Taiwan Mobile Co Ltd
TWSE:3045
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Taiwan Mobile Co Ltd
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Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to today's conference call. And our Chairperson today is Mr. Jamie Lin.
And Mr. Lin, please begin the call, and I'll be standing by for the question-and-answer session.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Taiwan Mobile's First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Before I start our presentation, let's first go over our disclaimer, as always.
Disclaimer. The information contained in this presentation, including all forward-looking information, is subject to change without notice, whether as a result of new information, further events or otherwise, and Taiwan Mobile Co., Ltd., and/or hereafter, the company, undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained in this presentation. No representation or warranty, either expressed or implied, is provided in relation to the accuracy, completeness or reliability of the information contained herein, nor is the information intended to be a complete statement of the company, markets or developments referred to in this presentation.
All right. Now that's out of the way, let's start with business overview. Please turn to Page 4 for highlights of the quarter.
So in the first quarter, we continued to see solid top line expansions across all 3 of our main growth engines. Our mobile service revenue grew Y-o-Y for the fourth consecutive quarter on the back of steady ARPU buildup, mainly contributed by 5G adoption.
On the other hand, e-commerce revenue rose by a solid 28% Y-o-Y, while broadband revenue Y-o-Y growth reached 12%, thanks to sustained demand for faster home broadband. As a result, consolidated revenues increased by 13% Y-o-Y during the quarter.
Looking at the bottom line, consolidated EBITDA also grew Y-o-Y for the fourth consecutive quarter, with Telecom, momo and CATV all recording Y-o-Y growth. The 8% Y-o-Y growth is notably better than our EBITDA guidance of flat to slightly down for the full year.
Next, let's turn to Page 5 for a closer look at our mobile business. For our mobile business, continued ARPU expansion can be mainly attributed to 5G upselling as well as a benign 4G pricing environment. Our 5G postpaid penetration rate also continued to rise, with a 27% monthly fee uplift from the 5G renewals in the quarter.
Our 3 unique bundles: momobile or [ mo bì duo ] in Mandarin, and Double Play or [ Hao sùchéng shuang ] in Mandarin and Disney+ continued to play a key role in winning customers and driving ARPU growth. Momobile remains a go-to product for momo shoppers, while, at the same time, served as a catalyst for consumers to increase their purchases on our e-commerce platform.
As a result, momobile users' contribution to momo's e-commerce revenue continued to gain traction and now stands at 3.5% by the end of first quarter, almost doubling from 3 months ago. Double Play, on the other hand, was popular among users who demand high-speed Internet, both on the road and at home. And consequently, [indiscernible].
Speaking of stickiness, thanks to our 48-month bundles and unique product offerings, our postpaid monthly churn reached another historical low, further declining to 0.85% in the quarter. As we continue to execute our strategies, we expect to keep up our growth momentum while maintaining low churn rates in the foreseeable future.
Now let's turn to Page 6 for updates on our e-commerce business. As the leading e-commerce platform in Taiwan, momo continued to outperform its peers and grew its e-commerce revenue by 28% Y-o-Y in the first quarter. Although the Y-o-Y increase in EBITDA decelerated compared to last year due to a relatively contained COVID situation in Taiwan during the quarter, momo's e-commerce EBITDA margin still increased slightly on a Y-o-Y basis.
Besides momobile, logistics is also front and center in momo's growth strategy. In the first quarter, we increased our satellite warehouses to 31 and aim to reach 50 by the end of this year. Our total warehouse floorspace also grew by 21% compared to the same time last year, while the ratio of delivery completed by our in-house fleet reached 21%.
Moreover, momo's southern and central distribution centers are slated to go live in 2023 and 2025, respectively. Through these investments, momo will be able to expand the scope of its rapid delivery services to more areas and be better poised for future growth.
Now let's take a look at our broadband business on the next page. In the first quarter, we continued to outperform our MSO peers in the Y-o-Y trends of basic TV subscriptions and broadband service penetration. Sustained demand for faster home broadband as well as the success of our Double Play products have led to sequential increases in broadband subs and ARPU.
As a result, broadband revenue rose by 12% Y-o-Y in the first quarter. Broadband strength also helped the entire CATV business' EBITDA to grow Y-o-Y.
Now let me turn the presentation over to Rosie for financial overview.
Hi, good afternoon. Let's start with performance by business. In the first quarter of this year, consolidated revenue grew by 13% year-on-year, driven by solid performance in momo's e-commerce business. Overall, Telecom revenue was flattish year-on-year as mobile service revenue growth was offset by the decline in handset sales due to a high base.
Having said that, Telecom EBITDA grew year-on-year for the fourth consecutive quarter, and the increase widened to 6% year-on-year from 1% in the previous quarter. The notable improvement was attributable to SG&A savings and a high base in handset subsidies.
While momo's EBITDA continued to grow healthily year-on-year, the growth rates decelerated as COVID was relatively contained in Taiwan in the first quarter. Underpinned by solid broadband revenue momentum, Cable TV EBITDA grew by 1% year-on-year in the first quarter.
Let's turn to results summary. Thanks to solid e-commerce momentum and improving telecom performance, consolidated revenue and EBITDA rose by 13% and 8%, respectively, in the first quarter. Coupled with diminishing impact from 5G D&A, EBIT growth reached 13% year-on-year.
In addition to healthy top line increases, our 3 main businesses once again posted year-on-year EBITDA growth in the first quarter. In terms of absolute dollars, Telecom was the largest contributor to the year-on-year increases in EBITDA and EBIT, followed by momo. Due to effective telecom OpEx control, overall EBITDA and margins in the first quarter were notably ahead of our 2022 guidance.
The year-on-year drop in net income was primarily due to a high base in nonoperating income and tax benefits. Excluding the one-off factors, net income would have increased by about 15% year-on-year in the first quarter.
