Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for coming to Rotterdam, and welcome to everyone connected to the webcast. It's been three years since we unveiled our Accelerate to Grow strategy, and today I am excited to share the positive progress we have made, and how it has built a robust foundation for the future of, KPN. Before we start, I would like to hand over to Reinout to give you some details about today's agenda.
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to KPN's Capital Markets Day 2023. It's great to see you all here at our headquarters in Rotterdam. Also, a warm welcome to all of those connected via the webcast. We have an extensive agenda for today. Our CEO, Joost Farwerck, and our CFO, Chris Figee, will walk you through the presentation.
First, we will reflect on where KPN stands today. We will then discuss the market landscape and dynamics, and after that, we lay out our vision and plans for the next four years. This focuses on completing what we started in 2020, and further activating our capabilities to grow. Finally, we share with you our financial ambitions. After this, around 3 P.M., we will have a 30-minute break before starting the Q&A with our full board of management.
Please note that the PDF of this presentation will be uploaded to our website during the break, and for everyone here in the auditorium, we will provide you with hard copies before the start of the Q&A session. As usual, before turning to the core of our presentation, I'd like to draw your attention to the safe harbor statement include
d in the press release published this morning. This also applies to any statements that will be made during this event. In particular, today's presentation may include forward-looking information and ambitions, which were also included in the press release. All such statements are subject to the safe harbor statement. We're now ready to present our Connect, Activate, and Grow strategy. We'll start with a brief video, after which I would like to welcome back on stage KPN CEO, Joost Farwerck.
What do we do it for? For this. For all those moments in life that truly matter, the highs and the lows.
We do it so you don't lose each other, so you can share your greatest joys. We do it so you're seen, heard, no matter where you are. We do it so you can move forward, become even better. See? This. So you can become who you want to be. We do it for everyone celebrating their birthday, for the graduates, for love, for the hard workers. We do it to keep the Netherlands running.
We do it for a better internet. That's 100% green, where everyone feels safe and everyone can join. We do it for you. That's why we do it. So, hello, everyone. I would like to start with setting the scene. Our purpose is clear. We will continue to go all out to connect the Netherlands to a sustainable future.
Over the next four years, we will focus on execution to secure long-term competitiveness, and that's the foundation of our strategic plan. We will continue to connect our customers to the digital future. We will strengthen our focus to activate those connections, customers, and our own organization, and finally, we will continue driving sustainable growth.
The evaluation towards connect, activate, and grow also underlines the shift in focus from rolling out fiber to connecting customers on this network, and activating them to unlock the value potential of our networks. First, let me take a step back and walk you through our achievements over the past three years. Quarter after quarter, we've shown delivery against the ambitions of our Accelerate to Grow strategy. We are more than halfway through our large-scale fiber rollout plan and continue to be a front runner in ESG.
We have delivered sustainable service revenue growth with increasing productivity, resulting in strong and attractive margins, and our dividends to shareholders have been growing 5% annually, completed by share buybacks, all in accordance with our attractive shareholder remuneration policy. We are the largest fiber player in the Netherlands, offering connectivity that clearly outperforms competing technologies. We now reach 55% of all Dutch households with fiber, and we continue to build. We have fully modernized our 5G network, making ready for the 3.5 gigahertz spectrum auction to unlock a range of new 5G capabilities for our customers. The investments we have made in our networks are paying off. We won multiple awards over the past years for having the best mobile network globally and best fixed networks in the Netherlands.
Also, security is of central importance to us, and we've invested significantly to safeguard privacy and security. We established a stable regulatory framework for fiber until 2030, ensuring long-term clarity in the Dutch market. We continue to grow and strengthen our customer footprint. Our group service revenues inflected back to growth in 2022, with all our segments contributing as of this year. Over the last three years, we were able to improve top line growth by more than six percentage points, now well above 2%. This growth was mainly supported by price increases and a growing customer base across all segments. Our customers are our top priority, and we've proudly attained industry-leading Net Promoter Scores , demonstrating our commitment to customers across all segments. Moreover, our Consumer Net Promoter Score rebounded in October from the dip we saw in September.
The third pillar of our strategy was about simplification of the company to create better customer experiences, more committed employees, and cost savings. Revenues per FTE increased by 5% annually, delivering increased productivity hand-in-hand with high employee engagement. We digitized significant areas of our operations, resulting in savings and improved customer experience. In 2023, we launched the KPN TV+ based on the Android platform, important movement, and we deactivated around one third of our copper network and moved applications to the public cloud. Over the past three years, we've been able to decrease absolute indirect cost base despite strong inflation headwinds. These accomplishments have translated into solid financials and returns. We delivered consistent EBITDA growth at strong industry-leading margins.
Our free cash flow per share has grown by 7% a year, despite being at the peak of the investment cycle with our once-in-a-generation fiber investments. Return on capital employed improved 360 basis points compared to 2020. A clear indicator that our long-term value creation is working. We significantly outperformed most of our peers on total shareholder returns over the last three years. As a single country operator in a mature market, we will now have a brief look into the overall industry dynamics and the Dutch market landscape. The Dutch economy continues to be one of the strongest in Europe, and the Netherlands outperformed the Eurozone's GDP by about one percentage point in 2022.
The Netherlands is considered a highly digital and savvy, digital-savvy country. It ranks number 3 in the European Digital Economy and Society Index. The high density in our country is one of the key ingredients for a successful telco. All this makes the Netherlands an attractive market to operate in. We live in interesting times. We see geopolitical pressures increasing, inflationary pressures lingering, interest rates at higher levels, and we are faced with a tight labor market. However, the good news is that solutions to many of the world's major challenges will critically rely on excellent communications infrastructure. As more and more people spend most of their days online, new solutions are being developed that make use of connected devices, real-time data processing, and low latency communications.
Having access to a superior digital infrastructure is more and more important than ever, and KPN plays an important role in facilitating this. Our networks have been well capable to handle the significant increase in traffic growth and are ready to support the future demands. This is important for our customers as we are building a future-proof and secure infrastructure for the next generations in the Netherlands. We maintain a very strong position in a competitive Dutch market, and we are well positioned to deal with the key industry trends. Let me now walk you through our updated strategy: connect, activate, and grow. To evolve as a telco, we need to connect our customers to the digital future, activate those connections, and continue to drive the sustainable growth.
This strategy will guide our journey over the next four years and translates into three ambitions we aim to achieve by 2027. We aim to reinforce our position as the number one internet company in the Netherlands, lead in mobile revenues market share growth, and be the preferred partner for digital services and innovations. Through effective network management, modernization, and simplification, we will ensure the best digital experiences for our customers, and our people-centric culture will foster sustainable growth, and our commitment to ESG will make us a force for good in Dutch society. In essence, we will shape a future where KPN stands at the forefront of innovation, connectivity, and sustainability. We see KPN as a company that provides connectivity and empowers all our customers to fully capitalize on the opportunities offered by the digital world.
We're creating a better internet, where everyone in the Netherlands enjoys seamless access to an always-on, high-quality, and secure internet, powered by fiber and 5G. To ensure our digital transformation, we will improve, streamline, and modernize our network assets and offer a broader range of digital services. Today, we have a coexisting fixed network through fiber and copper, including legacy real estate, a mobile network based on 2G, 4G, and 5G, and a large office footprint. By moving to a fiber-only network, we will be able to offer a sustainable, always-on network. With the copper gradually being decommissioned, we will realize savings.
Our mobile network will be centered around 5G technologies, and we will ensure seamless customer experiences by further adopting key innovations, such as enabling OTT services through our edge locations, leveraging Cloud RAN, and KPN campus networks to maintain 5G leadership, and expanding our portfolio with new relevant digital services for customers that unlock the full potential of our networks. We will provide a full omni-channel experience through a digital-first approach, as customer journeys will be integrated across all touchpoints. As we embark on this exciting journey, we will be the leading telco of the future, a future where innovation, convergence, and platforms play a fundamental role. ESG is at the heart of what we do, and it's linked to our strategy, and we are a proud leader in ESG in Dutch society.
This imposes a duty on us, but it's also a key area of differentiation for us. We believe that a sustainable business is a better business, and we are truly committed to creating long-term, sustainable value for all stakeholders. We focus our efforts in three areas, clearly linked to seven United Nations Sustainable Development Goals . We are a responsible corporate entity. 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, and we will continue to be a front runner in achieving net zero emissions and circularity. We will continue to reduce our energy consumption, even in the face of upward pressure from data volume growth. Now, let's move forward to a deep dive per segment, starting with consumer.
We have been a front runner in Europe in terms of convergence and built a strong position in a competitive environment. Dutch consumers recently recognized us as the best all-in-one broadband provider, and we were also named the best fixed and mobile provider by Tweakers. This recognition is a great sign of our value propositions. Consumer services have now sustainably inflected, that is, revenues. We see consistent mobile service revenue growth, driven by good postpaid inflow and an improving ARPU. And we also managed to turn the tide in broadband, with healthy base growth over the last two quarters and positive service revenue growth in the third quarter. In consumer, our strategy remains centered around households. And to enable to serve the household of the future, we have outlined three strategic priorities to drive market share gain. We wanna lead the upgrade of the Netherlands.
We finish what we started, and we deliver the fastest and most reliable fiber and 5G networks. Secondly, we will redefine convergence from fixed-mobile converged to Household 3.0, giving all our customers access to an even broader range of digital services. And finally, we will further personalize our customer interactions, and this should result in us becoming the clear number one in the Dutch market in terms of service revenue market share. At our previous Capital Markets Day, three years ago, we announced an ambitious plan to build the digital infrastructure of the future by accelerating our fiber roll-outs. And we have achieved success in the past three years, and together with Glaspoort, we added nearly 2 million households to our fiber footprint. We scaled up our fiber roll-out, and we have increased our production to more than 550,000 homes passed per year.
Setting up this fiber engine has been an important operational achievement for us. With this, we continue to lead the Dutch fiber market. Commercially, we've seen a significant uptick in market share growth in new fiber areas. With around 2 million households remaining, our fiber roll-out has entered its final phase. Capacity for the next years has been secured, and we are on track to reach our target of approximately 80% fiber homes by 2026. This will deliver a sustainable and long-term competitive advantage for KPN. In recent years, the fiber market has experienced increased competition, with other players also starting to roll out fiber. When comparing KPN to other fiber initiatives in the Netherlands, it is evident that we have a completely different strategy and end goal.
We pursue a volume-driven approach, with homes passed and Homes Connected, closely tied to one another, while other players are mainly focused on passing households. And as a result, we now have four times more households connected to fiber than all other players together, and we produce by far the most connected homes in the Netherlands. We are further optimizing the way we roll out, connect, households, and the way we activate our customers. And we streamlined the entire end-to-end fiber chain to ensure a seamless, hassle-free experience for all our customers.... And this approach is delivering tangible results with strong delivery of Homes Connected and new fiber broadband net adds showing improved momentum. Let's dive a little deeper into our fiber business case. On penetration, we continue to see a significantly higher network penetration in fiber areas over time.
Typically, 1 year after the first connection in an area, the penetration rate increases by about 8 percentage points, and this rises even further after 6 years, reaching approximately 60% penetration for retail and wholesale combined. It's clear that fiber technology is superior to alternatives in the market. Our growing fiber footprint will therefore result in an improved penetration rate for retail and wholesale in the long term. Older fiber areas give good indication of where our network penetration may end. Also, fiber customers generate a higher ARPU as they buy bigger access speed levels and more content packages. We are encouraged by the fact that almost 50% of new fiber customers buy our 1 Gbps proposition. Given these dynamics, we feel confident in continuing our rollout and delivering more Homes Connected in 2024 than ever before.
