Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to KPN's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings webcast and conference call. Please note that this event is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question and answer session towards the end of today's prepared remarks. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star one on your telephone. I will now turn the call over to your host for today, Reinout van Ierschot, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us. Welcome to KPN's fourth quarter and full year 2023 results webcast. With me today are Joost Farwerck, our CEO, and Chris Figee, our CFO. As usual, before turning to our presentation, I'd like to remind you of the Safe Harbor on page two of the slides, which also applies to any statements made during this presentation. In particular, today's presentation may include forward-looking statements, including KPN's expectations with respect to its outlook and ambitions, which are also included in the press release published this morning. All such statements are subject to the Safe Harbor. Let me now hand over to our CEO, Joost Farwerck.
Thank you, Reinout, and welcome everyone. Let me first walk you through some of the highlights of last quarter. A key highlight, of course, was our Capital Markets Day, early November, where we shared with you our new Connect, Activate & Grow strategy. We've now started executing on this ambitious four-year plan. In 2023, we have consistently grown our group service revenues, and we delivered on our outlook. Group service revenue growth accelerated to 4.2% in the fourth quarter, with growth visible across all the segments. Within the mix, we continue to see positive developments in consumer, driven by higher mobile service revenues and further improving trends in fixed, with 30,000 broadband net adds for the full year. Business service revenues continue to grow with, again, SME as the main contributor.
Also, wholesale made again a solid contribution, thanks to our open wholesale policy. We saw good commercial momentum across the board, driven by strong execution. Together with joint venture Glaspoort, we added a record number of households to our fiber footprint this year. We delivered EBITDA and free cash flow growth despite inflationary headwinds. Excuse me. Our return on capital employed is strong, reflecting shareholder value creation. Finally, our outlook for this year. For 2024, we've raised the free cash flow guidance to approximately EUR 880 million, and the other outlook items are reiterated, including our ambitions for 2027, as disclosed during our Capital Markets Day. As usual, Chris will give you more details on our financials later. We delivered on our 2023 outlook.
EBITDA came in at EUR 2.4 billion, which is slightly ahead of our outlook. CapEx was around EUR 1.2 billion, in line with guidance, and free cash flow came in at EUR 886 million, slightly ahead of our outlook. We reiterate our dividend commitment, and we will pay a regular dividend per share of EUR 0.15 over 2023, following the AGM approval in April. Let me now walk you briefly through the key highlights of our new strategy. First, we continue to invest in our leading networks that will support our competitive position for years to come, and enables us to create value for all the stakeholders. Second, we continue to grow and protect our customer base, supported by our quality networks, differentiated services, and an outstanding customer experience.
And third, we further modernize and simplify our operating model, supporting a next wave of quality improvements and cost savings for the company. And together, these strategic priorities support our ambition: to reinforce our position as the number one internet company in the Netherlands, and lead in mobile revenue market share, to grow in service revenues and profitability, and to provide attractive shareholder returns covered by a growing free cash flow. ESG is at the heart of what we do, and it is closely linked to our strategy. We focus our efforts in three areas linked to seven United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We are a responsible corporate entity, and we prioritize reliability and security and uphold fundamental human rights across our entire supply chain. We will strengthen our commitment to diversity and inclusion in all respects, both as an employer and as a service provider.
We will continue to be a front runner in achieving net zero emissions and circularity, and we will continue to reduce our energy consumption, even in the face of upward pressure from data volume growth. Let's now move to the foundation of our competitive advantage. In 2023, last year, we expanded our fiber footprint with approximately 550,000 homes passed, and this includes the homes passed from the Primevest and Kabeltex acquisitions. Adding Glaspoort to this, we expanded our fiber footprint with a record number of 725,000 homes passed. Jointly, we now cover almost 60% of the Netherlands, and we aim to reach roughly 80% of Dutch households by the end of 2026. After reaching that point, CapEx will come down to a much lower, sustainable level....
Our fiber business case continues to deliver results, and we have generated more than EUR 1 billion of fiber service revenues in B2C in 2023. The double-digit growth rate is driven by a solid base inflow and attractive ARPU development. Let's now look at the consumer segment. Adjusted consumer service revenues accelerated throughout the year and increased to 4% in the fourth quarter. We see consistent mobile service revenue growth, driven by solid base developments and growing ARPU. Our fixed service revenues also continue to improve, supported by accelerating fiber service revenue growth. As expected, our Net Promoter Score recovered to +17 from the temporary dip in the third quarter.
I'm happy to see that, despite all the customer traffic generated as a result of all, accelerated fiber rollouts, together with additional commercial activities in the Dutch market, we are able to really outperform against competition on Net Promoter Score. Now, let's take a deeper look into our fourth quarter KPIs. We saw another quarter of broadband-based growth. We realized 5,000 broadband net adds in the fourth quarter. Our fixed ARPU grew 2.6% year-on-year. We continued to see some trends in mobile. Our postpaid base increased by 22,000, while the postpaid ARPU increased 5.7% year-on-year, supported by the price increase as of the first of October and the inflow of Unlimited. Combined, this led to a strong 7.9% growth in mobile service revenue.
