Orange SA

PAR:ORA

Earnings Call Analysis

Strong Q1 Performance and Strategic Moves Highlight Orange's Earnings Call

Orange had a robust Q1 with a 2.1% increase in revenue to €9.9 billion. The completion of a deal with MASMOVIL created a powerful telecom entity in Spain, contributing to solid financials and paving the way for significant synergies estimated at €490 million plus €100 million in commercial synergies. Middle East and Africa saw double-digit growth, led by strong mobile and B2B performances. For 2024, Orange confirms its guidance of low single-digit EBITDAaL growth in Europe and high single-digit growth in MEA. The firm remains focused on executing its 'Lead the Future' plan to deliver sustained value.

Introduction and Key Highlights

Orange started the year 2024 with a new brand signature, 'Orange is here', launched in multiple countries. The significant highlight this quarter was the formation of a leading telecom operator in Spain through a joint venture with MASMOVIL. This move deconsolidates Spain from Orange's overall KPIs. Excluding Spain, Orange reported a 2.1% increase in revenue and 2.3% growth in EBITDAaL, aligning with their annual targets.

Strategic Moves and Financial Performance

Orange successfully completed its transaction with MASMOVIL, creating MASORANGE, the leading telecom operator in Spain with over 40% market share. The joint venture, expected to generate run rate synergies of EUR 490 million, received EUR 4.4 billion in cash at closing. Group revenues for Q1 2024 were EUR 9.9 billion, a 2.1% year-on-year increase, primarily fueled by strong retail services particularly in the Middle East and Africa.

Segment Performance and Further Financial Insights

The French segment showed modest growth, with retail services rising by 3% year-on-year, compensating for a decline in wholesale revenue. The penetration of 5G and FTTH is at 35% and 70% respectively. For the broader European market excluding Spain, revenue decreased by 2%, mainly because of low-margin activities. However, retail services experienced almost a 1% growth. Orange Business saw stable revenues while other segments, such as Orange Cyberdefense, saw a robust increase.

Middle East and Africa Strong Performance

The Middle East and Africa (MEA) region continued its streak of double-digit growth for the fourth consecutive quarter, reporting a rise of over 11%. This growth was driven by mobile data, fixed broadband, mobile money, and B2B services. Egypt, even with its currency devaluation in March, demonstrated strong operational performance, contributing significantly to the region's success. Orange expects high single-digit EBITDAaL growth in the MEA region for the full year.

Guidance and Outlook

Looking ahead, Orange reaffirmed its full-year guidance. The company remains confident in delivering sustainable value and executing its 'Lead the Future' plan. Key focus areas include driving smarter networks, enhancing customer experience through AI initiatives, and boosting efficiencies. Additionally, Orange's recent agreement with Google Cloud aims to leverage AI and GenAI to optimize operations and improve customer interactions.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Orange's Q1 2024 Results Conference Call. The call today will be hosted by Ms. Christel Heydemann, CEO; and Mr. Laurent Martinez, Chief Financial Officer, with other members of the Orange's Executive Committee for the Q&A session that will start after the presentation.

With that, let me hand over the floor to Ms. Christel Heydemann. Please go ahead, ma'am.

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Good morning, and welcome to our Q1 2024 results presentation that I will comment together with Laurent. Let's move to Slide 4, which presents the key highlights of the quarter.

We began this year with the launch of our new brand signature, Orange is here, already launched in a dozen of countries and which has been positively received for its innovative and credible approach.

The main achievement this quarter, as expected, was the completion of the transaction with MASMOVIL to form a leading operator in Spain. This is a decisive step forward in our overall vision for a strong and thriving telecoms industry in Europe. As a consequence, from now on, we fully deconsolidate Spain from our group KPIs.

Overall, we are very pleased by our Q1 operating results, excluding Spain, with revenues up by 2.1% and EBITDAaL growth of 2.3%, consistent with our full year guidance.

In terms of innovation, we launched this quarter new offers, notably on GenAI for our B2B customers in France. We also expanded our partnership with Google Cloud to leverage AI and GenAI across our work streams and geographies. Through this partnership, we will accelerate on AI with a focus on operating smarter and more efficient networks while improving customer experience.

Coming back to MASORANGE on Slide 5. This business combination creates the leading telecom operator in Spain with more than 40% customer market share, an extensive network coverage and undisputed NPS leadership. We benefit from strong financials that will enable us to win in this market, which has not been structurally changed by remedies.

The new joint management team is in place and their top priority is executing the synergies and deleveraging to 3.5x to focus on cash generation. The JV financing package was obtained at competitive conditions, thanks to our solid credit ratings.

Run rate synergies amount to about EUR 490 million with, in addition, a potential of commercial synergies of around EUR 100 million based on past transactions. These significant synergies compare to moderate net integration costs estimated at less than half a year of run rate synergies.

This flagship transaction with our 50% ownership of the JV is clearly creating value for Orange, taking into account the synergies and the EUR 4.4 billion cash upstream received at closing, keeping in mind that we have a path to control.

