Telia Company AB

STO:TELIA

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Andreas Joelsson, Head of Investor Relations]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this Q1 2021 result presentation from Telia Company.We have our President and CEO, Allison Kirkby, with us; and CFO Per Christian Mørland, as usual; and also the IR team.[Operator Instructions] And by that, I leave the word to Allison.

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Good morning, everyone, from, can you believe it, a snowy day in Stockholm.So apart from the weather. 2021 is the start of a journey to reinvent a better Telia, and I'm pleased that we in this first quarter of the journey delivered in line with our expectations despite increased pandemic-related restrictions across our footprint during this past quarter.As in the prior quarter, our core telco business has remained resilient, while TV and Media is rebounding. And ICT was a little bit softer in the quarter, but we believe that it's pandemic related. So all in all, we had a service revenue that like-for-like declined by 2.3%, which is pretty much in line with the level we saw last quarter.EBITDA returned to growth on a like-for-like basis, thanks to OpEx reductions across the group, down 3%; and some special items in Norway. Indeed, if you look at Norway, TV and Media and our Baltic businesses, they all grew positively in the quarter, compensating for some headwinds in Sweden and Finland. CapEx is broadly flat, as our increased mobile network investment is replacing the fiber investment of Q1 last year. Operational free cash flow was particularly strong at SEK 4 billion, helped by a positive contribution from working capital, but the more structural element of operational free cash flow was also good and basically flat year-on-year at SEK 2.3 billion. This has contributed to a strong closing balance sheet position, with pro forma leverage at 2.3x.As you all know, we launched our new strategy and the turnaround plan for Telia only in January. It's a multiyear journey. It will take time and investment, but I am encouraged by some of the early progress.So looking at each of the strategic priorities in turn. Inspiring our customers, if you recall, is about creating the enablers that will return Telia to top line growth. It's about combining our network leadership position with brands and digital experiences that will enable growth beyond connectivity. Strengthening our connectivity position, accelerating convergence and creating differentiated superior customer experiences in both consumer and enterprise segments are our immediate priorities.During the quarter, customer satisfaction as measured by NPS was broadly stable. We are sustaining high levels in the Baltics and we're seeing improvements in Sweden and in Denmark. In Sweden we're pleased to see the positive trends developing since we invested to increase availability in our call centers, which turned out to be very timely as we saw more restrictions in the quarter. In Norway and Finland, where we need to close the gap to competition, we are seeing now consideration and brand perception improve on the back of 5G, but clearly we have work to do there. We've made good progress on our converged customer base in the quarter, with Sweden growing 38,000, Norway growing 10,000, Lithuania growing 10,000, Finland growing 5,000. And also in Finland we're seeing 50% of all 5G subscribers add C More to their mobile subscriptions.Convergence is not just beneficial for the consumer segment. And during the quarter, we also saw good progress in the enterprise segment, an example being a renewed but broader contract with the housing company Familjebostäder, roughly 20,000 tenants, where we'll offer a unique combination of digital services including broadband, TV and smart home IoT solutions, with our Cygate business providing public wireless WiFi throughout their estate. After the quarter ended, we landed another similar landlord contract as well, also an existing customer but now with a larger scope. This is convergence at its best; and combined Telia's strength in the home combined with our strength in enterprise and our unique strength in the IoT and ICT segments. Also in enterprise we're winning new highly important governmental contracts such as a recent win with the ministries of foreign affairs in both Sweden and Norway. Quality networks and security credentials are increasingly important these days for the large and key enterprise and particularly the public sector, and our security credentials are second to none. And it's a segment that is growing and we will be a part of that growth.As we explained in January, developing TV and Media to its full potential is also a key priority for us, and we are delighted to see it rebounding. We're strengthening our position in both our ad-based free-to-air business and in our C More OTT business, gaining both commercial share of viewing in Sweden and Finland and in the [ group's C More ].Moving to the connecting everyone strategic priority, which aims to use the catalysts of 5G and gigabit-speed fixed network to enhance our position as the most trusted, reliable and efficient network for the societies of the Nordics and the Baltics. Having secured the largest and best part of the 5G spectrum in Sweden in January, we have just this week secured the 5G spectrum we need in Denmark as well, also at rational pricing levels. The Danish auction included many spectrum bands, but together with Telenor, recall we have the TTN shared network there, we secured 140 megahertz in the 3.5 gigahertz spectrum and 2x 20 megahertz in the 2.1 spectrum. We also secured frequencies in the 1.5, 2.3 and 26 gigahertz bands. This means that we can now accelerate our 5G network rollout in Denmark.5G rollout and network modernization continued in the quarter. And we're continuing to see increased penetration of 5G-enabled handsets, now at 50% in Norway and 55% of new sales in Sweden, creating a foundation for monetization opportunities that we plan for later in the year. Alongside 5G rollout, we're migrating away from and decommissioning legacy, with good progress in Sweden in the quarter, leading to structural cost reductions within both COGS and OpEx worth SEK 75 million. And we were included again in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for world-leading network services.Finally, Telia Asset