Elisa Oyj

OMXH:ELISA

Earnings Call Analysis

Elisa's Modest Growth Amid Headwinds

Elisa Corporation endured economic challenges to report a 2% revenue increase and 2.4% EBITDA growth in Q3 2023. Mobile services, particularly 5G, drove the revenue rise with a 4.2% boost. Notably, 5G covered over 90% of Finland's population. A slight dip in international digital service revenues was attributed to project delays among customers facing economic headwinds. The company observed a minor uptick in churn but growth in various subscription metrics. Elisa eyes a 5-10% organic growth in digital services for 2023 compared to earlier projections. Despite market uncertainties, including the war in Ukraine affecting the Finnish economy, Elisa forecasts a modest increase in yearly revenue and EBITDA over 2022, with capital expenditure capped at 12% of revenue.

Elisa's Resilience Amid Economic Challenges

Elisa Corporation has demonstrated robust performance in the third quarter of 2023. Despite economic challenges impacting the broader market, the company managed to grow its revenue by 2% and EBITDA by 2.4%. Notably, mobile service revenue surged by 4.2%, driven by the adoption of 5G and upselling initiatives. However, international digital services experienced a growth of only 2%, slightly below expectations due to customer project delays caused by the uncertain economic environment.

Segment Performance and Strategic Focus

The Consumer Customer segment saw a revenue increase of 3% and a strong 6% EBITDA growth, with gains from mobile, fixed, and digital services offsetting regulatory impacts and the decline in traditional fixed-line services. Conversely, the Corporate segment faced some headwinds, growing by just 0.5% in revenue. These challenges impacted the EBITDA, which fell by 5%. Elisa's strategy remains firmly focused on three key areas, with the mobile segment witnessing almost half of the voice subscriptions upgraded to speeds above 200 Mbps, indicating successful upselling. Furthermore, approximately 50% of smartphones on Elisa's network are now 5G enabled, expanding the potential customer base for 5G plans.

5G Expansion and Fiber Network Development

Elisa continues to capitalize on the demand for 5G, with coverage reaching over 90% of the Finnish population and over 75% in Estonia. The company expects a sustained increase in average billing per customer due to 5G upgrades. To support this growth, spectrum from 3G networks will be repurposed for 5G and 4G expansions. Elisa is also progressing with its fiber network build-out, based on customer demand, and has launched a fully automated edge cloud datacenter to enhance network automation and quality.

International Digital Services and M&A Prospects

The international digital services sector faced a slowdown due to the economic climate, leading to project delays. Nevertheless, Elisa anticipates a 5% to 10% organic growth for the full year, with confidence in a longer-term double-digit growth trajectory. The company is open to expansion through mergers and acquisitions, as evidenced by Elisa Polystar's recent success with Telia Sweden and ongoing innovation in areas like AI and machine learning within Elisa IndustrIQ.

New Partnerships and Sustainability Strides

Elisa has forged a successful new partnership with Ruutu+ for streaming services. Meanwhile, in IT Services & Solutions, the company has obtained a national facility security clearance from the Finnish Defense Forces. Another area of growth is the demand for secure video communication platforms for various sectors. Elisa's commitment to sustainability is evident through key ESG indicator improvements, an issued green Eurobond, and recognition for its energy storage solution, highlighting its innovative approach in sustainable practices.

Financial Outlook Amidst Unpredictable Economy

Elisa's upgraded financial outlook for 2023 reflects cautious optimism. The company predicts revenue and comparable EBITDA to be slightly higher than in 2022, with capital expenditure capped at a maximum of 12% of revenue. This cautious stance acknowledges the unique economic pressures such as inflation, energy prices, and global supply chain disruptions stemming from Russia's war in Ukraine and the intense competition within the industry.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Vesa Sahivirta, executive]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Elisa's Third Quarter 2023 Conference Call and Analyst Presentation.I'm Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations. And here is, again, a very familiar team from our side, CEO, Veli-Matti Mattila; and CFO, Jari Kinnunen.Following in the normal practice, we start this with the presentations followed by the Q&A. And we go straight to the conference call lines after the presentations. But now we are ready to start. So I give word to Veli-Matti, please.