Now let's have a closer look at our main financial KPIs on Slide 6. In the first quarter, the group delivered revenues of EUR 9.9 billion, up by 2.1% year-on-year, driven by solid retail services, up more than 3%, while wholesale decline slowed down this quarter, notably thanks to the unbundling tariff increase in France.

From a segment perspective, Middle East and Africa contributed most to group revenue growth with double-digit growth. And France grew by almost 1% with retail services growth offsetting wholesale decline while Orange Business remained flat. Europe revenue's slight decrease was due to low-margin activities decrease while retail services grew by almost 1%.

Group EBITDAaL at EUR 2.4 billion accelerated in Q1 '24, up by 2.3%, notably fueled by retail services performance paving the way to our full year guidance.

Finally, CapEx is at 14% of sales, consistent with our around 15% full year ambition.

I will now hand over to Laurent for the review by business.

[Laurent Martinez, executive]

Thank you, Christel. Good morning, everyone. So let's start with our segment review with France on Slide 8. In France, revenues are back to growth this quarter with retail services growth offsetting wholesale decline. Retail services, excluding PSTN, is up 3% year-on-year, fully in line with our 2% to 4% ambition driven by our value strategy with ARPO up year-on-year. Wholesale revenues fell by less than previous quarters, benefiting from the unbundling tariff increase as of Jan '24.

We are pleased with ARPO evolution as a result of our value strategy. Moreover, with 5G and FTTH penetration at 35% and 70% of our customer base, there is still potential to drive value.

Regarding the commercial performance, we delivered a solid performance on mobile and continued solid momentum in FTTH despite slow market while FBB performance continued the trend of recent quarters.

Finally, based on this Q1 solid financial performance, we fully confirm our global target to grow retail services, excluding PSTN, between 2% to 4% as expected and targeted in our Capital Markets Day and our target to stabilize EBITDAaL in France in 2024.

Moving to Europe with results, which now are excluding Spain, as Christel explained. Revenue were down 2% this quarter with a solid performance on retail at almost plus 1% and decrease on low-margin activities such as equipment sales, IT&IS and wholesale impacted by the new regulatory decrease of termination rate as anticipated.

On the retail side, growth in the quarter was driven by a balanced volume and value strategy with convergent services with a solid momentum of plus 7%.

Finally, after in-market consolidation, integration in Belgium and Romania is on track.

Overall, we expect Europe to deliver a low single-digit EBITDAaL growth in 2024 consistent with our group guidance.

Moving to Spain on the next page. So even if Spain is no longer included in our group KPI, we want to highlight the continued strong performance of Orange Spain firmly putting MASORANGE on the value-creation path with retail services, which continued to grow in this quarter, fueled by convergent ARPO up 4.5%, including as well wholesale and equipment sales revenue are slightly down in the wake of regulated decrease of mobile termination rate. Consistent with last year, churn improved as well year-on-year. And finally, both FTTH and postpaid mobile customer base increased in the quarters.

Overall, we are very pleased by the Spanish performance over the last 2 years, a strong platform for MASORANGE performance ahead.

Moving to MEA, which again demonstrated its extremely strong performance, fully in line with our targets, with Q1 up double digit for the fourth consecutive quarters, over 11%, fueled by our 4 strong drivers. A clear illustration, growth in mobile revenues driven by both volume and value with average mobile ARPO up 5.4% and an acceleration in mobile customer base growth. Nine out of our 16 countries posted double-digit growth this quarter.

In Egypt, devaluation was fully anticipated in our forecast and is offset by a very positive operational performance at 35% revenue growth, along historic figures, double-digit growth in Egypt and close to 9% in MEA.

Looking ahead to 2024, we confirm at least high single-digit EBITDAaL growth for this region.

Lastly, turning to Orange Business. Revenues are stable while IT&IS is up 7.5% in Q1, improving by 2 points compared to the previous year. This growth was driven by Orange Cyberdefense, double-digit growth, and by solid performance as well on digital services.

Looking at our turnaround, we successfully passed 2 key milestones: number one, we streamlined our product and services sales portfolio and reduced it by more than half to better focus on profitable offers as targeted; number two, the voluntary departure plan in France is now under execution with corresponding departures starting in the second half of 2024.

Finally, we are pleased and proud that Gartner ranked Orange Business as the #1 connectivity provider in terms of ability to execute above all our peers including, to name a few, BT, Vodafone, DT and AT&T. Market recognition and customer satisfaction, as demonstrated by this solid NPS, will foster our business growth looking forward. These are all key steps to achieving our target to halve the EBITDAaL decrease this year before being back to growth in 2025.

Now Christel, back to you for the closing comments.

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Thank you, Laurent. I would like to conclude this presentation simply by emphasizing that this first quarter's results underpin our confidence in achieving our full year guidance, which remains unchanged. We are more than ever laser-focused on executing our Lead the Future plan and on delivering sustainable value.

Thank you for your attention. The floor is now open for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Mr. Nicolas Cote-Colisson from HSBC.