Now let's move to B2B. Our B2B service revenues grew by 4.4% year-on-year, mainly fueled by SME. Business Net Promoter Score was +5 in the fourth quarter, and we remain the Dutch market leader here in NPS as well. SME continues to be the main growth engine in B2B, driven by continued solid commercial performance in both mobile and broadband. And due to our future-proof propositions, we expect to deliver continued growth in SME going forward. The year-on-year LCE service revenue trend is showing a stabilizing trend, driven by the strong performance of IoT, mainly. Nonetheless, LCE still requires some work to deliver sustainable growth. And to achieve this, we will leverage our KPN Smart Combinations propositions and add new services to that that can address concrete customer needs.
In addition, we will improve our go-to-market strategy. This will be one of the priorities for us in the coming period. With this, we plan to deliver sustainable growth in LCE as well, like we did in SME. Lastly, the Tailored Solutions business was solid again. We started to focus on specific markets such as critical communications, financial services, main ports and logistics, et cetera, and we make sure we serve our largest customers in a decent and profitable way. In wholesale, service revenues increased 3.2% in the fourth quarter. During the quarter, we added 29,000 postpaid SIMs and 29,000 broadband lines, of which 18,000 relate to the Primevest acquisition, so underlying still a healthy inflow of 11,000 net adds in the fourth quarter.
Now let me hand over to Chris, to give you more details on our financials.
Thank you, Joost. Let me now take you through our financial performance. Let me start by summarizing some key figures. First, adjusted revenues increased 4.3% in Q4, with growth visible across all segments. Second, our adjusted EBITDA after leases grew by 2%, 2.2% actually, year-on-year in the quarter, despite inflationary headwinds such as wage indexation and higher energy costs. Our quarterly EBITDA in 2023 has behaved fully in line with the pattern that we indicated at the beginning of the year, and we've met our targets of stable to slight growth in EBITDA. Third, our free cash flow increased 2.7% compared to 2022, and slightly exceeded our guidance, mainly due to higher EBITDA and working capital improvements. Group service revenue growth accelerated throughout the year to 4.2% in Q4.
Our consumer service revenues increased by 4% year-on-year, driven by strong growth in mobile, supported by our CPI adjustment and base growth and further improvements in Fixed. In Fixed, we delivered positive net adds in Q4. Both Mobile and Fixed are now in growth modus. Business service revenues grew by 4.4% year-on-year, mainly driven by the continued strong performance in SME and improvements in LCE in Q4. Wholesale service revenues were up 3.2% year-on-year, driven by both broadband and mobile. Adjusted EBITDA grew slightly compared to last year, fully driven by service revenue growth. An increase in cost of goods sold is mainly due to costs related to higher non-service revenues, such as handsets and hardware sales, third-party access costs as Glaspoort, and, to a lesser extent, a change in service revenue mix in B2B.
The indirect cost base was affected by well-documented inflationary headwinds. This translated into about EUR 100 million higher net indirect OpEx in 2023. For 2024, our direct cost base will continue to be impacted by third-party access costs, such as Glaspoort, B2B service revenue mix effects, and inflationary effects, while our indirect cost base will be mainly impacted by wage indexation and some inflationary spillover from 2023. Our energy costs are expected to remain broadly stable. Our operational free cash flow decreased by about 2% due to a marginal step up in CapEx. Alongside some inflationary effects, we stepped up investment into fiber rollout and customer CapEx, partly funded by a decline in other CapEx. For 2024, we keep a strict eye on CapEx to ensure it does not necessarily exceed EUR 1 [billion].
As a result, we expect a decent mid-single-digit growth in operational free cash flow, driven by EBITDA growth and effectively stable to declining CapEx. Let's now focus on the moving parts of our free cash flow. Our cash generation remains solid, and we've been able to grow our free cash flow and outperform fiscal outlook. Effectively, the modest decline in our operational free cash flow and higher taxes was countered by more favorable developments in working capital and other line items. Regarding the first, on the back of a series of smaller initiatives that are part of a broader and comprehensive working capital optimization program, we managed to structurally reduce our working capital intensity. As a result, we managed to increase our free cash flow. Our cash margin at 16.3% of revenues was broadly stable compared to previous year.
For 2024, we expect to see a small drag on free cash flow from the phasing of working capital. Unless we feel confident about the cash generating ability of our group, especially due to slightly lower interest and tax headwinds than we earlier anticipated. That is why we upgraded our outlook for free cash flow a bit to about EUR 880 million, broadly stable compared to the realized results for 2023. Finally, we ended the quarter with a strong cash position of EUR 802 million. At KPN, we remain focused on creating long-term value, which is evidenced by the strong return on capital employed. This orientation on shareholder value creation is evidenced by an increase in our ROCE.
For the coming years, we see scope to further enhance our return on capital employed as part of our continuous pursuit to deliver long-term shareholder value creation, driven by fiber investments, cost savings, and improving top-line profile. We have a very robust and solid balance sheet. Our exposure to floating rates is about 15%, and our average cost of senior debt is 4.1%. Total liquidity remained robust and consists of about EUR 1.8 billion in cash and short-term investments, including our undrawn revolving credit facility. This provides ample flexibility to pursue bolt-on growth investments as they may arise, and to acquire spectrum in the upcoming 3.5 GHz auction, expected to take place later this year.
