Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to KPN's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Please note that this event is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question and answer session towards the end of today's prepared remarks. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the call over to your host for today, Reinout van Ierschot, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.
Thank you, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for joining us today. Welcome to KPN's third quarter 2023 results webcast. With me today are Joost Farwerck, our CEO, and Chris Figee, our CFO. As usual, before turning to our presentation, I'd like to remind you of the Safe Harbor on page two of the slides, which also applies to any statements made during this presentation. In particular, today's presentation may include forward-looking statements, including KPN's expectations regarding its outlook and ambitions, which were also included in the press release published this morning. All such statements are subject to the Safe Harbor. Let me now hand over to our CEO, Joost Farwerck.
Thank you, Reinout. Welcome, everyone. We will give you a brief update on our third quarter results. We continue to deliver positive results with our current strategy. Group service revenues continue to grow sustainably, with all segments contributing. B2B is being fueled by strong SME growth again. In consumer, fixed service revenues increased this quarter, while mobile service revenues continued to grow. Both broadband and postpaid reported ongoing positive base inflow, reaching 70,000 broadband and 30,000 postpaid net adds. This quarter, we added 261,000 fiber households together with our joint venture Glaspoort, and this also includes more than 120,000 households from our recent acquisition of Primevest.
While our cost base continued to be impacted by energy, wage indexations, and other inflationary headwinds, we delivered solid adjusted EBITDA growth compared to last year. Our year-to-date free cash flow was mainly impacted by intra-year CapEx phasing, but we remain fully on track to deliver on all outlook items for 2023. Chris will give you more details on our financials later. First, I'll take you through some business details. As we are now more than halfway through our ambitious fiber build plans to reach 80% fiber coverage of Dutch households by 2026, it's time to share our plans for the future, and therefore, we look forward to providing you with a strategy update for the coming years at our Capital Markets Day. That will be hosted on Tuesday, the 7th November, at our headquarters in Rotterdam.
We look forward to welcoming you there or online for the webcast. As I mentioned, we added more than 260,000 households to our fiber footprint, and so we now cover 55% of the Netherlands with fiber. Our fiber business case continues to deliver results. We've generated EUR 1 billion of fiber service revenues in B2C in the last 12 months, and the double-digit growth rate is driven by a solid base inflow and an attractive ARPU. All in all, fiber remains at the heart of our strategy to create long-term value for all stakeholders. Let's now take a look at our consumer segment. Adjusted consumer service revenues increased for the second quarter in a row. Mobile service revenues kept its growth at 5%. For the mobile portfolio, the 8.4% price adjustment has been implemented in October.
Our fixed business inflected in the third quarter, supported by ongoing solid broadband base developments and the 6.4% price increase per July. Our customers remain a top priority. This quarter, our Net Promoter Score declined to 13. Given the inflation levels seen over last year, the price increases we implemented are also higher than customers were used to, and this was one of the main reasons for the drop in NPS last quarter. We continuously strive to provide the best connectivity and customer experience. This is a focus point for us, and I'm convinced we will gradually move up NPS back to its usual level. In the meantime, we're still doing better than other providers in the market, and we were once again recognized as the best internet and mobile provider in the Netherlands through another award by Tweakers.
Let's take a deep, deeper look into our third quarter consumer KPIs. Our focus on base management and commercial execution is paying off, as we saw another quarter of broadband base growth. In the third quarter, we realized 70,000 net adds of broadband users, and our fixed ARPU grew 2.6%. Postpaid base increased by 33,000, while the postpaid ARPU increased 2.8% year-on-year, resulting in sustained mobile service revenue growth of 5%. So that's a good quarter on the consumer. Let's now move to B2B. In B2B, we saw continued strong revenue growth in the business segments. B2B adjusted service revenues grew by 4.2% year-on-year, fueled by SME. SME is doing very well.
Business Net Promoter Score continues to improve and was +6 in Q3. In this respect, we remain the Dutch market leader as customers continue to value KPN for the stability, right, reliability, and quality of our networks and services. Like I said, SME continues to be the main growth engine in B2B, driven by solid commercial performance in both mobile and broadband, and our cross-sell strategy to ICT services, all on the KPN EEN platform. The LCE turnaround remains a priority. In the third quarter, we saw our revenue slightly declining again after three quarters of small growth. The decline was mainly driven by reduced mobile and fixed traffic, lower roaming related revenues, and ongoing competitive dynamics in the mobile markets.