Management is up and running, where our initial focus is in identifying partners for our tower portfolios in Norway and Finland. And I think we can safely say that interest from external partners is very strong.Transforming to digital is the engine to take us from being a good company to a better and great digital company. As we presented at our investor brief, there are 4 cornerstones to our digital transformation: product simplification, process automation, increased use of data analytics to support personalization at scale and a radically simplified and leaner IT organization and infrastructure. The program is ramping up, with more than 500 initiatives identified and providing substance and confidence in our incremental SEK 5 ambition for 2025 -- SEK 5 billion ambition. We're on track with some visible effects that has contributed to the 3% reduction in our OpEx for the quarter. In the quarter, the progress has mainly been seen in further IT cost reduction through closing of legacy IT systems, generating savings of around SEK 60 million. On simplification, we've reduced the number of Danish products and price plans by 10% in the quarter, and we're now piloting radical product and process simplification in Finland. The head count reduction target for this year is also on track, with over 400 of the targeted 1,000 exiting already on March 31. And that will clearly start to benefit us in the coming quarters.And within our TV and Media unit, we offer customers a mix of analog and digital inventory, maximizing reach to prepare for the increased transition to digital. In recent quarters, we've made a significant step forward with our AVOD platforms, especially for TV4 Play where we see time spent growing by 36%. This has yielded a strong digital ad revenue growth of 28% in March alone. And you might have seen already TV4 is the most profitable broadcaster in Europe still in 2020 despite the pandemic, but now we aim to be the most profitable and the most digitized broadcaster in Europe going forward.Finally, on delivering sustainably, we're off to the start we expected and guided on even if the pandemic accelerated in our footprint in the quarter. Our dividend commitment is well on track to be fully covered from operating free cash flow. And the proceeds from the Telia Carrier divestment are on track to be received in June, as we have now received all of the final approvals required, meaning that we will close the deal on June 1.On sustainability, just this week, we presented new targets aiming to support and empower societies within our footprint to reduce CO2 and waste to zero by 2023, to reach 1 million individuals through digital inclusion by 2025 and to continue to maintain and gain customers' trust through strong privacy and security strategies and all underpinned by our strong governance, ethics and human rights agenda. I was ever pleased to see that -- the sustainability brand index, Europe's largest brand study measuring the perception of consumers in our markets, recognizing our work as they ranked us #1 in Sweden and the Baltics.Moving to the market and Sweden, first. Service revenues declined 2.7%, of which 1% relates to loss of roaming. The rest is explained by an increased decline of legacy copper products. That includes both fixed, telephony and xDSL. If you exclude the legacy copper decline and roaming and the mobile one-offs from last year, underlying and sustainable revenue is growing by 1.4% in the quarter, driven by fiber broadband predominantly through open city networks and TV. This level of underlying growth is very consistent with the level that we saw in the Q4, which was a high from last year.In the consumer segment, we're basically stable ex roaming, with fiber and TV growth offsetting legacy declines. In enterprise, we have a similar stable development underlying despite continued price pressure in core mobile and intensified competition in SME. Fixed price increases and a strong trend in the large segment are helping to offset these headwinds.Higher equipment volumes as well as the revenue mix change away from high-margin copper products did have an impact on gross margin and also EBITDA margin. Despite that, there's been good progress on network costs, as I mentioned earlier. And OpEx was down just over 3% despite a continued higher staffing level in call centers to support the improvement in customer satisfaction. Just as we did across the footprint, Sweden made a number of staffing reductions at the end of the quarter and some pricing move planned during the second quarter and an acceleration of the transformation program. We expect to see improved trends in the second half of this year.Quickly here are some of the underlying drivers of Swedish revenue, confirming the relative stability if you exclude the roaming impacts. In our mobile business, you can see the stable ARPU ex the roaming. The consumer postpaid base is stable, while the enterprise base was impacted by the loss of a public customer with very low levels of ARPU which we decided not to fight irrationally to retain. Regarding the mobile pricing environment, it does remain competitive but no different from what we were experiencing in January. Our larger product portfolio gives us more tools to retain our customers, especially in the large key and public segments. And within SME, we have a large part of the customer base under binding contract and are value loading mainly through SD-WAN solutions and IoT solutions within automated sustainability where necessary to retain our competitiveness.Within broadband, again the consumer base is fairly stable, but as we indicated on the previous slide, we do see an accelerating shift from xDSL to fiber, predominantly as we increase penetration within open city networks. ARPU levels are flat, as we aim to compensate the dilutive effects from the subscriber mix with price increases or higher-speed fiber. On TV, we're continuing to add customers, especially in the MDU segment and from the sports packages we launched during last year. ARPU, as you can see here, is reduced to pre-pandemic levels. And clearly through the Euros in the summer, including [ Lat Am ]; and champions league in the autumn, we expect TV to grow in the second half.Finland, however, did have a tough start to the year, and there are a few factors explaining the 4.5% decline. Roaming was 1/3 of the decline, especially in the enterprise