In fact, we expect that as of 2024, fiber will exceed 60% of our broadband portfolio. And this is, and will be reflected in our financials. Fiber broadband service revenue growth keeps on growing and at double-digit percentages, and are already delivering EUR 1 billion annually. And while our fiber product has been showing positive net adds for a long time now. So this clearly demonstrates that our fiber business case continues to work well and delivers attractive returns. We always want to stay relevant to our existing and potential new customers, and we pursue this through a multi-segmented strategy, including the use of multiple brands to ensure full appeal across all our customer demographics.
Our segmented approach takes several forms, such as flanker brands to target undeserved customer segments, segmented offers addressing modern households, and regionalized offers based on local competitive dynamics to carefully respond to customer expectations. KPN has a strong position in the more mature customer segments, and we see ample growth opportunities in no-frills segments and among youngsters. With the intended acquisition of Youfone, we further strengthen our proposition in these segments, especially in mobile. This enables us to play a more attractive base management strategy by positioning the brands alongside flanker brands such as Simyo, next to our main brand, KPN. Beyond that, we see room to create interesting combinations and propositions that differentiate premium propositions from no-frills offers, which should help stabilize the pricing dynamics.
Unlimited will be the new standard for the KPN brands, and at this point, more than 40% of new mobile postpaid sales are from unlimited plans. Now, we are in a great position to take the next steps in convergence with our Household 3.0 approach. We will give access to an even broader range of digital services, and partnering is key to offering the best services at speeds to fulfill customer expectations. Fiber is especially relevant when using services that require higher quality, and these can be included as value-added services on top of our connectivity offering. For example, next-generation TV, I mentioned the Android platform, gaming, security, cloud, smart home, and hybrid working. By selecting third-party partnerships, we are prioritizing services with high relevance for our customers that also highlight the specific qualities of our fiber network.
By doing this, we will redefine the meaning of converged from fixed-mobile converged to any connectivity with a value-add service. As a result, customers can freely combine our high-quality broadband, mobile, and TV services and enrich their experience with services from premium partners for content, gaming, and smart home solutions. Customer experience is supported by a broad entertainment and sports content offering, and we have signed more partnerships with content and entertainment providers, including gaming and video streaming companies. By offering these new services, we fully leverage the symmetrical bandwidth that fiber offers and differentiate ourselves in the marketplace. Our next-generation Android-based TV+ product, which offers linear TV and OTT streaming together, is based on 4K and 8K technology, and that requires more bandwidth for a great customer experience and fits our fiber products perfectly.
And next to this, online gaming requires reliability and low latency, and we've signed a cooperation with NVIDIA to offer their GeForce gaming product to our customers. Also here, fiber is key, and it has superior upload capabilities compared to other technologies for a fuller and better gaming experience. And these offerings are therefore completely supported by the recent introduction of our 4 gig broadband proposition. The journey to become a truly digital company has already started long ago, and is not complete. Moving ahead in this journey is key to our customer-centric mindset and our quest for simplicity. Our customers expect the certainty of failure-free and secure networks, easy-to-use products and processes, and good online and offline customer service. And they also want their loyalty to be acknowledged and appreciated through proactive advice about the best possible subscriptions that meet their growing needs.
To meet these demands, we are increasingly using and testing AI to increase customer knowledge and help them to have an even better customer experience. And based on customer data, we can provide our customers with personalized offers to improve or upgrade their services, as well as offer additional services based on their needs. Our digitalization efforts have succeeded in delivering operational cost savings, as well as better customer experience. Our MyKPN app is becoming the main entry point for the digital customer journey, achieving more than 60% penetration, and it will keep on growing. Now, let's move to B2B. Three years ago, we presented a plan which would get B2B back to growth, and I'm pleased that we have delivered on that promise, and that we have shown sustainable service revenue growth since the second quarter of last year.
This has mainly been driven by growth in our SME domain, which represents about 40% of B2B's revenues and more than half of its EBITDA. LCE showed clear inflection signs, still requires work to deliver sustainable growth, but this will be one of the priorities for us in the coming period. At the same time, we have seen that our net promoter score not only has improved, but also continues to be at a leading level in the Dutch market. In B2B, we have these key priorities. We remain the leading provider in the Netherlands, offering secure and reliable access and connectivity services and IT solutions. Further developing our digital ecosystem, enabling to accelerate the onboarding of partners and services, and we want to leverage our cloud-based platform play and increase our share of wallet, and benefit from this through improved sales and channel steering.
We have a segmented approach, and that has proven to be successful. We've been able to share the moving parts in B2B in a better way with you. We've everything in place to serve our three segments in the right way with targeted propositions. In the past three years, we've simplified our portfolios. In the coming years, we will add adjacent services to fulfill customers' needs, with security playing an important role, and grow our share of wallet as well. Additionally, we will enrich our offering with new solutions, using developments in 5G, in cloud, Edge, and we will partner smartly to offer third-party services. KPN is a trusted brand and positioned as a reliable and secure partner for its SME customers, and we've seen strong growth in SME in recent years.
This has been driven by standardization of our mobile and broadband products, combining both at KPN EEN , KPN One. We've seen good base inflows in these domains, and our market shares are solid. Many smaller businesses are taking fiber in residential areas, and the rollout to business parks will be scaled up now through our joint venture, Glaspoort. Our KPN One subscriber base has grown more than 40% over the last three years, and we are focusing on building and bundling services to offer value for our customers and to reduce churn. SME service revenue growth has likely peaked at nearly 12% last quarter, and in relation to that, about two-thirds of this growth was generated by the higher margin telco services and the remainder in ICT.
And the latter is important for, cross-sell, and includes, for example, stickiness, creating services like security, workspace, and cloud. KPN SME offers a one-stop ecosystem for small businesses through our KPN One proposition, with standardized ICT and security building blocks. And this is a platform play for SME, geared towards cross- and up-sell for higher penetration of our products in this portfolio. Customers will be served in the most efficient and highly digital way which best suits their needs. And by using our partner network strength, the acceleration, and the distribution, while we ensure relevance to customers through the right channel, via partners, or, if viable, directly through KPN's own channels.
We continue to work on simplifying and improving customer experience in our direct channels, and we expect to deliver sustainable growth in SME going forward, and we should be able to continue to outpace GDP growth. In the last few years, we cleaned up a big part of LCE's legacy portfolio, enhanced focus on sales of relevant and future-proof propositions, and improved the service revenue trends. In the near future, we plan to deliver sustainable growth in LCE as well, like we did in SME. To achieve this, we will leverage our new KPN Smart Combinations propositions and add new services that address concrete customer needs and focus on our go-to-market strategy. Our smart combinations are composed of modular building blocks that can be combined and configured easily to suit specific customer requirements.
We have two core approaches to enhance our LCE connectivity in a way that makes us unique. Our LCE market portfolio will be reshaped to focus on both the enterprise itself and the end user of the services. The connected employee and the connected organization combines each, and each will have about eight or 10 products underneath. In addition to the existing portfolio, we are launching a number of unique and value-adding solutions: KPN Multi Cloud, Next Gen Home Solutions, KPN Campus Networks, and the KPN CPaaS Suite. Now, that's, that's a mouthful. Let me give you an example. KPN Campus combines 5G connectivity with local edge and private near sovereign cloud. We have the digital infrastructure to support this. First use cases to enable end-to-end business and mission-critical services are being explored with customers today.
Also, in LCE, Internet of Things has been a very successful part, and over the last years, it has been growing and now representing almost EUR 100 million of annualized revenues. We've delivered strong growth with good contribution margins, and this number of IoT SIMs in our base has grown to more than 11 million, with data usage increasing massively. In the Netherlands, we're making it clear that we are the market leader, and internationally, we see ourselves as a connectivity challenger. We see a fast-growing market for IoT and machine-to-machine connectivity, and to capture this, we will continue to leverage our domestic networks, unique global roaming partnerships, and dedicated customer solutions. We intend to further accelerate our IoT platform play through specific vertical propositions with an integrated portfolio for IoT and data.
For our largest customers in B2B, we offer tailored solutions to support our core business based on connectivity. This business is labor-intensive and has a lower margin profile, mainly related to, projects and service management. Our margins in this segment have already improved, and in the last few years, we see scope to further enhance them through focus and tight cost control. We manage tailored solutions separately in a dedicated team for selected customer groups and, supported by our competence centers, cloud, workspace, and security. We deliver value-adding solutions to our largest customers on top of our high-margin smart combinations portfolio. So to conclude on B2B, I'm confident that our strategy will continue to deliver sustainable service revenue growth in the years ahead, and we are laying the foundation for future new network services.
The combination of IoT, secure networking, 5G slicing, KPN Campus, and Edge capabilities are unique and will serve to our enterprise customers' needs. Now we'll move to wholesale. Our wholesale activities allow us to further optimize network utilization. Last year, we introduced a new and improved fiber wholesale offering, with Dutch regulated, Dutch regulator, ACM, declared binding until 2030. So that gives a long-term clarity and stability for the market. This supports our successful open network policy and enables us to roll out fiber at a fast pace. Today, more than 12% of our fiber network is being used by third parties and growing fast. The wholesale strategy has three key elements. First, we stay the preferred partner for wholesale customers by focusing on operational excellence and connectivity.
Secondly, we have the right building blocks in place to serve our wholesale base that also can be used in other segments. And finally, we leverage innovation by exploring new markets with industry partners here. The continuous investments in the quality of our fixed and mobile networks make us a highly attractive wholesale partner, and we've extended wholesale contracts with nearly all of our business partners for a long duration. We expect to see a steady revenue growth going forward. We've built a strong foundation of access services driven by our best-in-class networks and services that we can now focus on selling. We will increase our focus on new B2B2X proof solutions that can be distributed through a platform to end users via KPN or via wholesale partners.
These building blocks can be combined and sold directly to wholesale partners or distributed via B2B customers. The ability to adapt and leverage strength from our, both our network assets as well as our market insights, give us a unique position to enable growth and create greater resilience across the spectrum. In wholesale, we also leverage the network knowledge and the technology of NL-ix, our internet exchange, to drive growth in the corporate segments. NL-ix is in the top five of internet exchanges, with approximately 550 connected networks, and is the gateway for OTT services for KPN, with a distinctive distributed architecture. NL-ix solutions are distributed directly to customers. Using the existing network of connected data centers, combined with the technology and intellectual property, we can offer a variety of products that especially serve today's security needs.
For example, our multi-cloud solution, Elastic Interconnect, has become a fixture in our B2B and in our wholesale portfolio. It offers companies and their employees, a direct, stable, and secure connections to all their cloud applications, and is particularly relevant to companies enabling their employees, to access their workflow in the cloud securely. So this becomes increasingly important because of the substantial growth of mission-critical applications in the cloud. So all in all, we believe the business market is an untapped opportunity for interconnecting, businesses to the critical cloud infrastructure. Now we move to the foundation of our competitive advantage. Our commercial ambitions and customer needs drive the ambition we have for our technology. We connect our customers, and, we connect our customers to leading infrastructure, and we deliver secure and reliable connectivity.
We're going to activate more customers by offering excellent digital experience throughout all relevant customer journeys, and we will grow by leveraging our valuable assets through targeted strategies per asset class. To enable our plans, we focus on the following three elements. We leverage the power of our leading infrastructure. The core of our business is delivering connectivity that simply works. Our primary focus will be to continue building out our mobile and fixed network leadership, including our multi-cloud infrastructure. Delivering the best digital experience. Ensuring the best digital experience is key, and our strategy is to offer the best experience enabled by customer-centric and data-driven design, combined with a product and IT rationalization agenda.
Maximize the value of our passive infrastructure assets, as the deployment of fiber, the move to public clouds, and copper simplification will lead to a more rationalized asset portfolio. More on this later, with Chris. Like I said, an important task is to complete the fiber rollout, and alongside our leading fiber rollout investments, we also offer the best customer experience. As indicated at the start of the presentation, data demand is ever increasing, and that is what we offer. We will turn our fiber network into XGS-PON infrastructure, capable of handling symmetrical speeds of 10 gig per second. We also move from an order-driven activation and configuration process to an always on, on-demand concept, leading immediately to better customer journeys. An always on network, that's what we're building.