It's a difference of EUR 3 million, but we clearly see employees being managed by larger companies not to miss huge handsets abroad. Especially lower roaming revenues is impacting the LCE a bit. This remains a focus item for us. Lastly, the tailored solution business remains subject to the timing of projects. Third quarter was solid, and we also see that the performance is gradually moving to a more profitable level in this area. To conclude on business, LCE inflection is a focus point for the B2B management team, and while at the same time continuing to deliver SME growth and keep on improving profitability in tailored solutions. In wholesale, service revenues increased by 5.4%, with strong growth in both mobile and broadband compared to last year.
The wholesale broadband base grew by 14,000, continuing the growth of the last quarter. So in total, consumer and wholesale together, we activated 31,000 new broadband connections on our network this quarter. The number of postpaid SIMs declined, but this was fully driven by a cleanup of 32,000 2G, so legacy machine-to-machine SIMs, and one single wholesale customer. Let me now hand over to Chris to give you more details on our financials.
Thank you, Joost. Let me take you through our financial performance, and let me start by summarizing some key figures for the third quarter. First, adjusted revenues for the third quarter increased 2.2% year-on-year. Strong service revenue growth across all segments outpaced lower non-service revenues. Second, we saw growth in the third quarter on adjusted EBITDA after leases at 1.8% in the plus, despite upward cost headwinds from wage inflation, higher energy costs, and other inflationary effects. So far, our quarterly EBITDA delivery has behaved fully in line this year with the pattern as we indicated at the beginning of the year. And finally, free cash flow decreased by 18% in the first nine months of the year compared to last year, mainly due to inter-year CapEx phasing and higher cash taxes.
I'll offer more detail on underlying cash developments later in the presentation. Group service revenue growth accelerated to 3.8%, underpinned by growth in all segments. Business service revenues grew by 4.2%, mainly driven by the ongoing strong SME performance. Roughly 2/3 of the SME service revenue growth in the third quarter was driven by high margin access and connectivity revenues, and 1/3 was related to lower margin ICT revenues, which of course, increases share of wallet customer stickiness as well. Wholesale showed solid growth again, with service revenues up 5.4% year-on-year. And in consumer, mobile service revenues continued to grow strongly, and in fixed, service revenues finally went to growth mode, supported by group broadband base developments and a price increase.
Fixed service revenues are in the plus for this quarter and will remain so into the next quarter. We have generated EUR 562 million in free cash flow so far this year, making our cash margin hover around 14% of revenues. The decline so far for the last year is mainly explained by different phasing of fiber-related CapEx and higher cash taxes. In line with our outlook of EUR 870 million, that we stick to, free cash flow growth will be weighted towards Q4, reflecting a timing of CapEx phasing, also relative to last year, and improvements in working capital. Finally, we ended the quarter with a cash position of almost EUR 580 million, absorbing the interim dividend payments over 2023 in August.
We continue to have a strong and resilient balance sheet at the end of September. As a result of higher floating rates and debt issuance, the average cost of senior debt increased by 87 basis points year on year to 4.1%, and yet our exposure to floating rates was further reduced to only 15%. Leverage remained at 2.4x net debt to EBITDA, which is below our self-imposed ceiling of 2.5x . We expect a lower leverage level by the end of the year. Interest cover remains strong at 12.3x . Net debt increased by EUR 254 million compared to last year, mainly driven by different phasing of free cash flow generation and the acquisition of Primevest.
Our total liquidity remains robust, consisting of about EUR 1.6 billion in cash and short-term investments and our undrawn revolving credit facility. This includes a EUR 600 million senior bond issued in July, which further strengthened our liquidity position and increased the average maturity of KPN's outstanding debt. This provides ample flexibility to pursue bolt-on growth investments as they may arise, and to acquire spectrum in the next coming up 3.5 GHz auction, expected to take place somewhere next year. Let us turn to our outlook and ambitions for next, for 2023. As Joost said, we are on track to deliver on our 2023 outlook that we provided to you in January for the metrics you see on screen.