segment. Excluding roaming, we're flat in the consumer segment and down 1% in enterprise mobile. Fixed enterprise products, mainly ICT and business solutions, were another 1/3 of the decline. In general, we saw less activity and even some delayed projects, which could be to a large extent related to uncertainty following the tighter COVID restrictions. In fact, we did already see improved sales trends towards the end of the quarter. The final 1/3 is legacy declines and the Liiga impact that we have mentioned in prior quarters. OpEx reduced by 4%, predominantly related to lower resource costs, which helped mitigate some of the service revenue decline on EBITDA which was down 2%.Utilizing content and 5G to win the household and becoming the leading orchestrator of digital services to the enterprise are our 2 key commercial priorities to turn-around our Finnish business. And despite the headline financials, there were some reasons to be cheerful in the quarter. Yes, we're still behind the market leader in 5G rollout, but we are accelerating. And Telia was the operator with the largest improvement in 5G perception during the quarter. This combined with our content with access 5G product is starting to help us build our 5G base. It also helped deliver a strong growth in TV subscribers in the quarter, up 32,000, taking us to a total of direct-to-consumer TV customers of 860,000, which is Telia plus C More subs. 5G rollout, convergence and digital transformation remain our key priorities to return Finland to sustainable profitable growth. This quarter was clearly a wake-up call and has emphasized a need for speed.Moving on to Norway. Service revenues declined by 3.5% like-for-like. And this is entirely related to 2 factors, the first being lower revenues from ice due to the new contract; and the second, [ lower ] roaming revenues. It was, however, good to see stability in the consumer mobile subscriber base at stable ARPU levels in the quarter.We're continuing to see good momentum and positive benefits from the premium Telia X proposition, which now represents 15% of our Telia postpaid customer base. Telia X is not only supporting ARPU but also sustains a higher NPS level as high as 37. And our [ fighter ] brand OneCall has now had 27 consecutive months of positive net add. As I mentioned earlier, our FMC base is also growing nicely. On the enterprise side, we are gaining customers both in Telia and Phonero. Gradually, Phonero is increasing its scope and has been particularly successful in the lower end of the SME segment this quarter. We've also just won our largest SD-WAN contract ever with a Norwegian [ betting ] agency. And we've increased the scope of our contract with the Norwegian police, which just proves to show that we are building credibility for having very high-quality network position in Norway.Broadband revenues are showing strong growth both from a slightly higher subscriber base but, more importantly, from the more-for-more price adjustment we activated in December. TV revenues, however, are declining, but we do have stable MDU customer base, but churn on SDUs is diluting the ARPU level.OpEx reduced by 11% from continued good cost control and one-offs. This resulted in an excellent EBITDA growth of 16%, 2/3 of which are from nonrecurring items -- sorry for the background noise, but that's our [ automatic lines going up ].Moving to the LED market. The trend remains strong in our Baltic operations despite increased infection rates and restrictions. In Lithuania we saw 4% growth in both mobile and fixed services, where it's especially the consumer segment that is performing well, driven by mobile. In local currency, EBITDA remains at all-time high levels reached in Q2 2020 despite the roaming losses. In Estonia service revenues were flat on a like-for-like basis, as our mobile services were impacted by [ lower ] roaming, while fixed revenues continue to perform well, driven by broadband, TV and business solutions. Strong cost control led to an OpEx decline of 5%, supporting EBITDA to grow by 6% on a like-for-like basis.Denmark suffered relatively more than other countries from the loss of roaming revenues and from having the majority of shops closed during the quarter. Our revenues were also impacted by ongoing portfolio rationalization. That being said, the consumer mobile segment was relatively stable, but we did see a decline in fixed services. The enterprise segment declined in both mobile and fixed, but a combination of lower resource costs, lower marketing, bad debt and effects from the simplification that we've spoken about from a product point of view and the digitalization we're pursuing there reduced OpEx by 11%, allowing a flattish EBITDA in the quarter. Having now secured the spectrum we need, along with Telenor, to modernize our networks and roll out 5G, we will now continue to modernize, simplify and digitalize our Danish business to return it to sustainable growth.And then finally, to TV and Media, where we had an excellent quarter as it rebound from pandemic lows. Pay TV was up 10%, while advertising revenues declined by 1% in the quarter but turned nicely positive in March. EBITDA also improved, to deliver SEK 120 million, from revenue growth and good cost control.I mentioned the commercial viewing market share progress earlier supporting the recovery in our free-to-air channels. Late in the quarter, we premiered a new format, The Masked Singer, with more than 2 million viewers per episode on Friday evenings. Remember Sweden only has 10 million population. It has turned out to be the most successful premiere in the history of TV4, which means TV4 now owns the weekend when it comes to commercial viewing. And here you can see the progress in pay TV, with C More OTT growing 20% year-on-year. And this is before champions league, which reminds me to remind you that there will be an increase in content costs ahead, as we have some sports events coming up that we could not broadcast last year due to COVID, for example, the Euros; as well as new content such as champions league.Clearly we are on our way to restore and reach our original ambitions from media ownership, driving convergence, increasing loyalty and becoming the aggregator of all the digital experiences for the home regardless if it's media, connectivity or smart home services, but now I will pass over to PC, who will take you through the numbers.