We actively migrate our customers from copper to fiber, and we continue to phase out our copper network. We expect that by 2027, 65% of our copper network has been switched off. As our customer base moves to mostly fiber, we will be able to reconfigure and simplify our operations, and with this, we are moving towards a fiber-centric operating model. So far, we have switched off around one third of copper connections. We're aiming to reach over 3 million by the year-end, and over time, this will result in significant quality improvements and spend savings related to reduced cost to serve, lower energy usage, higher reliability, and a reduction of our technical building footprint. On mobile, we have a roadmap towards a 5G-centric mobile network.
We won multiple awards for having the best mobile network in the Netherlands and even in the world, and we aim to keep delivering an excellent mobile experience. We completed the network modernization program mid this year, and as soon as the 3.5 gigahertz spectrum becomes available, we will start covering the country with the full 5G experience. Customer experience and business requirements will drive the pace of our 5G rollout plans. We will continue to invest in our mobile core and leverage the innovation capabilities that 5G brings.
For example, network slicing will enable differentiated experiences for consumers and businesses like cloud gaming, campus 5G, like I mentioned, low latency services, and ultra-reliable services. As we move towards the end of the strategic period, the 5G network will be exploited as a platform, exposing standard APIs that can be monetized through our digital platform capabilities. As we transition towards a 5G-centric network, we will simplify our core network architecture, and a high degree of automation will allow us to plan, build, and run our networks in a more efficient way. Through dedicated investments in the core infrastructure, we will ensure our networks are ready for strong traffic and usage growth in the next years. These investments should enable broadband access speeds well beyond 1 gig per second and increase the level of redundancy and automation.
In 2027, the default landing platform of our IT applications will be cloud-based, with around 85% of our own applications moved to the public cloud. This transition will allow us to innovate at a higher pace and radically simplify our data center infrastructure. Alongside our own cloudification, we will also continue to allow our customers to take control of their data by providing them with multi-cloud networking propositions. For those customer services that require proximity, we bring computing power and data storage closer to the locations where it is needed, typically, at the edge of the network, rather than relying on a centralized cloud infrastructure, which results in an omnipresent computing landscape, enabling any cloud everywhere.
And like I said, we aim to deliver the best digital customer experience, and therefore, we're investing heavily in our digital front end to deliver an omni-channel and app-centric experience, where customers can be fully in control and capable of easily activating and managing products and services themselves. And this will be complemented by a partner-centric design that will allow us to leverage the power of partners through a digital platform, speeding up OTT, onboarding, and supporting enhanced services. And to fully enable and facilitate a true data-driven, personalized experience, we will further simplify our fixed and mobile BSS stacks based on a convergent product model. We will further improve customer experience through personalization, enabled by unlocking relevant data sources across the company, as well as leveraging the power of AI. And to achieve this, we invest in dedicated programs that fit into our overall CapEx envelope.
We will be able to stay ahead of competition and reduce time to market and costs. It also opens new business opportunities for super fast local compute solutions or the delivery of local and sovereign cloud solutions. Now, thanks so far for your attention. I would now like to hand over to Chris.
Thank you, Joost. Now, let me start by looking at our operating model. Our aim is to deliver the best digital customer experience. We do this by leveraging our leading networks and lean operating model. As part of our strategy, we will reconfigure our operating model to support our commercial ambitions in the most modern, data-driven, simple, and cost-effective way. To give you some more flavor on our efficiency program, we've identified a series of cost-saving opportunities. First and foremost, we'll leverage the power of data, automation, and AI across our company for efficiencies, and to achieve this, we'll invest in our data capabilities. We continue our portfolio simplification, mainly in LCE. We start phasing out copper on a large scale, which will contribute significantly to cost and OpEx savings. We'll automate more of our operational processes, specifically toward moving toward a highly autonomous, always-on network.
We will digitize more customer journeys across all channels, which enables us to reduce cost on disruptions, onboarding customers, service calls, and many more areas, while at the same time, significantly improving our customer experience. IT rationalization has been a substantial part of our cost savings program and will remain, and will remain so. I'll continue to speak while this gentleman all touches me. No offense. We'll leverage KPN Ventures to gain access to co-owned scale-ups that provide innovative, state-of-the-art solutions, and thereby accelerate innovation. We'll lighten our organizational footprint through our simplification and automation drive, making us much more agile. And we intend to reduce our office footprint, facilitating collaboration and internal connection. And finally, we will reduce our energy consumption and source energy from alternative sources that are both cheaper and more sustainable.
Let me now take you through some examples that demonstrate how these initiatives will help improve customer satisfaction and drive down costs. The first is the development of a fully autonomous network that's always on, which can predict and self-optimize. Currently, we have a network-driven activation process, where each order requires a customer-specific configuration of the end-to-end network. With our new reversed on-demand access concept, a new customer simply logs on, and the network is automatically updated for specific customer services, leading to a better customer journey, as well as a more robust and efficient delivery. This approach enables us to deliver better time to revenue, lower friction in migrations, more do-it-yourself possibilities, and new sales opportunities. It also supports digitization and ultimately driving higher consumer satisfaction.... Greater levels of digitalization and the wider use of artificial intelligence is already in full development.
Through our GenAI lab, we've identified several use cases to transform KPN's end-to-end value chain. We are aiming to reduce more than 50% of current operational activities through automation by 2027, and we will reduce many manual activities, for example, by automatically generating summaries of service calls. In planning, we'll use AI to improve trend analysis and forecast of KPIs. Next to this, large-scale automation will improve reliability of our networks and services, driving down costs over time. We will also focus on customer experience management. This involves, for example, combining customer, operational, and network data to create highly personalized and relevant experiences in real time. By using data and generative and traditional AI to predict customer needs, we can proactively address issues at each step of the customer journey.
As a result, we can streamline operations, reduce costs, and most importantly, provide a superior and far more personalized customer experience. This, in turn, will lead to increased customer loyalty and satisfaction. We have been able to reduce our energy consumption over the past years, despite an exponential rise in data traffic, through network modernization and our simplification programs. Going forward, we continue to reduce our energy consumption by around 8% by 2027, more than absorbing the growth from increasing 5G data usage. As part of our ambition, we are modernizing our networks and phasing out other older generation technologies like copper. In addition, as Jo said, we are migrating our IT stacks to cloud solutions. Further energy savings will come from optimizing our office footprint and the deployment of more energy-efficient equipment. Next to this, we're looking at alternative energy sources.
For example, in December last year, we signed an agreement with Eneco that from 2027 onwards, we will purchase green wind energy from a new-to-be-built wind farm in the North Sea. By then, more than half of our electricity will come from this farm at much lower costs, which is aligned with our ambitious sustainability targets and helps de-risk our long-term energy exposure. Solar energy may be another option for us to source cleaner and cheaper energy going forward. We're also exploring new smart energy storage technology that will allow us to store and manage energy in an efficient and a responsive manner, reinforcing our commitment to sustainability. Besides lowering energy consumption, we also have a clear ambition towards reducing our carbon footprint and achieve net zero emissions in 2040.
Our own operations, Scope 1 and 2 , constitute less than 25% of total emissions, while Scope 3 emissions in the value chain represent about 75%. We have been using 100% green electricity in our own operations since 2011, and have been climate neutral already since 2015. To achieve our ambitious targets, we are, for example, we're actively engaging with customers and suppliers for carbon reduction in the value chain and reduction in energy and material use. We are introducing energy-saving features for customers using our equipment, for example, on modems and TV receivers. We are reviewing international and local transport modes for our local products and business travel. It is clear that an important part of our Scope 3 reduction will be achieved by challenging and changing the way we do business.
This is exactly why moving to circular operations is such a key component of our journey to net zero. All in all, we have an ambitious agenda and a strong foundation to further simplify and streamline our operating model, also contributing materially to the next wave of cost savings. Joost talked about Edge. Edge applications are an emerging business opportunity that form a natural extension of our core services. Our metro core locations are a strategic asset for KPN. These locations are now mainly built for data transport and not for processing, and over time, we will transform them into KPN Edge locations, offering companies local edge computing solutions. Edge computing allows data processing to occur closer to where data is consumed or created, reducing latency. This can be particularly important for ultra-low latency applications like IoT, autonomous vehicles, augmented reality, where real-time processing is crucial.
Next to this, edge computing allows data to be processed locally, which can enhance data privacy and security. KPN can, with this, capitalize on the growing demand for data privacy by offering secure and local edge computing solutions. Another aspect is content delivery. We can improve this through edge computing, ensuring faster and more efficient delivery of digital content, which is especially relevant in the age of streaming services and online gaming. Actually, currently, we're using Netflix streamers in our network at metro core locations to give our customers already a better feed video experience and offload from our core network. Our full fiber core network consists of 4 core locations and 160 metro core locations, and through these locations, we are handling cloud traffic closer to the customer, and as a result, have ultra-low latency in our network.
We are already receiving first incomings from large corporate customers, customers that wish to leverage our assets for video and AI-based solutions that need stable and very low latency connections. All in all, we are well positioned to provide these crucial and sensitive services, thanks to our highly distributed infrastructure, and are in the process of developing our value proposition in this space. This will be unique to KPN as they leverage assets that our competitors do not have access to. Over time, actions like fiber deployment, the move to the cloud, and copper phase out will lead to reduced utilization of our passive infrastructure asset portfolio. At the same time, KPN's distributed assets are increasing in strategic value. This creates scope to capture latent value of these assets, and when we look at our digital infrastructure, we will smartly optimize our capital allocation and economics.
For our core networks and services layer, we work with partners, but we will always remain the owner of the networks. In the passive part of the network, we believe that we should find business and capital partners for different subsegments of digital assets. For example, in our fiber business, our fiber core, as we call it, we own the vast majority of the network, but formed a 50/50 JV with APG back in 2021 for the semi-rural part of our networks. And for the pure rural space, we believe alternative solutions will become available in the long term. In terms of mobile sites, we executed sale and leaseback transactions in the past. We will continuously look for ways to optimize ownership of mobile assets here.
The copper decommission program will free up real estate that we do not need to own and can be monetized over time. Here we look at the easily accessible above the ground copper, redundant number exchanges, et cetera. We see opportunity to simply sell in units or in pools, but also develop eInfra opportunities like EV charging or battery hubs. And finally, in the edge space, which I just elaborated on, we are contemplating whether we should be the sole owner of these assets or can speed up the deployment by working with partners that can provide both capital and commercial capabilities. Now, let me walk you through our financial ambitions, and I would like to start with one of the key messages from today, which is the number 337. So what do we mean by this?
As you probably now have understood, our strategy title, Connect, Activate and Grow, abbreviates to CAGR or average growth rate. We aim to create value by growing our business while delivering returns that are well above our cost of capital. It's our ambition to grow our service revenues and adjusted EBITDA by 3% per year and our free cash flow by an average 7% per annum in the coming years. Now, let me start by highlighting some key figures in our financial results. We have delivered on nearly all of our promises, reflecting our strong focus and execution. As promised, we returned to group service revenue growth, driven by all segments as of 2023.
Service revenue growth accelerated throughout the strategic period, and moreover, we were one of the first players in Europe to turn our B2B business into growth, with our SME segment especially delivering double-digit revenue growth rates. In 2024, we see positive growth rates in the consumer segment as well and expect business and consumer growth rates converging towards similar levels. All our segments will be contributing to service revenue growth. Our contribution margin decreased slightly, mainly driven by third-party excess costs and service revenue mix effects. Our net indirect cost saving was somewhat lower than planned, mainly due to well-known inflationary pressures on energy and labor costs. Underlying, we reduced our total staff levels and we reduced energy consumption by 50 GWh versus the start of the period.