Leverage has been stable year-on-year at 2.3x , and credit rating agencies acknowledge our strong balance sheet and market position, which is evidenced by solid ratings and a stable outlook. We expect and plan to continue to run the net debt to EBITDA ratio at about or below 2.5x in the medium term. Now turning to sustainability. The following slide shows a performance on carbon reduction, circularity, and diversity. As shown, by working more energy efficiently and implementing circular operations and services, we have been able to significantly reduce our carbon footprint over the past years. Looking ahead, we want to be almost 100% circular by 2025, whilst being net zero in the whole value chain by 2040.
We made good progress on the reduction in full year energy consumption, but also in reuse and in the recycling of materials. We attach great importance to diversity in our workforce and aim to have at least 35% women across our senior management by 2025, up from a current 25%. A bit lower than last year, why we are taking additional measures. With this, KPN will not only deliver financial results, which enables us to continue our progressive dividend policy, but will also connect the Netherlands to a sustainable and long-lasting future. Now, let's move to our outlook for 2024, and ambitions for 2027. As highlighted, the free cash flow outlook has been raised by about EUR 10 million to approximately EUR 880 million.
Headwinds from higher cash taxes and increased interest will be offset by service revenue and EBITDA growth. Other outlook items have been reiterated. Group service revenue growth is set at approximately 3%, driven by continued growth in consumer mobile and a further improvement in consumer fixed. Also, B2B is to deliver healthy growth, driven mainly by SME. Wholesale is expected to taper off a bit this year due to some technicalities, but will recover afterwards. We expect adjusted EBITDA after leases to come in at around EUR 2.48 billion, signaling accelerating growth compared to 2023, mainly driven by service revenue growth. Year-on-year growth in EBITDA will likely be especially strong in the first half of 2024. CapEx will remain stable at the peak level of around EUR 1.2 billion.
Finally, over the entire plan period until 2027, it remains our ambition to grow our service revenues, adjusted EBITDA, both by 3% and our CAGR free cash flow by 7% on average, as reflected in our 3-3-7 CAGR model. Our 2024 guidance is in line and on track with this multi-year ambition. As outlined at the CMD, we intend to pay a regular dividend of EUR 0.17 per share over 2024, up 13% compared to the EUR 0.15 per share in 2023. This gives KPN shares and our shareholders an attractive dividend yields. In addition, we intend to execute a new share buy program, buyback program of about EUR 200 million in 2024, effectively distributing all of our free cash flow to our shareholders.
The repurchase period will start tomorrow and expected to be completed by the end of May at the latest. From 2025 onwards, our dividend per share will be growing by about 7% a year, and the remainder, of course, of our cash is paid out via share buybacks. Over the entire plan period, 2024-2027, we expect to deliver total buybacks of up to EUR 1 billion. Cumulatively, our growing dividends and planned buybacks enable us to return around EUR 3.8 billion in total, or about 30% of our current market cap to our shareholders in the next four years. Now, let me briefly wrap up with the key takeaways. Early November, we shared with you our new Connect, Activate & Grow strategy. We are now executing on this ambitious and exciting four-year plan.
We delivered on our 2023 outlook, showing improving top line trends, growing EBITDA, rising free cash flow, despite more than EUR 100 million higher inflationary costs. We see solid commercial momentum across the board, and our fiber rollout program has maintained a solid pace. Our return on capital is strong, reflecting shareholder value creation. Finally, our EBITDA continues to develop favorably, and we feel confident about the cash-generating ability of our group. As such, we've slightly raised our free cash flow outlook for the next year, while other outlook items, including our ambition for 2027, as disclosed during our CMD, are all reiterated. Thank you very much for listening. Now, let's turn to your questions.
Thank you, Chris. Before moving to the questions, as usual, I'd like to ask you to keep your questions to two. Operator, over to you to start the Q&A, please.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will start the question and answer session now. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star one on your telephone. The first question is from Mr. Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. You can go ahead now.
Yeah, good afternoon, everyone. Just had a couple of questions, both around the same thing, about around operational gearing in your business model. Obviously, what you're saying today is in line with what you said at the CMD, but just wanted to... You would have a number of companies give guidance now in the result season so far, exhibiting limited operational gearing and get that inflation plays an impact in that. But just wondered if you could talk to how you see the progression of operational gearing in your business through 2024 and maybe beyond. So the two specific questions were, firstly, why is it that you anticipate first half 2024 EBITDA growth being faster, higher than second half 2024 growth?
Then secondly, can you just talk to any other activities you're going through that could see operational leverage a bit better and EBITDA growth a bit better into the second half, i.e., kind of, any kind of self-help that you can do to maybe maximize operational leverage and EBITDA growth? Thank you.
