Cyfrowy Polsat SA

WSE:CPS

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Q1 2021 Results call for the Cyfrowy Polsat Group. As usually, we will begin with a presentation, and then we will answer your question here in the call queue in the next section. You are welcome to post your questions in the chat section during the presentation. And we will answer them afterwards. I will now give the floor to Mr. Miroslaw Blaszczyk, CEO of Cyfrowy Polsat.

[Miroslaw Blaszczyk, executive]

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon to all of you, and welcome to Polsat Group's results conference call for the first quarter of 2021. Today's agenda will follow the standard pattern. I will start the presentation by telling you about the key events of Q1 2021 in our capital group. Then we'll move on to the operating results, which will be presented by Staszek and Maciej. After that, Kacha, will show you how these operating results translated into our financial performance. I will conclude with a short summary, and we will answer your questions.

Let's begin with the most important events of Q1 2021. Undoubtedly, one of the key events of Q1 2021 was the infrastructure deal, which we have already discussed in detail during our previous presentation in March. As of today, we are in the process of finalizing this innovative transaction concerning the sale of both passive and active infrastructure with Cellnex Telecom. In line with our promise, we are rolling out our 5G network at a dynamic pace. By now, we have already met the target set for the year 2021.

As a result today, over the 12 million people in Poland can use the state-of-the-art 5G network from Plus. 5G development remains our priority for 2021. It is a great satisfaction for me to tell you that we have extended broadcasting rights to the UEFA Champions League for the next 3 seasons until 2024. I'm very happy that our viewers and customers will be able to enjoy these exciting sport events for the next 3 seasons.

And finally, we have signed a conditional agreement to acquire a 10% stake in a eobuwie.pl, this is a very interesting and promising project eobuwie.pl is a dynamically growing company that operates on the very prospective e-commerce market in Poland and also in Europe.

Let's now look at the operating results for Q1. Staszek, the floor is yours.

[Stanislaw Janowski, executive]

Thank you, Mirek. Good afternoon, and welcome, everyone. I will tell you about media segment, television and online. As you can see on Slide 8, our online business continues to record very good results. Thanks to last year's acquisition of Interia Group, we are a leading publisher on the online market in Poland with 20.2 million real users per month and over 1.7 billion of page views in Q1. Like I said when discussing the previous quarter, the integration of Interia with Polsat Group is right on track and the synergies we promised during the acquisition are being delivered as expected. We are working intensively on developing this product. In terms of editorials, in terms of providing video content from TV Polsat, and we are successfully selling advertising space through Polsat Media. So to put this short, we are very happy with the results of INTERIA.PL.

Turning to our TV business and viewership figures in Q1 2021. The main channel Polsat was #1 with 9.3% of audience shares, while our portfolio of thematic channels recorded almost 15% of audience shares. This gives us a total of 24.1% at the group level, exactly the major of our long-term target corridor of 23%, 25%. These are very good viewership results driven by good investment decisions in terms of content and an attractive spring programming schedule that started in March as usual.

Let's take a look at how viewership figures translated into advertising revenue. Our position of the advertising and sponsorship market in Q1 2021 was very good. The broad market was relatively flat, shrinking by a little over 1%. It is important to remember here that the effects of the pandemic, in particular, declines on the ad market were not yet visible in the first quarter of last year. So we are comparing this quarter's results to a high, healthy pre-pandemic base. Under these circumstances, I'm exceptionally happy with our strong result because as you can see on the bottom chart, we have outperformed the broad market by growing our advertising and sponsorship revenues by 3.4%.

As a result, our share in the ad market increased to 29.5%. In my opinion, this was a solid quarter. I am very happy with our performance, strong viewership results, excellent ad sales and the successful development of our online product INTERIA.PL. Thank you. I will now let Maciej tell you about the segment of B2C and B2B services.

[Maciej Stec, executive]

Thank you, Staszek, and a good job on the results in the Media segment. Let's now look at our B2C and B2B segment. Q1 was another very good quarter for our group. The core of our strategy, our multi-play product continues to perform very well. We already have over 2 million multi-play customers, 2,077,000 to be exact. We gained 65,000 new customers, which gives a stable growth rate of 3% year-on-year. Please notice that almost 40% of our total base is saturated [in bundled] services. What's more in line with our long-term strategy, we continue to upsell the services to our multiplay customers. At the end of Q1, they already had over 6.4 million RGUs. The result of successful implementation of the strategy is visible on the bottom chart. We continue to record a very low churn of only 6.7% in Q1, in my opinion, a measure of high satisfaction of our customers.

