Orange Polska SA

WSE:OPL

Earnings Call Analysis

Solid Performance Amid Challenges

During the third quarter of 2024, Orange Polska showcased solid commercial performance, with an increase in the customer base across all key telecom services, particularly in the prepaid segment, despite facing stiff competition in the business market. The company managed to maintain stable year-on-year revenues while reporting a 3% growth in EBITDAaL, reflecting positive dynamics in its core telecom services.

Customer Base and ARPO Growth

The company reported a 5% year-on-year growth in its customer base in the convergence segment, alongside a 5% increase in Average Revenue Per Order (ARPO). This growth is indicative of a successful marketing approach and a strong demand for high-quality content and high-speed fiber offerings. Additionally, the fiber customer base grew to approximately 1.5 million, benefiting from continuous expansion efforts.

Core Telecom Services Drive Revenue Growth

A critical aspect of the financial performance was the reported 6% year-on-year growth in revenues from core telecom services. This strong performance directly supported a solid margin, contributing significantly to the rise in EBITDAaL. Moreover, the company recorded an 8% increase in IT and ICT sales compared to a decline in the first half of the year, although challenges remain, especially in the public sector where demand is weaker.

Strategic Developments and Next Steps

Orange Polska plans to expand its wholesale activities and has opened access to fiber for 2.5 million households, which aims to enhance revenue streams while minimizing risks associated with infrastructure overbuild. The company is also actively participating in the consultation process for the 700 megahertz spectrum auction, which is crucial for enhancing service quality in nonurban areas.

Financial Health and Future Outlook

The net income increased by 7%, backed by solid margin management and effective cost control, despite a noted increase in indirect costs attributable to inflationary pressures and marketing investments. The company generated over PLN 660 million in organic cash flow thus far in the year, providing a foundation for future operations and investments. Looking ahead, there's an optimistic stance toward sustaining commercial momentum during the upcoming peak season, although the comparable basis for ICT revenues remains challenging.

Challenges in the Energy Resale and B2B Demand

While core telecom services performed well, the energy resale segment faced declines due to regulatory impacts, and demand for IT and ICT services, particularly from the public sector, has been stunted. These challenges have necessitated strategic reflections on future actions to rejuvenate growth in these areas, particularly as external economic conditions remain tough.

Guidance for Future Performance

Management has indicated that while operational expenditures are expected to trend better in FY 2025 compared to 2024, they will largely stem from increased business activity rather than direct cost savings. The upcoming fourth quarter is anticipated to exhibit growth in ICT revenues quarter-on-quarter, though the high comparable basis makes this target ambitious. More concrete guidance on EBITDAaL is expected during the next earnings call.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Leszek Iwaszko, executive]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Let me welcome you to Orange Polska's Third Quarter 2025 -- 2024 Results Conference Call. My name is Leszek Iwaszko, and I'm in charge of Investor Relations. [Operator Instructions]

The format of the call will be a presentation by the management team followed by the Q&A session. Speakers for today will be Liudmila Climoc, the CEO of Orange Polska; and Jacek Kunicki, CFO. So let me hand the floor to Liudmila to begin the presentation.

[Liudmila Climoc, executive]

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to our conference summarizing third quarter of 2024.

And let's begin with our Slide 4 with key messages for the quarter. I will start with commercial performance, which was very good in the third quarter. Customer base across all our key telecom services and ARPO maintained healthy pace of growth. We are pleased that our prepaid customer base has been growing this quarter. At the same time, the environment on business market remains challenging as a result of low level of demand and intensive competition, and this is our key point for attention going forward. Financial results in Q3 were solid. Revenue were stable year-on-year. What is important is an acceleration of growth of our core telecom services, And this is also a key element, which is contributing to 3% EBITDA (sic) [ EBITDAaL ] growth this quarter.

Switching to more strategic developments within our growth strategy. We aim to expand our wholesale activity, reinforcing it as a growth engine. And this quarter, we took an important step in this direction, fully opening the access to 2.5 million households on our fiber to other operators. This aims further monetization of our infrastructure assets and, in the same time, lowers risk of overbuild.