Right, Andrew, let me take this question for you. Basically, in layman's terms, you're saying if you're growing revenue by 3%, why you're only growing your EBITDA by 3%? I think the two things that go into this in next year are, of course, inflation and cost. There's still some spillover of inflation from 2023 into 2024. And obviously, in our case, we also have the Glaspoort cost, right? Glaspoort charging goes up by about EUR 25 million-EUR 30 million next year. Part of it is also coming in as part of our minority interest, you know, positive line below EBITDA. So there's a bit of artificial effect on our EBITDA, which will be there until we consolidate Glaspoort. So it is, on the one end, inflation, and on the other hand, it is the Glaspoort charging that increases and that hurts your EBITDA.
It supports net profit, while on the EBITDA line, you see that coming back. H1 versus H2? Well, obviously, on H1, also, our comps are pretty solid and relatively easy. Remember, Q1 last year, we had an EBITDA decline, so it means that Q1 this year, our EBITDA growth will certainly be, or surely be, north of 3%. Our service revenues will also be growth north of 3%. So in the first month of the year, you will have spillover from business momentum, spillover from price increases from last year, and relatively easier comps. That means that the Q1 results, service revenue and EBITDA growth will both be above 3%. And it's possible to sustain it in the second half of the year, but that depends, again, on our cost performance and on our, on how price indexation develops relative to inflation.
So for the full year, we're fully confident on the 3% EBITDA and service revenue growth, but it might be a bit tilted towards the front end. And then towards 2025, well, look, my crystal ball is as good as yours, but it starts to look a bit better in the sense that if you look at CLA increase, there's a 5.5% increase in 2024, and 3% in 2025. In 2024, the total cash out on energy will be stable compared to 2024, and in 2025, it's likely to drop if you look at the current energy prices. So some of those inflationary headwinds, which showed up in energy costs, which showed up in labor costs, will start really to fade in 2025.
So basically, it means that 2024 is still a relatively tough year in terms of operating or leverage and operating margins, and some of these headwinds will fade into 2025. So in summary, Glaspoort messes up the number a bit, if you allow me to say it, in terms of understanding the operational leverage. It's not much we can do about it until you consolidate. So underlying, it's a bit better. H1, the first month of the year, expects growth north of 3% in EBITDA. It could be around 3% in the second half, but that depending on, you know, inflationary effects and actions that we take. And as of 2025, you expect its operating leverage to be a little bit more supportive of these inflationary headwinds start to start to fade.
Thank you. That's really helpful.
We'll take now our next question from Mr. Polo Tang from UBS. You can go ahead now.
Hi. Thank you for taking the questions. I have two. The first one is just on CapEx. Can you talk through why CapEx for 2023 was higher than expected? And what do you see as the upside and downside risks to the CapEx envelope for 2024? So does it make sense, for example, to accelerate your fiber rollout in order to realize a first mover advantage versus other players like ODF and Delta Fiber, and how should we think about your direct fiber build? That's the first question. Second question is really just about competitive dynamics. Can you comment on the situation in both the mobile and the broadband market? And do you see a risk of increased promotional activity through the year, particularly when VodafoneZiggo starts showing Champions League rights in August 2024?
Yeah, Paul, let me take the CapEx question. Look, the CapEx is higher, but if you compare it to last year, it's about 3%-3.4% up. So it's still in the realm of, like, manageable amounts. It's not a massive increase as far as we're concerned. The CapEx is up in fiber and in CPE, so consumer-related CapEx that's linked to growth at the expense of non-fiber CapEx. So in our point of view, it's kind of good CapEx. There's also a bit of inflationary effect as, you know, higher labor cost factors into CapEx that you have to fend off. So inside the CapEx, we still feel comfortable with the delta in CapEx that we report.
It's a manageable like delta, and I said it's concentrated in the right areas. This is kind of the absolute ceiling, and we want to keep it stable to manage it down in the coming years. Do we want to accelerate for fiber? Probably not. You may try to, but again, you have to have a certain amount of discipline in how much money you spend over time. And also, there's a question of how much money you could effectively deploy, and whether the marginal return on the marginal euro at some point goes down. Important to say, whatever CapEx is, we feel confident on the cash that we generate. That's why we were confident to up our free cash flow for next year, but to EUR 880 million, meaning that, meaning the outperformance of this year is probably there to stay.
It shows that with all the developments in and around CapEx, spending a bit more on fiber and on consumer, we feel confident that the cash-generating ability of the group is not a factor. And importantly, that's the ultimate line item that counts.
Yeah, Paul, and on the market dynamics, when it comes to mobile and broadband, as you know, the Dutch market is highly competitive. We did great on mobile last year. 100K growth is strong and also ARPU improvement. Good news is that all main providers in the Netherlands are growing, so the Dutch market is moving from prepaid to postpaid. We see a strong development of a shift to Unlimited, which is especially attractive for us with best network. So all in all, we see a good growth in mobile, but also in the market.
Broadband is more competitive, especially the fourth quarter is always traditionally more stretched than other quarters with Black Friday, and you name it, in the quarter. So I was glad to see that we still were able to develop a positive growth of the base. Only 5,000, but that's taking into account everything happening there in the market, of course, is good. Of course, there's us, Vodafone Ziggo on the other side. A bit of pressure on the broadband side, on so on Ziggo, especially. Other fiber players are growing, especially DELTA, owned by EQT and the, and there's an initiative from KKR trying to roll out a fiber network in the, in main cities.
