first applications.

In addition, Elisa has been the first -- among the first Finnish companies to receive approval for the Net-Zero 2040 from Science-Based Targets initiative. So credibility for our target and objective to be Net-Zero 2040, even with the Scope 3 perspective. Also, Elisa has been included in 2023 Bloomberg Gender Equality Index. We got CDP Supplier Engagement Leader recognition among the top 8% of the company's -- 15,000 companies reported here. And Elisa has also been perceived as the Most Sustainable Brand in the industry according to the Finnish consumers for fourth year in a row.

And finally, about our outlook and guidance for 2023. The development of general economy includes many uncertainties going forward. Growth in the Finnish economy is expected to stall. In particular, uncertainty relating to Russia's war in Ukraine, such as inflation, energy prices and global supply chains, will continue. Competition remains keen. We estimate that our revenue will be at the same level or slightly higher than in 2022 and comparable EBITDA at the same level or slightly higher than in 2022. EBITDA growth potential is still a bit more challenging for the first half of the year, and our capital expenditures will be maximum 12% of revenue.

Now, I'll ask Jari to continue. Please?

[Jari Kinnunen, executive]

All right. Thank you.

Year started good. Q1 was continuing revenue, both revenue and earnings growth. Revenue, 5.5%, EUR 28 million increase. Inside that EUR 28 million, interconnection and visitor roaming decreased EUR 2 million. Interconnection price decreased from EUR 0.55 to EUR 0.4 per minute and is decreasing also interconnection expenses, so EBITDA neutral. Equipment sales growth was EUR 8 million. Service revenue growth in Corporate Customer segment, EUR 13 million. All services; mobile, fixed and digital services growing. In Consumer Customer segment, service revenue growth was EUR 9 million. Also, all service revenues, mobile, fixed and digital services growing and in both segments, traditional fixed voice decreasing.

Below revenue in other operating income included in this quarter, real estate sale, approximately EUR 3 million, which is a bit higher than bottom we saw several times a year. There are some real estate sales and they are booked in other operating income. But this quarter, it was slightly higher than normally. Materials and services expenses have increased EUR 15.5 million, mainly due to equipment purchase costs as a result of higher equipment sales, also electricity, higher electricity prices impacted.

Employee expenses increase was EUR 8 million, number of employees as a result of acquisitions and some in-sourcing impacted. Also expenses included restructuring charge in Consumer Customer segment and somewhat higher long-term incentive plans. Reserves and accruals was also included in employee expenses. EBITDA increased by EUR 6 million, 3.5% to EUR 183 million. EBIT growth was 4.9% to EUR 117 million and EPS growth 3.9% to EUR 0.57.

In Estonia, revenue growth continued, 8.6%, driven by equipment sales, as well as mobile and fixed services. In EBITDA, inflation and especially energy prices and personnel expenses, wage increases impacted and EBITDA decrease was 0.4%. In mobile subscriptions, post-paid base decreased 1,000, prepaid base 5,700. Churn continued at low level, 10.1%.

CapEx -- reported CapEx was EUR 66 million and guided CapEx, excluding licenses, lease agreements and acquisitions, EUR 57 million. And main CapEx continue to be in 5G coverage increase, as well as fiber and other networks and IT investments. Cash flow also continued with growth and comparable cash flow, EUR 71 million, 7.5% growth, positive impact from higher EBITDA and net working capital change.

Last year, net working capital change was EUR 21 million and now EUR 14 million. Both change is negative. So a year ago, minus 21% and now minus EUR 14 million. Main change coming from lower inventory compared to what the development was a year ago. Negative impact in cash flow change from higher CapEx, taxes and interest payments.

Operating -- EBITDA, operating cash flow conversion continued at a high level at 69%. Balance sheet and capital structure, in line with targets, net debt to EBITDA 1.6x, equity ratio 42.6%. And return ratios continued at good level. Return on equity increased to 31.4%, return on investments 18.2%. And average interest expense for interest-bearing debt, 1.5%.

About 2 weeks ago, 5th of April, AGM was held and decided on dividend EUR 2.15, which is 4.9% growth to previous year dividend and ninth consecutive growth year. Also, there was an authorization for a maximum 5 million share buyback. And dividend payout ratio is 92% in -- or according to distribution policy between 80% and 100%.

And now I give word to Vesa, please.

[Vesa Sahivirta, executive]

Thank you, Jari. And now we move on to Q&A part. And first, we ask if there is any questions from audience? No, we don't have currently questions here. So, we ask first question from the conference call lines, please.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Anonymous from Goldman Sachs.