As you know, this month, the market regulator has launched consultation process for 700 megahertz spectrum auction. It has been long overdue. So we are pleased that it finally started. This spectrum is important for enhancing coverage and improving the quality of our services in nonurban areas, and we firmly believe that its optimal use will benefit the growth of Poland more than digital economy. However, we are concerned that the proposed starting prices, which are above benchmarks, set by other countries do not align with this objective, and we intend to present this argument to the regulator during the consultation process.

Let's zoom on highlights of our commercial activity on the next slide. Our commercial performance in Q3 benefited from good customer demand and our well-executed value strategy. In convergence, we are pleased to maintain 5% year-on-year growth for customer base. It's another consecutive quarter when net additions dynamic is better than a year ago, and it confirms right marketing approach to address diverse competitive landscape. ARPO growth accelerated to 5% and is reflecting our value approach and pricing, quality of our offerings and good demand for content and for high-speed fiber.

In fiber, we continue to generate a healthy growth of customer base. It's now reached almost 1.5 million customers. It benefits from constant expansion of our footprint. We have just completed network rollout to the first 10,000 households in the EU subsidized program, and this footprint will be available for commercial activity already this quarter in Q4. Fiber is a key driver for 3.5 percentage growth of our fixed broadband-only ARPO.

In mobile, our results were also very solid. Again, net customer additions were higher than a year ago, so better dynamic. All brands strongly contributed to the performance on the consumer market that was offsetting a slowdown on the business market. Dynamics of mobile ARPO was similar to what we have seen in the first half of the year. These very solid results demonstrate that we maintain a good balance between volume and value in our commercial activity despite challenging competitive environment.

And I will thank you for now and hand over to Jacek.

[Jacek Kunicki, executive]

Thank you, Liudmila. Good morning, everyone. Let's start the financial review on Slide 7 with the highlights of our performance this quarter. Our Q3 results were solid with strong performance of our core telecom services and continued growth of the EBITDA (sic) [ EBITDAaL ] that translated also into a solid net results. The year-on-year revenue dynamics improved versus the previous quarters due to higher growth of core telecom services, which are the highlights of quarter 3, and also due to the year-on-year increase of the IT&IS sales. Good margin from core telecom services is the key underlying support for our EBITDA (sic) [ EBITDAaL ]. This quarter, it increased by 3% year-over-year and was also a key driver of the 7% increase of the net income. CapEx (sic) [ eCapEx ] is higher this year, reflecting the full speed of 5G network rollout and also different phasing of real estate sales versus the one that we've seen in 2023. Finally, cash generation is down year-over-year, mostly due to growth of working capital requirements linked with business project development in the 9 months of this year.

Now let's review our results in Q3 in more detail, starting with the top line. So total revenues for Q3 were broadly at par with last year, improving the year-on-year trajectory versus the previous quarters.

Let me mention the 3 key elements driving this revenue evolution. First and foremost, our revenues from our core telecom services, which is the key driver of our direct margin, the year-on-year dynamics and shown on the top chart of this slide. We're pleased with the growth as the year-on-year increase has reached 6% in Q3. It is driven by simultaneous increase of the main customer bases and also the ARPOs across all key telecom services.

Second, our IT&IS revenues. They were up 8% in Q3 as compared to quite big declines in H1. However, this comparison is flattered by a low base of comparison in the quarter 3 of last year of just PLN 300 million, while the same comparisons, or the figure of quarter 4 of 2023, it's with revenues of around PLN 580 million. On the other hand -- on the one hand, we see soft demand for IT and ICT services, especially from the public sector. On the other hand, we experienced above-average demand for bulk SMSs. Overall, it's evident that the rebound of IT&IS revenue line will take longer than initially expected, and we're working on the plans to rejuvenate this growth.