Not that successfully today, I must say, but so especially Delta is showing growth. So all in all, the 30K growth in broadband, not bad for us. Of course, we aim to do more, looking forward. Taking into account everything that's happening in the market is super, super important that we keep on rolling out fiber, because that's really working.
Great. Thanks.
We'll take now our next question from Luigi Minerva, from HSBC. Your line is open now.
Yes, good afternoon, and thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you can talk to us about the 3.5 GHz deployment strategy, assuming you will get your spectrum in the auction. So what are you planning in terms of deployment? Whether that comes from the CapEx budget, as I presume. But also more importantly, whether you think 3.5 GHz is just like a business as usual, you know, deployment that you have to do, or if it's an opportunity to really extract more value finally from 5G, and what impact you would expect on the company returns from that? Thank you.
Yeah, Luigi, on 3.5 GHz. First of all, we have prepared our network, not for a nationwide coverage, because that would be very inefficient. But on the main spots, we prepared our network to go live when we have the spectrum. Auction is coming up in the second quarter, so it should be done before summer. Yeah, the design of the auction looks pretty straightforward, more or less in line with what we asked for. So, that's probably helpful with the minimum price set and the clusters prepared for three operators, local licenses to be bought later in the process for more local players. So that's the auction design. Yeah, and we truly believe that 3.5 GHz can bring a lot of value.
In the first place, it adds a lot of capacity to our network. It is about super fast internet via mobile. So, the combination of fiber and 3.5 GHz 5G, the real 5G especially, we think we really can create value there. Because the difference between mobile and fixed in proposition sense is disappearing in the market. We, of course, are going to launch a speed tiering, and we will launch a new lineup, which is more about the download speed than about the capacity of the bundle, because yeah, the market is moving to Unlimited. And in B2B, we really see attractive propositions. We are already yeah have ready, like, what we call Campus, which is a network slice, private network for larger customers.
And we are very active in launching new initiatives on when it comes to logistics, industrial solutions. So we think on the longer term, it can bring a lot of value when it comes to new propositions. First wave is really about having a lot of capacity in a very efficient way, when it comes to network management.
Okay, well, thank you, Joost. And I guess, if I may follow up, just like, you know, obviously, 5G has been very underwhelming in Europe so far, and I guess, you know, KPN is in a strong position there because you are getting the spectrum much later than the others. And so, I guess, you know, going back to the question, is it gonna be just business as usual or really incrementally important for your returns?
Well, I mean, you're right. We looked at a lot of cases abroad when it comes to 5G and the 3.5 GHz implementation. So that's why we also think that investing in a network in a prudent way is very important, not to over-invest for things that are only in the market in a couple of years. It's everything we do, and we have done, when it comes to 5G, is in the planned CapEx envelope. So I would say in the first wave, it will add value in consumer markets. In the first wave, we have next private network kind of service ready in B2B, and it's very important to manage capacity in the network.
When it comes to really no latency kind of services, I think it will take more time, like we saw in other countries. But we are convinced that later on, in the midterm, that could bring value as well. But the base case we managed is about network management and the new propositions I mentioned.
Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
We'll take our next question from Mr. Georgios Ierodiaconou from Citi. Your line is open now.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. They're both more focused on financials. The first one is around working capital, which was a good contributor to free cash flow in 2023. I know there is structural plan to keep it being positive in the coming years, but curious if you can give us a bit more specifics as to how it could develop in 2024 and the years ahead. And my second question is around other OpEx. I think earlier, Chris, you went into detail about last part on direct costs, CLAs on personal expenses, and how energy will phase. There was around EUR 28 million increase in other OpEx in 2023. I was wondering if you can maybe give us some color as to what's driving that and whether it's temporary or not. Thank you.
Right. Georgios, on working capital, I understand your question. I mean, I guess from your perspective, this is a, like, a black box that suddenly turns to be a treasure chest. So look, obviously, working capital was a positive contribution to our free cash flow this year. We've been running a working capital program for quite some time now. The positive result in 2023 was a broad series of smaller measures. There was a bit of intra-year phasing, advanced payments to contracting suppliers that were paid back in Q4, bill run timings, mostly between Q3 and Q4. That led to some movement of cash throughout the year. And as you can recall, in the beginning of the year, working capital was a bit of a drag, in Q4 it was a plus. So we knew that was about to shift.
Then a number of initiatives to really structurally reduce working capital, lowering inventory levels, that will continue into 2024. Timing and optimization of especially CapEx invoices and when you pay them, and your payment terms towards suppliers. Earlier invoicing in some areas, especially for service revenues and subscription type of fees, we found opportunities to earlier invoice and also in tailored solutions where you invoice earlier rather than reduce payment terms, you send out the bill earlier. So a whole series of small measures that added up to this, to this number. To the question behind the question, how much financial engineering is there behind this? Relatively limited. If you look at the total work and capital improvements, the amount of delta and handset financing is about less than 20% of the delta.