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Thank you, Vesa, and welcome on my behalf as well to our interim report third quarter 2023 review. Let's get started by the highlights from the third quarter. We had another strong quarter at Elisa. Considering the challenges in the general economic environment that we are not immune totally at Elisa either. Our revenue was growing by 2% and EBITDA by 2.4%. Mobile service revenue was increasing by 4.2%.In the international digital services, our revenue grew by 2%, which is slightly less than we had planned. And the reason is that we start to see some customer delays in projects due to the current economic environment. Medium, long-term, we believe that the demand will pick up again based on the great solutions and competitiveness we have with the digital software businesses.In Finland, postpaid churn increased slightly to 14.4% and postpaid subscriptions grew by 4,400. Machine-to-Machine and IoT subscriptions were growing by 8,600. In the fixed broadband side, we saw subscription-based increase by 9,700 and good momentum with 5G is continuing. Our network covers now more than 90% of Finnish population, and the geographical coverage build-out also is progressing according to the plan.The revenue growth was achieved very much by the growth in mobile services and fixed service businesses and EBITDA growth was, of course, a result of revenue growing, but also our continuous productivity improvements, where we both improve our practices and processes, but also we utilize different kind of automation technologies.The mobile service revenue growth is coming from 5G and other up-selling activities. And also, we have done some product price changes contributing to the mobile service revenue growth.If we move to the customer -- to the segments and with the Consumer Customer segment, we had revenue growing by 3%, where also in addition to the mobile and fixed services, the digital services brought increase in the revenue interconnection prices were regulated downwards, so that is impacting negatively as well as the long-continued decline in the traditional fixed line of business. EBITDA was a strong 6% growth in consumer segment.In the corporate segment, we saw headwind both domestically a little bit and also internationally, as was told earlier. Revenue was growing by 0.5%, where mobile and fixed services and the international digital services businesses provided growth, domestic and other digital service businesses, equipment sales and then interconnection and traditional fixed line services impacted negatively to the revenue growth.EBITDA was down 5%, and it was down just due to the fact that the revenue growth was not continuing as planned. We are continuing to execute our strong strategy with 3 focus areas. And for example, in the mobile side, we see continuation of upselling. And right now, 49% of our voice subscriptions are above 200 megabit per second speeds. All these max -- or 200 megabit per speed subscriptions, not all of them are in 5G. There are also 4G customers in that number.Clearly, the speed upselling is continuing to work. The -- of the smartphones in our network, almost half of the smartphones in the network also are now 5G devices. So we continue to have a good address, increasing addressable market from the device point of view for our 5G subscription sales, which is continuing very well.Our 5G is covering -- coverage is 90% of the population. And in Estonia, we are over 75% population coverage. Average billing increase per customer is over 3% continues to be over EUR 3 per month for the 5G upgrades. And we are releasing spectrum from 3G network in the end of the year, and it will be used to strengthen the geographical coverage of 5G and 4G networks.We also continue the active development of our fiber network and rollout is based and build-out is based on the demand we see by the customers. We also have made a first fully automated edge cloud datacenter, taken into commercial service in the 5G network, which further enhances the network automation and quality, where Elisa is really industry-leading player.In terms of the international digital services business, year-on-year growth was lower due to customers delaying projects, whether the decisions of new projects, but also they have been delaying some agreed projects.So clearly, the general economic situation has made customers to slow down. And that has impacted the revenue growth for the international digital service businesses.However, for the full year 2023, we expect 5% to 10% organic growth to take place, not quite what we anticipated earlier. But over the longer term, the organic double-digit growth target remains intact.We have a strong competitiveness. We have really interesting innovations and our sales funnel is stronger than before. So we believe that the good development can be achieved back in the IDS business. And of course, we also continue to take a look on opportunity to grow the business also with M&A.In Elisa Polystar for example, we got Telia, Sweden to choose Polystar's cloud-native data management platform, analytic tools.In Elisa IndustrIQ, one thing is that the recurring revenue growth in all Elisa IndustrIQ group companies continued steadily, but also we have interesting projects for developing data processing and AI/ML machine learning capabilities in semiconductor manufacturer's production environment. So in real production environments, which is showing -- which are showing examples of the interest and competitiveness of our new solutions to these 2 industries.In domestic and other digital service businesses, starting from the entertaining video services, we started -- we have started really successfully the new Ruutu+ collaboration. Ruutu+ is a streaming service owned by Finnish media company, Sanoma. And all Elisa Viihde original series and content is now available exclusively on Ruutu+. Elisa Viihde Viaplay joint service ends. However, we have, of course, relationship with Viaplay to resell their other contents.Third, season of all-time favorite original series Arctic Circle has been launched now in Ruutu+ streaming service with exceptionally strong start.\In the IT Services & Solutions business, we got for example, from the Finnish Defense Forces, a national facility security clearance for processing of Class III data. One very important benchmark of the capabilities in terms of security of our IT solutions. And we see clear demand from customers for Chennai Solutions growing and our current AI solution development and thinking is really getting global level appreciation by big global players.Visual communications, the demand for highly secure video collaboration platform is prevailing us. Many enterprises are seeking an alternative solution for public cloud video and especially public sector, energy and finance customers are ready to invest on -- in on-premise communication tools again.In terms of the developing sustainable future through utilization, our results in our key ESG indicators are showing positive development, except the proportion of female supervisors. We still have, let's say, work to do, that the changes in supervisor community is geared more towards female, but we believe that we can get also development forward with this KPI.In September, we issued and priced a green Eurobond maturing in January 2029 under Elisa's EUR 1.5 billion EMTN program. And we have noticed that investors particularly appreciate Elisa's commitment to long-term sustainability and stable business and financial development.We also won a very interesting the Distributed Energy Storage Project of the Year Award at Energy Storage Awards 2023 in London, which also shows the competitiveness and innovativeness of our energy storage solution, where we have already interesting projects starting with other telecom operators in addition to our own operations in Finland.And finally, we have now upgraded our outlook and guidance. We repeat that the development of general economy includes many uncertainties. 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, and the competition remains keen.So our upgraded outlook is that our revenue will be slightly higher than 2022, and comparable EBITDA will be slightly higher than in 2022 and CapEx will be maximum 12% of revenue.Now, I leave the word to Jari, please.