On the first of August, we paid an interim dividend in respect of 2023, of EUR 0.052 per share. So to summarize, we generated solid financial revenues and results in Q3, with accelerating group service revenue growth trickling down into EBITDA growth. Group service revenues are growing sustainably, with all segments continuing to contribute. We had another quarter of positive net adds in broadband and mobile and consumer, especially on broadband. Our base is higher at the beginning of the year, and our base is also higher than last, last year this time around. Our fiber rollout program remains at a solid pace and has a proven attractive return profile. Finally, as expected and planned for, our EBITDA and free cash generation will be back-end loaded this year.
Looking at the sustainable service revenue growth run rate, the measures we've put in place and this quarter's results provide us with confidence to achieve our ambitions in Q4. Therefore, we confidently reiterate our full year 2023 outlook, both on EBITDA and on free cash flow. Thanks for listening to this short presentation. Let's turn to your questions.
Thanks, Chris, and, please be reminded to limit your questions, to two each. Operator, over to you, please.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will start the question and answer session now. If you'd like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. Note that if you change your mind and want to withdraw your question, it is star two. Our first question comes from the line of Polo Tang from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the presentation and taking the questions. I have two. The first one is really just about CapEx, because it's running at +11% year- to- date at EUR 900 million. And if I look at the average Q4 CapEx for the past five years, it's been around about EUR 340 million. I know that you've reiterated your guidance for CapEx to be flat at EUR 1.2 billion for this year, but can you talk through whether it makes sense to accelerate the pace of your fiber build in order to gain a first mover advantage versus peers, and therefore reduce the risk of fiber overbuild? That's the first question.
Second question, is the Dutch government has proposed a tax on share buybacks, as well as a 2 percentage point increase in terms of the corporate tax rate. So does this impact how you think about the mix of shareholder returns? And also, how should we think about the level of your group tax rate going forward? Are there any factors that could mitigate a rising tax rate for the group? Thanks.
Well, Polo, let me take both of these questions. First of all, on CapEx, just a bit of color. Yeah, CapEx is indeed up year- to- date by EUR 90 million. The increase is fully driven by fiber and by customer-driven CapEx. On non-fiber, CapEx is actually below last year, so the dynamics are in what I feel in line with our strategic direction, accelerating on fiber and more consumer-related CapEx, CPE, in line with our commercial strategy. Last year, we had a significant peak in CapEx. Remember, last year, Q4, we went to EUR 391 million CapEx in Q4. That is part of the inter-year CapEx phase that we talk about that's affecting our free cash flow.
So one subtle message is that because of this CapEx phasing, our free cash flow is running behind last year, but we get back on track onto our target for the full year. Secondly, could we accelerate fiber CapEx? To some extent. At the same time, you know, it's also, it's a matter of also deploying it effectively and making sure we can also convert the homes passed into paying customers. So we are ramping up on fiber CapEx. As you say, compared to last year, we're EUR 80 million up, and fiber takes an increasingly larger share of our total CapEx. I think we're pushing it to the limits. Could we do somewhat more? Yes, but at the same time, we're also very cognizant of the need to protect our free cash flow.
So in that balance between free cash flow management, CapEx optimization, and what you can effectively do, we think the acceleration that we're doing this year is a fully balanced approach. On your second question on taxes, well, the government legislation has to be passed by the first chamber, by the Senate. Let's see how that evolves. For us, it means that in any case, we are looking at a potentially increase in withholding taxes on share buybacks if we don't act. I think we talked about it before.
Even in the absence of new regulation, there's a pretty complicated withholding tax framework, which means that going forward, I mean, we'll talk more about it in the Capital Markets Day, but in our policy to pay out our full free cash flow to shareholders, we likely see a mix shifting a little bit more towards dividends and away from buybacks, just to deal with this tax effect, and that's already happening. And then whenever the Senate approves or were to approve government regulation, that may actually reinforce that stance because we don't want to pay undue taxes. And on taxes itself, our effective tax rate today is about 23%, with cash taxes around 8%. The increase in tax rate does not hit us at this point. Actually, it increases the value of your net operating losses a bit more.