[Nicolas Cote-Colisson, analyst]

I have got one question on France. Essentially, it's quite a fact that fixed and mobile subscribers are not that strong. So what does it say about the change in competition pattern? Do you think it's a matter of pricing or it's just a one-off? Maybe driven by the new offers at Iliad, for example? I'm just trying to assess what's going on and what price actions are maybe enriching your offers. Can you really consider such context to drive your value growth?

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Thank you, Nicolas. I will let Jean-François comment on the market conditions in France.

[Jean-François Fallacher, executive]

So talking about the conditions of the market in France. Actually, since last quarter, not much news, I mean, in terms of the way the French market is behaving, on the A brands, I mean, I think actors are really rather reasonable and there is still a fight on the B-brand markets and the lower segments of the market. So as you have seen, we have been behaving extremely strongly and we are posting positive net adds on mobile slightly better than Q1 last year.

On the broadband, what we can say is that the churn is slightly better and that our FTTH sales are very strong if you look at 247,000 net adds. Nonetheless, it's sure that we are going to -- we have been extremely strong in working on the value equation. As you will remember, last year, we have cut the promotions from 12 months to 6 months. We have been doing a lot of price increases in our customer base, which are actually leading to this pretty strong 3% retail services increase in Q1.

So we are pretty happy with the results. We are going to fine-tune this in the coming quarters in order to balance a little bit more the volume/price equation of our business. That's, I think, what I can comment on the French market.

Yes, the last point because you were referring to the launch of the Iliad offers 2 months before. What we can say -- although I'm not very keen on commenting on our competitors' launches, what we can say is, as I was saying, we don't see actually any effect on our broadband base. Again, I mean, our broadband churn, if we compare to Q1 last year, is slightly decreasing. So that's the only thing I can say about that. So no impact on our broadband base of this move.

[Nicolas Cote-Colisson, analyst]

Okay. Sorry, if I may add one thing. So you mentioned price increases in the customer base. Are you referring to price increases from last year feeding into 2024? Or have you also increased prices in the last few months?

[Jean-François Fallacher, executive]

Last year, as you remember, we have done two things. In the beginning of last year, we have done, let's say, a price increase of EUR 1 for each of our mobile subscriber and EUR 2 for each of our broadband subscriber. That was announced actually in the Q1 of 2023.

And actually, in the second half of the year, we did more moves, more tactical moves, let's say, on half of the customer base that were not so massively communicated at the first move at the beginning of last year. But nonetheless, they are definitely delivering the growth you are seeing this quarter. And amongst this move was also the reduction of the promotions from 12 months to 6 months.

So that's the two things we have been doing last year. One has been obviously, less obvious and less communicated, but nonetheless, very strong as well.

[Nicolas Cote-Colisson, analyst]

And anything so far in Q1 or...

[Jean-François Fallacher, executive]

I mean, the tactical moves are still going on in Q1.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Mr. Nick Lyall from Bernstein.

[Nick Lyall, analyst]

It was a quick question firstly on labor expenses. I think for the first quarter, they were up about 5% after flat last year. Could you maybe just explain why I think, Laurent, you mentioned maybe some second half departures via the early leaving plans, so maybe it's timing. But could you help us with the outlook for labor expenses, please?

And then the second one was on Spain. I think also in the presentation, you mentioned not structurally changed by remedies, which seems fair. But could you tell us what you're imagining for price competition as we sort of get into the new sort of MASORANGE era, please?

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

I will hand over to Laurent then to comment on the labor expenses. When it comes to Spain, it's -- I mean, it's difficult to comment on what's going to happen in the market in the future. But as you know, the Spanish market has been going through many changes. Very, very aggressive market on the low-cost brands for the past years, but also very disciplined in driving value in the high-end part of the market.

As you know, the remedies, we don't expect them to bring structural change. As you know, Vodafone is exiting the market. We are combining with MASMOVIL, and the rest of the market remains smaller players. So we do expect the market to improve at least. We will drive our part in making sure we drive value in this market. But as I said, even more focused on delivering the synergies and also continuing to work on leading from a customer experience. We have the leading NPS when we combine MASMOVIL and Orange in Spain. So we will absolutely focus on this.

Orange, on its side, has been communicating on price increases in Q1 to customers that will keep -- that will impact our P&L starting April with some plus EUR 1 to plus EUR 3 increase, depending on football packages, but it's all on premium. And we also know that Movistar and Vodafone have also increased their ARPUs in the same range.

So we do expect similar behavior. Premium market, very solid and focused on value. And a low-cost market, very aggressive, as always.

[Laurent Martinez, executive]

On the labor expenses, Nick, two factors into it. Number one, of course, global inflation and salary increase. We have completed salary increase negotiation in France specifically, which is impacting, of course, our quarter-to-quarter labor expenses. We need to bear in mind as well that we are expanding our labor cost on ongoing markets, specifically in EMEA. So there is a volume game into this. And there is some phasing as well into this, which is inherent to the labor expenses. So nothing to be concerned about.

[Operator]

Next question comes from Mr. Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank.