[Per Christian Morland, Executive VP & Group CFO]

Thank you, Allison.And let me quickly summarize the financials for you. As mentioned, total service revenue is down 2.3% in the quarter, or SEK 450 million. As mentioned, around half of this is attributed to the roaming decline. If we take consumer across our footprint, the revenues are stable if we exclude the effects from roaming. Enterprise, however, across the group base see a decrease with then a combination of roaming revenues, legacy decline but also price pressure in some of our key markets.If we break down service revenue by our unit, of course, all units have impacts from roaming. In addition with the Sweden impacted by legacy declines, we see that the fixed revenues are putting pressure on the Finland service revenue. In Norway we see pressure from the revised wholesale agreement with [indiscernible], as earlier announced. And then that is partly offset by good growth momentum both in the Baltics but also in the TV and Media unit.So the reported service revenue of minus 2.3% this quarter is below our outlook for the whole year as a whole and with a stable to slight-growth service revenue. However, if you're looking at most of the roaming decline year-over-year behind us and also looking at good growth momentum and also the [ easier ] comparison both on TV revenues and for our TV and Media unit, combining the effects from initiated and planned pricing and high demonetization initiatives, we believe we are well on track to deliver on the outlook for the year in 2021.If we move over to operational expenses. It was a good start for the year with OpEx more than SEK 200 million down like-for-like, although as mentioned, there is structural savings in the quarter, but it's not sort of the whole effect that we see. Going forward, however, we expect to see more effects from our transformation agenda and the related reductions in our resources, both FTE and also FTC.If we break down the OpEx development by category, we see that we had relatively stable resource cost development versus the quarter last year. And these are various cost initiatives implemented across our footprint offsetting salary inflation and an increased pension cost in the quarter. Then as Allison mentioned, towards the end of the quarter, we have reduced our resources by more than 400 both on FTEs and FTCs. And we will see effects on this Q2 onwards.The IT cost is down SEK 60 million in the quarter from structural cost initiatives. And this, we expect, will continue to develop in a positive direction from [ vendor ] consolidation, insourcing and also near-shoring activities. And then over time, we will start to see more effects from the more structural [ part of the ] transformation with product simplification, process automation and also IT modernization.Combined, travel and bad debt is down SEK 100 million in the quarter versus last year. Travel is down due to lower travel activities from the pandemic. And some of this is expected to return when the societies open up again, but we also expect to see sort of permanent lower travel costs going forward. And I think, for '21, we don't expect any significant changes on the travel area. Bad debt is lower in the quarter, mainly driven by comparisons versus the first quarter last year.So overall, we are well on track to deliver the 1,000 reductions in resources in 2021. And we are also well on track to reduce OpEx by SEK 2 billion by 2023 and SEK 4 billion until 2025.If we move to EBITDA. We reported, as Allison has mentioned, an underlying growth of 2.2%. And this is where OpEx and COGS reductions are mitigating the pressure on the service revenue. In addition to the OpEx decline, we see lower COGS from roaming, interconnect and also network costs. The reduction on the network cost is structural cost savings, particularly in our Swedish business unit. If we look at total EBITDA development and how that has developed in the different units, we see that Sweden is impacted by a combination of revenue declines but also, as Allison mentioned, the mix of the revenues. Norway is positively impacted with a very strong EBITDA in the quarter, and also it's impacted by the special items mentioned. And TV and Media is growing by a combination of revenue growth and also lower costs. And then we have smaller positives and negatives in the other business units netting each other out.Our EBITDA growth in Q1 is in line with the yearly outlook, and we are on track to deliver on the EBITDA outlook being flattish or slight growth in 2021.On cash CapEx. Last 12 months, we have delivered SEK 13.4 billion or 15.1% to net sales. We expect, as we have talked about earlier, that cash CapEx will gradually increase going forward. We also see that COVID-19 had some impacts in the quarter, where it's hard to keep up all the investments activities with the restrictions that we have in most of our markets. However, our teams have done a fantastic job to mitigate this and keep up the pace on the sort of key investments that we have in our program. Going forward, we also see some risks related to the global supply chain situation that can have an impact on the timing of the investment activities and therefore some delays on our CapEx, but we will, of course, do what we can to mitigate this also going forward.If we look at CapEx in the quarter. And we have a stable CapEx development on a cash basis versus last year even if we have increased the activities on the mobile network investments related to the mentioned modernization and 5G, but we see a somewhat delayed impact on this because of the good payment terms we have on a large part of [ this spend ]. As mentioned also, we see a year-over-year decline on the fiber investments in Sweden with around 100 million. So even though the CapEx level in Q1 is somewhat lower than the sort of the full outlook for year, this is mostly a combination of pacing between the quarters and -- but also a delayed impact coming from long payment terms that we have on these activities.On cash flow, we report the rolling 12-month cash flow of SEK 12.8 billion, supported by significant positive contributions from working capital. We also report cash flow excluding working capital at SEK 8.8 billion, still above the sort of minimum dividend commitment of SEK 8.2 billion that is necessary to honor the SEK 2.00 dividend per share that we communicated as a floor.Looking at the cash flow for the quarter, we see a stable development on the key structural components on the cash flow but a positive contribution in the quarter on net working capital, versus a change last year, of SEK 800 million. And this is, as in the previous quarters, still supported by increased [ spend ] on our supplier financing arrangements that we have and also vendor financing in some of our key markets.So overall, we are well on track to deliver cash flow in 2021 to cover the minimum dividend commitment, and from 2022 onwards to cover the minimum dividend commitment by cash flow generation excluding change in working capital.In Q1, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio has slightly improved to 2.52x. Net debt is reduced by SEK 1.1 billion despite a SEK 2.7 billion negative impact from foreign exchange rate and also an increase in change of lease liabilities. As Allison mentioned, we will now close the transaction on the Telia Carrier deal June 1. The proceeds from this transaction will reduce the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio down to 2.29x. And then that will put us well within our targeted leverage range of 2.0 to 2.5x.If we then summarize with the outlook. I'm taking you through now our outlook on service revenue, adjusted EBITDA and also on cash CapEx. And as mentioned, we are well on track to deliver on that and therefore reiterate our outlook for the year.And with that, I will hand over to Allison to summarize the quarter before going into Q&A.