[Jari Kinnunen, executive]

Thank you. Let's look first at profit and loss. Q3 continued with good growth trends, revenue, 2% growth of EUR 11 million. And inside that interconnection and visitor roaming was a negative EUR 3 million. Equipment sales growth was EUR 3 million in service revenues, Corporate customer segment growth was 2 million mobile fixed and international digital services growing and negative growth in domestic and other digital services as well as in traditional fixed voice. Consumer Customer segment continued with a solid service revenue growth, mobile, fixed and digital services growing decline in traditional fixed voice.Comparable EBITDA was growing 2.4% or EUR 4.7 million, margin improved slightly to 36.5% EBIT growth was 2.7% to EUR 131 million. Below EBIT, financial expenses, net financial expenses increased from last year by EUR 2.4 million to EUR 6.3 million, which is the same level as the previous quarter, Q2 also same level as expected to Q4. EPS was same as last year, EUR 0.63.In Estonia, good growth, continued revenue was growing 6.4% mobile and fixed services growing, mobile growing by or as a result of subscription-based growth, upgrading to higher speeds, also price increases impacted positively.Churn was at the same level, same as previous quarter, EUR 10.8. EBITDA increase was 8.3%, which is good in high inflation wage, salary inflation and also electricity price inflation that has been especially in Estonia challenging. However, inflation both in Finland and Estonia is in a declining trend.Then CapEx, reported CapEx was EUR 78 million guided CapEx, excluding licenses, leases and acquisitions, EUR 72 million. Year-to-date, 9 months CapEx is EUR 193 million, which is in line with the guidance. Main CapEx relate to continuing with 5G rollout, 5G network rollout increase in coverage, fiber investments and IT investments.Now that, old technologies are, same time as we are investing in the new technologies, old technologies are ramped down. And as we have communicated earlier, 3G network will be closed and shut down end of the year. And as a result of that, we will book one-off depreciation, approximately EUR 6 million in Q4 report. Obviously, this has no cash flow impact and will reduce depreciations in the following year, approximately EUR 1 million per quarter.Cash flow continued with good growth in Q3. Growth was 22% comparable cash flow growth, a positive impact from net working capital change as well as higher EBITDA negative declining impact from higher CapEx as well as higher interest. 9 months year-to-date, comparable cash flow is EUR 286 million, which is 22% growth against the last year.Then about balance sheet, net debt to EBITDA came down from previous quarter to 1.8x equity ratio is 36.1%, both in line with targets. Return ratios remain at good level. Return on equity was 31% and return on investments 18%.In Q3, we did a liability management and they issued first time Green Bond under EMTN program, EUR 300 million 5-year bond. We also extended the revolving credit facility, EUR 130 million revolving credit facility by 2 years from 2026 to 2028. And currently, average interest expense for interest-bearing debt is 2.4%.And now I give word to Vesa, please.