[Roshan Ranjit, analyst]

I've got two, please. Firstly, on CapEx, we saw an increase for the first time in a while this quarter, I guess, in line with your 15% CapEx-to-sale guidance, but just to get a sense of the kind of, I guess, approximate split of the CapEx spend. I imagine most of it will be dedicated towards AME. But just to get the sense of how the, I guess, fiber investment in France continues to trend down. Any color you can give there will be super helpful, please.

And secondly, on the Enterprise business, you mentioned the voluntary departure plan. How far are you through that? And again, in terms of the road to EBITDAaL recovery in '25, what is the kind of mix between the product shift and the underlying cost cuts, which you can implement in there?

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Thank you, Roshan. So on CapEx, the Q1 figures are really -- there's a phasing impact in the year, but nothing to be worried about, and we are fully aligned with our ambition at group level to be at 15 -- around 15% eCAPEX to sales. So no concern.

And when it comes to the rollout of fiber in France, we are fully under control. We've signed an agreement with the French government to clarify a number of regulatory constraints that we had. But as we said already in the past, this was planned, fully included in our budget and forecast. So absolutely no change. And we continue to be focused on connecting customers to our fiber network.

On the Enterprise recovery, so the voluntary departure plan was officially validated early April. So it's now in motion with, I mean, discussion and open to employees for volunteer. So this has started and will impact our financials in the second half of the year.

When it comes to the recovery towards a stable EBITDA in 2025 -- or EBITDAaL back to growth in 2025, it's, of course, the cost-cutting plan, which is not just about the head count in France and the voluntary departure plan. This is something that, of course, we drive not just in France, also at a worldwide level, but it's really a lot of actions around execution excellence. Of course, the portfolio pruning, but it's also the growth of our Cybersecurity business and really driving gross margin improvement in all our digital services.

So it's -- I won't give you a number, but it's really a full comprehensive plan where, of course, cost-cutting, including the head count, but not just the head count is a key element.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Mr. Mathieu Robilliard from Barclays.

[Mathieu Robilliard, analyst]

First, I had a question around MASORANGE. So congratulations on getting the deal closed. I wanted to know what you meant in your slide deck presentation about the contract -- the wholesale contract you signed with DIGI when you talk about capacity-based fee. I wanted to understand, if possible, whether DIGI is paying a certain amount for a certain percentage of your network capacity is it based on the volume they use and ask you.

And the second question was around networks. Clearly, it seems to me at least that the decision by the EC to not impose structural remedy is a positive and I was wondering if there was scope for more network consolidation in Spain. As you flagged, Zegona is buying Vodafone and Zegona has made it very clear that they would like to enter into some deal on network sharing on the fixed side. So I would be curious to understand whether that is something you're hoping to theoretically.

And then the last question was on TOTEM. I realize that the growth is not very strong at the moment and I was wondering what was driving that? Are you seeing slower growth in towers over your footprint?

And then, if I may follow up. You had said in the past that you would consider strategic options around TOTEM, but certainly after the deal closed in Spain. It's now closed. So I don't know if you have any updates you want to share with us in terms of how you view TOTEM. Lots of questions, sorry.

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Thank you. So on the Spanish market, the remedies, first, to remind that the wholesale agreement that we have signed with DIGI is optional. So it's for DIGI to decide whether or not they want to activate it, knowing that today they are working on the Telefónica network. And remind you that this is an agreement that is at market conditions from a pricing standpoint.

So at least -- I mean, no impact, of course, on our financials. And again, they have the option to exercise this wholesale agreement until '25 or '26. So it's not short term and they cannot exercise it after 2026. And it's, indeed, capacity-based fee pricing, but again at market conditions. So this would not, we believe, have impact on the retail market prices.

When it comes to networks in Spain, you're absolutely right that the Spanish market is somehow overbuilt and we do plan, of course, to create synergies between Orange and MASMOVIL to start with. And so we will -- and that's part of the synergies that we expect. And we will, of course, be very focused on making sure that we increase the usage of our networks also through wholesale or any type of schemes.

And symmetrically, we will also make sure that we are very focused when we invest in CapEx in Spain on avoiding overbuilt. And so we will also have a role as a leading player in Spain to drive as much as possible network efficiency across the market. But I don't have anything else to comment at this stage, but you can be reassured that this will be a key focus of the management team in Spain.

When it comes to TOTEM, nothing to comment from a strategic standpoint. And maybe I will hand over to Nicolas, the CEO of TOTEM, to comment on the performance and the market environment.

[Nicolas Guérin, executive]

So regarding the revenue of TOTEM, as you said, overall revenue are stable. Now when it comes to recurring revenue, hosting revenue, they are growing by 2.6% year-on-year, which is aligned with our budget. And the rest of it are revenues of low margins that are compensating this overall recurring revenue. So we are on a good train regarding TOTEM.

And when it comes to external revenues, I mean, revenues that are made with other customers in Orange, we are growing by 4.6%. And if I exclude MASORANGE, I'm talking of 11.6%. So we are on a good plan for external revenues.