So in essence, as long as you've got NOLs, it's good. To us, it's more a function of how quickly we go through our NOLs, and you are seeing already this year about a EUR 60 million increase in taxes this year. There'll also be an increase in cash taxes next year, which we'll talk more about the CMD, and gradually burn through our operating losses into like 2026, 2027. So the increase in corporate tax rate doesn't really hurt us at this point. It's more something beyond 2026, 2027, when the operating losses have all been absorbed.
Great. Thanks.
The next question comes from the line of Joshua Mills from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking questions, two from me. The first one is just a clarification, Chris, on what you were saying there around the CapEx envelope. Were you saying you're comfortable with the acceleration you're seeing in 2023 in order to hit your 2023 rollout target? Or is it that you're saying that you're happy with the acceleration and the current level of CapEx you have in place in order to hit your medium-term guidance? Which I know you'll be talking about in the CMD, but obviously the coverage target is already out there. So want to make sure that you're whether you're thinking this year or this level for future years.
Then the second question would just be if you could give any commentary around initial customer reaction to the mobile price increase, which you announced and launched in early October, and any broad comments on the competitive environment would be welcomed. Thanks.
Yeah, Joshua, on fiber, look, for this year, we are on track to deliver organically well over 500,000 homes passed. Together with Glaspoort, that's excluding our private acquisition, and well over 300, 340-ish in terms of homes connected. So that's kind of a runway that we feel comfortable with, and that's by far the highest fiber rollout in terms of HP, but also in terms of HC, which I think is becoming an increasingly important metric. And what I was saying about fiber is that we stick to a CapEx envelope of EUR 1.2 billion, plus or minus, like a few percentage points of management bandwidth that you will always have. So it's gonna be 1,200+ a bit, but not a whole lot, but that's good for practical purposes.
We stick to that commitment, but you see that in that envelope, fiber consumes a larger and larger chunk of your CapEx. So basically, what I'm saying is we're confident and comfortable with the current rollout pace that we want to continue. You'll see gradually a shifting more towards HC over HP, so homes connected rather than homes passed over time. And secondly, you see fiber taking up a, you know, significant chunk and gradually increasing chunk of our total fiber or total CapEx, with our CapEx envelope still being centered around EUR 1.2 billion.
Yeah, so CapEx fully on speed and rolling out more than 600,000 houses per year is really a lot. So the challenge is more how to connect customers than the rollout itself. Your second question was on mobile pricing. Yeah, so as the first of October, we increased prices. By the way, the whole market increased prices. So that is, on the one hand, the good thing about Dutch market is that we all try to create value, and we see clear increase of prices also coming from Odido and VodafoneZiggo. On the other hand, market is a bit aggressive every now and then as well with all kind of discounts in the market. But all in all, our price increase landed well.
Having said that, it's a bit impacting Net Promoter Score because the announcement was already done in the third quarter. But of course, we expect to benefit from the increase as from the fourth quarter this year.
Great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from a line of Georgios Ierodiaconou from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. They're both around market dynamics. Firstly, on Net Promoter Scores, and I know on page eight, you show that there was a small decline in your Net Promoter Scores. I'm curious, from the answer you gave, if you expect that the price increases in mobile have already been reflected in the third quarter. Do you expect further deterioration in the fourth quarter? And what I'm trying to understand is how you're thinking about whether you feel the need to improve the Net Promoter Scores in the coming quarters, and maybe be a bit more cautious on the price increases going forward, or whether you just monitor the gap between you and the other brands, and that may still give you some room to continue.
The second question is more probably on the market dynamics. Doesn't look like we're seeing the same promotions as we did last year, despite the fact that you guys seem to be winning market share. Just curious to hear comments from you, whether you believe that's fair, whether you see some reactions in other channels, and whether these last two quarters of very strong broadband net are sustainable. Thank you.