The scale of the customer base is one thing, but more importantly, these customers use more and more services. As you can see on this slide, the number of contract RGUs that we provide grew by 4% year-on-year and reached almost $15.4 million, $561,000 more than a year ago. You can notice that mobile telephony services remain the main driver behind this growth. Let me underline again that this is the result of our multiplay strategy of the successful upselling of additional products and services to an individual customers and also of the low level of churn and implied high level of satisfaction of our customers that I talked about on the previous slide.

My most important slide, I think, because we've been saying for many years that we are focusing on building customer value, and this slide shows the effects of our long-term efforts. ARPU increased dynamically over the past year, thanks to the consistent implementation of our value-focused multiplay strategy and consistent upselling of services to our customers, reflected in the growing level of RGU saturation per customer, up to almost 2.8 in Q1. ARPU per contract customers increased by over PLN 5 to the level of PLN 90.5 in Q1 2021.

I think this is a fantastic result, and it makes me truly proud. Our prepaid segment has also performed very well in Q1. Very dynamic growth of ARPU and the increase in the prepaid services base. Our prepaid RGU base grew by about 100,000 RGUs year-on-year to 2.74 million. You can see from the graph that this growth was triggered mainly by excellent sales of mobile and pay TV services, which continue to be very popular among our customers. Prepaid ARPU grew to PLN 21.5, up by 3.8%. So very good operating results. I want to flag here that prepaid ARPU growth is this time, driven both by attractive and well-selling content as well as growing connectivity revenues.

Okay. To wrap things up quickly, excellent results of our loyalty and value-focused strategy, 2,077,000 multiplay customers, growing base of contract RGUs up to 15.4 million consistently low churn, a very important factor to remember, only 6.7%, accompanied by very dynamic growth of customer value reflected in an increase in ARPU by PLN 5 to the level of PLN 90.5.

On the top of that, we have excellent results of our prepaid segment, RGU base up by about 100,000 and ARPU up to PLN 21.5. Once again, excellent results, which we are very proud of. And now over to Kacha to see how this very good operating results are reflected in our financials. Thank you, Kacha. The floor is yours.

[Katarzyna Ostap-Tomann, executive]

Thank you, Maciej. Indeed, this quarter, we posted excellent operating results. So congratulations to both you and Staszek on that. Our operating success is clearly visible in this quarter's financial results. In fact, this is the fifth year that I'm responsible for the finances of Polsat Group and I can honestly say that this is far the best first quarter that I have ever reported, so I'm deeply impressed and proud to present this result to you today.

If you take a look at the top 2 charts on this slide, you will see that our revenue increased by almost 5% to nearly PLN 3 billion and EBITDA grew by 5.5%, up to PLN 1.83 billion. These are excellent results for a TMT company. Please remember that the first quarter of '20 was not yet impacted in any way by the COVID pandemic. It was a normal first quarter so such dynamic growth compared to a normal solid base of last year is an achievement in my opinion.

Free cash flow increased by 6.8% to almost EUR 1.4 billion. The main driver behind this growth was, of course, the solid increase of EBITDA. Finally, net debt of 2.78x EBITDA despite the fact that in Q1, we paid out the second tranche of the dividend of over PLN 400 million. Analyzing the performance of both our business sectors separately, you can see that both the B2C and B2B service segment and the Media segment contributed to revenue growth in Q1. This is where you can see the dynamic increase in RPU and increasing ad sales that Maciej and Staszek were talking about earlier. As for cost, EBITDA in the Media segment was flat in Q1 2021, which is mainly the result of investments in content that we made for the benefit of our viewers.

Moving on to cash. As you can see here, in Q1, we have generated free cash flow of PLN 353 million. This is a solid level of free cash flow, which, as I have already mentioned, it's mainly the effect of growing EBITDA and which was slightly decreased in Q1 by capital expenditures on the rollout of 5G network, which, as you know, is a strategic project for us. This effect will be visible in the CapEx to revenue ratio on the next slide.