[Mathieu Robilliard, analyst]

Sorry, it's probably down to my English. But Christel, when you say capacity based, again, if you can maybe be more precise. Is that a percentage of the network at a certain price or is it a volume commitment as in they buy x megabytes or gigabytes per month or per quarter and they pay based on that and it varies according to the volume, the purchase from you, DIGI, that is.

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Yes. No, it's consumption-based price. So it's price per gigabyte used on the network.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Mr. Jakob Bluestone, BNP Paribas Exane.

[Jakob Bluestone, analyst]

Just hoping if you could turn back to the Sosh KPIs in the French business. And I guess just if you can maybe just help us understand why you're not really benefiting from the large customer losses at SFR. We obviously saw in Q4, I think, it was 80,000 subs lost in fixed and over 200,000 in mobile. But that doesn't sort of seem to be -- it doesn't seem like the weakness at SFR is really helping your business. So if you could maybe just help us understand that.

And then just more broadly on fixed line. I mean, you've lost almost 150,000 broadband subs over the last year. Your ARPU growth does seem to be slowing a little bit now, I guess, as you annualize some of your price hikes. I mean, should we be expecting a slowdown going forward in that business? Or how do you sort of think about this rebalancing of volume versus value that you mentioned?

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Thank you. I will let Jean-Francois comment.

[Jean-François Fallacher, executive]

So first of all, hello, please be reassured. I mean, we are benefiting from losses of customers from SFR. I mean, again, we are posting, as you've seen, positive net adds, 6,000 on mobile and very strong net adds on fiber, 247,000 in net adds on fiber this quarter. So obviously, this is not only coming from customers from Orange migrating from copper to fiber, but we are getting customers from the entire market and from all the operators, by the way, and indeed, you're right, especially from SFR.

I mean, once more, and you're right to stress that, if you look at our ARPUs year-on-year, they have been increasing very strongly. I mean, when we look at the fixed broadband ARPUs, they have been increasing by more than 5%. If you look at the convergent ARPUs, they've been increasing by more than 4%.

So basically, what we can say is that, again, I mean, we are going to work on fine-tuning in the coming quarters, let's say, the volume/what we call value price increases. But we believe this is quite a strong quarter from this point of view.

And I remind that we have a broadband customer base of 12.7 million customers in France. So please refer with the numbers you see with this 12.7 million customer base.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Mr. George Ierodiaconou from Citi.

[Georgios Ierodiaconou, analyst]

Maybe a couple of follow-ups on France and I think both Nicolas and Jakob focused a bit on the pricing side. I just wanted to understand, you made a comment earlier that the churn on broadband is coming down in Q1 yet it looks like, overall, the KPIs are a bit weaker.

So I'm just curious if there is a market problem beyond what we saw last year, if there's a further slowdown in market growth or whether it's just one player being a bit more active than the others in the past quarter.

And going forward, you are going to pass down the anniversary of [ pass-through ] price increases last year. So is that a risk that we see actually some of this broadband growth slowing down quite materially from the second quarter?

And then the second question is more strategic and I think Mathieu earlier asked about consolidation of networks in Spain. I guess, in France, they are not parallel. But I'm just curious whether -- there's been a lot of reports about networks being available for sale, whether it's something of interest for Orange; from an antitrust perspective, whether you believe that's double. Any comments on that will be highly appreciated.

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Thank you. I will also hand over to Jean-François but maybe to comment on the overall market. We indeed see -- and that's not just for Q1, we already saw that second half of last year a slowdown in the market dynamic with less net adds and this is -- you look at the report from 2023, there has been less net adds compared to the year before. So there's definitely a market slowdown. And in that environment, indeed, we had a lower churn broadband in Q1. But you're right, there's overall a market slowdown in terms of net adds in the market.

When it comes to consolidation of networks, there has been indeed a number of deals. As you know, TDF or XpFibre are very often communicated. It's, of course, for those players to comment what we see. At least what we hear is that the number of investment, the private equity firms or investment funds, are looking at it.

When it comes to XpFibre, our analysis is that there are some antitrust complexities that would make it a possibility for us to position ourselves knowing that, of course, we have agreements already with XpFibre and we definitely benefit from their networks in our retail business in France.

Jean-Francois, on the -- nothing more to add on the broadband? Yes.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Stéphane Beyazian from ODDO.

[Stéphane Beyazian, analyst]

I've got three, if that's possible. Sorry to push a little more on the commercial performance in France, to start with. Is it just possible to have a sense of whether that weakness we are seeing is a little more on the Orange brand or on the Sosh brand because you mentioned more competition -- or still competition in the low end of the market. But the Sosh brand looks quite well priced to me, so I was just wondering whether you can give us some flavor of how the two brands are behaving.

My second question is on AI. I mean we've seen Deutsche Telekom in that joint venture with some international telcos. And I think they are working especially on chatbot. So I was just wondering, and I guess you're probably working also on those topics, if you can give us an idea of what sort of savings you think are possible in your customer relationship center, and how much today you are doing internally versus outsourcing that customer relationship?

And finally, just on probably a smaller topic. But can you tell us a little more about what could cost the Olympics for you and what you've projected on that?