Finally, energy resale. Similarly to H1, its revenues dropped due to regulatory impact and the overall energy market volatility and weakness. As you know, we are considering strategic options for this business going forward.

To sum up on the top line, we're happy about the pace of growth of core telecom services. The key action is to bring ICT revenues back to profitable growth. IT&IS is an important value driver for us, and we're absolutely confident in its future potential.

Let's switch to profitability on Slide 9. Our EBITDA (sic) [ EBITDAaL ] increased by 3% in the third quarter as compared to the same period last year. This growth was entirely driven by the direct margin. Here, the most important driver is the consistent solid growth of margin from our core business. Its pace has accelerated versus the previous quarters, driven by the higher increase of revenues from core telecom services. Then we had to absorb another decrease of margin from energy resale at a similar pace as in H1. This time, however, it was more than offset by a positive accounting one-off related to capitalization of customer connectivity costs. Indirect costs have increased by PLN 58 million year-over-year, driven by 3 factors: first, continued inflation headwinds from 2023 exacerbated by the hike of minimum wage; second, additional advertising and promotional costs as we supported our very good commercial activity in Q3; third is a positive one-off that we obtained in quarter 3 of 2023 of roughly PLN 16 million related to a refund of the universal service obligation fees.

To recap, this year is affected by several headwinds, high inflation, energy trade as well as some one-offs, which obviously won't repeat with the same magnitude in the future. We are happy with the robust growth of profits from our underlying core business, and this gives us solid prospects for the future.

Let's look at cash and balance sheet on Slide 10. Year-to-date, we generated over PLN 660 million of organic cash flow. This is a solid level even if it's below the cash generation of 2023. When we look at the year-on-year evolution, there are 2 main elements driving the dynamics of the OCF. First of all, higher EBITDA, which is the main building block for cash from operating activity before working capital. It increased by PLN 160 million year-on-year or 7%. Secondly, our working capital requirements was higher year-on-year. It's an effect of 2 factors. On the one hand, it was reduced in the 3 quarters of last year due to a prepayment received from our FiberCo for the network rollout project. On the other hand, we've had an increased growth of the working capital requirement this year. It's mainly linked with, first of all, the capitalization of contract costs, the one-off I mentioned in the EBITDA (sic) [ EBITDAaL ] analysis as well as higher inventory for ICT projects to be realized in the fourth quarter.

Our balance sheet remains very sound with a financial leverage of 1.2x EBITDA (sic) [ EBITDAaL ]. It marginally increased compared to the previous quarter as we paid PLN 630 million of dividend in July.

This is all for me. Thank you for attention, and I hand the floor back to Liudmila.

[Liudmila Climoc, executive]

Thank you. Thank you, Jacek. And I would like to summarize briefly. So performance during 9 months of this year was solid. Commercial performance, well-balanced between volume and value, and it was translated into the improved revenue growth for -- of our core telecom services. This illustrates our strong fundamentals and makes me optimistic about the future prospects. Looking forward, we aim to maintain good commercial momentum during the peak Christmas season, which is especially important on the consumer market. We are preparing plenty of attractive offers for our customers.

Regarding ICT and ICT revenues. In last quarter of the year, we plan to significantly grow them quarter-on-quarter. However, we have to mention that last year's high comparable basis will be difficult to beat.

Obviously, we mentioned it already, the point of special attention for us is the 700 megahertz spectrum distribution. The deadline to submit our position in the consultation is 4th of November. We will argue that this spectrum should prioritize the state's resilience and long-term development of Polish digital economy through investments in high-quality network rather than short-term fiscal needs for the administration.

That's all for our -- from us, and we are now ready to take your questions.

[Leszek Iwaszko, executive]

[Operator Instructions] We don't see the questions coming through. Please confirm if you tried to ask a question and the platform doesn't work properly. Yes, there is -- we have a question. Okay, it looks like things are fine.

There's a question coming from Rohit Modi from Citi.