Through this, we have delivered adjusted EBITDA growth of 1.3% per annum. Notably, in the second half of this year, we see H2 to H2 EBITDA growth recovering from the inflation-driven dip in the first half and accelerating H2 to H2 towards 2% again. Our EBITDA margin is around 45% and is best in class from a European perspective. Mind you, if you strip out tailored solutions business, which is a lower margin profile, and look at the pure telco or connectivity business, our telco-only margin becomes even more attractive, nearing 48% of revenues.
While we are in the middle of a fiber investment cycle and running with a relatively high CapEx to sales ratio, we managed to comfortably place ourselves in the top half of Europe in terms of operational free cash flow generation at around 23% of revenues. Our operating margins and overall CapEx discipline enable us to invest heavily and still deliver solid free cash flows. We have delivered 6% free cash flow growth per annum and effectively met our guidance that was set during the 2020 capital markets day. Our free cash flow margin over revenues has moved up 150 basis points since 2020, despite this higher CapEx, and moved towards 16% of revenues. Now, let's turn to our ambitions for the coming years, where we've set out clear goals.
On average, our group service revenues will grow by around 3% per year. Within the mix, we are targeting continued growth in consumer mobile and further improvement in consumer fixed service revenues. B2B is expected to continue to grow with a clear inflection in LCE and tailored solutions and continued solid growth performance in SME, though probably not the double-digit growth rate we've become used to in 2023. Our direct costs are impacted mainly by third-party excess costs, such as Glaspoort, and service revenue mix effects and inflationary effects. Through our modern operating savings program, modern operating model program, we will revitalize the cost-cutting progress within KPN to counter inflation and maintain our best-in-class telco margins.
As we discussed before, we will modernize our operating model, which will truly enhance customer experience, accelerates KPN's time to market, and contribute to the next wave of cost efficiencies. The total of our cost ambitions, including, for example, tangible energy and office footprint savings from 2026 onwards, should enable us to deliver a lower indirect cost base at the end of the strategic period versus today. Some of these savings will be back-end loaded, but surely will support our EBITDA growth. With this plan, we aim to achieve an acceleration in our adjusted EBITDA after leases growth towards about 3% per year on average over the next four years, supported by sustainable and durable service revenue growth and continued cost control. Our return on capital is solid and is industry-leading, at least by today's standards.
We intend to keep improving our ROCE like we've done over the past years, underpinned by our investments, cost savings, and expanding growth profile. Good margins translate into good returns on capital, and we foresee to achieve a ROCE of around 15% in our plan period and thereby maintain about a 700-800 basis point spread over our cost of capital. Again, evidence of KPN creating value. All in all, KPN is a healthy company with a strong balance sheet, generating strong margins with a track record of consistently delivering operationally and creating value. CapEx is expected to remain broadly stable at around EUR 1.2 billion until 2026, despite some upward inflationary pressures, and these we will manage inside a typical operational bandwidth.
In 2022, as we finalize the bulk of the fiber rollout program, we'll foresee a material step down on our CapEx, dropping to below EUR 1 billion. Within our CapEx envelope, we see a stable mix between fiber CapEx and non-fiber CapEx in the 2024-2026 period. Our fiber CapEx is expected to remain between EUR 450 million and EUR 500 million per year, or 8% of revenues going forward until 2026. Our investment focus will gradually move from passing homes to connecting homes, with fiber CapEx making a significant step down in 2027 and beyond as we finish the Homes Connected components of our projects. Within our non-fiber CapEx, representing about 14% of revenues, we foresee a small increase in consumer-related CapEx, mainly related to our expanding fiber footprint.
However, this would be a good sign for the business as that would indicate stronger sales growth. Mobile CapEx is expected to remain relatively stable between EUR 100 million-EUR 150 million. Other CapEx is expected to decline due to rationalization and increased effectiveness in infrastructure and IT. After the fiber program is ended, we plan to run our business at around 15%-16% CapEx to sales ratio, which enables us to materially increase our free cash flow margins while staying fully and responsibly invested. We just extensively talked about our 3% EBITDA growth and our flat to declining CapEx. With this, our operating free cash flow will show a decent mid-single-digit growth on average at 2024-2026 periods, fully driven by EBITDA growth.
Including 2027, when we expect to see this material drop in CapEx, we expect a CAGR of around 10% for the entire 2024-2027 periods. Now, let's focus on some of the moving parts of our free cash flow for the coming years. The attractive operating free cash flow profile does not immediately trickle down into free cash flow, and this is because there are a number of factors at play here. First, cash taxes are set to increase in the coming years. In 2024, we expect a step-up of about EUR 50-60 million, with two more steps to absorb in 2026 and 2027, when we have fully utilized our deferred tax assets. After that, our cash taxes are expected to move in line with our P&L taxes.
Our interest expenses are expected to increase by around EUR 35 million in 2024, and after that, we see broadly stable interest costs. So together, our cash taxes and interest costs will increase by about EUR 230 million in 2027 versus today, which will be absorbed by an underlying increase in cash generation. Our working capital initiatives will be delivering a small positive contribution in 2024, after which we foresee a steady state. So to summarize, for 2024, our free cash flow will be in line with this year, despite EUR 100 million headwinds from higher cash taxes and higher interest costs.
After 2024, our free cash flow will grow gradually in line with EBITDA, with another tax step-up to absorb in 2026, which implies low single-digit CAGR until 2026. And as from 2027 onwards, when our fiber project is finalized and our capital intensity drops back to normal levels, we expect a material inflection in our free cash flow, which will then increase to well above EUR 1 billion, representing a CAGR of about 7% over the entire strategic period. We have a very solid balance sheet. Our exposure to floating rates is only 15%, and the average cost of senior debt is 4.1%. Our liquidity remains robust of about EUR 1.6 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 next year. Leverage has been broadly stable at 2.4x , 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 run with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio below 2.5 x in the medium term. Now, let's turn to our outlook and financial ambitions. We reiterate our 2023 outlook like we did at Q3, two weeks ago. Taking what we shared today, we now come to the following financial ambitions for the 2024-2027 period.
For next year, 2024, 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. For the strategic period, we're targeting EBITDA after leases growth of about 3% per year on average. CapEx will remain stable at peak level of EUR 1.2 billion until 2026, after which we foresee a material step down to less than EUR 1 billion. Free cash flow will remain broadly stable in 2024, despite these EUR 100 million headwinds from higher taxes and increased interest costs. Over the 2024-2027 period, we're aiming for a CAGR in free cash flow of about 7%.
Obviously, on a per share basis, things look different because our ongoing share buyback program that reduces the number of shares. Our financial framework is aimed at long-term value creation for all shareholders. In this respect, we are committed to returning our excess cash to our shareholders. Going forward, our cash margins and our strong financial position enable us to continue to deliver attractive shareholder returns from growing dividends, supplemented by share buybacks. Maintaining our progressive dividend policy is sacrosanct to us. Importantly, we see the dividend being comfortably covered by our free cash flow, ensuring a healthy payout ratio that hovers between 70% and 80% in terms of our free cash flow in the coming period.
In order to minimize tax, tax leakage, there will be a change in the shareholder distribution mix, and as a result, there'll be an immediate uplift of 13% to EUR 0.17 dividend per share in 2024, and a 7% dividend per share CAGR thereafter. The remainder of our free cash flow is paid out via share buybacks. Over the past 3 years, we bought back EUR 800 million in shares in total. For 2024, we intend to execute a share buyback program of EUR 200 million to ensure we distribute our full free cash flow to shareholders. Over the entire plan period, 2024-2027, we expect to deliver a total cumulative buyback of up to EUR 1 billion.
That means that, yet again, we will effectively distribute 100% of our free cash flow to shareholders, or alternatively stated, that the distributions are fully covered by the cash we generate. Cumulatively, our growing dividends and planned buybacks will allow 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 the highlights of our Capital Markets Day before we go to our break. Today, we've set out clear goals for the next years, reflected in our 3, 3, 7 CAGR model: 3% revenue growth, 3% EBITDA after leases growth, and 7% free cash flow growth until 2027.
To summarize, in essence, our initiatives and plans will shape a future where KPN stands at the forefront of innovation, connectivity, and sustainability. We are building and monetizing a long-lasting, future-proof network that will support our competitive position for years to come, enabling us to create value for all our stakeholders. We are well on the way to cover 80% of the country with fiber and are increasingly successful in monetizing our investments here. Combining that with new partners, outstanding customer experiences, and digitized customer journeys, we will offer our customers the best quality networks and services in the, in the Netherlands. We are already laying the foundation for future network services that others cannot replicate. To speak in an ice hockey metaphor, we are paid to skate there where the puck is going.
The combination of IoT, under the X, 5G slicing, KPN Campus , and Metro Core Edge capabilities are unique and will cater to our future customer needs. In other words, we've already painted the picture of what our next CMD will probably cover. These investments will help ensure that we continue to become less sensitive to price competition and protect the high margins whilst playing a major part in our strategy to connect, activate, and grow the Netherlands. Financially, we expect to achieve growth in service revenues and profitability, maintain a disciplined approach to CapEx, cost reduction, and as a consequence, attain an industry-leading ROCE of about 15% while providing attractive returns to our shareholders. We've reflected our confidence in this approach by clearly committing to growing dividends and cumulative shareholder returns over the strategic period.
To wrap up, we're immensely proud of our journey to date and want to make sure that KPN continues to be viewed as the leading company, the leading telco, that provides connectivity and empowers its customers to fully capitalize on the opportunities offered by the digital world. Thanks for listening to our story. We'll now take a 30-minute break before we start the Q&A session with our board of management colleagues. Thank you.
... briefly introduce the team that delivered the results. Together we built a plan, and together we will execute the strategy for the coming years. So, first half of this year, we announced the appointment of two new board members. First of all, Chantal responsible for B2B, and Wouter responsible for the technology part of the business. And then we have Marieke who is responsible nowadays for B2C. Over the last four years, she was running the B2B segment. We've had Hilde already for four years as our Chief People Officer, and together with Chris and myself, we will deliver on our connect, activate, and grow strategy. So that's the introduction. Now over to Reinout for your questions.
Thank you, Joost. Before we move to the questions, I would like to ask you to limit your questions to two. Like usual, we've got two ladies in the middle and at the left-hand side with microphones. So once I point to you, the microphone will come to you, and then you can ask your questions to the board. Keval, can you start, please?
Sure. Thank you. It's Keval Khiroya from Deutsche Bank, and I have two questions, please. So firstly, your guidance implies stable margins over the guidance period, despite OpEx savings from fiber and the copper switch off. So to what degree will we see indirect savings from that over the guidance period, and to what degree will they flow through beyond? And secondly, your free cash flow guidance will be a bit more back-end loaded, but when thinking about EBITDA growth, will that be relatively stable over the period, or is there anything we need to take into account with respect to the phasing of direct and indirect costs? Thank you.
Chris, will you take this?
Yeah. Look, on our margins, also there's a question in the break on the perceived lack of operating leverage, the fact that our cash earnings growth is the same as our service revenue growth. Well, two factors at play is: one is, of course, we've got more cost allocators from Glaspoort. So imagine that the Glaspoort cost allocator KPN increased by about EUR 25-30 million next year, and will grow up to about EUR 150 million at the end of the plan period. So, you know, EUR 27 million more cost to Glaspoort, which is kind of 1% of EBITDA growth. So that explains a big chunk of the EBITDA growth, and at the point when we start consolidating Glaspoort, that whole, you know, picture improves considerably. So the value is there, it just doesn't show up.
Second element is, as we said, we've got quite high margins, you know, 48% telco-only margins. We're selling a little bit more of lower-margin products to protect those high-margin telco products. So basically, it's all investing in the stickiness of customers. So you sell somewhat lower-margin products to protect the telco margins. But the most important driver that kind of affects the gap between service revenue and EBITDA growth is the Glaspoort thing, which saves about 100 bps in the revenues of, of margins in the coming period. And to your point, EBITDA growth is stable? Yes, we plan it to be really close to 3%. If you look at H2 to H2 service revenue growth this year, it's already above 3, and we see the momentum continuing. So it actually feels like we could be pretty stable.