[Andrew Lee, analyst]

It's Andrew Lee from Goldman. I had 2 questions just on phasing of positives. So you have -- one was on pricing and one was on churn, and this is all related to Finnish mobile. So, you've raised Finnish mobile pricing and your competitors have followed in October, January and also, I think to a lesser extent in the last couple of weeks. Could you just talk through when those relatively meaningful price rises impact your revenue trends? I understand there's a lag, given some of the tariffs you have -- the tariff setups you have. That would be really helpful.

And then secondly, churn reduced pretty meaningfully this quarter versus last year. Are we seeing the full benefits of that churn reduction on Q1 EBITDA? Or is there a kind of rolling lag between the actual churn and the way the costs accounted for?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Thank you, Andrew. Regarding the pricing raises you were referring to, those were in the consumer side, front-book price increases to the 4G customer base. We actually have done additional EUR 1 increase in the pricing just recently. Because it's a front-book price increase in 4G, I would say that the impact comes gradually. We maybe have seen already some impact of that because, of course, while 4G price level has gone up, it has, of course, encouraged also customers maybe slightly more to move to 5G, but also the customers taking 4G have -- for this mainstream product have paid a bit more.

So, I would say that we have seen some impact of those price increases, and we will still continue to see going forward. In regards to the churn, we have, of course, seen some benefit for this quarter for the churn coming down. Just have to remind that the churn level still is quite high, and we see gift card based competition in the market. So, there is still quite some cost for customer acquisition ongoing. But, of course, some positives we have seen and hopefully, going to see further in the future.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Ondrej Cabejsek from UBS.

[Ondrej Cabejšek, analyst]

I had 2 questions also. One on just the expected inflection from wages. So, I understand you've managed to strike agreements with the unions at about 3.5%, but there is likely also to be some kind of one-off payment in the second quarter, which then translates into your kind of more cautious 1H outlook. So could you maybe talk a bit about what the scale of that impact could be in the second quarter, please?

And then second question would be just on digital services and their potential acceleration. So, you talked about a strong order intake thus far year-to-date. So if you could talk about -- you guided for a strong double digit. But obviously, if you look at the past 2 years, the average was close to 40%. On the international side, the past couple of quarters have been a bit below that. So do you expect the rates that -- the growth rate that we're seeing today to accelerate in the coming quarters or years? That's one angle.

And the second angle would be just if there's anything you can note in terms of just seasonality around costs related to international digital services, be it regarding sales expenses or just some kind of development costs that help you scale these. So that would be very helpful.

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Okay. Thank you for your questions. In regards to the wages, yes, we made the deal, a collective labor agreement, which we didn't know the outcome during the first quarter or let's say, early first quarter when we reported our fourth quarter results and gave the outlook. And the outcome was, as you said, 3 point -- average 3.5% increase in salaries, but also an additional one-off salary bonus of couple of millions all together, which will take place in the second quarter. And that was some extra that we didn't know in the beginning of the year and that we will incur that. That is, of course, impacting on our view of the H1 being somewhat kind of more challenging for the EBITDA development than the second half. Also, of course, the development in the general economy with all the uncertainties is also taken into account.

For your question about the revenue growth in digital services, the international digital services, we are happy with the 20% revenue growth and also very happy for the 35% order intake. We are aiming, as I said, the strong double-digit organic growth. Now the organic growth was somewhere 11%, 12% of that 20%, and aim is to have really strong organic growth rate. Our businesses are still, I would say, quite in early days. So, there is a somewhat seasonality for -- in general, in these business domains, but there is also some variability between the quarters because we still are not with high volumes where the different one deals would not kind of create changing over the quarters.

So, there will be some variation, but we see strong demand for our new type of AI machine learning enabled enhanced solutions to these customer bases and target markets and believe on strong revenue growth going forward. Also, adding to that, that certainly, as we have said earlier, we continue to look at the opportunities to have inorganic growth acceleration for this -- both of these businesses.

[Ondrej Cabejšek, analyst]

And one very quick follow-up, if I may. The wage agreement, is that a 1-year wage agreement? Or is that extended for future periods as well?

[Jari Kinnunen, executive]

It's 1 year.

[Ondrej Cabejšek, analyst]

1 year.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Nick Lyall from Societe Generale.

[Nick Lyall, analyst]

Just a couple as well, please. Just on -- back to Andrew's point about the low churn, please, and low gross adds. That said, your post-paid adds are still a little bit weak and have been for the last couple of quarters. Is that just because of putting through the price rises? Or do you think you need to put in a little bit more effort into marketing or have something to -- you need to push the position a little bit there? Should we expect more sort of effort maybe into second and third quarters? Or what to expect in terms of weaker adds for the time being?