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Yes. So thanks, PC.And just in summary. We are where we expected to be, and I'm pleased to see us return to EBITDA growth despite the challenges the pandemic keeps throwing at us. Our core telco business is holding up well, but it's the TV and Media unit that stands out, along with the strong EBITDA performance in Norway and the Baltics for the quarter. Cash generation remains very healthy and our balance sheet is solid, so our full focus is now on creating a better Telia by delivering on the road map that we set out in January.Our road map is aiming to reinvent a better Telia for our customers and employees and our shareholders while contributing our part to enabling the development and digitalization of the societies of the Nordics and the Baltics. So full focus on strategy execution is what we are doing at this time.And on that note, I think it's time for Q&A.

[Andreas Joelsson, Head of Investor Relations]

Yes. Please, operator, let's have the first question.

[Operator]

So your first question comes from the line of Maurice Patrick from Barclays.

[Maurice Graham Patrick, Managing Director]

It's, yes, Maurice here. I guess it's a very simple question from me, just a question on the Swedish competitive outlook. You've seen Tele2 talk about more of the value over volume, implying less of a focus on pursuing [ just subs ] growth but focusing on growing ARPU once they position themselves more as premium brand. I mean they have lost postpaid subs for a couple of quarters in a row. I know you say you've done flattish consumer postpaid, but just are you seeing changes in the Swedish competitive market? Are we seeing a more rational market overall, or is it still as competitive as it was?

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

I'd say it's pretty much the same at the moment, Maurice. There is no real change in the quarter versus prior quarters, but I am confident that the appetite for trading up to 5G that we're seeing in Finland is therefore something that we'll be able to take advantage of in Sweden once our networks are more broadly available for the population. Great appetite for 5G-enabled handsets, that's 55% of all handsets sold, so I'd say, no change. And it's our responsibility as the market leader to use the next generation of technologies to trade customers up to higher speeds and higher premium products.

[Maurice Graham Patrick, Managing Director]

And your comments around Sweden improving in the second half, was that more around just pricing and pricing alone? Or was it pricing and also operational momentum?

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Pricing and operational momentum. Clearly we will have a very strong content package to take to the market in the second half as well -- and as I mentioned a couple of examples there of some of the wins we're getting in MDUs as we go into open city networks with a great TV package supported by the services that we can provide through IoT and our Cygate's ICT business. We're seeing great commercial momentum from that, but the TV is a catalyst for us to continue to really push convergence and build commercial momentum. And a lot of the work we're doing on customer experience and digital transformation, I would expect to see some of those benefits coming through in the second half as well. And enterprise has been tough for a while. We are -- we continue to perform relatively better than the market, particularly in the large key and public sectors. And that is a -- remains a strong area for us, Maurice.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Peter Nielsen from ABG.

[Peter Kurt Nielsen, Lead Analyst]

Just a question related to something you just touched up on, namely your improved content and offering in the second half of the year. Clearly the TV, as you highlight, is a key driver for the convergence proposition. Have you fully clarified, Allison, how you are going to capitalize on these rights on these expensive content you will have in the second half and drive -- and use it to drive your convergence offering in the consumer market? And is this something you can discuss with us now? And when should we start to see sort of some signs on this in the market, I mean, in terms of Telia increasing its branding, et cetera, marketing efforts? When should we start to see signs of this?