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

So on the French commercial performance, I will let Jean-François comment. Go ahead, Jean-François.

[Jean-François Fallacher, executive]

Yes. Your question about Sosh versus Orange. So when we look at both, I mean, indeed, I mean, both are performing pretty well. I mean, obviously, Sosh is a brand that is destined to, I would say, the segment of consumers that are eventually more interested in, let's say, lower-price segment. So this is performing well.

Again, I mean, on the broadband, churn is really under control, slightly decreasing. So as Christel was explaining to you, we see indeed an overall decrease in the French market, certainly due to the fact that we are post-COVID. So in COVID, we had huge appetite for broadband.

Second, I mean, it's true that with the inflation, I mean, the French population purchasing power is under pressure. So this is probably also explaining the overall slowdown of the market.

So when I said that churn is really under control on a base of 12.3 million broadband customers, I mean, you understood it clearly. I mean, this minus 43,000 in net adds on broadband are simply explained by the fact that we are slightly missing some sales and that's what I was explaining. We are in the coming quarters not only going to pursue the price and value strategy like we did. Again, our ARPUs on fixed broadband have been growing 5% quarter on -- year-on-year, sorry. Our convergent ARPO is more than 4.5% growing. So we are going to fine-tune a little bit and put some more -- a little bit some more pressure on the volumes. But again, we are going to do that on a very disciplined way. I remind, we are the leader of the French market and we are going to be as such.

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

When it comes to your question on AI, so like similar to our peers in the industry, we have three main focus as a company: focused on driving smarter networks; of course, focused on improving our customer experience and especially when it comes to our customer relationship centers and call centers; and last but not least, augmenting our employees to be more efficient.

We do not have a strategy to invest in equity and to invest directly, I would say, on language models, which I think you are referring to the Deutsche Telekom agreement, which they've done with the South Korean operator. We are working with several partners. So I commented this morning on our announcement with Google Cloud and especially adding AI capabilities on top of our existing Google Cloud partnership. But we are also working with Mistral, for instance, for our internal efficiency and for our customer relationship management.

And we have many, many initiatives. Very, very early to put some numbers on it. As every company, we are testing and really making sure we focus on what we should scale to drive indeed some material savings. But really too early to make any comment. And today, this is part of our overall financial guidance so included in our investment plans when it comes to, of course, investing in technology.

On the Olympics, I don't know, Laurent, you want to comment?

[Laurent Martinez, executive]

Yes. So in terms of cost, we are talking about a few tens of million euros, so not a very large amount. Of course, there is in front of this a lot of motivation for all of our employees and something, which is very strong in terms of the image of the group because we will be the, as you know, the unique partners when it comes to telecom on this event, which is now, I think, day minus 93 as we speak.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Mr. Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs.

[Andrew Lee, analyst]

Just at risk of asking just too many questions on a couple of things. I just wanted to just come back to the DIGI wholesale offer. It's very clear your explanation, Christel, in terms of the market conditions and they've got the option until 2026.

Could you just explain to us when was the first time DIGI was able to take advantage of the wholesale deal? I'm just trying to work out how much we should read into the fact that they haven't so far?

And if you could give us any kind of insight into what the deliberation is on TEF's existing deal versus yours and trying to help us understand like if it hasn't taken the wholesale deal yet, what would have to change for it to take that deal because obviously that's a key insight into whether there'll be market repair or whether that deal truly is no better than the TEF one than it already has? Any help on that would be really useful.

And then just a second, just a quick follow-up on the French competition side. Just bigger picture, obviously, you're driving for value over volume in France and now using -- you have used headline price rise and now using tactical moves, as you put it.

Are you surprised or disappointed by the response of your competitors? Do you try to lead those prices higher? Any kind of reflection on kind of how competitors are responding to what you're trying to do would be -- might be helpful.

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Thank you, Andrew. So on the Spanish dynamic and the DIGI wholesale agreement, I believe we have a Ludovic Pech on the call and Ludovic was the CEO of Orange Spain until end of March. He's now the CFO of our JV. And so I will let him comment.

But as we -- as I said earlier, the wholesale agreement today, I mean, we cannot comment, of course, on the Telefónica agreement. We don't know it, and as you can expect, we don't have the details. But today, they have this agreement. And with us, it's not a smooth process to migrate your, I would say, roaming agreement in such a market.

And I believe they can activate our contract until September '25, but I will hand over to Ludovic to provide you more colors.

[Ludovic Pech, executive]

Yes. Thank you, Christel. And I would say very much to the point, as a follow-up to the information, which was already shared, I think it's important to remind that the remedy package is not focusing on providing efficiency increase to DIGI, but rather to provide continuity to DIGI.

That's the reason why, as Christel Heydemann was mentioning, this is an optional NRA at market condition. And in the event that they would not continue using the network of the incumbent and/or they would not be successful, I would say, in rolling their own network or for whatever reason, they would have this fallback solution that they can exercise no later than 2026, so end of 2025, and for a period of '23 to 2038 if they were to activate it. We consider that at market condition and standard.