[Rohit Modi, analyst]

Congratulations on good set of results. Two questions on my side. Firstly, on your EBITDAaL guidance. So guidance that you gave at the start of the year, I believe, doesn't account for number of one-offs you had this year, whether on the fiber JV or the connectivity costs you had, capitalization of connectivity costs you had in this quarter. But I'm not sure if you already accounted for the impact from the energy resale. So if you can give us bit of a color around what has changed from what you have given at the start of the year and now, given if I exclude the one-offs, EBITDAaL might be flat or maybe slightly lower than last year in 9 months. So if you can give more color around that, what has been changed.

Second. Apologies if I missed it, but if you can give us how you look at working capital for the next quarter and overall for the year, given there has been a high working capital investment in first 9 months. Do we expect the same trend in the fourth quarter and that means you will have a slightly negative impact on your overall operating cash flow for the full year?

[Jacek Kunicki, executive]

Thank you for your questions, very, very insightful. I will start from the EBITDA (sic) [ EBITDAaL ] evolution. So here, when we analyze the different factors of EBITDA evolution, both upwards and downwards, we have a recurring activity, and obviously, we have a number of items that are not automatically repeatable in the future. In the appendix to the presentation, you will find the EBITDA (sic) [ EBITDAaL ] evolution breakdown for the 9 months of 2024.

And here, you see that the big headwinds that we have, it's, first of all, a PLN 66 million drop of energy resale, so this is the profits from energy resale, and we have an PLN 82 million impact of the inflation environment. The energy resale impact, it's nonrecurrent in the future. It is a result of, first of all, very high comparable base of 2023 when we have recorded record profits from energy resale, also using the volumes from our PPAs that we have been able to sign. And on the other hand, this year, we are severely limited in the energy trade activity through the regulation and the maximum price gap. So this is definitely not recurring. The inflationary impact, it's been with us throughout the course of '23 and also throughout the course of '24. Obviously, it is driven by the high inflation of the preceding year, and we know we had a double-digit inflation last year. It's also driven by the 20% increase of the minimum wage. Now obviously, there will be some inflationary impact going forward, but it will be at a lower scale. So part of this is also nonrepeatable.

When we take a look at the positives, we have the one-off that we have recorded this year linked with the capitalization of connectivity costs from prior periods. And that is obviously a one-off. It's not repeatable. We know that throughout the course of H1, we have had additional margin being recorded from the rollout agreement that we have, and that was also in a substantial amount. As we mentioned during the H1 conference, while this is not fully repeatable, the contract is going to last also next year. And so this represents better prospects for us, well, both in the past, but also going forward. So I wouldn't say this is totally one-off.

And then the balance of these one-offs, more or less, offset each other out and the resulting EBITDA (sic) [ EBITDAaL ] increase, resulting EBITDA (sic) [ EBITDAaL ] growth comes from the very healthy development of the direct margin, excluding this PLN 53 million one-off. So that's, I would say, the dynamics that I would present when thinking about the activity, which is nonrecurring in nature, and the activity that is underlying our business.

And then versus the guidance that we gave beginning of the year and also the various comments that we were making throughout H1, I think it's clear that the energy trade has not performed well. Some of it we already knew when guiding at the beginning of the year, but it has performed worse than we thought due to the introduction of additional regulation in the course of H1.

And then the other element, which is performing -- where the environment is a bit more challenging, is B2B. So the revenues and profits coming from the B2B have grown slower than we have anticipated, and that goes both for the telco, but especially for the IT&IS revenues, profits coming from IT&IS. As we've mentioned, there are various reasons for this. When I think about IT&IS revenue challenges, they come from a prolonged weakness of the level of orders on the market coming from the public sector, but also from the general business sentiment. So it's not only us that are feeling the inflation, but also our customers are feeling inflation. And while this is less visible in the telecom services because this is an essential service, they are less, I would say, willing to invest into the digital transformation as they are struggling with their own performance. So we are addressing this. We're looking at the plan to rejuvenate the growth in IT&IS. It's probably something that will take a bit of time. I don't think we'll have a sudden huge recovery in the next quarter when we compare the year-on-year perspective.