[Vesa Sahivirta, executive]

Okay. Thank you, Jari, and now we move on to Q&A part, and we ask first question from the conference call lines, please.

[Operator]

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

[Andrew Lee, analyst]

So, I had 2 questions. Just trying to kind of unpick your expectations of growth in various parts of your business going forward. So firstly, on International Digital Services, I think you highlighted on the call that you've stepped away from the strong double-digit growth expectation for this year. And I understand that, there's a turbulent macro backdrop behind that. You also went on to say you were confident in the double-digit growth of that business going forward. So, I just wonder, if you could talk to your visibility and timeline to returning to those levels of growth? That would be helpful. And that's question #1.Question #2, you've had, I think, 4 rounds of price rises in the Finnish market in various parts of your operations over the last year. What -- the first was last October, and I think that's impacting your numbers fairly fully now. Just wondering, if you could talk to the other price rises. When do they start to really drive revenue growth? When will we start to see those impacting your mobile service revenue growth? And should we see that as a supportive tailwind to mobile service revenue growth in the quarters to come?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

All right. Andrew, for your first question. The reason that we are confident that we can reach the strong double-digit organic growth is that our solution portfolio is clearly very interesting both in Elisa Polystar as well as in Elisa IndustrIQ and the sales funnel is stronger than ever. However, due to this uncertain and slightly negative general economic situation, the development of it has made our customers -- some of our customers to delay their decisions.How much they delay? Of course, now there was a year-end of 2023 that some customers may be pushed their projects to the next year. Which kind of developments we see in this context next year is still, of course, uncertain to us. So it's a bit difficult for short-term let's say, early next year to say that how the customers behave. But we are very strong with our understanding that over time, we will get back to having customers to make decisions very strongly on our solutions. It is based on the demand and interest to our solutions that we -- makes us very confident and also our competitiveness comparing to the other players.For your second question, yes, we have made 4 rounds of price increases front book, which in the 4G domain clearly have helped us over time to get customers paying a bit more in the 4G when they have changed their subscriptions within 4G, but also it has influenced, of course, customers to see interest in the 5G side. How the other than the last October price increases will kind of impact to our numbers. I would say that, it is a gradual impact that we foresee in the coming quarters.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Ondrej Cabejsek from UBS.

[Ondrej Cabejšek, analyst]

I've got 2 follow-ups on Andrew's questions basically. So, one is, if you could just clarify on the international digital services. So you've been talking about the growing backlog over the past couple of quarters, but the revenues are not coming through. Is this just a question of customers committing to projects but basically the timing in terms of like execution and cash payments being delayed on that part effectively? If you can just clarify that and therefore, if the backlog is growing. Is it just a question of releasing that backlog for the business to get back to the strong double-digit growth that you've been guiding for. So that's question #1.And question #2, on the -- related to the pricing on the 4Q, which traditionally has been very promotional and similar. Last year was very new to in that regard, it's a very healthy competition. Do you see any kind of signs that maybe 4Q this year reverts to a bit more of a competitive dynamic with some like more aggressive pricing needs by Telia, especially in the market as of late? Or do you see for this year being kind of in the same vein from a promotional perspective as last year?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