Yeah. So first of all, Net Promoter Score. We consider this a very important KPI, although it's not the holy grail for the company, right? I mean, it's super important. It indicates where we are, and we are outperforming against competition big time. There is one very big competitor in the Netherlands, even below zero. And so us being above 18 was always a very big difference representing the quality of the service we deliver to our customers. So when we do a -6 in one quarter, that's a very important signal for the whole company, and we have more interactions with top management on this subject. But it's a balancing act one has to do. It's I mean, our Simyo brand is doing 43 currently, as we speak.
So, there's a lot to do in Net Promoter Score on pricing.
So if you really want to lift up the whole KPN company to a level of 40, we should do price decreases instead of increase. So that's what I mean. It's not the holy grail. Of course, we want to create value. So it's a balancing act. We increase prices not on the level as competition did, but much higher than previous years. So we expected Net Promoter Score to decline. Last year, we also increased prices on mobile as the first of October, but the Net Promoter Score improved from the third to the fourth quarter. So I don't expect a further decline on Net Promoter Score, taking into account the usual run rate of all this.
But it's, like I said, a balancing act, and we also want to differentiate on the way we serve our customers, the way we connect fiber, and the quality of 5G in the Netherlands. So, that's where we are, and we will work on the Net Promoter Score, but we're also creating value when it comes to ARPUs. Yeah, and promotions in the market, we were not impacted that much, I must say. But it's also, of course, a reaction on the inflow on the KPN side. So currently, I expect the fourth quarter to heat up a bit again. We have that Black Friday thing coming up.
We already announced that we will not join that one for weeks, so we are a bit prudent here ourselves. And also there is more a bit of a balancing act between net add growth and the value we try to create with the base. So perhaps the fourth quarter will not be that great when it comes to net adds, but that's then a decision of us not being too aggressive on the promotional side. Because it's all about the value creation we do with the whole base and not only with net adds.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from a line of Keval Khiroya from Deutsche Bank U.K. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and I've got two questions, please. So firstly, just going back to pricing. As you've talked about, the Dutch market has seen healthy backbook price increases, but your frontbook prices haven't really increased. Do you think frontbook prices do need to go up at some point, or can backbook increase still sufficiently stick without? And then secondly, the regulatory review of Youfone is ongoing. Are you still confident in that deal being approved, and how should we think about the timeline for that as well? Thank you.
Yeah, well, on the Youfone part, we think there's no reason not to approve it. So, but of course, we have to wait and see. It's, at the end, it's ACM to approve this, and we can't speak for them. So, but we can't really come up with a good reason why this should be hampered by ACM. But we will see. And currently, we're in the process of answering all their questions, so that will take some time. I don't expect this thing to conclude in the fourth quarter. Probably it will slip a bit to next year, but yeah, we have to speed up our government a bit on that one.
Yeah, and the whole theme on backbook against frontbook is a relative theme for us also when it comes for on the coming years and how to run our base. It's our intention to focus more on the base and not only on the inflow of customers and to create value on the total base, and by that, make the difference between backbook and frontbook less than it was yesterday. So that's a challenge. But I must say, the frontbook is not that, yeah, large anymore as it used to be. So the difference is less than it was in the past.
That's clear. Thank you.
Our next question comes from a line of Konrad Zomer from ABN AMRO Oddo BHF. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I've got one on the 5G spectrum auction. It keeps getting delayed and delayed, and it may not happen in Q1 next year. It might happen in Q2. Is that, given your leverage of 2.4x , does it have any impact on how you think about the size of the buyback that you might announce for next year?
Maybe, Konrad, I mean, look, we have got a policy to basically pay out all our free cash flow to shareholders, in a mix of dividends and buybacks. So in essence, and we have obviously, we plan for a certain spectrum auction, but we stick to our policy of basically we, you know, doing all our cash to shareholders. So in essence, as long as we are able to fund the spectrum auction out of our balance sheet, which we're pretty confident on that we can do that, we will continue to follow our policy. So in essence, I don't think the spectrum auction as such has a major impact on our, on our buyback, not next year, at least. Because basically, we stick to our policy, we return all our free cash flow to shareholders.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, but if you already know, let's say, in January, February, what the end result of the auction might be, then it might give you another view on the size of your free cash flow that you still have available for a buyback.