And then, Jari, just on the staff costs and the other operating costs, you mentioned the EUR 3 million for this quarter, Jari, from the property gain, which I think you said last year at this time, it was about EUR 1 million. Are there any other decent one-offs in there in terms of staff costs or other costs such as restructuring, the cost of Russia exit or reserves for credit losses? Could you just remind us what the year-on-year effect for both of those lines was, please, in terms of one-offs?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Okay. Thank you for the questions. In terms of the low churn and regarding the post-paid development being a bit less up than earlier, we have had some, let's say, data subscriptions that have been with low or no use discontinued by customers. For example, many iPad users, they do not take anymore the SIM card. They use the possibility with their smartphone to connect their iPads or they use just WiFi. So, we've seen those, let's say, not so high-value iPad subscriptions, for example, and some other data subscriptions to fade away. So, that has been quite a big portion of the negative impact to the subscription base. Otherwise, we are keeping our very good share -- market share intact and also having the kind of good development on getting the value out of the market with upselling.

For your other question, I'll ask Jari to elaborate, please.

[Jari Kinnunen, executive]

Yes. Yes, as said, the property gain was approximately EUR 3 million in this quarter and somewhat higher than it often is. So, we every now and then, there are sales of properties that are not any more huge sort of technical premises. Then we had restructuring charges in personnel expenses this quarter, approximately EUR 1 million. And last year, as you said, regarding stopping the business, small business that we had in Russia, we had approximately EUR 1 million expenses.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Fredrik Lithell from Handelsbanken.

[Fredrik Lithell, analyst]

I thought I had 2. Maybe if you could elaborate a little bit on Finland and if you have during the quarter seen any specific sort of marketing campaigns from your competitors or if you see something picking up pace going into spring? Or if you feel that the community of players are holding price in a better way than earlier, some better pricing disciplines, if that is a sign you see in the market? So that's the first question.

And maybe then, the 28 gigahertz spectrum auctions coming up in Q2, if you could elaborate a little bit how that fit in to your strategy and so on? And also on the licenses or the spectrums, correct me if I'm wrong, you still have the 700 megahertz in Estonia that you haven't really deployed yet with equipment, is that correct? Or is it something you are doing right now?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

All right. Thank you, Fredrik, to your questions. Well, certainly, there are different kind of marketing activities by competitors all the time. Nothing very specific that I could recall and report to you about that. In terms of pricing discipline, I'm a bit shy to comment on our competitors' pricing. I think it is clear that everybody is hit by increasing energy costs, and that has some impact to the behavior of telecom operators, not only in Finland, but also, I guess, in other markets.

In regards to the question about the frequencies in Estonia, well, we have it for all the frequency domains what is available. With decent pricing, we like to take all and utilize them in various ways. So, there's a good fit to our strategy as well. And even if this 28 gigahertz is, of course, very high frequency, meaning that it's maybe more geared towards some B2B applications where you have short distances with the high demand for low delay, low latency. And those cases are not so prevailing yet. But in the future, I believe that there's a good market for those as well. 700 megahertz frequency, we are on our way to take it more into use.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Siyi He from Citi.

[Siyi He, analyst]

I have 2, please. The first one is on the B2B ARPU. It seems that the B2B ARPU has showed a slower growth compared to the B2C in Finland. I guess some of them is impacted by the machine-to-machine growth. So, I was wondering if you can make some comments on what you see of the 5G upsell in the B2B area.

And the second question is on costs. In some factor, you've seen that energy costs are less this quarter. And the next, from Q2 onwards, you would have an implementation of the PPA of the wind energy. So, I was wondering if you can comment how should we think about energy costs for the rest of the year? Should we think that it will be stable year-on-year going forward?

And just a quick follow-up on the wage. And I recall that there was an industrial action in Q2 last year, which could potentially result some savings on salaries. And would you mind to remind us how much is that last year?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Okay. Thank you for your questions. In regards to the upselling of 5G in B2B side, that has developed very well, especially when we think about entreprenEUR s and SME market, really, really well. And also, we have got more and more traction in the larger Corporate Customer segment for 5G upselling. Maybe we can say that the B2B side is a bit behind the development for penetration increase for 5G of consumer segment, but there's a very good development also in the B2B side going forward.

I ask Jari to respond to the energy cost and development. May I ask you about the wage question. I was not quite clear that I understood your question. So could you please repeat that?

[Siyi He, analyst]

So if I look at last year, I think there were some strikes that's taken place in Finland and which potentially have led to some salary savings because of people absent from work. I was wondering if you can comment on how much that impact was last year. Will that change next quarter?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Okay. Very clear. Thank you. Yes, we had a quite kind of an unusual situation. Year ago you remember right, we had a strike, which took place couple of weeks, which we haven't seen for many, many, many, many years. And it created, of course, a situation that we had some savings in the salaries, not very big, but of course, had some impact to the Q2 positively last year, but nothing very serious, but some help that time for the salary and wage cost a year ago.

In regards to the energy costs, Jari, Please go ahead.