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Yes. Well, we haven't said how we will capitalize on champions league across our different platforms, Peter. And so we'll continue to keep that a secret because the key [ asset ] is champions league. And so clearly that starts kicking in, in September, onwards, but during the summer, we will also benefit from the Euros, which is on a number of our TV platforms. [ Not ] that we'll be able to drive particular convergence on that, but that just strengthens all of the sports packages that we've been driving since last summer.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Nick Lyall from SocGen.

[Nick Lyall, Equity Analyst]

On the Finnish ARPU. It was a bit weaker than last quarter, but is that all down to the ICT and business solutions that you mentioned? That seems a bit of a [ changed ] performance given some of the small 5G benefits on the consumer side you're starting to see coming through, so could you maybe just mention why that's a little weaker? And maybe a clarification, if that's okay, just on the debt: That is quite a big move in leases and ForEx below the line. Could you just maybe describe if there's some one-off in there or anything we need to bear in mind?

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Yes. So PC, you'll take the debt question. Yes, the Finnish ARPU, yes, it was weak. If you recall, we had a very strong end to the year in the ICT and business solutions area. And then with increased pandemic restrictions, a real cautious sentiment settling into the Finnish market, we saw a very quiet January, February in the enterprise segment. And I think we've heard from one of our peers in the market they had a similar experience. That clearly just dilutes our overall revenues in the market. On the positive, and I did say it there, we are starting to see signs of improvement in March. And I think we need to accept that we have such a significant share of revenues in nonconnectivity in our enterprise segment. They do come in a much lumpier way, but why are we not seeing the benefits coming through on 5G yet? Because we are still seeing EUR 3 and above on migration. It's because the base is just too small, Nick. I think we've got 70,000 customers on -- in the consumer segment now, and we're now ramping up. We were slower than competition [ taking off to a start ] with 5G. We've now got new strategic contracts with Nokia both in our own network and in our shared network that we expanded with DNA during the quarter and we will be ramping up. And I'd expect to see, the more that 5G becomes a meaningful part of the business, the more that, that will start to improve ARPUs again, on the positive.As you know, we've been suffering from network quality perception versus our -- or the key competitor in Finland for a number of years. All of the studies we're now doing is saying that 5G is closing that perception gap. And that combined with TV content is changing the consideration for Telia in Finland, so I'm sure that -- once we get out of pandemic and we have a bigger share of 5G in the base and particularly where the market seems to be ready to take on 5G tariffs, that we'll start to see a turnaround.

[Per Christian Morland, Executive VP & Group CFO]

And then on your debt question, I think, of the SEK 2.7 billion, around SEK 1 billion is related to increase in lease liabilities. And this is mainly driven by our new head office in Norway. Then there is an effect of SEK 1.6 billion which is FX related. And this is coming from that we had -- we have debt both in Norwegian krone and also in euro, and we haven't totally swapped it into the Swedish krona due to that we have exposure both on the Norwegian currency and on the euro currency. So since we have this exposure, there will be some effects from time to time on FX, but it should not be bigger than effects that you see here. And this is an attempt on us to try to optimize both the hedging and also the costs related to that...

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Keval Khiroya from Deutsche Bank.

[Keval Khiroya, Research Analyst]

I've got a question on Norway. So if we think back to Norway last year: You saw a significant step-up in EBITDA growth from the second quarter. How should we think about the EBITDA trends for Norway for the rest of the year given you do have tough comps and also the loss of the ice revenues for the rest of the year? Are there any incremental OpEx cuts planned for Norway to offset this?

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

So clearly we've had a major acceleration in our EBITDA in Norway as we benefit from integration savings and [ with starts ], but they are now stabilizing out now. But what our ambition is -- like on the back of our new strategy is to transform the cost base and to start to get to growth on the top line as well. So -- but -- and they, Norway, like all of our footprint, are taking out head count. They took out some head count at the end of March. And as we become more efficient and more automated, they will continue to be driving head count out as well, but I think we're kind of at a new level on Norway and the incremental growth quarter-on-quarter will not be of the scale that you've seen recently.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Malcolm.

[Stephen Paul Malcolm, Research Analyst]

Just a question, maybe a quick follow-up on the Swedish KPIs this quarter, particularly broadband. Can you just help us sort of understand the envelope around your broadband business? I mean you talked very clearly about the drag from xDSL, the replacement of those lines with customers on open city networks, so maybe just update us on what the sort of -- what the overall drag you're going to face on the DSL base is and what the opportunity is on open city networks and how we should think about that over the next 2 or 3 years within the context of overall broadband growth. And as you move -- as customers -- as you lose xDSL customers, you replace them with open city network fiber customers. What's the margin impact of that migration? That would really be helpful.

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Okay, thanks for the questions, Steve. I think, if you look at the chart that we gave you this quarter, we're starting to try and isolate for you the legacy headwinds and some of those other items and roaming implications. So that SEK 791 million is basically the headwinds that we now have remaining, which is a mix of fixed, telephony and xDSL. And I'm looking at Andreas to say if we've ever disclosed what the split of that is between the two, and he'll probably say not to, but...

[Andreas Joelsson, Head of Investor Relations]

Yes.