Well, yes, well, look, I mean, we run a system like most other targets. Our free cash flow is excluding spectrum auction. So as long as we know what our free cash flow is, we know what our shareholder return will be. And secondly, like, it's clear that, like, it's, well, like, unlikely that by Q1, by January, when we announce our annual results, i t's very unlikely for the auction to be behind us. So I think the most, the best expectation is that we project our free cash flow for next year. Return that to shareholders in a dividend and buyback mix, which is slightly more tilt towards dividends. And even when the auction happens, we can revisit what our balance sheet looks like, but that then very much depends on the auction. So I think given the timing of things and given our typical payout policy, issue an unchanged policy for now.
Right. Right. Okay. Maybe just one quick follow-up. You had a EUR 25 million pension contribution in Q4 last year. Do you expect to make another pension contribution this year?
Well, Konrad, allow me to take your question and broaden it and talk a bit about free cash flow.
Sure.
To tell you what's going on in free cash flow last year. Look, this year, our free cash flow is obviously a little bit behind last year. We expect, however, and are confident to meet our free cash flow targets. If you look at what's happening year- to- date, I mean, EBITDA is kind of flattish. It's up a tiny bit, but it's effectively roughly flat. We spend somewhat more CapEx at this point due to inter-year phasing. And then on the other drivers, we had lower interest, higher taxes, and some deterioration of working capital, and that one is mostly due to higher trade payables. And that's a function of the CapEx spike we had last year. So Q4 last year, we had a CapEx increase, and obviously, you pay your, the bills, your invoices in Q1 and Q2 this year.
We had a gradual decline in inventories. That caused a negative working capital delta this year. That explains the free cash flow gap year- to- date. If you turn into Q4, you'll see EBITDA growth, right? We stick to our guidance for the year. We see a bit of upside, not massive, but it's a bit of upside, so EBITDA itself will start contributing to cash. I see in Q4 a slightly larger portion I call cash earnings. If you take the delta and provisions in our cash flow sum up, I think the cash portion of earnings will also go up. That means more EBITDA will trickle down into cash. You'll see less CapEx in Q4 than last year. On working capital, the increase in trade payables will run down.
When you move into Q4, inventories will start to be running down because we ordered inventories in Q1 and Q2 and did not order anything in Q3 and Q4, so we started running down in inventories. And we've launched an acceleration program also on trade receivables, and those measures we started in the summer will start kicking in in Q4 as well. So that basically is like not, not an answer to your question, but I'm just telling you because that's what I like to do on how our free cash develops. And onto your question, we don't expect another pension contribution, which will also... Because we done that last year, and the U.S. pension fund is effectively closed. So that means it also helps in the year-on-year comparison on cash.
Apologies for abusing your question to give you the free cash flow story, but I didn't want to let the opportunity go unpunished.
Thank you very much.
Get me some time to grab a cup of coffee.
Thanks so much, Chris. That's very clear.
The next question comes from the line of Titus Krahn from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hello, all, and thank you very much for taking my questions as well. I've just two topics to touch on as well. The first one would be actually that Dutch inflation has come down quite significantly, I think, and was even flat in September. Can you maybe talk a little bit about the implications it has on your wage negotiations and scope for future price increases? Maybe are you shifting more towards upselling or more for more rather than inflation adjustments into next year? And then the second quick topic was just on the Primevest acquisition that is now in your fiber numbers this quarter. Can you maybe talk a little bit about the experience you have integrating the network into your wider group, maybe on the technological or sales perspective?
Based on those learnings and on the integration pace, what does it imply for future appetite for any, any further fiber acquisition?
Well, on the Primevest part, it's good to see that all third-party fiber networks are built according the KPN architecture, to put it that way. We started with fiber a long time ago on a slow rollout speed. And we moved to PON recently, but more or less all fiber footprints in the Netherlands are not that difficult to connect to our networks, but it asks the rollout of a backhaul to our point of presence to make sure that we can all use the same active layer, but that's all a bit technical.
So, to really connect the Primevest level network on our active layer and on our consumer service level, instead of as a wholesale interconnect interface, we roll out backhauls ourselves, and then we start selling in the KPN way on the Primevest network, and that will be launched perhaps this quarter, so soon. So it's pretty okay and easy for us to connect such a prepared network to the KPN fiber footprint.