If you look at our total KPN finance exposure, I think less than more than half is still what I call unencumbered by handset financing. I'd like to not go too far in that play. So it is structural, it's there to stay. Will this return in 2024? Probably not. I mean, this is not a gift that keeps on giving, so we've optimized our working capital. There will be some measures in 2024, but I expect in 2024 to be stable, possibly conservative speaking, a slight drag, but at least this year it has contributed. When you take a step back and you look at our free cash flow development, in 2023, our operating free cash flow growth was negative, like EBITDA and CapEx, or revenues mean total spent.
There was a small decline countered by a series of, you know, lower rates, better working capital. In 2024, that buildup will change. So the operating free cash flow will grow by at least 5%, given EBITDA growth and where our total spend is. And there you'll see some headwinds from what I call corporate cash flows, flattish working capital, and then a drag, of course, from interest and taxes that we flagged on a Capital Markets Day. So basically, it's a different thing. It, it's the development of KPN over time.
But my most important view is the working capital delta of this year is structural, maybe a small give back next year, but then other parts will take over the torch in leading our free cash flow charge, in terms of more operational cash, to support our free cash flow ambitions. And then there was a question on costs, on other OPEX. It's mostly around, like, it's IT/TI, to technology costs. There's licensing in there, marketing costs, that includes third-party call center staff, facility costs. So all, most of it is really affected by inflation, and you find that inflation is creeping up in many things. Higher marketing spend, but also if you wanna, you know, ratchet up your call center staff and you hire external people, those will become more expensive.
Licensing fees are coming up, so the EUR 28 million of other costs is really inflation in all the other parts of the business.
Very clear. Thank you.
The next question is from Mr. Titus Krahn from Bank of America. Your line is open now.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks so much for taking my question. Just two as well, on my side. Maybe the first one a little bit more conceptual, I would say, on your CapEx trends. I mean, we saw this year that can actually end up at the higher end of the range, and you mentioned inflationary drivers as part of the reason. Just looking at your guidance for 2027 even, which is quite far ahead, you give an absolute guidance for that, rather than other telecom operators in terms of CapEx to sales, which gives us, of course, better visibility to model it. Is there any risk from even more inflation coming over the next couple of years, which might impede that?
Kind of, is there a way to steer that CapEx, even if it's kind of three years ahead? So yeah, just on the CapEx and the medium term, and then just a very quick question on the price increases in the consumer side went through pretty well. You now have one quarter of visibility in mobile, two quarters in broadband. They look pretty nice on the output side as well. Is there any learning or indication for next year's pricing action on your side? Thank you.
Okay, you were a bit difficult to hear here in the studio, but on price increases, I think you were asking how we will move on looking forward in 2024. Last year, of course, we made a strong step up, especially in consumer market, but also on B2B, which was all related to inflation, but not only CPI related. We also look at purchase power in the Netherlands, what larger institutions do on the CLA, like KPN to our own staff. So these are all very important developments. Yeah, I think over 80% of our services, of our revenues is in subscriptions, so we have a very important tool there. So every year, we will look on how we can increase different price points.
We always take a look at the CPI developments on one hand, but also what we do on the CLA. Especially in consumer market, it's very important. So, we will prepare for a decision end of this quarter, how to move on price increases in 2024, but of course we are working on that. Before I hand over to Chris on CapEx, you were asking, okay, the risk on developments on CapEx related to inflation, I think. Well, that is, of course, always a pressure on everything that's related to spend. On the other hand, we're all also working on the simplicity of the company, the digitalization of the company, and we're innovating in the way we're rolling out fiber.
On one hand, I would say inflation will put pressure on spend in general, but on the other hand, we have strong simplification programs ongoing to also work in a more efficient way and save spend in that perspective.
Yeah, on your question on CapEx, look, obviously we monitor CapEx as a percentage of revenues, but I think it's dangerous to steer your CapEx as a function of revenues, because with that, inflation goes up, your CapEx goes up. There's no lid on CapEx. And as Andrew pointed out earlier, yes, all our telcos, we have a bit of a challenge with operational leverage. So inflation goes up, it's hard enough to keep your EBITDA stable, and if you then link your CapEx to revenues, then inflation effectively will kind of almost enable you to take a hit on your free cash flows. I think it's the right thing to steer CapEx on an absolute number and then work on a, like, a range for practical purposes.
The increase in last year was— There was a bit of inflation in there, but the most of the effect was on fiber and on consumer CapEx. So it is, yes, inflation features in there, but it's more like we didn't want to say no to some last fiber projects, and also obviously, when you have some growth in consumer, y ou don't want to deny your customers of set-top boxes and other equipment.
So we will steer CapEx on a absolute number, which means in real terms, your CapEx D is going down, which is the right thing to do because it forces us to be to be efficient. And the step down in 2027 is really because our fiber goes down. We will stop fiber, or at least really reduce fiber in two phases. So in essence, the CapEx drop is not so much dependent on massive productivity increases, it's dependent on us finishing the fiber program. So in that combination, we feel confident, and it's the best way to manage in CapEx in a nominal level.
Thank you very much. Yes, and I, I would tend to agree. It helps us kind of model and gives visibility. Thank you.