And I think, importantly, we have not factored in MASORANGE any revenues coming from this wholesale agreement. Putting that in other words, if they were to choose to activate this option, obviously, that would be incremental to the revenue and EBITDA of MASORANGE. But I think it's important to remind that this is not to provide additional efficiencies, but to provide continuity to DIGI.

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Ludovic. Very clear. On the -- on your question on the French market and the dynamic, I will again pass the floor to Jean-François.

[Jean-François Fallacher, executive]

Thank you, Christel. Yes, on the French market, again, I mean, you were asking about how our competitors are reacting to the move we've been doing. I mean, indeed, what I can say is that on the A brands, we've seen rather disciplined movements of our competitors. I mean, even Free, as you have seen in the first quarter, has been launching an offer at EUR 60. So we saw that rather as a good move going into, let's say, higher price points.

It's true that on the B brands, so if we talk about RED, B&You, there, there has been quite some movement. We have seen, let's say, some kind of unrest from Bouygues Telecom because they changed 22 times the prices in Q1.

In face of that, we've been, again, I mean, behaving extremely disciplined keeping our head cool. I mean, we are, again, having positive net adds in Q1. We've been behaving as the leader with our second brand here in this market, Sosh. And well, this is, I would say, the French market in Q1 rather in continuity with what you've seen happen in the second half of last year, actually.

[Andrew Lee, analyst]

Can I just a quick follow-up. Are you in any way worried about kind of spin-down risk increasing given that low-end competition? Or do you think it's so removed from the rest of the market that it doesn't drag down pricing elsewhere?

[Jean-François Fallacher, executive]

No, I mean, if you look at our customer base, we've seen no spin-down. And again, I mean, look at our customer base, our ARPUs are growing. Would we have seen spin-down? You would obviously see that in our ARPUs and our ARPUs are extremely strong, our customer base, again, extremely strong.

[Operator]

Next question comes from Mr. Javier Borrachero from Kepler Cheuvreux.

[Javier Borrachero, analyst]

I have a question on Spain. Back to this -- the question of the network, and I appreciate very much your comment that you want to avoid overbuild and make all type of efficiencies. But at the same time, when the JV was presented a couple of weeks ago, the new CEO mentioned that MASORANGE had committed EUR 4 billion investment over the next 3 years.

If I make this on a linear basis, this is probably more than what the two companies on a stand-alone basis were investing. And I think also some of the announcement were the idea of passing 6 million new homes -- fiber homes in the next year.

So my question would be how to reconcile these two messages: One, about investing more in your comment today about being more selective; and overall, the question would be if your marketing position in Spain is going to be trying to capture customers in the high -- the premium segment through this additional investment, maybe assuming you could lose some customers in the low-end segment. Or your strategy is going to be more simply trying to defend your customer base today?

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Thank you. So on the Spanish investment plan, as I said, and of course, Meini, the CEO of the JV, is very determined to driving value. I can guarantee you that, of course, we have a business plan. We do plan to increase our 5G coverage. So this is absolutely part of the plan because we do want to capture the premium market. And we know that network excellence needs to -- I mean, we want to stay on top, and as Orange, we were lagging behind in terms of capacity of investment compared to Telefónica.

But when it comes to the EUR 4 billion, I mean, as you know, we are reviewing budget, approving budget every year and we have many initiatives. So the EUR 4 billion is not something that is given and that will be invested. We do review every investment plan and approve them, and I can guarantee you that we have a number of option to optimize this and we will absolutely drive this.

When I say that the team and the management team will be focused on cash flow generation, of course, we will make sure that we avoid spending CapEx when we have alternatives that drive better and earlier cash flow return. So ROCE and cash flow return will be the main focus. And from that standpoint, the EUR 4 billion CapEx investment is probably a maximum investment plan, and we will make sure that we drive, as I said, we drive an improvement in the market environment in Spain.

When it comes to defending, I mean, the premium and all the market segments, as you know, we have many brands when we look at MASORANGE. And of course, we have some premium brands, some medium brands, some low-end brands. And so we do plan to grow in the B2B segment as well.

So it's not just -- of course, we do plan to defend our premium brands. And the team is working on the plan to continue to grow both, of course, in premium, but also in the entire market. And I insist on the B2B side because the pro and the B2B segment is probably a segment where we are undercovered compared to the size that we have today in the market with MASORANGE.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Mr. Ondrej Cabejšek from UBS.

[Ondrej Cabejšek, analyst]

I had a couple of questions, please. So maybe just one quick follow-up on Spain. You've always upgraded the kind of OpEx and CapEx synergies to EUR 498 million, but then you're talking about the option for further commercial synergies of about EUR 100 million. Can you just talk about what exactly they are, where they're coming from and what the likelihood is, like what do they depend on their delivery. So that's the follow-up on Spain.

And then just two quick questions on 1Q and how that's kind of using that as a [ way to cross into ] 2024 in terms of, first of all, the wholesale progression in France. We've obviously made -- progressed on the top line and you're guiding for EUR 100 million roughly a decline in wholesale EBITDAaL in France. Can you walk us through the kind of dynamics there?