You know, next year could be 2.5, 2.7, the year around, 3.2, 3.3, but really hovering around the 3%. It's not very much back-end loaded.
Uh, Andrew.
Yeah, thank you. It's Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. A few things stuck out with your guidance. One of them, for people that have been covering the sector for a while, is 3% service revenue growth. So just the naturally cautious among us wondered whether you what kind of inflation you're factoring into those expectations, because obviously it's a high degree of service revenue growth that you're looking for. And then the second question just relates to your fiber monetization. You put up a slide where you're highlighting how you could generate around EUR 3 extra per customer when you upsell them to fiber.
I just wondered if you could talk about how well you think you're delivering to your potential in terms of monetizing fiber, and how competition has played into your ability to do that.
Yeah. So first of all, in the fiber case, we changed our strategy over the years. In the past, we only sold fiber to customers really acquiring the higher speeds, and in those days, ARPUs differences were much higher between copper and the fiber. And nowadays, we have a more proactive approach to migrate the customer base to fiber faster, which enables us to switch off the copper network faster as well and to sell up in the second phase. But clearly, when we look at the older fiber areas, the ARPU is higher, but especially the penetration rate is much higher, and that's the most important driver for the whole business case, penetration. And the older the areas are, clearly, the higher the penetration is, and especially combined with wholesale, we go above 60%. So that's working.
So nowadays, over the last 2 years, we've been migrating customers more actively to fiber and then sell up in a later phase. But all in all, that's also more efficient for us. We know it works, but takes a while before we really see these penetration rates grow above 60. But immediately, in the first wave, you already go between 5 and 10 up in an area. So yeah, that's super important for us. So it's not, it works. That's for sure. And then, your question on inflation rate in our plans. So-
On inflation, you know, your tea leaves are as good as mine, so we're also looking at a bit of a foggy. But our base assumption is if you look at inflation today, headline inflation is negative. Core inflation runs around 5.5%, meaning that negative effect will fade out. So if you do some numbers and you read reports, you feel like the inflation numbers are converging core and headline towards around 4% next year, then gradually moving down from 3% to 2%. So that's kind of the base assumption, if you wish. I think the positive side of our revenue forecast, it is less. It obviously, the price increase is to some extent baked in there, but it's more driven by volume increases.
So we do predict or plan for base growth across broadband and mobile in consumer and in business, which is effectively extending the, more or less, extending the current run rate of base growth that we've seen in the last, say, 9 quarters on average. So this feels like feasible to me. And if you then take a little bit, look a bit deeper, we see consumer fixed, you know, especially next year, move to 2%+. Consumer mobile will be very strong in Q4 and taper off a bit, and then we see consumer going towards 3%. Business markets to be north of 3%, driven especially by SME. And wholesale next year will be a bit lower, around 1%-1.5%, due to some more technical factors and recover afterwards.
So the good thing about our business, you always have these three levers that kind of dampen out, with increasingly all growth rates converging towards around 3% in all businesses. And underlying is an extension of the current, what I say, commercial momentum, base developments complemented with some price increase, but not... We see this fairly prudent and not assuming very high inflation in the coming period.
Yeah. Okay, Maurice?
Yeah, hi. Thanks. It's Maurice from Barclays. If I can ask a bit about the capital allocation. So I think you talked about up to EUR 1 billion share buyback plan. You've obviously got some M&A you have done, and you're in the midst of trying to buy an MVNO. Curious as to your sort of thoughts about the trade-off of use of capital to buying assets, for example, MVNOs, which bring in wholesale, well, that makes it more retail than wholesale, versus returning the cash to. How do you think about balancing those priorities? Thank you. Given there could be quite a lot of M&A in the next year or three. Thank you.
Yeah. So, that really depends on the assets we're talking about. So, recently, we acquired a company called Primevest, which is more, yeah, more about fiber than anything else. And the business case works. We compare it to what happens if we have to build it ourselves, customers on the network, penetration, et cetera. And then, we decided to buy it for what we consider a decent price. Same for Youfone. That's also a customer base of above 500,000 customers added to our consumer base. But it's all about the business case. So if it works, we'll and we can buy it for a decent amount of money, we'll do it, and if not, then, yeah, we go in ourselves or whatever.
It's case by case, we look at these opportunities.
May I have to add, we plan to return all our cash flow to shareholders. And if you think about doing these smaller bolt-on M&As, like an MVNO or buying the smaller fiber networks, that should also be, albeit able to be do that from the existing balance sheet, the headroom that we have. Remind me, if you think about our EBITDA development and the up to 2.5 x ratio, that means a, you know, nicely expanding headroom, and we think that headroom should, by and large, suffice to pursue any of these small transaction. And of course, as Jo said, they, you first need to make sure they create value and create an attractive ROIC and don't delete your return or dilute your return profile too much.
When they meet the hurdle, we think it's something that you can fund out of balance sheet and make sure your free cash flow is geared towards, you know, returning cash to shareholders. If it would be a really larger transaction, that would all change everything. The bolt-on ones that you described should all be doable in conjunction with and in parallel with the capital return policy that we described.
Yeah. Russell?
Thank you. Yes, Russell from New Street Research. Just on your plans to go to 80% of the country with fiber, could you talk about your plans for the other 20%, please? Could you run through the options that you see it and which ones you prefer and why? And then what is your share within that 20% area, please? How many customers does that 20% affect? Thank you.
Yeah, well, maybe you can, I'll start, and you... So, so, three years ago, we launched the plan to build 80%. And why 80? Why not 100%? First of all, there's super rural areas where the business case doesn't work. We can probably do it with fixed wireless access on 5G, something like that. And second, others are building in the Netherlands as well, and we don't like, a lot of overbuild. Sometimes it's unavoidable, sometimes it is. So at the end, we decide... And, and by the way, you also somewhere in time have to stop with at a CapEx level of where we are today. So that's why we designed the plan around 80. It's a good question. So outside these areas, there are different solutions: either small acquisitions, fixed wireless access.
Perhaps we can make use of other networks if the deal is good for us. So, that is the design. But, for us, it's also important to meet the target in 2027... and then step down in CapEx.
Yeah. I think this pretty much covers it, right? So it's the large-scale rollout is, will be done towards the end of 2026. And thereafter, it's on a business case basis, yeah. So we look at the white spots that are still there in the country, and if there's a business case for rollout, then we will, we'll do that on a smaller scale. And indeed, basically, it's all about connecting homes after that, huh? So there's a lot of rolling out through the streets. So we focus on connecting homes, in those areas where we have fiber. And indeed, there might be small M&A opportunities, what we've seen on the Primevest case.
You see that now the market is nearing the end game in terms of the fiber, how the country is divided, and some of these smaller players are selling out. So we've done also a small acquisition with Glaspoort, the fiber joint venture. So those are opportunities, and at the end, it's all about connecting customers with the best network of the Netherlands. And I think there we're making good progress and also have a plan for the remainder of that part. So I hope that answers your question.
Polo. Oh, sorry. Sorry, yeah. Russell has a question still.
Can I have the floor? Sorry. So, sorry. And, what’s your share of customers within that region? So I mean, does the guidance include, you know, wholesale costs going up to cover the customers that are in that area, for example? Or how should we think about, you know, those customers as they want to take fiber, but you don’t have a fiber product? How will they get fiber from you? You know, that... Is that all embedded within the guidance? I guess what I’m worried about?
Yeah, I think if you look at where we are, right? I think a part, big part of that, that 20% has already been covered by others. Because you've seen that these alt nets, they really started in the areas where we had traditionally low copper speeds. So the more rural areas, it was demand-driven. Customers were, you know, paying upfront a certain fee to get connected. So we already lost a big part of market share there. So you see that we kept a steady, low share in those areas, and it's not really decreasing anymore. So that's already there. So that's a natural evolution where we have higher shares in the areas where we have fiber and lower in copper areas. Big part of the country, we also have high copper speeds, but especially those areas with lower speeds.
So that's implicitly already in there. And there might be opportunities to get something back with these new technologies or covering the white spots. So that's where we are.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah, I already gave it to Polo, this one.
Hi, it's Polo Tang from UBS. Two questions. First one is just on service revenues. Just coming back to your 3% per annum CAGR on service revenues. You made it very clear that there were modest assumptions in terms of pricing. You flagged volume growth. But can I just check what you're expecting in terms of the evolution of competitive dynamics? So specifically, I'm wondering about VodafoneZiggo. They're obviously continuing to lose subscribers. So how do you think about the risk of an aggressive reaction from them going forward? Second question is really just about CapEx, because if I rewind back to the CMD back in 2020, you were originally guiding towards about EUR 1.1 billion-EUR 1.2 billion of CapEx. Obviously, the current run rate is EUR 1.2 billion.
So can I just clarify what had changed over the years? But can I also just zoom into your non-fiber CapEx envelope? Because I think you've guided it for it to be, you know, broadly stable from what I can see going forward. But I'm just trying to understand, where are the moving parts in that non-fiber CapEx? Are any elements going down or are any elements going up? Thanks.
So on the service revenue, development, Chris already explained how we embedded that in the plans, and your question is more about aggressive reactions of competition and how we anticipate on that. Yeah, I think it's clear that every now and then, the Dutch market is pretty aggressive. There's a lot of service providers out there, but three big ones. But it's also clear that we all wanna create value. So every now and then, we see aggressive discounting in the market, but also we see firm price increases by all players in the market and the regional behavior. So all in all, also for us, it's important not to be too aggressive, but to find a steady pace to grow, and not in peaks, but in a steady tempo.
I expect that we can at least meet the 3% on average. CapEx, yeah, so what?
So, on the CapEx, I think, yeah, what has changed? Obviously, here we've seen since 2020, quite a bit of inflation. So what you see in the CapEx is that it's composed of, you know, infrastructure investments on the one hand, and on the other hand, digital IT, which in a lot of instances, is also people. You see that with people sourcing on, you know, on the developments, we have external people, that there's inflation also in those, in those labor rates. So obviously, through strategic sourcing, we're trying to mitigate that, and to a large extent, we have been able to mitigate that because if you would just, you know, increase the original CapEx envelope by inflation, we would be much higher than where we are today.
So we've been able to mitigate most of it, and not everything, and I think on the other hand, there's an offset in the increased revenues through those those inflation. So that is what the business model implicitly assumes, is that you are able to capture that inflation on on both sides, on the revenue side and on the CapEx side. So that that is looking backwards. I think looking forward, you were asking about the moving parts within the CapEx envelope. So we have fiber. So if you look at the other buckets. However, we've seen, you know, first of all, on the fixed infrastructure, that the copper investments will decrease, so that's a bucket that will obviously decrease. On the other investments, we've modernized the network of last year.
So part of the original plan in 2020 was also to upgrade all the more than 5,000 sites we have in the country. So visited all of them and upgraded them with the first generation of 5G. So obviously, there is additional 5G coming up with the spectrum auction next year and the 3.5 GHz. We said we will invest along capacity demands, so we forecast the traffic and invest smartly based on that capacity growth. So the mobile investments will be less than what we've seen over the last years. So that is, that is a part. And then the other parts are on the core network, the what we call the fabric infrastructure.
So obviously, through investing huge amounts in fiber and 5G over the last years, we're also able to now generate new customers on that network. That drives growth, and it also means that we need to cater the core network for that traffic growth. So in the coming years, we'll also have investments in automation of the core network, so driving down the operational costs there, but at the same time, investing in the feeling of infinite capacity and also higher resolution power in the network, automation of the processes, so that will help us to also reap some of the benefits through OpEx. And the last part is in what I was saying, right? On the digital IT side, the digital experience towards our consumer customers, business customers.