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

So that's now giving you a little bit of an understanding of what's left to go. We have -- clearly there's opportunity in open city networks. There's also opportunities for us to continue to connect fiber customers in our network that we've not yet disconnected. And we see scope with fixed wireless access as well and that we have -- if we connect fiber -- our own fiber and with fixed wireless access, those margins are better than the margins on open city networks, which we don't disclose, but remember there's no CapEx associated with those open city networks.

[Stephen Paul Malcolm, Research Analyst]

Okay. I mean, in overall broadband volume terms, you've been losing for a couple of years now. I mean, can you see any point at which you might -- you would hope that starts to inflect as the DSL drag dissipates and the fiber opportunities improve?

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

So I think you're starting to see a pretty good stability now in absolute broadband base. And clearly that was one of the rationales for the investment in TV, was to give us a converged proposition to take into MDUs and to SDUs where we didn't have a Telia customer base.

[Per Christian Morland, Executive VP & Group CFO]

And also going forward, when you do your forecasting, please note that we have announced price increases on xDSL of SEK 50, which is roughly 40x [ VAT ]; and also on the PSTN subscriptions. So that will be effective as of 1st of June this year.

[Stephen Paul Malcolm, Research Analyst]

Okay, great. And one just quick follow-up just on postpaid. Your postpaid mobile churn popped up as well in Q1. Was that down to the enterprise loss that you talked about? So I was a bit surprised that churn went up in a lockdown.

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Yes, it was all enterprise. Actually churn was down in consumer.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Terence Tsui from Morgan Stanley.

[Terence Mun-Sion Tsui]

I just had a question around how you see the trajectory of the group service revenues evolving through 2021. Obviously the Q1 number of minus 2.3% is quite a bit below the full year guidance. I'm just seeing where -- I'm just wondering where you think are the key moving parts for you to accelerate and hit the flat to low single-digit growth for the year overall.

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Yes, well, I'll give some headlines, and then maybe PC can do a bit more detail. Clearly we don't have the headwinds from year-on-year roaming reduction starting already in Q2. And with the acceleration we're now starting to see in advertising revenue, I would expect a quick bounce back in our TV/Media unit as well. And we've got a number of pricing we've planned too. PC, do you want to build on that?

[Per Christian Morland, Executive VP & Group CFO]

Yes, just to add. I think also, last year, our TV revenues was quite badly hit, especially in the second quarter but also in the third quarter, both from COVID. We don't see and we don't expect similar implications this year, and that will help us on a year-over-year comparison. And then also I think the sort of [ contents and the channel that's really affected in ] the second half will also be a contributor on the top line.

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

So I think, the SEK 2 billion hit that we had from -- in our ad-based business and our roaming -- and from roaming last year, we were very quite explicit on that quarter by quarter. So that starts to give you a bit of an understanding of what Q2, Q3 and Q4 might look like. And then if you add on a bit of pricing that offset a bit of legacy headwinds, then that should help you get there.

[Per Christian Morland, Executive VP & Group CFO]

So we should be able to deliver on the outlook without any sort of significant trend shifts in our underlying business.

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Yes.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of [ Johanna Alker ].

[Johanna Ahlqvist, Analyst]

This is Johanna Ahlqvist from SEB. One question from me related to the Swedish SME market. I think we discussed this in previous quarter as well. I'm just wondering how you feel that this market has developed because 2 of your key competitors have followed free and lowered prices. I think it's [ 3 49 ] for all you can eat, and I'm just wondering. How concerned are you that this will continue to be a negative spiral on the SME segment? And what can you do to prevent this, to be honest?

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Yes, well, as the market leader, we are not matching the movements that we've seen in the market. As I said, what we are trying to do instead is value-load with SD-WAN, as an example, and because most of our SME customers are on binding contracts. Then when they come to the end of the contract period, that's when we are able to step in with some of the value loading intervention. We've done some campaigning in the quarter as well, but we have not matched competition because we are hopeful that it will be -- move rational again. But we are continuing to see that Telia's range of services and quality network allows us to sustain 150-plus ARPUs higher than the market.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Ulrich Rathe calling from Jefferies.

[Ulrich Rathe, Senior European Telecommunications Analyst]

I would like to ask about working capital, please. You mentioned that in the year-on-year comparison there is a boost. Could you maybe put a bit of color on that in terms of the [ guided end towards ] that big working capital program? Is that something that will unwind later in the year, or is it sort of the last bit of it? Or do you actually see a little bit more opportunity as it were in working capital?And can you clarify how you treat liabilities in net debt? Do you actually include that in net debt, these sort of liabilities that come out of the vendor financing? And then finally, if I may, on that subject, when that vendor financing is repaid, does that go through your net working capital line, or does it go through cash flow from financing?