But yes, I would say these are the 2 main areas which have performed less well versus our initial expectations. The core business, especially coming from the B2C sector, that has performed extremely well, and this is in line with what we wish to achieve. And we're very happy with this. I hope that answers your question about the drivers of our evolution, both nonrecurrent and recurrent in nature, and also the perspective of the guidance that we gave at the beginning of the year.

Then when it comes to Q4 and your question also about the working capital. Generally, I would expect the Q4 organic cash flow not to be far off from the figure that we had recorded last year. I think there will be, on the one hand, some of the projects that have consumed working capital in the ICT area. They will result in a decrease of working capital. This is mainly inventory. On the other hand, working capital per se in the fourth quarter really depends on the phasing and the size of sales that we will do because just the key thing is the amount of accounts receivable at the end of the quarter. But broadly, I don't expect a huge shift in working capital, and we do expect the organic cash flows to be, I would say, in the range of Q4 of last year.

[Leszek Iwaszko, executive]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Pawel Puchalski from Santander.

[Pawel Puchalski, analyst]

Pawel with Santander here. I've got several questions. The first one would be -- you are telling us a lot about weak outlook for ICT and business segment. And my question would be do we see this segment bottoming out or potentially remaining flat in coming years versus 2024 or you potentially expect some more downside is possible in year 2025-'26. That would be the first question. I don't know. Shall I ask all of those or one by one?

[Jacek Kunicki, executive]

It depends, Pawel, how many questions you have. If you have many, let's do one by one.

[Pawel Puchalski, analyst]

Just 3. Okay. The second question would be I'm very much interested in your other operating income and expense line. It was -- well, it was impacted by one-offs in first half of the year. In quarter 3, we are looking at PLN 60 million. And my question is shall I see this a recurring level for next dozen quarters or we shall see some kind of trends. If you could give me more color on this position, which became significant, I would appreciate. .

And the third question would be -- I made my own calculations, and I've arrived at your OpEx adjusted for one-off increasing almost 2% in quarter 3 year-on-year versus 2% decline you reported in quarter 1 and quarter 2. And my question is what is your expectation. Shall we see this growth at OpEx to be a new trend for Orange Polska or it will die out in, I don't know, 2, 3 quarters? That's all.

[Liudmila Climoc, executive]

Okay. Thank you, Pawel, for questions. I will take probably the first one with our outlook on ICT perspective for Poland.

Overall, we believe that this is a segment of -- with significant growth potential, and this we have seen recorded in our performance. If we look on last 3 years, Orange Polska was actively building this line of business. We had average -- on average, it was 20% year-over-year growth, much higher versus market. Looking forward, this will -- and we believe that this sector will continue to grow, so not as, at least, the same pace, but it will be one of the main drivers. So that's why we are confident in strategic potential, and it will remain one of our key areas of investment and focus.

This year, Jacek was commenting, it is a combination of negative effects, which we see on the market. It is not only for Orange Polska overall. Probably this year, we will see data will be published like in following months, but already what we see from preliminary indications, probably this year will be one of the -- or first year of shrinking of IT market revenues in Poland due to effects, which were mentioned by Jacek: investment sentiment overall, inflationary pressure and significant impact from these public sector being frozen.

I will give you just one example where one of our affiliates, Integrated Solutions, is facing a significant decrease in revenues from public sector just because tenders are delayed, although we are convinced that structurally, like investments in digitalization of government, local government, central government will be necessary and are necessary. And it will come, but it still need time for management teams and decision makers to be confident to make these decisions, to refocus from, I would say, operational audits and operational activity to this future investments. So for next years, we are planning to rebound, and we foresee rather recovery, not further slow down because, structurally, the market is still aimed to grow.

And Jacek, you take the 2 questions.