The next question is from Mr. Keval Khiroya from Deutsche Bank, U.K. Your line is open now.
Thank you. And I've got two questions, please. So firstly, can you update us on the Youfone acquisition and when we should get the regulatory decision? If approved, do we think this provides a bit of upside to the 2024 guidance, or is this more a 2025 contribution? And then secondly, can you provide any commentary on what percentage of your overall fiber and copper broadband lines sit within your edge areas versus outside, given you're more insulated in your own FTTH area? Thank you.
Well, on the Youfone acquisition, we're waiting for approval from ACM, our regulator. We think it takes a long time. So, and we anticipate on hearing something in the coming weeks, although that's not officially confirmed. But we think taking into account the process they took and all the questions they asked, should be done somewhere in the coming weeks. And, personally, I expect, yeah, that it should have a positive approval because we do not see any reason to block a smaller acquisition like Youfone is. On a fiber copper performance, yeah, that's of course a very strong development in the broadband market, and that's what we are currently executing on, more customers to fiber and the switch off of copper meanwhile.
So, we are happy that we now have more customers and more service revenues on fiber. On the rollout, we have a very, yeah, I must say, prudent way of building a fiber network compared to other initiatives in the Netherlands. On homes passed and homes connected, we show numbers of above 50%, 60% homes connected. And also in the first wave, we activate 30%-35%, because we migrate our customers commercially to fiber. So, once we rolled out fiber, currently 60% of the Netherlands, we also connect households, and we try to activate as good as it gets the large part of the customer base.
Yeah, and Keval, to your point, I mean, the Youfone is not in our guidance yet. So it's in case the ACM would advise negatively, that's not a downside risk to our numbers. If they advise positively, that would be a small upside to the numbers, which we'll then disclose fairly to you. But so it's not in there. Yeah.
That's clear. Thank you both.
The next question is from Mr. Usman Ghazi from Berenberg. Your line is open now.
Hi, thank you very much. Yes, my two questions are the following: number one, just on LCE, you know, I know there was a bit of a roaming drag this year, or you're just seeing as a bit of a one-off. Excluding this drag, could you indicate what the growth rate for the business was, and if you would expect a kind of continued improving trend in this business in 2024? The second question was kind of linked to capital allocation and, you know, the, in the past, I mean, I think you've spoken about, you know, potential options you might explore for data solutions, you would say, and management with, you know, someone else, should, you know, i s that on the agenda?
And similarly, just, you know, given the multiples we're continuing to see for edge data centers, I mean, are you active in pursuing kind of the same with your various points of presence? Thank you.
Well, on LCE, the LCE was , had a decline in Q3, a positive result in growth in Q4. I'd expect Q1 to be a bit tougher, but to be probably slightly negative and then go back to flat and grow structurally. I don't have it hard, the number X roaming. It fluctuates a bit over time. We see in the LCE market, of course, there is a competitive mobile market, although it feels like the corporate mobile pressure has been abating, reducing a little bit in Q4. There's healthy underlying growth in our modern connectivity services. Next year, our next gen work from home solution will really kick in and start to contribute to our business.
So I think there is underlying healthy developments in the core productivity portfolio, some fluctuation in mobile, depending on competitive intensity in the markets, and there's roaming that actually, I'll say, could be on and off in various quarters. As I said, I don't exactly have the exact numbers, X roaming, but I expect it really to be slightly lower in Q1 and then come back to structural and sustainable growth, as of Q2, Q3 onwards, and then we should be in the growth zone as well. Which means, for example, for B2B, it means SME is growing super fast. I wouldn't be surprised if we're still looking at an 8%-9% growth in Q1.
That will eventually, at some point before we retire, SME growth will probably taper off, and at that time, each LCE, I think, can capture a bigger chunk of the growth rate in B2B, so that the overall growth in B2B will substantially be north of 3%. The second question, I didn't really capture it, what you wanted to ask, Usman?
Yeah, so just in terms of exploring a potential M&A in the past, you know, I believe that tailored solutions that segment has been an area where, you know, you've considered other options for that kind of segment. So is there any update there? And I also wanted to ask about your edge data center. You know, the over 800 points of presence that you have, if there's any update there on, you know, potential transaction, given the multiples in the space continue to be very high.
Yeah. So we're rebuilding our network, and already a couple of years ago, we decided to work to a robust design of 161 metro core locations instead of over a thousand number exchanges. These 160 locations are serving our customers well when it comes to edge as well. So we're introducing edge as we speak. Not because we like the technology, because we translate it to real services for LCE kind of customers. So that is an interesting way to differentiate from others, because we are the only player in the Dutch market with that position. So that's also where we invested in. I think you also asked after-
Tailored solutions.
Yeah, tailored solutions. Yeah, well, so, what I like about the way we run B2B nowadays is that we separated it in three clusters. One of these is the Tailored Solutions part, and we really run it in some kind of a metrics way, focused on the examples I gave you in the introduction. Critical communication is super important for our important customers, like police, Ministry of Defense. We serve the government a lot on larger projects, but it always is to support the core business of KPN. So we moved a bit away from larger IT programs to just do revenues. That's not our business.