You've mentioned corporate rates obviously having gone up 5%, for example, the civil engineering pricing. Is that already in effect? And do you see therefore further improvement throughout the year?

And then second follow-up basically on -- or question in terms of trends so specifically on Africa and Middle East, where you posted very strong results, especially in Egypt and previously the pound devalued by quite a bit. So can you talk us through some of the contingency measures that you're doing? And what kind of effect this could have on the total kind of operation with that in mind in 2024?

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Thank you. So on your first question on the Spanish synergies and the extra potential compared to what we had in the plan, I will let Ludovic comment on the wholesale in France before we go back to Spain. And then after, Jerome will comment on the Middle East and Africa performance and especially what we are driving in Egypt to address the devaluation.

So on the wholesale in France, as you know, we've always said that we were expecting higher impact in '23 compared to the rest. And so indeed, starting in Q1, we have the effect of the unbundling price increase. And we have the civil work engineering increase, which is kicking only in March so you will get the full effect in the rest of the year, but we didn't have yet the full impact in Q1. So that's absolutely according to plan, and you see that already in the Q1 results.

Ludovic, I don't know if you want to comment on the commercial synergies and the potential EUR 100 million increase?

[Ludovic Pech, executive]

Yes, sure. Sure. The current run rate of synergies after year 3 are EUR 492 million that has been communicated are excluding commercial synergies. That's mostly cost synergies. As you've understood we were prevented prior to the closing of the operation to share on commercial items. So this is why these figures do not include commercial synergies.

So the EUR 492 million basically cover for network synergies, which comes from the consolidation of the network and from the fact that we joined the 2 customer base on the Orange network, to make a long story short, and the rest are basically across all the different cost lines of the company.

64% of those synergies are rather mechanical. Putting that in other words, they come from contractual terms or from just, I would say, migrating 1 network -- 2 network to 1 network, but that's relatively mechanical.

The commercial synergies come from the fact that there is a lot of movement between the company, intra-brand movements. Just to give you a sense of it, mostly 1/3 of the customers, which were churning from Orange were going to MASMOVIL and vice versa. By just making sure that those customers remain within the same system, obviously, you avoid expensing on commercial expenses, installation of new customers and/or on sending new installers to the home. So that's the assessment of the commercial synergies.

And based on external benchmark and previous operations, we understand that this could represent roughly 1% of total revenues. And I think we are on good track to deliver this around EUR 100 million additional synergies on top of the EUR 482 million we are mentioning.

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Thank you, Ludovic. On Middle East and Africa performance and how we compensate or anticipate the devaluation in Egypt. Jerome?

[Jerome Henique, executive]

Yes. Thank you, Christel. Thank you for your question. And as we said, we posted this quarter for Middle East and Africa a very strong growth performance led by our 4 growth engines: double-digit growth on mobile data, fixed broadband, mobile money and B2B as well.

Regarding -- and most of our countries, as stated by Laurent, have been posting a very strong growth, 9 out of 16 posting double-digit growth.

Regarding Egypt. First, we were expecting a devaluation during this first quarter. It took place in March in magnitude that we were forecasting. It was mostly offset, as stated by Laurent as well, by the organic performance of Orange Egypt both in volume and value. And by the way, Orange Egypt benefited from a price increase, the price-up mechanism agreed with the local regulator for all operators of around 15%, and posted a growth of 35.5%.

And even with the ForEx conversational impact, the performance remains excellent with a double-digit growth of 12.5% on historic figures. So now we expect the ForEx to stabilize till the end of the year, but we are monitoring it very carefully, of course.

[Ondrej Cabejšek, analyst]

That's very interesting. And if I may have one quick follow-up on this, please. The 15% agreement was the regulator to increase prices? Is that -- you think there is going to be more effect because obviously the devaluation was more than 3x. Is there a potential for that 15% to grow over the next couple of quarters or in any term in general?

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Is your question, do we expect more devaluation to come?

[Ondrej Cabejšek, analyst]

No, sorry, just because the price increases agreed with the regulator was 15%, you said 1-5, and then the devaluation was 50%. So I'm just asking if the -- there's potential for more kind of regulated price increases to compensate for the valuation.

[Jerome Henique, executive]

There are always discussions going on with the NTRA in Egypt. There is nothing to announce about a new agreement between the industry and the regulator for a further price increase.

But again, we are very confident with our commercial dynamics there and the volume growth as well on top of value growth. And the ARPU growth is not only driven by the price increase, but as well by new services and very strong performance of Orange Cash, which is the Orange Money brand for Orange Egypt in particular.

[Operator]

Okay. It looks like we have no further questions. I'll pass the line back to Christel for her concluding remarks.

[Christel Heydemann, executive]

Thank you. So as I said earlier, Q1 is a very good start to the year. We have a strong momentum with, of course, the creation of our JV in Spain, MASORANGE. And we are fully confident and committed on our full year guidance, which we reconfirm, and focused on execution of our Lead the Future plan. Thank you all.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. This concludes today's conference call. We'll now be closing all the lines. Thank you, and goodbye.