There on the one hand, we will continue to see some inflation pressures on the IT investments through the people we have working in these development areas. At the same time, by using new technologies such as SaaS, cloudification, automation, the use of AI, we will be able to source that more efficiently and also make use of more efficient solutions in the digital IT part, which means that we could see a slightly decreasing CapEx figure there. I think that completes it, and that that's all included in this, yeah, EUR 1.2 billion guidance for the coming years and a step down to below EUR 1 billion in 2027.
Okay. Josh, the back.
Thanks very much. It's Josh Mills at BNP Paribas Exane. I had two questions, one on the wholesale revenue outlook, and then another one just on the kind of broader market dynamics. So I think you talked in the presentation around a 1%-1.5% growth rate in wholesale, kind of converging towards this 3%. But what are the moving parts within that? Because I suppose on the volume side, there is risk from overbuilders taking share from you and a mix shift between the products you're selling from VULA to ODF, which I believe is a lower price point. Offsetting that, there's the inflation linkage. So just hearing how you get to the, the, the metric on wholesale revenue growth would be interesting. And then the second question is just around the strategy you're outlining of growing...
You're focusing on base growth more than price growth, perhaps going forward. It looks today like the market is just about holding steady. If you can win some share, VodafoneZiggo loses some. If going forward, your strategy is not to cede any share, and the alt nets will want to grow, that clearly puts your biggest competitor in a difficult position. If all of this drives us towards some M&A scenario where we saw the cable operator get together with the alt nets, do you think that would be a good or a bad thing for KPN in the long run? Thanks very much.
Yep. Josh, on wholesale, a couple of things at play. We see healthy underlying base growth in wholesale, both in mobile and fixed. At this point, the contract that some of our wholesale customers have with alt nets, we don't see it reflecting into churn in wholesale. We think they tend to be quite careful touching customers, so they first pursue new growth in those areas rather than migrating existing customers. So that's not really an issue we see, at least in the short term. It's more technical. Well, look, the good news in wholesale is that we've renewed the contracts with most of our, nearly all of our MVNOs. So the risk of a Germany-style undercutting of a big wholesale customer is virtually nil because we've renewed all our contracts.
In exchange for that, we sometimes give some marketing fees as one-offs, and those come in into next year. So basically, it's the marketing fees one-offs that go into some of our MVNO customers as a part of a extension of their contract. So the good news is, these contracts are all extended and, for quite some time to come now, which also brings stability and predictability in the market. At the short term, you'll see some marketing commitment, marketing fees we give to them as part of the total arrangement. And secondly, under the ACM framework, the ability in the first years to increase your price in wholesale is also a bit less. So that also boils together to 1%-1.5% growth in wholesale, which will then recover in the years thereafter.
Your second question was about finding the balance between base growth and yeah, pricing in consumer market, which is yeah, the balancing act. So perhaps you can-
Yeah, of course.
... touch on that one. Thank you.
So in principle, I think, we would love a future where there is no more price increases for our customers. But, we will continue to be very moderate, like we have been on price increases and also on discounting. Our full focus is on creating value, for money in our base. So we've done over 1 million, copper-to-fiber upgrades now, and we've done over 450,000 speed upgrades in our base to just deliver more value for money. Also, through combine and get more, and a revised, loyalty program. So, we'll just give them a great value for money perception in the base, and, we have modeled our growth moderately. We'll take our fair share of the market growth in-
... the Netherlands, basically. As I said, we'll focus on keeping our base and upping the value of our base by also upping the value for our customers first. That's basically our strategy, and I think it resonates well with my customers, and I think it's a very healthy strategy. So back to M&A, Ziggo.
And, for me, the most important thing, one of the most important thing Marieke introduced over the last six months, is the best way to make the base grow is to focus more on churn instead of acquisition. And it's managing the churn is a very important part of our business. And there's a, it's always, that it's, one can always improve there. So loyalty, as we explained in the presentation, and, rewarding existing customers in the base is, one of the little shifts we make in the market to keep our customers more with us, and then in that way, grow the base in a more decent way.
Georgios.
Good afternoon. It's Georgios Ierodiaconou from Citi. I've got two questions. The first one is on Glaspoort, because I guess you gave us a lot of details, so we can model with a lot of detail, and thank you for that. But the one thing that can change the model quite materially is the one... I believe you have the option to buy one share and reconsolidate the asset. Any plans to do that between now and 2027? And if you don't mind, you mentioned EUR 100 million, I think, should be kind of the EBITDA generation of the business, roughly from what you said, I think, Chris. What will be the other implications? And if you don't mind specifying, I know your CapEx is coming down in 2027.
Is that also the case for Glaspoort, or is there more of a tail in their investment horizon? And then the second question is just on energy, and you have a very useful slide, I think 58, with the energy consumption, also some of the agreements that you have in place. If you could give us roughly in euro terms, what could be the savings between 2024 and 2027, it would be even better for us. Thank you.
Yes, they're both to me. On Glaspoort, technically, the arrangement is, Glaspoort was erected, put in place in 2021, so we can get our access by the controlling or if it's consolidation control. And as the rule says, after five years, there's a window of three years, in the window, we have to meet 80% completion of the Glaspoort CapEx rollout. So after five years, there's a three-year window between 2026 and 2029, when we hit the 80%. When Glaspoort hits the 80% targets of its goals. At this point, so it's not in the plans as of yet, we've just make sure we have a like for like outlook in terms of our EBITDA outlook.
At this point, we assume it, if we do it, we get to proportionate consolidation, so basically, you consolidate 50%, which means by that time, you probably add between EUR 75-100 million, depending on the year that you actually start to contribute. And then there will be some final CapEx, which is the last 20%, so there may be one year or so to go on the rollout of Glaspoort. In exchange for that, we estimate at that time, you get about 0.2x leverage increase as well, which I think at the time would be very well supportable, given, you know, the quality of the EBITDA, given the quality of the balance sheet that we have. So I hope that gives you sufficient room to finish your model.
To finalize the cost line in your model on energy costs, today, we're spending about EUR 100 million, a good 100 million on energy costs, which is basically operating costs on the pure commodity, and the commodity costs, think about this year, we're consuming 425 GWh at about 140, 105 thousand per GWh. Next year, our total energy spend will be roughly stable, meaning our energy spend will be down in terms of gigawatt hours, go to 410, 415. Average spend will be up a bit, simply because this year benefited from the early payment, early procurement from the previous pre-Ukraine years. Then you see a step down in 2025, and another step down in 2026, 2027.
I think when I look at the current, what's implied in the plan, what are we paying today and what's kind of implied in the wind park arrangements, you're looking at a good EUR 30 million of cost savings in 2026, 2027 that would show up. Possibly a bit earlier, depending a bit on how the spot market evolves. And as we said in the presentation, we're also looking at solar opportunities, and they might come on stream a bit earlier. So we'll try to also add additional energy savings in the coming years. But to finish your cost line is kind of EUR 25 million-EUR 30 million of the net savings in 2026, 2027, with the first chunk next year, as prices normalize, or at least the procurement prices go below 100.
If you take a look at 2025 forward rates are now around 110 EUR per MWh, and then we'll go to, like, in the round of the 80s in 2026. Yeah, Konrad.
... Thank you. It's Konrad Zomer, ABN AMRO - ODDO BHF. Two questions. The first one on the return on capital employed of your fiber rollout. You've suggested in previous presentations that the return on fiber is already nearing the average for the group, which in itself is a very good, good return. When do you think you will be able to disclose the actual return you do make on fiber? Because it would make it a lot easier for investors to acknowledge the fact that it leads to very good returns, given the high level of investments. And related to that, do you think the EUR 700-1,000 per household is coming down over the next few years because of scale? Because I seem to remember that it's broadly similar to what you indicated a few years ago.
And my second question, you've indicated before that the move from copper to fiber can reduce your operating spend by between 30% and 50%. And today, we've learned that you've made very good progress on your copper decommissioning. Is the bulk of those savings still to come through in the next few years, or has a lot of it already been absorbed in the current financials, that we may not have spotted them because they've been offset by higher costs elsewhere? Thank you.
I'll suggest, Wouter, you take the question on the copper-fiber switch and the CapEx per household on fiber. And then, Chris, you can give a lecture on ROCE. You want to start?
Sounds like a plan.
Yeah, it's fine. I can, I can start. You can think about the lecture. That's, that's okay. Now, I think on your question on, on CapEx per household, I think we've given this range, because you see that there, there's, you know, easier areas, more dense, low single dwelling units, where it's, relatively, cheaper on the lower end of the range. And when it gets more complicated, you're getting towards the higher end because there's human, work involved in, in the fiber works. So that's why we've given this range. I think the... Also here, a bit of the same story, right? We've seen some inflation in, in these costs there because it's, it's people.
We have 3,000 people working in the country every day on the fiber deployments, both in digging as well as in connecting going into the homes. And that's what we do. We really connect into the, you know, into the living rooms, pretty much. So that's the work involved, and it's really about offsetting, trying to offset that inflationary pressure. So in relative terms, this number is quite stable over the years. Also going forward, that's what we expect. And it's a combination of homes passed and Homes Connect. So, if you, of course, if you have a lower HC percentage, this range will come down.
But our ambition is to have high Homes Connect percentages in the rollout, because then it becomes much easier to connect people once people want to become a customer. So you could say that this is relatively stable. And in terms of the savings in copper, I think part of it is already, we have already banked that because of the switch off, with millions of lines have been switched off. However, you see that there's phases in the copper switch off. So the first phase is really switching off lines. That's what you could say, the relatively easy part, that gives some energy savings and then also less maintenance. The second phase is in the more complicated copper lines, business market lines, business market portfolio, that cannot always be replicated on fiber.
So that's the phase where we're in now, is trying to get to migrate some of those customers that are still on these complicated lines to fiber. And then the third phase is, is really switching off or actually decommissioning. And therefore, you need to to kind of, you know, switch off real areas. So then it's not about lines, but about also, it's about areas. And there's the more, there's the upside in terms of savings, because if you really decommission, you can also decommission the infrastructure around that. The buildings, save on some of the rent, or sell off some of those buildings, and that's what Chris talked about in the, in the passive portfolio, disposals. We can save on maintenance costs, on, reconstruction costs.
So that third phase is typically three years after you roll out fiber in areas, then we can really start decommissioning because of the regulatory period in announcements. So that's still to come. And what we've included in our guidance is what you've seen, is the savings for the coming years until 2027. But there's upside after that because of the real decommissioning of the copper there, and transitioning to a real fiber company in terms of business processes, less service tickets, calls, all of that. Then, Chris, to the ROCE.
So yeah, on ROCE, a few things, Konrad, on ROCE. Look, if you look at ROCE itself, we're obviously quite pleased with how it's being developing, and how it's developing. We aim to deliver 700-800 basis points over the cost of capital. You know, rates have gone up, the cost of capital notably has gone up, so moving the ROCE up to 15% helps us get there. Before we get into fiber, you'll see the coming dynamics that this year were pretty good. Then next year, we've got a spectrum auction coming up. You'll see more fiber on your balance sheet with this, which depreciates lower.
So I expect this year to see, for the full year, ROCE going up nicely, and then the speed of ROCE taper off a bit, as you have a spectrum auction will give you a certain amount of, you know, additional capital employed and, you know, a bigger chunk of fiber assets that depreciate lower, that basically your denominator, you know, works a bit against you in the development. So ROCE will not go down, but the speed of growth will just flatten off a bit. But obviously, we look at it from a to see if we create value.
Unfortunately, we don't intend to disclose ROICs or Rs on a different product level, simply also because you, one, run in the trap of discussing how you allocate costs, and once you start, yeah, disclosing one product, you start disclosing two products, and before you know it, it all becomes extremely cumbersome. So our strategy is to give you guys all the tools to do the work, and I think given the metrics that we've given on customer homes passed, on penetration, ARPU lift up, I think you, you can quickly run through your own numbers and see that's value-creating. And thirdly, we think for fiber, given that it's such a long-term asset, ROCE in itself doesn't really measure the value. It's an IRR thing, right? Because this really is a 20-year-30-year product.