On the inflation, Chris, maybe,
Well, yeah, inflation is indeed coming down. Let's see where it ends up in the. It's notably the energy coming down. The core inflation is still stubbornly high. What it means for wage negotiations, early to say, we have not started those. We in this will look at inflation, both headline and core inflation will play a role. Also, we have to take note of other wage settlements that are still in the 5%-7% area in the Netherlands. But no doubt we'll play a role in these bargaining situations. So it's early to say what will be the outcome, but it will be a function of the actual inflation and what is common practice. As I said, data points are headline inflation, core inflation, what's happened elsewhere. What does it mean for price increases next year?
Honestly, that's kind of too early to say. Obviously, I'd love to be less dependent on price increases and more on volume increases and more for more sales. That is what we're doing. I mean, for example, in broadband, about 50% of fiber new sales is 1 Gb, and 40% of all broadband sales is 1 Gb. In consumer, is about 40% of all our new sales are unlimited, so that push is actually continuing. We've launched a 4 Gb proposition. So underlying strategy always is to pursue more for more, and as clients go for higher data bundles and higher speeds. That is an underlying support on ARPUs, and that could be accelerated based on our price increase. But, you know, fair to say this, let's see where next year, how things develop before you make that call.
It will be a function of what the wage increase outcome is, it will be a function of where inflation is. Where I think in our society that core inflation will play an increasingly important role rather than just headline inflation.
Very clear. Thank you.
Our last question comes from the line of Usman Ghazi from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for the opportunity. Just had a question on the consumer segment, where I can see that both the legacy revenue declines as well as the decline in the copper revenues moderated this quarter. And I just wanted to understand if this is kind of a structure that we should be looking out for, or whether this is just a quarterly blip. Thank you.
No, look, this feels actually pretty good. I mean, on the legacy, look, the legacy revenues are in structural decline. There is a core that will probably not go away, so the declinable portion becomes smaller and smaller, and that will be core of legacy revenue that will probably stay for longer. So the decline in the decline, so to speak, the improvement in the second derivatives for those technicians among us, is actually a positive and not completely unexpected. And when it comes to broadband service revenues, obviously, price increases have helped there a bit. Also, churn went down. So that means that, for example, on consumer fixed service revenues, they were up this quarter.
It feels it will be up again next quarter, so I've actually, I wouldn't be surprised if next quarter, Q4, when you look at total service revenue growth, that consumer service revenue growth is very close to business service revenue growth or even a bit higher. If I look at the underlying trends in mobile, underlying trends in fixed. So that means, as, as I said, on broadband, we expect another positive growth number in fixed service revenues in the second quarter, and I wouldn't see why it wouldn't spill over into Q1. And thereafter, of course, visibility becomes a bit less. But overall, that feels pretty supported by the P and the Q, so to speak. And then also supported for total consumer service revenues, which would look quite good into Q4, for example, comparing to the business markets.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Proper broadband in decline is following exactly the line of our strategy. So, we deactivated 25% of the Netherlands on copper, and we will continue by switching off copper and speeding up the fiber rollout. So we expect copper broadband to decline further, but that's exactly in line with our plans.
Mm-hmm. Okay, can I perhaps just maybe ask one more? On the business segment, yeah, in the LCE segment, obviously, there's a bit of weakness this quarter. Again, I mean, does this just kind of reflect, you know, the macro situation or is it something else?
Yeah, well, in B2B, it's mainly traffic and specifically roaming traffic. Last year we saw a spike, a huge increase of roaming traffic. I think it was a bit after the COVID wave. And that didn't happen this year. So I need to see two things, less than last year because of no COVID reaction. And also, what we see is that larger companies are more prudent on the usage of mobile phones, as we are, by the way. So stricter usage in other countries and more usage of Wi-Fi. So this is a trend we keep an eye on. At the end, it's a difference of EUR 3 million, something like that. So but yeah, that's the main difference.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you very much, everyone. This concludes our call. We hope to see you at our Capital Markets Day on the seventh of November at the headquarters in Rotterdam, or otherwise via webcast. If you haven't registered yet, please contact the KPN investor relations team. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's presentation. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Have a nice day.