[Per Christian Morland, Executive VP & Group CFO]

Yes, I'll try and deal with the -- a few questions in that question. I will try to answer some of them, and then I guess we can follow up if there are more on -- if you go back to what we have guided on: We had a big positive working capital contribution in 2020 of around SEK 3 billion. We guided that we're still expecting to see positive contributions in '21 onwards, particular in '21, but then -- but that it will be less than the SEK 3 billion that we saw in 2020. Now we have seen a sort of strong start to the year, after the first quarter, with a significant contribution of working capital. And we have not done any radically changes in terms of the scope or the arrangements and so on, so these are effects of what we have done before, helping us and increasing scope on the arrangements that we have. There is still opportunities ahead, but as we have said, that we would like to work more on the structural parts of the working capital as well and less on the sort of financing part. So what we will -- going forward, we will continue to work on billing cycles, inventory management and so on, but we don't expect to see major implications in the future from sort of supplier financing and terminal financing, at least not in the levels that we have seen in the past.And then in terms of liabilities, I think you asked if they were included in net debt. No, they are not. And then you had questions on, when we pay, do we get...

[Andreas Joelsson, Head of Investor Relations]

Yes, how they will unwind and which line in the cash flow they will end up.

[Per Christian Morland, Executive VP & Group CFO]

Yes. So that depends, right? If it's related to the investment activities, they will be booked as part of the cash CapEx. If they are outside investment activities, they will be then coming through on the -- okay, I lost it...

[Andreas Joelsson, Head of Investor Relations]

Which line they will come through...

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Why don't we take it offline...

[Per Christian Morland, Executive VP & Group CFO]

[indiscernible] later on.

[Andreas Joelsson, Head of Investor Relations]

We will follow up, Ulrich. That's the downside of asking many questions.

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Yes, but those -- there is no unwinding of that this year. As we said, we guided that it would still be a positive contribution this year. And it's not going to be a headwind in the foreseeable future to our cash generation. We just got off to a strong start this year.

[Andreas Joelsson, Head of Investor Relations]

Next question, please. We have time for a couple more.

[Operator]

Okay, so your next question comes from the line of Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs.

[Andrew J. Lee, Equity Analyst]

I have a question just on the scope for higher ARPU in Swedish mobile. I just wonder if you could give your thoughts and views on the ability for the Swedish market to entertain speed-based pricing to the extent that, say, the Finnish market does. And then just the -- a follow-up question to that will be did you think your 5G network is at the point where 5G could start to provide that platform for speed-based pricing in the coming months. Or will it take longer than that?

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Well, you're asking detailed questions about potential commercial activity in the market, Andrew, which I probably can't talk about publicly, but clearly, based on the experience we are seeing in Finland and the willingness of the consumer to pay more, and the Swedes love to be connected as much as the Swedes -- the Swedes love to be connected as much as Finns, we do believe that whatever movement we make on 5G in the coming months will enable 5G monetization. And in terms of 5G network rollout, as I said, we, you should expect to see 5G monetization starting in the second half of this year.

[Andreas Joelsson, Head of Investor Relations]

We have time for one more question, so the final question, please, operator.

[Operator]

Okay, your final question comes from the line of Ondrej Cabejšek calling from UBS.

[Ondrej Cabejšek]

It's actually a follow-up on Sweden mobile. So you mentioned price increases on the call, but then you didn't seem to indicate that in your view the competitive situation in Sweden will be improving much. And this is despite a series of price increases from your main competitors, so I was just wondering if these price increases also encompass mobile in the near future. And then in terms of 5G, you seem to be actually putting more hope into 5G driving mobile than pricing itself. So maybe in terms of the scope of that, would you say that the ballpark figures that, for example, [ a leader is ] guiding for [ in some of the kind of ] 1% incremental additions to the growth is something that you think is achievable in Sweden?

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

5G monetization is one of many aspects of how we will start to return our company to positive revenue development over the coming years. We -- as the market leader, we have been the one that has led pricing in recent years. We were the one that led quite significant pricing 2 years ago. Some of our peers did not follow, but in recent -- we did see one of them move last quarter, but that was on -- of the [ combi ] brand following some Halebop pricing that we took a year earlier. But -- so no, we are not yet ready to give guidance on what 5G can bring to the top line, but our guidance is that we will return to low single-digit growth over the period across our whole business, and Sweden is one of those, in the coming years. And 5G will be part of that.

[Ondrej Cabejšek]

And maybe just one clarification, please. So will it be, in your view, more a function of this kind of organic 5G upsell versus actual price increases or normal price increases?

[Allison Kirkby, President & CEO]

Well, in mobile it will be a combination of trading -- we're always looking at migrating customers up to bigger buckets. And we're always looking at what are the new ways that you can stimulate higher revenues per customer, so -- and of course, we are used to taking in inflationary pricing on our fixed business; starting to see some inflationary pricing kicking in, in other mobile markets at the moment. And that's something that we'll definitely consider in the future as well.

[Andreas Joelsson, Head of Investor Relations]

And with that, we conclude this call. And as always, me and Anders are eagerly waiting for your calls for the questions that you didn't get answers to, so please reach out to us. And talk to you and come back to you when we -- it's time for the Q2 report back in July.Thank you.