[Jari Kinnunen, executive]

Yes. On average, energy price is higher this year compared to '22 and we hedged, let's say, more than 90% from the direct usage, but hedging prices is higher than last year. And PPA agreement started now in April. And that is agreed already in the summer '21, the price in the contract, it's 10-year fixed price contract. And so compared to today's prices, it's at good level and that will lower partly the average price in the second half of the year.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Anonymous from number ending in 2775.

[Adam Rumley, analyst]

It's Adam Fox-Rumley from HSBC. I had 2 quick questions, please. One was on fiber CapEx. You mentioned in your fiber trends. You mentioned in your prepared remarks that some of your CapEx budget was being spent on fiber at the moment. I just wondered if you could talk about the level of competition that you're seeing in the fixed line fiber market at the moment.

And then secondly, I wondered if I could just ask you a little to explain how you see the economics behind machine-to-machine because, obviously, it's quite a big component of the net adds that you're putting through, but I suspect it is very low ARPUs, very low ARPU. So anything you can say just to help us understand that kind of line of the P&L would be helpful.

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Thank you. In terms of the fiber market, like I said, we continue our investments that we have done many, many years to the fiber infrastructure, not only to the core network, but also to the access network, and we continue to do so within the limits of our 12% CapEx. We see that our customers or the customers in the market, we have a high preference of the customers to choose Elisa as a fiber provider. We, of course, lean on that in addition to the fact that we have a solution to the broadband demand of the customer. And in any situation based on the preference of the customer, whether it's a fiber or whether it's then a mobile solution, depending on the fiber -- or customer preference on the solution.

There are quite a few players in the market, testing the market. I see we have a quite different situation in the Finnish market, while we have the unlimited mobile data and the customers -- many customers solve their needs very cost efficiently with the 5G solutions and then the fiber is not an option. So it's quite makes the market quite different from the other markets. However, of course, there is a place for fiber solutions to the customers. And we are very strongly with our strengths taking our share of the market.

In terms of the other question about the economics of machine-to-machine business, of course, it is a volume business that when we can say that it creates a kind of meaningful absolute profit to us, but it is increasing in a very good pace the number of subscriptions. And of course, for us, from the cost point of view, it's not a kind of additional cost for machine-to-machine. Subscription is not that high. Neither is, of course, the price. They are very low-cost subscriptions. But clearly, different kinds of applications are now coming to the market where we start to see volumes to be ramped up. And of course, there is also some equipment sales that is going on. And in some domains, we even have a kind of lack of delivery of the equipment in the global world for certain applications. So it's maybe not something that will jump up and that business increased very quickly. But over the time, it is going to be a meaningful profit generator. And the economics, if you think about the price and the cost, they are positive.

[Adam Rumley, analyst]

That's interesting. I wondered if could just -- could I just ask about what those different applications are, what those new applications are that are driving additional take-outs?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Well, we have, of course, different things in the consumer side, like SIM cards to cameras in different places, Hunters, for example, and summer cottage owners and so forth. Pet owners want to have different kind of things. Then in the corporate side, there are various industrial applications also. There are applications for having meters like electricity or water meters to be connected to the network.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Sami Sarkamies from Danske Bank.

[Sami Sarkamies, analyst]

I have 2 questions. Firstly, could you be able to open up the reasons for strong EBITDA growth at the corporate segment? It's clearly sort of sticking out in Q1.

And then, secondly, you did initially guide for slower EBITDA growth during the first half of the year. In Q1, it turned out to be 3% after 4% last year. What surprised you positively? And do you still expect accelerating EBITDA growth during the remainder of the year?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Okay. The corporate side was getting help from the fact, for example, that it was not hit that much by the energy cost because the proportion of our energy cost is a bit more geared towards the consumer side because of the consumption figures. And also in the corporate side, we have seen some price increases to help. Also, of course, the help from the improvement in our digital service businesses is helping the corporate side to improve their EBITDA. The first half and the first quarter, positive surprise mainly came from the fact that we assumed higher energy prices for the first quarter and then realized. That was the main kind of a positive surprise.

[Sami Sarkamies, analyst]

And do you expect EBITDA growth rate to ramp up from Q1 level during the remainder of the year?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

We reiterated our guidance that we will be on the same level or slightly higher than last year for the full year, and H1 is still a bit more challenging. And as we said that we have this one-off of several million -- a couple of million euros for the collective labor agreement taking toll for the second quarter.

[Operator]

There are no more questions at this time. So, I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

[Vesa Sahivirta, executive]

Okay. Thank you for all the questions and answers, of course. Let's check if we have any questions from the audience here. No, we don't. So it means that we are now ending up this, and we wish you all a very nice spring time. And thank you, and bye-bye.

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Thank you.

[Jari Kinnunen, executive]

Thank you.