As you can see, the accelerated investments in 5G rollout are reflected in a higher than usual CapEx to revenue ratio of over 11%. This is a little less than I anticipated when we discussed full year results last month, I would like to remind you that this ratio may increase up to 13% until the moment of disposal of our infrastructure unit. After that, we expect that CapEx will fall to 7% of revenues as we will convert our business into a CapEx-light one.

My last slide concerns the debt of Polsat Group. As I have already said, net debt-to-EBITDA fell to $278 million at the end of Q1, in spite of the fact that we made a significant cash layout for the second tranche of a dividend. Cost of financing remains at a comfortable low level of 1.8% per annum due to the persisting low interest rate environment in Poland. Let me remind you that starting from Q2 of this year, we are resuming regular capital repayments of our debt, PLN 600 million this year and PLN 800 million for subsequent years because we're looking at installments of PLN 200 million per quarter. To sum up, excellent financial results, I'm anticipating questions on EBITDA for 2021. So answering in advance, I would expect to see EBITDA for the full year at a level not lower than 2020, perhaps even growing at a single-digit rate. That's all that I have prepared for you today. Thank you for the attention. Now back to Mirek for the summary.

[Miroslaw Blaszczyk, executive]

Thank you all very much. Kacha, Maciej, Staszek. Excellent results. Congratulations to you all, and thank you again for your efforts. Ladies and gentlemen, we are slowly coming to the end of today's presentation. So let me briefly summarize this quarter for you. Let me start by telling you that our strategy of building loyalty and customer value remains in the center of our attention. I think the numbers clearly illustrated the success that we have achieved in this field. 2.1 million multiplay customers, 561,000 new contract services, ARPU growing by PLN 5 to PLN 90.5, and finally stable low churn of 6.7%. It gives me great satisfaction to say that we are rolling out our 5G network quickly and without interruptions.

Today, we offer the fastest, the widest and the best 5G in Poland. Over the 12 million of people in Poland are within our footprint, and we are continuing 5G rollout. We are in the process of finalizing of innovative transactions concerning the sale of both active and passive infrastructure with Cellnex, which will enable us to build our 5G network even faster.

And last but not least, thanks to the dynamically growing revenues and EBITDA, we can comfortably and go ahead with investments in technology and content that we have planned for this year. Ladies and gentlemen, this brings me to the end of our presentation on the results of Q1 2021 of the Cyfrowy Polsat Group. Thank you for your attention, and we are ready to answer your questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]

So the first question comes from Mr. Titus Krahn, Barclays.

[Titus Krahn, analyst]

I have just two, if I may. And the first one is on the operational trends in the mobile segment. Could you maybe elaborate a bit on what has been driving the slowdown in mobile postpaid net adds during the quarter after such strong trends over the last years, has competition been impacting the result? And do you expect net adds to recover to similar levels as in 2020 soon? And my second question is about Netia in which you hold a majority stake. As you're now aiming to reach full ownership up to operator and are actually acquiring shares. To what extent has a strategic view on the company changed over the last couple of quarters? And as trends have stabilized, I would say, how would you look now at the company's fixed network asset? Has this changed in any way following the rollout targets and transactions announced in Poland as well as across the entire Europe.

[Maciej Stec, executive]

Okay. Welcome, everyone. Maciej Stec here, and I would like to answer your questions. Thank you for the question. So in terms of slowdown in mobile postpaid net adds, so the slowdown in postpaid net adds is only driven by B2B segment, so machine-to-machine SIM cards, and we lost 1 big clients, client here in the quarter so that's the main reason for the slowdown. In terms of B2C segment, it's very healthy. So it wasn't competition impacting us, which is good. And in terms of net adds to recover like to be honest, we focus on building loyalty and the value of our customers. So what you could observe in our results, so that we added our multiplay clients, 65,000, to 2,077,000 clients.

So then we build our ARPU, so our ARPU grew by more than PLN 5 to PLN 90.5. So this is our main goals. And the last one. But the goal, which I'm really proud of is like the lowest churn and a very low churn, 6.7%. It's -- I can say, state-of-art churn in our business. So that's what we focus on, and this is our key strategy. So it was the first question. And for the second question about -- and the second question about Netia. To be honest, we are focused on like executing synergies which we presented to you. So we are fully in line with the synergies, which we execute in Netia and in terms of fixed network assets. So we don't have very specific plans to this. So we focus just on business, and we believe that Netia is doing very well nowadays, and we simply focus on the business development.