All right. Ondrej, in terms of the IDS kind of revenue, we have seen delays by customers for the already agreed kind of given orders, not only that the new orders would have been -- or new projects and the decisions of those would have been delayed. There are also those delays, but also delays for already agreed timelines. Hopefully, that explains. And I can say that the kind of order back book is also strong by us. It is just that now there are different kind of dealers coming by some customers.The pricing during 4Q, which is, of course, a quarter where we have quite a few kind of campaign events by different dates like the Black Friday and Independence Day of Finland and Christmas and all of that. Of course, I cannot talk on behalf of our competitors how they plan to do things.Now, we've seen a little bit of less competitive -- price-competitive market during this year, even if the churn was increasing a bit to the fourth quarter that would indicate that we see a little bit more rational campaign behavior. But again, we cannot say how our competitors are behaving. And definitely, we are prepared ourselves to different kind of situations. We are driving with our strategy, more value than rather than short-term campaign kind of behaviors. But if needed, we have all the capabilities to respond strongly.

[Ondrej Cabejšek, analyst]

If I may follow-up on the last thing. When you say less promotional or a more rational environment in the fourth quarter thus far, what does that compare to? Is that compared to year-to-date or is that compared to last 4Q or the tradition before last 4Q when traditionally 4Q was very promotional?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Okay. There was some background. I'm not sure, if I heard your question the right way. But if you were asking where did I compare this? I was comparing the campaign, let's say, activities what we had last year. So one could think that the -- this year, the behavior we've seen in the market where the churn has come down somewhat would indicate a bit less campaign behavior in the coming fourth quarter events. But of course, I'm not sure if that's going to take place, and we are ready for either way, the kind of situation unfolds.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Oscar Ronnkvist from ABG Sundal Collier.

[Oscar Ronnkvist, analyst]

First, just a follow-up on Andrew's question on the international digital services. If you could just remind us on any expected seasonality effects in Q4 and Q1 were pretty strong compared to Q2 and Q3? And also finally, on the incremental margin, if you could elaborate anything on how we should think about the incremental margin on the IDS revenue?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

If you ask me to comment on the revenue growth from fourth quarter and first quarter or second quarter and first quarter, we just started to see the -- some of the decline in the -- or let's say, the pushback of customers. The second quarter this year, we had quite a strong comparable last year. And there was clearly some seasonality with customers how they make their decisions.But now after the summer for the third quarter, we started to see customers to really behave a bit differently based on the general economic situation. That's basically -- and in terms of the incremental margin, we are in a software business. So this is a very scalable business. So the volumes are bringing a very good profit, if you will, as long as the revenue is growing.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Nick Lyall from Societe Generale.

[Nick Lyall, analyst]

Can I ask a couple, please. Just firstly, on domestic digital services, that's still quite weak as well. Would it be possible for you to give us an update on the outlook for the domestic digital services revenue too? And just back on that scalability of international, does that mean that this quarter, you were able to reduce costs quite a bit as that revenue did not you didn't come through? Or is there sort of some fixed cost that sits there because of IDS that actually is reducing the EBITDA growth. Could you just describe rather than in the future how scalable it is what actually happened this quarter in terms of IDS costs as the revenue didn't come through as well?

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

All right. In terms of the digital service businesses, now when we changed for the entertaining video services, our partner for streaming services, we have a little bit of different business model, so -- which will lead to a somewhat lower revenue year-on-year. However, from the EBITDA point of view, our business model and the corporation kind of with the new partner will help us in the EBITDA side a bit.Then to the international digital service businesses, we have been in the growth mode, and we are still building up the businesses. So -- and when the revenue is still, let's say, not that high in the international digital service businesses, of course, the proportion of fixed cost is quite high. We have not tried -- even if we saw during the quarter that the revenue will be less than we have anticipated. We have not made heavy cost reductions on the fixed cost side, because we are believing to the future.We do some adjustments, of course, and follow up the situation, but we have quite strong understanding that we will have a good future with the business. And that's why we are not making the volatility of the cost base to kind of hurt our capability to be competitive in the market when there will be a bit more and more rapid decisions by the customers, if you will. Hopefully, this is explain.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Jakob from Bluestone.