[Jacek Kunicki, executive]

Yes. Thank you very much. Regarding the other operating income and expenses net, so obviously, this is a line that is -- includes many items, and they are, by nature, not fully recurrent. This is the line that includes the much annualized margin from the FiberCo, but it also includes various movements in the risk provisions that we do, foreign exchange gains/losses on the hedging. It includes the copper sale that we do upon dismantling and sale of our copper, few other items. So it will never be a line that will be easy for you to forecast. .

What I can say, we've mentioned during H1 that it was impacted by an almost PLN 90 million catch-up of the margin throughout H1. So this is what you should treat as a nonrecurring event or not fully recurrent events leading to the distortion of the trend. As I mentioned during the H1 conference, this -- not only did the revision of the margin for the FiberCo contract give us this, let's say, almost PLN 90 million catch-up, but it also increased slightly the prospects of the future margin, which we are recording quarter-after-quarter until pretty much the end of 2025. So it will be on a level that you should expect right now, on a higher level than what you've, for example, seen in 2023, having in mind -- again, having in mind that items like ForEx or risk provisions,may significantly distort the trend depending, for example, if we need to accrue for a new risk or maybe we have the ability to release a risk provision when we've won a proceeding or something.

So that, I would say -- that is -- that would be my comment is that if you clear the 9-month average of that PLN 90 million from H1, it gives you some indication that the average expected will be higher than what we've seen in 2023, but we may be, I would say, surprised from quarter to quarter in this particular line. Then obviously, with the FiberCo contract, this is something that we test and we review periodically. So if we were to find new data, this could also lead to an upward or downward reassessment of the expected fiber margin.

Then your second question regarded the cost increase in Q3 and what kind of flavor could we give for Q4. So I guess if you look at Q3 year-on-year costs, what you should have in mind are 2 items. Last year, in Q3, we have received PLN 16 million refund for the -- for supplying the universal service obligation way back in the past. This is totally nonrecurring. It constitutes a very high comparable base in the quarter 3. Obviously, the comparable base will be easier by this PLN 16 million in quarter 4 as we did not receive the similar amount in Q4 of last year.

The second fact is that we've invested a bit more in advertising in Q3 of this year, I would say, in the range of PLN 12 million to PLN 15 million higher investments into advertising to boost a very good commercial net adds that we see. And I think that the results indicated this investment we're very happy, both with Q2, but especially also with Q3 net additions. And this will be, again, a less difficult comparison in Q4 because, historically, we have not been investing a lot of A&P in Q3. But historically, we have had an increase of these costs in the fourth quarter. So yes, we will continue to promote our activity in Q4 and definitely, and we count on the big commercial success. This is always the harvest season that is very important for the revenue base of 2025, but the A&P comparison will be easier in '24.

And then we have some initiatives that have -- that are kicking in, in Q4 in terms of the savings plan and different programs that we have. So overall, I would expect the Q4 cost evolution, again, in absence of any unexpected events that may occur in the other operating income or expense line, I would expect the Q4 to have an easier evolution, a more favorable evolution of the cost than the one that we have experienced in Q3. I'm referring to indirect cost of functioning, I mean, ignoring commercial expenses because this will obviously depend on the level of the commercial activity that we have. So I do hope that we will have adequately enough growth of the commercial cost in Q4 because that would be really good for the next year.

[Pawel Puchalski, analyst]

Okay. And if I -- so while I still have got a mic. I hope I do. A quick follow-up on your last response. Thank you very much for color on fourth quarter, but my question was actually not about fourth quarter. My question was -- well, actually, when will your OpEx start sliding year-on-year again? Should it be third quarter 2025 or never? I would love this color.

[Jacek Kunicki, executive]

Of course. It's a very good question. I will not give you precise figure right now. You will need to be a little bit more patient because we will come back with the guidance in February, but we will note down to have some color also on the cost side when we are giving the comments to the guidance.