[Operator]

We've got Nora Nagy from Erste asking question.

[Nora Nagy, analyst]

I have also 2 questions. The first is on your EBITDA outlook. In the Q4 call, you mentioned that realistic assumption is for EBITDA, it's a stable development year-over-year. And then you mentioned a growth rate even at a single-digit growth rate. So what did actually change since the last quarterly call? And the second is about your dividend when you see update, when is it plan that you are updating? Is it still due before Q2?

[Katarzyna Ostap-Tomann, executive]

Thank you, Nora. As far as the first question is concerned, when we met last time in March, as far as I remember, we were talking about being copy of achieving the EBITDA from the previous year, which means 2020. Looking at the first quarter and how things develop. I think the minimum plan would be achieving the last year's EBITDA, and I would be happy if we got a single-digit growth as far as EBITDA is concerned. So I really much more confident as far as that goes. About the dividend policy will come up within the next few weeks with dividend policy and the dividend proposal for 2000 -- for the previous year.

[Nora Nagy, analyst]

Thank you, Kacha. May I have also a follow-up question to the first one. Your slightly growing EBITDA expectation is driven by the success of your 5G tariffs, also in the revenue side that we see a positive trends?

[Katarzyna Ostap-Tomann, executive]

Well, as far as -- I mean, looking at all aspects of our business. First of all, the 5G tariffs, the development of our 5G network that allows us to sell more -- I mean, to serve more and more customers with 5G tariffs also in other fields. So yes, generally, much more positive view looking at what happened in the first quarter.

[Operator]

We've got Rohit Modi from Citibank.

[Rohit Modi, analyst]

Question on the 5G market. If you can give more color in terms of what kind of subscriber additions you have seen during the quarter. And what kind of ARPU uplift do you see from 5G subscribers as I compare 5G and 4G, what kind of end result uplift you'll see from that? Secondly, on the fixed broadband market, with a couple of -- with the TowerCo -- sorry, the new [ fiber co ] being announced and earlier there was also something similar on those parts. What is your strategy on fixed broadband side in terms of your rollout and CapEx?

[Maciej Stec, executive]

Okay. So once again, Maciej Stec. So I will answer your question in terms of 5G. So that's how you can observe. We build a fastest 5G in Poland with the highest reach and just the best one. So this is 5G, which we offer, it's up to 600 megabits per second, and this is the only such a 5G available in Poland. So we are very satisfied from their results in terms of like acquisitions and retention. We sell 20% of our tariffs are sold in 5G. So this is great results. So nowadays, we reach 12 million people in Poland. But after these results, we've decided just to build even faster this 5G network, so -- because there are really great results, as you can observe our tariffs. So basic targets up to 4G, we offer like for PLN 30, PLN 40 and PLN 50. And in terms of 5G tariffs, we offered PLN 60, PLN 90 and PLN 120. So 5G tariffs are starting from PLN 60. So we -- that's why we also built our ARPU so effectively. So this is like really big success for us, I can say. So this is the first question about 5G. Did I answer your question?

[Rohit Modi, analyst]

Yes. Yes. And if you can give some color in terms of value-wise, how much ARPU uplift like in terms of exact -- I know you can't give the exact number, but some ballpark number that we can put in our models?

[Maciej Stec, executive]

That's what I can only say that this tariff starts from PLN 60. So this is very impactful for our business, as you can infer. So we don't tell specific numbers. So the second question about fixed networks. So that's what I mentioned answering previously that we don't have specific plans to fix network assets. So nowadays. So in terms of Netia, we really focus on executing synergies and this business is doing very well as you can observe Netia results. So we are very satisfied from this.

[Unknown Executive]

I can still see Titus a raising hand. Titus have you got another question?

[Titus Krahn, analyst]

No, it just [indiscernible] open.

[Unknown Executive]

Okay. Are there any other questions you would like to ask? Or will we continue on the one-on-ones tomorrow. Steve, there are no further questions, I will give the floor to Mr. President.

[Miroslaw Blaszczyk, executive]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participating in today's presentation of our group's final results, and I hope that we will return to normal functioning. And that we will spend the next summer holidays normally, but I sincerely wish you the best. Thank you very much, and bye-bye.

[Stanislaw Janowski, executive]

Thank you.