[Jakob Bluestone, analyst]

It's Jakob Bluestone here at BNP Exane. I had 2 questions, please. Firstly, I was wondering if you could kind of comment a little bit more around sort of potential competition from Telia. We heard on the call that they're seeing a big improvement in NPS and they particularly highlighted a big opportunity to take share within the corporate market in Finland. So just interested in how do you sort of see your ability to defend that? Do you see a risk that you're losing some of your relative leadership position? I think they mentioned that the customer perceptions for network quality have roughly level. So, just sort of interested on what you can do to protect yourself and if that's a risk.And then just secondly, on the international digital services segment. As you mentioned, I mean, the revenues have been disappointing, but you're so confident about the longer-term outlook. How do you actually track whether that business is on track? What are the sort of metrics that you're following? Is it just contract intakes or how do we sort of measure the success of that business while we go through this lower demand period.

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Okay. If I start from your second question, we have a very, let's say, strong capabilities in, let's say, market development, sales development with extensive work in the sales funnel of the prospects and customer cases in different phases. So we clearly see from that activity, how the, let's say, really early interest by some customers are developing to an order, and we have a very good system and systematic work with that. So that is our way to track the development and to see how the kind of demand is turning into orders and so forth. So that's the kind of -- in a nutshell, the mechanism and our capabilities there.In terms of competition, I don't know how our competitors are really measuring their quality perception by customers, but we know that we have the highest quality network by the regulator data and also the measurements that we have indicated that we have a superior quality and also superior product service portfolio to our customers. So, we are confident and comfortable on our competitiveness. I congratulate the competitors, if they have been able to improve, that's very good, of course, but we are comfortable with our competitiveness.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Adam Fox-Rumley from HSBC.

[Adam Rumley, analyst]

I've got 2 questions, please. Following up, I'd say slightly on the IDS question, I wondered if you could just talk to us about how practically you kind of account for some of these sales. So, taking an example for the Polystar deal with Telia, Sweden, is there an upfront element to the contract that you end up booking and then there's recurrent revenue? And then there's recurring revenue that follows? Or is it just simply evenly spread across whatever time frame you contract with them? So just trying to get a sense of the phasing that you see on those kind of deals.And then I had a question on EPS growth, which is currently running at 1.1% year-to-date versus the dividend growth of 5% last year. I wondered, if the EUR 6 million of D&A will be included in comparable EPS at the end of the year. That was really my question there.

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

Okay. To your first question regarding the IDS accounting of sales, I ask Jari to respond to that, please.

[Jari Kinnunen, executive]

Yes, there are different kinds of services and products what we are selling licenses when there's only license sale, then it is accounted when the sales happens to the revenue. Then when it's including some project work then when the project has been fully delivered, then it's accounted in the revenue. And of course, typically after the project and the recurring revenue follows. So it's in that kind of customer case, it's two-fold. So one-time revenue impact after the delivery and thereafter recurring revenue.

[Veli-Matti Mattila, executive]

All right. Thank you, Jari. And in regards to your second question around EPS. Of course, one factor influencing on the EPS development negatively has been the increase in interest rates also taking a toll. But we are increasing EPS or we have increased 1.2% year-to-date, as you said. And as we upgraded our guidance that would indicate that we are quite comfortable that we have a positive development on EPS for this year in terms of the growth.In relation to the expected or paid dividends and the growth of those, some years, we may have a bit faster growth rate for EPS than for DPS and some years, it might be other way around. But we have a strong kind of year-to-date result and also expectation of the rest of the year that we can keep on delivering the dividends that we have planned.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] 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 your questions and of course, answers. And we thank you for all participants this time and until the next time. Thank you, and bye-bye.