Let's look at the cash flow analysis -- sorry, let's look at the balance sheet analysis first. On the asset side, momo's business expansion led to year-on-year increases in receivables and inventories in the first quarter. In addition, receivables rose in tandem with improving mobile and ICT revenues.
Long-term investment climbed year-on-year, owing to value accretions in our investments as well as ventures into e-commerce, marketplace, media, AI and cloud services. PP&E saw sequential declines for 3 quarters in a row and turned to a Y-o-Y decrease in the quarter as 5G CapEx cycle had already peaked.
As for liabilities, the year-on-year rise in payables was driven mainly by momo's e-commerce growth. Thanks to decent free cash flow generation, both current ratio and gearing improved in the quarter.
Lastly, let's look at cash flow analysis on the next slide. Thanks to improving EBITDA in all 3 of our businesses, operating cash inflow increased by 10% year-on-year in the first quarter. That said, operating cash inflow dropped quarter-on-quarter, following a seasonally strong fourth quarter for momo.
Investing cash outflow rose year-on-year despite lower cash CapEx. This was due to a high base from momo's sale of its Taiwan Pelican Express shares a year ago and investments in new areas such as cloud services and used car marketplace in the first quarter.
On the financing front, we've managed to reduce our reliance on short-term borrowings. Benefiting from improving operating cash inflow and decreasing Telecom cash CapEx, first quarter free cash flow calculated on a pre-IFRS 16 basis increased by 61% year-on-year to TWD 3.25 billion, translating into an annualized free cash flow yield of 4.4%.
Let me turn the presentation back to Jamie for event updates and key message.
Thank you, Rosie. So let's turn to Page 14 for our 2021 earnings distribution event updates. So on May 6, 2022, Taiwan Mobile's Board approved the proposal to distribute TWD 12.1 billion in cash dividends, translating to approximately 4% yield to shareholders.
Dividend per share is TWD 4.30 on 2.82 billion shares, excluding treasury shares held by 100%-owned subsidiaries. Post earnings distribution, there will be TWD 38.6 billion excess reserves available for future dividend distribution.
Page 15 will summarize the awards and recognitions we received during the quarter for your reference. Finally, to wrap up our presentation, on Page 16, there is a key message we'd like for you to take away with.
Our key message entering 2022, as demand for faster connectivity, e-commerce and digital entertainment continues to swell, Taiwan Mobile, with our 3 growth engines, is well positioned to thrive in this new normal and has been taking advantage by playing a leading role in creating innovative product offerings that meet market needs. Our efforts in winning the hearts of our customers have, in turn, allowed us to deliver healthier returns and cash flow.
Looking beyond, Taiwan Mobile aims to achieve sustained shareholder value creation by, number one, sealing the Taiwan Mobile -- I'm sorry, sealing the Taiwan Star deal; and number two, executing our strategies in metaverse, web3, cloud and green transportation (sic) [ transformation ].
With that, I would like to open the floor up for Q&A.
Our first question is coming from Neale Anderson with HSBC.
I wanted to come back to the broadband business on Page 7. I didn't quite catch the driver of the 12% growth in broadband revenue. I see your subscribers are coming down. Is the increase in revenue from migration to higher?
My second question was on the Pay-TV side. So you've got a growth in the DTV penetration. But it's -- how do you think about this business in the medium term? Is there much investment required to maintain it? How do you think about the margin trends in that business?
I think it's relatively stable, and it's basically our cash cow business. So we're using the cash generated by that business to fund our broadband growth needs. And we're looking at broadband as the start of our CATV business.
Got it. Okay. And then the last one was what you mentioned at the end was the investments in metaverse, cloud, other areas like that green transport. I think we discussed this before, but how should we think about that in terms of sort of size of possible investments and timing? Is there anything more you can share on that side?
Sure. So we're looking at these opportunities as sort of grooming the next momo. So it might take somewhere between 2 to 5 years for anything material to be showing on our income statement.
[Operator Instructions] Our next question is come from Sara Wang with UBS.
I have only 1 question. So could management give us some update on the merger with Taiwan Star? So when do we expect the deal to be completed? And maybe how is the update on the regulatory approval, et cetera?
Thanks, Sara. So the regulatory approval processing has been moving along. Right now, we're not expecting anything to be different from the sort of guidance that we provided earlier. So we're still expecting it to close anywhere during the bottom half of the year or the first half of next year.
But we'll strive to close it ASAP. That's our official sort of position.
[Operator Instructions] And then next, we have a follow-up question from Sara with UBS.
So just another question on the dividend. So given we see like improvement in our earnings or free cash flow, and also, we also have this abundant equity reserve, so do we see any possibility to maybe increase dividend payment in, say, 1 or 2 years of time?
Sara, as I mentioned every time, it's up to the Board to decide. Of course, if the -- if our earnings and cash flows allow, I believe the Board would accommodate higher DPS. But at this stage, I cannot comment on this.
And our next question is come from Peter Milliken with Deutsche Bank.
My question is on the competitive landscape. Now that we have T Star and APT being subsumed into the big 3, has there been reduced promotional activity from T Star and APT? Have they taken maybe the most extreme promotions away? Or do they still exist at the moment?
Thank you, Peter. If you look at the market right now, it's still fairly competitive. But it's hard to predict what's going to happen after all the consolidations are done. But I think things that are happening in other markets, where there is a consolidation, can be worth referring to.
[Operator Instructions] Excuse me, Mr. Lin, we don't have any questions at this point of time.
All right. If that's the case, then thank you, everyone, very much for joining this edition of our investor conference. And we look forward to meeting you again over the air 3 months from now.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone. The conference call has been concluded. Thank you for your participation.