We really decided to support the core business, which is all based on our, the networks we're building, high margin, telco kind of business. And these kind of programs are developed now from tailored solutions. I see growth, and I expect more coming from that.
Thank you.
The next question is from Mr. Nuno Vaz from Société Générale. Your line is open now.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Just two quick questions from my side as well. And both related to cash taxes and cash interest, and how they potentially are contributing a little bit more to the free cash flow. At the same day, you gave a very useful, sort of, soft guidance, let's call it, on the cash taxes step up, peaking into about EUR 300 million in 2027. Just wondering if you could sort of update us on that, if anything has changed. For example, you guided on EUR 50 million-EUR 60 million in 2024. So wondering if that's still the same? And on cash interest, just from the fact that EURIBOR is dropping, I'm guessing you're seeing already, expecting to see some benefit from that. So just wondering, what's the amount?
I know most of the interest is fixed, but you, in the past, you've had swaps to variables, so just wondering what options you have on that side as well to benefit from the drop in interest rates. Thank you.
Yes, so good point. I mean, as I said, the we look at our free cash flow next year is the kind of continuing insight and optimization on cash, on tax and interest that allow us to kind of up our free cash flow a bit, including, I think, confidence on the cash earnings of the group. I mean, you're not asking, but I'm still answering the question, which is like, if you look at EBITDA minus provisions, you can see that the amount of cash earnings in the group is gradually going up. So if you look at the charts, EBITDA minus delta provisions of the past few years, that actually increases gradually. So we feel the cash earnings of KPN also are gradually improving, so it's the quality of earnings going up.
So it's a combination of that, plus increasing insights in tax and interest that allow us to, increase our free cash flow for next year. On total cash taxes, I still think we'll be moving to a EUR 300 million in 2027. Perhaps the path to that is a bit more back-end loaded, and there's always opportunities to optimize a bit here and there to save a handful of millions. But you talk about a handful of millions here and there, but then again, if you increase your free cash flow by EUR 10 million a year, EUR 4 million or EUR 5 million of additional tax savings is meaningful. Secondly, on interest rates, we also see opportunities to lower interest rate expense a bit versus the guidance we gave. That's also in the EUR 10 million, which has to do with optimizing your bond portfolio.
You may see more of that in the coming period. As to the floating part of things, as you say, we've only 15% floating, so any drop in EURIBOR is not, you know, helping us so much, because also we've got a bunch of cash against it. Obviously, a drop in EURIBOR, in generally speaking, is good for us, if you think of the balance between debt and cash, but there's an offsetting effect. Could we swap back to floating? Well, for that, the curve is now still kind of inverted to flattish. I mean, when the curve steepens, that's when you do those type of things. At this point, we feel comfortable with, you know, the 50% float and the rest fixed.
And if, as I said, if it would be a bull steepening of the curve from lower floating rates, obviously that would open up many opportunities. That's not in the numbers yet, except for the fact that we see some opportunities to optimize rates, as I optimize around the edges, but then again, around the edges on tax and rates, could easily help you meet your free cash flow target. So, and again, in summary, the EUR 300 million in tax expected to be there, the path to that a little bit more back-end loaded, with some opportunities to save some cost on the side, so maybe the EUR 300 million becomes EUR 295 million or EUR 290 million. That's kind of the order of magnitude. Something similar on rates, we'll have a plan to execute on those in the coming months.
Lowering rates is always good, could provide a bit of upside, but then underlying also the underlying, I think the cash generation of the business, if you adjust for typical provisions, is also going up gradually over time. So that altogether points to, I would say a little more optimism on free cash flow generation in 2024 than what was highlighted in the Capital Markets Day.
Perfect. Thank you. Thank you so much.
We'll take now our last question from Konrad Zomer, from ABN AMRO. Your line is open now.
Hi, good afternoon. I've only got one question. Can you tell us from the more than 3 million homes you switched off copper last year, what's the proportion of those homes that signs up for your fiber proposition? And what's the proportion of those homes that signs up for an alternative provider, like Ziggo, for example?
Yeah, so before we switch off copper lines, of course, customers are migrated away from copper. And since we agreed with our regulator to announce a copper switch off in a certain area on time, I think the schedule is three years at least. We give customers in an area time to migrate to fiber. So there's— especially when it comes to KPN customers, and you're talking KPN customers because they're on a copper network, most of them move to fiber. And on top of that, we improve our fiber penetration by aggregating more customers from others in that area, and on top of that, we add wholesale customers, and at the end, we reach a penetration level in a certain area above 60%. So, I would say most of the active copper lines are, of course, KPN customers, and those are migrated mainly to our own fiber network.
Right. Okay. Thank you.
And Konrad, when you look at that program, the loss of customers that feel like we're forced migrating, then we move to somebody else, that's really minimal. So basically, when a customer switched off from copper, he or she either already is a fiber customer at KPN or our wholesale partners or becomes one, we upgrade to copper or was not a customer, an active customer at all. I mean, the actual customer loss on switch off is negligible.
Right. Right. Okay. Well, that, that's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much. That concludes the call for today. If there's any further questions, please reach out to the Investor Relations team. Thank you very much.