So we jokingly say, I think the successor of my successor will still be happy that we've made this investment. So with that, we think it's probably more an IRR and payback time thing than a ROCE thing. But trust me, it is... I would say it, it is sufficiently and widely, attractively returning for us, even if we don't disclose individual project IRRs.
Uh, Steve?
Thanks. It's Steve Malcolm from Redburn Atlantic. A couple of questions. Just to follow up on Josh's question on wholesale, can you just give us an idea within that, you know, what's happening to your, your third-party volumes? And within those volumes, you know, when they trade up from copper to fiber, what's the average price increase? There's a lot of mix of products in there. That would be helpful. I know you've got specific caps at the moment.
Then just coming back to ROCE, following up on the question just been asked, it's a nice problem to have, but, you know, when you're looking forward six, seven years to the end of the current regulatory cycle, is there an upward limit on ROCE that, you know, clearly, you don't directly steer the business on that, but that would make you worried that the regulator might, you know, look at you slightly dimly, the returns you're making? Fifteen percent is great. Twice returning cost capital is great, but is there a point at which you feel commercially, possibly vulnerable, you're making too much, or the regulator might look, you know, in a slightly less favorable light on your fiber investment? Thanks.
Well, yeah. Should I pick up the whole, the wholesale, basically, the switch from copper to fiber adds a few euros a month to ARPU, so you're looking at probably EUR 4- EUR 5 a month. But notably, most of our clients are pretty picky on picking up relatively cheap wholesale lines that, you know, helps them in their margin in the way they price. So, so when we're switching off copper, you'll see an ARPU uplift that will gradually start to happen in the coming periods. But as the word is gradual here, we also give them some sort of a, a marketing compensation to compensate for that loss.
So that is a factor that will feature in quite gradually in the coming years, and you'll probably see more of it at the end of the plan period than the front of the period. On ROCE, is there a time when you have too much? I'd love to live in that period. I think let's first have that problem and then discuss it. But I think also, practically speaking, once you get to 15% ROIC, it's very hard to increase it. Simply, at some point, your denominator starts to work against you. I think 15% is at the upper end of the, of the telco landscape. It also is, you know, featured by cost control. So I would say, looking for our cost control supports, is that something that we earn? It's not something that the regulator should be worrying about.
So my point of view is, when you move to the upper echelon of telcos, driven also cost developments, and smart investment, that should not be a problem. But also, I think effectively, I don't see the ROCE moving up a lot beyond 15%. At some point, you know, the laws of gravity also start to count for KPN. So I think that's probably what we should plan for, and that's, I think, where we will then stay.
Luigi?
Yeah. Good afternoon. Thank you. It's Luigi Minerva from HSBC. One question on Glaspoort, if you can share with us the dividend policy before you consolidate and after. And the second question is on your share buyback guidance that there is legislation work in progress at the Senate. So is your guidance based on the current legislation, and how would it change if the draft legislation becomes the new status quo? Thank you.
Yeah. Well, the current guidance is based on the current legislation. We don't know what's going to happen in Dutch parliaments, but, of course, we can always react on that. So, currently, we do not include future possible legislation into, our share buyback policy. But like I said, optimizing between dividend to share buyback is also what we already announced for next year when it comes to, existing, tax legislation. Glaspoort? Yeah, I mean, the, the dividend policy of Glaspoort is at, at this point, of the Glaspoort is in fully in investing mode. So, I said, you know, jokingly say, if we added Glaspoort, if it would, it would add... If we consolidated today, we'd probably add EUR 25 million 1% EBITDA growth. It would also add CapEx to it.
So, you know, in all fairness, there's, they're investing mode. The different policy of Glaspoort is to have a target amount of leverage and basically make sure that the cash generated and leverage together are met, and that all the cash is being paid out to shareholders. So basically, it has a Net Debt / EBITDA ratio, and says, "This is what we want to have," and all the excess cash is being paid to shareholders. So at some point, Glaspoort will be quite a nice cash addition to KPN, but effectively it happens when, you know, the cash that Glaspoort generates exceeds the amount of CapEx that Glaspoort produce, also needs. So that's probably at the end of just around the consolidation period.
... There's a follow-up from Luigi.
So I presume that will happen once you will consolidate the assets, so APG will get a dividend at that point, and can we roughly quantify it, if possible, or?
We're probably closer to 2026. If we can bring it forward, I wouldn't mind. I mean, this thing normally happens when you need your CapEx needs to hit the 80% mark. That's the threshold for us thinking about consolidation, and then we time it smartly. So we'll be around when the CapEx at Glaspoort is 80% of all the homes passed have been achieved, which I guess is around 2026-2027, in that area. And then at that time, I guess there will be some remaining CapEx that you consolidate, but that's at that time, I would estimate that Glaspoort is already cash positive, and it quickly becomes very cash positive as the CapEx dwindles after that.
Uh, Usman?
Hi, thank you very much. It's Usman from Berenberg. I just wanted to ask regarding the fiber build-out. So, the bulk of the fiber build-out of the Netherlands still to come is in the Randstad. Obviously, high-rise buildings in that region, where cable, you know, has kind of a historic relationship with landlords. So do you see that, you know, for fiber builders like KPN to try and persuade landlords to, you know, upgrade the building for fiber, is more of an uphill task? Or do you... Have you already done a lot of the groundwork, so you don't have an issue there?
Wout just mentioned the difference between SDU and MDU rollout, and that's the way for us to handle now, but yeah.
Yeah, sure, I can answer the question.
Um-
I think, indeed, you know, it's not that we have done nothing, right? In the big city. So we've started in The Hague already, years ago, in Amsterdam, partly. Eindhoven is pretty much completely done. So we have experience also with multi-dwelling units, and it depends on, you know, one constructor is more successful than the other. So it also depends on the partner you work with, and there's also innovation in high-rise plugs and anything around that. So I think we are getting more successful. It is sometimes tough. There is no in-building ducts or anything in a lot of buildings, so it's a lot of—it's in the preparation. Not so much the technical complexity, but more the preparation in getting permits to enter the apartments in different corporations, basically, permits.
So all of that is in good preparation, and we have experience there. So also in the high-rise buildings, we're able to reach 50%, 60%, 70% HC. It takes a bit longer, so you need to be a bit more patient also as a customer, but there is experience. I think the benefit there, you, me, and Miek mentioned, it's cable is there, right? In the bigger cities. Also, in the market shares, we see that our market shares are generally lower in the denser areas in the cities. So it is an opportunity, you could say, but 'cause in a lot of cases, customers didn't really have a real alternative to cable.
So we see we're actually building an alternative, and we're convinced that we can, you know, get more share because the fiber is a real alternative to in-house cabling, as you've seen it historically, especially in the Netherlands with high cable density. So I think it's an opportunity to come, but hard work and sometimes complex. But we're convinced we can make it also there.
Thank you. And, my second question was just on mobile. I mean, your guidance... I mean, you know, if there was to be a Huawei rip-and-replace kind of mandate in the Netherlands, and obviously there, there's a discussion on what the EU might impose next year, but if that scenario was to occur, you know, do you have a buffer within the guidance, or would that be kind of unexpected negative? And, I'd be really grateful if you could maybe answer that in the context of you know, Open RAN slash virtualization technologies and what your ambitions are there. Thank you.
Yeah. So, on Huawei, we already for a couple of years have a clear strategy, or I should say, on our vendor policy. We have multi vendors like Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei as well. We also announced that we only work in the future with, yeah, like we call Western vendors, on the critical domains, and we agree with our government on the... what's critical and what's not critical. So there's legislation. I think, in the Netherlands, we're doing good on the 5G toolbox, regulation from the EU, at least we do. And we are fully aligned with our government. And having said that, there's always a fallback scenario for unexpected things to happen. So of course, when we look at the risk analysis in a broader sense, then we do also the what-if scenarios.
So we are convinced that where we currently are, and RAN being considered as non-critical, we are doing good. And if I could mention a possible fallback, then I would say that's more an operational challenge than a financial challenge. Over the last years, we've been swapping from Ericsson to Huawei, so we had a dual vendor RAN over a couple of years, and so yeah, the main challenge is how to manage that. Every year, we do, like, EUR 150 million in a mobile network. So like I said, I think it's more an operational challenge. But like I also said, I think we are doing good, and that we are aligned with our government, and that we follow the same route as they follow in Germany, for instance, or the U.K.
Maybe to add on Open RAN, I think you mentioned those developments, right? I think, of course, we monitor those and we've said we're also gonna launch more private campus 5G type solutions. So you could think about the trials there. But I think if you look at the technology developments, it's the Open RAN is not super mature yet. We see it's mainly deployed in greenfield deployments in what we've seen so far. It's also mainly for especially 5G, not so much for we still have 2G, right? So there might be more mature technologies towards, let's say, the end of this decade, which could, you know, indeed be in line with our next swap, and then it could play a role.
As you not only talk about Open RAN, but also Cloud RAN and managing the network more efficiently there. That, of course, is a solution we could take into account for a next potential swap in the future towards 6G standardization, 2G phase out. All of that is becoming more relevant towards those years to come.
Okay. Nuno?
Thank you. This is Nuno Neves from Société Générale. Two questions. One on fiber CapEx. From what I understood, in 2027, it's roughly cut in half. My question is: why does it not reduce further? I understand your point about connecting homes, but my understanding is also that you are connecting homes already quite aggressively. So to understand that a little bit better, and does that imply that fiber CapEx would continue to go down the next years as more and more homes are connected? And if you could just—if you have a range for what would be sort of a fiber CapEx that would keep in line with the organic growth in households in the Netherlands, so you'd keep your coverage at a stable rate. And then just a quick follow-up on your points on copper decommissioning.
I understood that the cost savings that you disclosed today do not include this last phase, when you actually remove all of the infrastructure. I was wondering if you could give us any data points on when that final phase would actually end, and what would be the run rate savings of that, or any numbers you could give us on that? And just a quick follow-up is also: what would be the benefit of selling the real estate that you mentioned, and when would that happen? Thank you.
Well, shall I take the-
Yeah
... the fiber CapEx question? I think indeed, it's a relevant question, right? I think we've said that there's a material step down towards 2027. There's still some spend in not only HC, but also HP, because of the payment terms. So you see that with the contractors, once you close a project, there is a final payment in that last period to keep the incentive of finalizing the projects in the right way. So we have some phase-out payments still in the years after 2026 for the projects that run off to complete the 80%. That's one. Then indeed, as you already mentioned, the Homes Connect, so we still invest.
What you saw on one of the slides in the deck, you see HC gradually going up, let's say 1-3 years after finishing the HPs. So that is still a part there. And thirdly, as you also mentioned, there's new build, so we still have growth, 70,000-80,000 homes passed per year in terms of new build, which we typically connect also with 100% HC connection. And we are quite successful in new build in winning market share there. So those investments, those three type of investments will still be there after 2026 in the fiber CapEx. Then on the copper phase-out, I think what you mentioned on this final phase, if you think about the fiber plan, we have basically large-scale rollout completing 2026.
And you think about, you know, let's say three years after you finalize the projects, you can start, you know, working on this third phase of really, you know, decommissioning and really stopping certain areas instead of only switching off the lines. So then you, again, towards the end of this decade, 2029, 2030, where you should see the more material savings around that. A specific number there, it goes together also with... It's not only about copper phase-out, it's also about automation and AI in the processes. So we've given also in the presentation some guidance on, you know, if you look at our operational tasks, we think we're able to reduce more than 50% of that in the years to come.
That adds another, you know, saving potential also after the years 2026, 2027. We haven't given any specific guidance in the years after that, because it's looking beyond the four-year typical period. But really by a combination of, you know, rationalization, that's the copper phase-out, simplification also in the IT, automation, AI, and cloudification, we're able to, you know, definitely have more efficiencies also in the years after that. That will support the financial developments in those years.