When you think of the trends that we are seeing, I think we should experience lower inflationary headwinds next year than the ones that we've seen this year. So that should definitely ease the comparison. We're continuing on the transformation. And so this is -- definitely, I would expect the trends of '25 on the OpEx side to be better than the trend of '24 on the OpEx side. Again, I'm ignoring the one-offs, okay? I'm ignoring today the different nonrecurring items. On the standard activity, I would expect these trends to improve. By how much? You will need to be a little bit more patient with us.

But the underlying factor that will drive the value of this business and our results will and has to continue to be the growth of the direct margin and that's why we keep on coming back to the expansion of the core telecom services and of the key drivers of those key telecom services, customer base growth, ARPO growth. I don't think we should expect cost savings to be the main driver for EBITDA (sic) [ EBITDAaL ] boost. It's going to have to -- and it will have to come back or it will have to come from the direct margin.

[Leszek Iwaszko, executive]

Thank you. We have couple of questions that came from text. So let me read.

The first question from Maciej Bobrowski from BDM. The question is, during the previous conference call, expectations for EBITDA growth in 2024 were revised upwards. I would like to ask whether the impact of the nonrecurring event related to capitalized connectivity costs from prior periods of PLN 53 million recognized in Q3 2024 was already taken into account by you at that time.

[Jacek Kunicki, executive]

Thank you for your question, Maciej. Obviously, it was not. This is something that we correct, adjust as soon as we identify it. So it is not that this was part of the guidance revision.

The main driver, obviously, for the guidance revision were H1 results and also the good expectation of the trends for the consumer market for H2. These are happening, and quarter 3 confirms that. On the other hand, I think if you were to ask me which lines am I a bit less confident than we were in July, this is definitely the environment on the B2B segment, on which I was hoping we could recover a little bit quicker. But it seems we will need to be a bit more patient to go back to the very good growth that we've seen from this market in the past.

[Leszek Iwaszko, executive]

Next question came from Piotr Raciborski from Wood & Co. Could you please elaborate on the PLN 53 million one-off related to capitalization of connectivity costs? What should be the quarterly impact of the accounting change on cash, OpEx and D&A, going forward? That's the first question.

And the second question is, do you expect aggressive 700 megahertz auction considering the differences in blocks quality? Would Orange be interested in 800 megahertz?

[Jacek Kunicki, executive]

Thank you very much for your question. So regarding this accounting one-off, it refers to installation fees paid by us when we acquire a retail fiber customer on third-party infrastructure. So far, these were recognized 100% at the moment of the installation while they should be recognized over the customer lifetime, so in line with our expected benefits from having this client. We corrected this treatment, and we capitalized the contract cost in the balance sheet. You will be able to see the increase of these contract costs when you analyze the balance sheet. These will be recognized. They will be expensed through the P&L. It's not D&A. It's not depreciation. They will be expensed through the EBITDA (sic) [ EBITDAaL ]. It's simply that it's not one shot, but over the expected customer lifetime. This treatment does not only regard the past installations, but also any future installation costs will also be treated this way. So they will be progressively expensed throughout the expected customer lifetime, so versus the previous taking into account that we are growing on the third-party network, growing dynamically.

If you were to think of the going-forward impact of the different treatment, it would be, I would guess, probably below PLN 10 million yearly of lower costs when we treat this through the capitalized contract costs versus the one-shot treatment that was done before, and this is obviously applicable as long as we grow this customer base dynamically. Because as soon as we reach a certain saturation point, we will start seeing the cost of the past installations come through because the total amount of costs recognized will be the same. It's just that the time horizon of those cost recognition changes. So I hope that answers your question on the one-off.

[Liudmila Climoc, executive]

On spectrum, on 700, obviously, we cannot comment on bidding strategy in the auction. And on details, this is commercially sensitive information, and this would be against the law. What I can like reiterate, yes, 700 megahertz is very variable spectrum, and it would complement 5G coverage in rural areas and support our strategy.

Consultation program -- process is ongoing, and we hope that our arguments will be taken into the account by regulator, particularly to -- regarding the high starting price. The proposed price is one of the highest in Europe, looking on the benchmarks. So I would say the fiscal-driven auction is against the recent trends, which we have seen in Europe, and I hope it will be addressed by regulator because more we spend, less flexibility industry will have on the investments. And investments are necessary to bring digitalization closer to customer and to boost economy.