Yes, Hans.
Yes, just going back to all the automation you're planning in terms of AI, use of chatbots, maybe automating the network and also the switch of the copper network. What are your assumptions in terms of headcount growth during the planned period?
Yeah. So we don't announce a big headcount reduction. It is clear that we will further simplify the company. Then today, we work with a lot of hired help as well, so in the future, we will for sure need less of that. But if you take into account that we are working to an always-on fiber co, which is completely different than where we are today. Today, if we serve a customer, field engineers go out to a number exchange, the street cabinet, to a household. On an always-on network, we only have to worry about how to get the hardware to the customer's premises.
... That is the target, and that will lead to far less people than we have today. But that's a longer-term vision, because in between, we're rolling out fiber, connecting households, and connecting all these customers. So for the years to come, at least on the field engineer side, we need a lot of hands out there in the market. But Hilde, yeah, I would say it's simplification we will follow when it comes to our-
Yeah
Headcount, right?
Yeah, in the end, we do believe that our people are our most valuable asset, so to say that, so we don't set a target on that. But of course, FTE reduction will contribute to the cost savings, as we always did. But it will come from automation, digitization, and simplification of our organization going forward. So yeah, and on the other hand, indeed, we still have to invest because of the rollout of the fiber footprint.
Yeah, so 10,000 people in the company, 2,500 we hire, and then a lot of people out there, more, hired by our contractors, is for sure a model we can simplify further in the years to come.
Yeah.
Usman?
Hi, thank you for the follow-up. I guess a question on capital allocation. I mean, you've described today, I mean, you know, ownership of some assets, like the internet exchange, like, you know, 160 metro core locations. There are... I mean, judging by the commentary of infra funds and the investment going into edge infrastructure and data centers and AI, that could be pretty valuable, and potentially in the hands of an infra fund could generate much better utilization rates than KPN can on this infrastructure, just using it for CDN.
So, I mean, how are you thinking about monetization of this, and you know, how advanced are you in consideration of potential monetization of this infrastructure? Thank you.
Yeah. So very interesting question. Look, it's first of all, I want to say that for us, like a net cost share cost that is being talked as kind of, kind of, almost like an obsolete question. So we think about more optimization of ownership or economics per asset class. As we did on fiber, we want to own, you know, the urban fiber and have a JV with the rural fiber. We obviously are looking at our towers and to get probably a little bit more control there. And on the other asset classes, look, it's early days, but we think there's an edge opportunity out there that requires some investment. It's clear that we, for these assets, we want to be the majority owner. We have to consolidate, we want to be the majority owner.
I think it's also from a regulatory perspective, if you are the incumbent, if you want to have a quality proposition, if you think a big chunk of the country will run on your assets, that you want to have control. I think also the regulator would like, you know, KPN to have some extent of control of these assets. But then again, bringing in a partner that brings in capital and knowledge to help expedite the development of those services is something we welcome. It's extremely early days, so it is more of a set-up phase than anything else, but it's along the lines of our thinking, the same thing we did with Glaspoort. So our thinking is you think asset class by asset class, to what extent do you want to fully own or share some infrastructure economics? We're not just looking for capital.
If you want to look for capital, it's also something that brings in, someone that brings in, yeah, business acumen and helps you expedite building this business and business insights. So, early days, but that's something that we will explore in the coming periods, I think. It's not... Don't expect an edge deal tomorrow. But as I said, in order to expedite the edge claim of the Netherlands on providing this, if someone can help us with capital and knowledge to really accelerate, that we'd be open to consider.
Frank?
Execution-
Wait, wait, just a second. Frank? Frank, yeah. Yeah.
Execution in AI, in the cloud, is quite different versus execution in rolling out fiber. How do you manage execution in AI and cloud? A lot of large corporates are quite poor in IT execution. Why is KPN different?
Well, I would say, look at our results. But you know, we're not the kind of company that is talking about AI as a theme up there in the sky. So we have concrete work streams. The way we work is that we always want to measure what we do, and then we can follow up on what we measure. And so we're not talking about AI on a very high level. We have currently clear use cases. We're expanding these, and it's all to improve our own operating model. That's what we decided. AI, telcos are a little bit late on that, by the way. AI could be really helpful to improve our operating model.
One of the most important streams is between the back end of the company, what's happening in the networks, and what's happening in the front end of the company, and combine the information. Then, we'll come to very interesting conclusions on how to improve the way we run KPN. That's currently happening. So of course, more convincing story will be if we come up with KPIs for you to explain more what we do, but-
Maybe one or two ultimate examples?
Well, well, one conclusion is perhaps... Well, you can explain better than I could, that we found out that how interruptions in our network is often organized by the organization itself. So people, customers calling in-
... for some reason, then comes out that it's, something we arranged ourselves, but maybe you can-
No, sure. So we've worked on a couple of— There's more traditional AI, and that, the rule-based AI, we're already working on that for years, right? If you think about plan, build, and run, especially in the design of the networks, yeah. So years ago, it took us, you know, months to design a new fiber area. Nowadays, it's a matter of, you know, tens of minutes to design a new fiber area. So that is also learning by using all the sources that are there in design, so that's there. In running the network, that's the example that Joost gave, we're able to... And that's more gen AI, so that's different than the traditional AI.
We're able to now use the customer sentiment we see on all the channels, all the sources we have, to, well, basically see where we have potential network disruptions and be much more efficient in, finding those disruptions in the network, or even preventive communication to customers, without sending engineers, because we know it's not in the access network, but it's somewhere else. And though those solutions are there, they're live, they're in the service quality centers, and that gives us real savings, especially in terms of, calls to the call centers, tickets going around in the organization. So those cases are live, both in the network as well as on the customer side. And that's one of the examples that is there.
Maybe to add-
Yeah, please.
A little bit. So our customer service today is already augmented by what we call a digital coach, on both the quality of the answer and the empathy that they show with the customer to learn on both sides. We use AI a lot to get the right offer to the right customer. So we use it a lot in churn prediction, having locking, re-locking in the right customers with the highest churn risk. And we use generative AI currently already in summarizing the calls to our call center.
So that both time is saved for the agent in first call resolution and if they call a second time, a lot of time is saved, but it also gives me the opportunity to really analyze what my customers are calling about. So, it gives us a huge upside to go for a really high perfect start with the KPN and a really high first call resolution. And actually, next step, which we are already implementing now, is preventing the call. So, proactively, doing mass market communication in case of a disruption.
Uh, Vikram?
Thanks. So my question is on the market structure. So, trying to understand, you know, the consumer market dynamic, both in mobile and fixed line. So, when I look at the mobile market dynamic, the market structure kind of looks a bit more rational, at least in terms of market share. Pricing is low. So, would you say, in terms of your targets that you've set out, the confidence is higher probably on the mobile growth outlook and potential for up-selling over there, versus fixed line, where there is still a bit more tension in terms of, you know, how much T-Mobile wants to gain in the market share over there, and you don't want to kind of, you know, come into the wrong side of regulators by coming out with bold price increases? So, could you kind of just talk about the mix of those two markets?
So indeed, the mobile market seems more rational, where the MNOs go for unlimited, and Odido is even introducing speed tiering now. So, and we see a huge uptake in unlimited with KPN as well. On the KPN side, it will make it worthwhile to put all the SIMs in a household with KPN, so through MB sharing. We see that the bulk of the market growth goes to the no-frills, and we also have a clear no-frills strategy. And hopefully, at some point, ACM will also approve on our Youfone acquisition on that. On fixed, indeed, we see, you see that throughout Europe, fiber is superior to cable. So, you do see that there is some suffering at our colleagues at Ziggo, from going to fiber.
I think they have to rethink their value for money. But I do also expect what you see is that we are able to deliver it best on fixed. And I came from one of the competitors, and with you, you can't sort of, 140 years of history in fixed is very hard to copy on service excellence, on actual internet experience, because the customer experiences Wi-Fi or the entertainment they consume. So, I'm very confident that we can deliver that value for money, and I see that with the rebranding of Odido, they do give a new feel, eh? You can even hear their board saying that it was very hard to get the recognition on fiber being called T-Mobile. But let's see how they make it happen.
I think if you want to get some more details there, ask about their call capacity on fiber, and see how happy their customers are. For now, we have the highest ranking MPS. So, let's continue my own game on that. Is that enough?
Also-
...Yeah, thank you. Yes, Russell from New Street again. I was just wondering if you could just talk about wage growth, please, for 2024 and over the period to 2027. I mean, I guess there's a natural hedge, you know, if inflation's higher, then so is your CPI in the contracts, but just wanna, you know, check that that's the right way of thinking about it. And then the second question is just, I think, Odido has announced plans to roll out in some of the big cities. You know, do you think that's there's a credible chance that you're overbuild in any of those areas? And is that a risk to wholesale revenue, and is that factored into your forecast? Thanks.
On CLA, yeah, Hilde just started the discussions with the unions, right?
Yeah. Well, last year we increased the wages with 6% on average in the company for our employees. Yeah, actually, we just started the negotiations with our unions this week. So it's actually too soon to give a number at the moment. But of course, we always look at the market, the trends, and also find the right balance, what is needed for our employees versus what we, as a company, think is the right thing to do.
But you're right, there's some kind of a hedge in the system because we always refer to CPI, of course, when it comes to wages and also when it comes to price increases, especially on the consumer side. That's also the balance we seek, also to explain why we increase prices to customers. So in a certain way, it's balanced out in our system. ODF?
Yeah, I think the, indeed, if you see it, what I was discussing, right? Some of the alt nets, we've first seen it in the rural areas, and now indeed in some of the bigger cities, because we can't do everything at the same time. But I think we are determined on our plan to reach this 80%. And what we're seeing is that, you know, especially also in the big cities, we have a focus on Homes Connect next to Homes Passed. We see that some of our competition is mainly focused on rolling out as fast as possible through the streets. We really see the benefit in connecting, you know, homes, apartments, buildings, all at once. And as I said, that requires careful preparation.
The advantage we have is that we have a certain level of penetration already, yeah? So you see that once we upgrade from copper to fiber, the average share we have is, let's say, 35%-40%. So we already have a lot of customers in those areas, and that helps in getting permits also from housing corporations because you have ambassadors in those buildings. So this is the real benefit of being an integrated operator, very strong ISP on the one side and a network company on the other, and that's why we're so focused on this end-to-end fiber optimization, especially in the big cities, to have this, this approach.
We also see that when there is overbuild or there is someone else that has already fiber, and we roll out, typically we lose a bit of share, but we're able to get it back once we have our own fiber. In one or two years, we're back to the market share that we originally had. So we're not really afraid of this overbuild, especially because it's mainly for the streets, and we're so much focused on connecting homes and customers, and that's the plan we have and execute on.
Yeah, maybe, maybe on the wholesale implications to your question, as Wouter said, there's quite a gap. You got homes passed and Homes Connected. You can cover the streets, you can pass a home, and you can connect a home. So when your competitor is focusing on covering the streets, that means the step from actually connecting home is quite a significant one in terms of cost, but also in terms of work. So what we see today is their penetration level of the Homes Connected is actually not that high and far below ours. In a sense, it's not easy if you are on their network to connect your customers. So at this point, we don't see a major shift of wholesale customers being moved away.
I think if anything, others on the network are focusing on trying to sell what is connected and trying to sell new customers first, and don't really bother about migrating customers away, also because the Homes Connect rates are way too low to, you know, put that strategy up in at large. And secondly, I think there's also a learning. Once you start touching a customer to move from one network to another, there's always the risk of churn. So the combination of low Homes Connect and the, you know, sensitivity of touching a customer makes that migration at this point is actually not visible at all. Any further questions in the audience? Then I would like to wrap up here. The Q&A is concluded.
For everyone on the webcast, thanks for joining us, and if there's any further questions, please contact the IR team. For everyone here, let's have a drink. Thank you very much.