[Leszek Iwaszko, executive]

Thank you. We have another voice question coming from the line of Dawid Górzynski from PKOBP.

[Dawid Gorzynski, analyst]

I have 2. One's -- the first one on -- again, on ongoing 700, 800 auction. That would be excellent if you may give more color about the timing of the auction. When is it likely to start, still this year? Or do you think that there are so many issues in the consultation process here that it may be delayed for next year? So it's the first question.

And second question is about your promotional activities, higher cost promotional activities. That would be perfect if you may quantify this cost a little bit. And I wonder if there were some pricing initiatives used in those promotions as well that may impact convergent ARPO going forward and if this 5% growth of ARPO reported this quarter is maybe sustainable during next year. Okay, that's all from my side.

[Jacek Kunicki, executive]

Thank you, Dawid, for these questions. Regarding the auction timing, obviously, we don't control the process and we don't control the timing. So we will need to see how long does it last, and we will be able to comment more extensively on the process once the consultation phase will be finished and we will know what are the final conditions. Today, we know the initial proposal. Looking at the previous track record, I would not expect the bidding to start this year. It would be unlikely. So we need to be ready for this to be conducted sometime next year. And then I don't want to be guessing exactly which quarter. It will really depend on how long the consultation process will take.

In terms of the promotion activity, I won't get into the details of how much did we pay to which media house. It is -- what I mentioned is that the cost this year will -- about PLN 12 million higher than the Q3 of last year. That's the, I would say, excess investments into advertising.

And then for the pricing initiatives, I will not be specific on our actions going forward because that's not the way that we review and signal things. You know that we are pursuing a value strategy. You know that we do it through a series of initiatives. There were price list moves in the past. There were -- there are the end-of-contract clauses. We have this customer value management looking at teams, looking dynamically at how should we retain a customer, which customer had prospects for upsell and so on and so on.

And on top of that, you have the structure because you were asking about convergence. So within convergence, you have the structure of both the tariff plans on mobile that the customers choose but also the speed options and the TV options that the customers are choosing. So this is -- I would guess the ARPO growth that we're getting represents the willingness of the customer to buy more from us. And that is what is important. We continue to strive in our efforts to make sure that we can offer the customer who is with us the most complete portfolio of product and services for the household offered in a convergent way.

And that's how we should look at things. We need to see quarter-after-quarter how successful we are and how much this is increasing. Obviously, so far, we are very happy with the performance of conversions, both in terms of the subscriber growth,and in terms of the ARPO growth, and we are working intensively to sustain this. This is the key driver of our value.

[Leszek Iwaszko, executive]

Thank you. We have another text question coming from Jakub Viscardi from Dom. The question is short. Looking forward, should we expect any other one-off items in [ OpEx ] Q4 2024 results?

[Jacek Kunicki, executive]

Well, it's one-offs. It have this tendency of surprising us. So it's not that we are aware of something that should be booked. Had we been aware of, I don't know, a correction to be booked, we would have -- to be honest, we would have booked it in the Q3 accounts.

Then as far as ForEx or claims and litigations go, this is something that we need to monitor until we publish the results, not even until the end of December, but until we publish the results. This is for the claims and litigations.

And then, of course, we have the year-end procedures on the many items, checking the different assumptions, judgments and estimates that we do. Not that we foresee today any meaningful change that would be required, but this is obviously the time that we keep on doing the checks on -- before the balance sheet date, but nothing big, material that we would be aware of right now.

[Leszek Iwaszko, executive]

Thank you. It appears, we have no further questions. So thank you very much for listening us today. We'll be coming back to you in February. In the meantime, if you have any questions, you know how to reach us.

So have a good day. Thank you. Bye.

[Jacek Kunicki, executive]

Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

[Liudmila Climoc, executive]

Bye.