Welcome, everyone. No, this is not the beginning of a wedding. This is the Superloop Investor Day 2026. Thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate you being here. My name's Peter O'Connell. I'm the Independent Chair of Superloop, and we welcome you to our Investor Day. Superloop has continued to deliver strong growth and strengthen its market position, execute with discipline against our strategy. Today is an opportunity to share the progress with you, along with the priorities that we will shape in the next phase of the company's growth. We value your interest as investors and your ongoing support, we are confident in the opportunities ahead and in Superloop's capacity to continue creating value for shareholders. I'd now like to invite our CEO, Paul Tyler, to take you through our investor presentation.
Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everybody. We have a lot to cover today. We'll begin with an introduction and a trading update, and then move to our FY 2026 outlook and the progress we're making against our current strategy. From there, we'll set out SUPERCHARGE 2029. It's our strategy for the next three years before taking a look at how our segments, being Consumer, Wholesale, and Business, align to that strategy. Finally, we'll spend some time looking at how our AI and digital capabilities set us apart. We'll leave some time for Q&A at the end, so please hold your questions until then. Today, you're going to hear from a number of our leaders who are here in the room.
In addition to Peter, I'm joined by Dean Tognella, our CFO, Nick Pachos, our Chief Commercial Officer, Mehul Dave is there, who leads our Consumer segment, Daisey Stampfer over here, who leads Business & Wholesale, and Jason Ashton, who's there, who leads our Corporate Development & Smart Communities activities. Together, we're going to provide a view of the business, the opportunities ahead for us, and how we intend to create value over the next phase of the Superloop journey. Before I move into the detail, I wanted to pause and reflect a little bit on a few of our recent accolades, and hence the momentum we currently have. Superloop was again recognized by Ookla as the fastest fixed network in Australia across both halves of calendar year 2025, and that is no small feat.
Our ProductReview.com ratings remain an excellent 4.7 out of 5, we've continued to receive strong industry recognition for both product quality and customer experience. These and other awards listed here are not simply brand statements, they're an important indicator that our strategy of investing in the network, in network performance, in customer experience, and disciplined execution is resonating in the market and supporting the growth that we are demonstrating. Let me now jump to a trading update for the financial year to date. The business has continued to trade strongly across all three segments. Customer growth remains robust, momentum is broad-based, and the operating leverage we have in the model is clearly evident. Starting with consumer, we added some 28,000 net new customers in Q3, our best quarter for this financial year, which brings our consumer net new customers to 85,000 year to date as of April 30.
Pleasingly, we continue to see solid demand for our high-speed plans, reinforcing both the strength of our brand and the customer preference for high-performing broadband. Wholesale was also a standout performer, with 35,000 net new customers in Q3 and 64,000 year to date as of the end of April, highlighting our position as an enabler of challenger providers. In business, we added 3,300 customers during the quarter across all product lines. We've secured a number of important connectivity wins in the second half, and pleasingly, our Smart Communities sales momentum has also continued strongly through the period. In total, the group has grown to more than 890,000 customers as of 30th of April, representing nearly 160,000 net additions for the financial year to date, or to April 30, sorry. It's a great result and highlights the diversity of momentum across all elements of the business. Slide 10.
A key milestone for the group was the completion of the Lightning Broadband acquisition on the 29th of May. Lightning Broadband brings approximately 16,000 active services today from a constructed network of some 26,000 lots. In total, the acquired contract book is 56,000 lots. 26,000 are already built, as mentioned, and a further 30,000 contracted, but yet to be built. That provides substantial runway of future growth beyond the existing active base. Importantly, our joint functional separation undertaking has now been approved by the ACCC and is now active. This represents a critical regulatory milestone and supports the next phase of our execution in Smart Communities. The acquisition was funded from existing cash and debt facilities, and even after completion, net debt remains at a comfortable level of around 1.4x EBITDA. The acquisition was funded from existing cash and debt facilities, as mentioned.
Lightning Broadband is expected to contribute AUD 11 million of EBITDA in FY 2027 on a pre-synergy basis, and we expect the transaction to be EPS accretive in FY 2027. I'm also pleased to announce today that we are launching neoloop. neoloop, our new wholesale FTTP brand, which brings together VostroNet, Frontier, and Lightning Broadband under a single brand for all retailers across all Superloop-owned FTTP networks. Together, this positions Superloop as a much stronger scaled FTTP platform, Fibre to the Premises platform, and a clear pathway to accelerate growth. As said, neoloop is our new functionally separated, open access FTTP platform, bringing together all our FTTP assets under one single brand. What makes neoloop different is that it can leverage the group's scale from day one. That scale of more than 890,000 customers already supported by our tier one network.
It's also built on a proven operating model, including Superloop's product, our network, our assurance and AI capabilities. We are not starting from scratch. It's a compelling proposition for all retail service providers because it's wholesale only with no channel conflict. It's backed by the same disciplined approach and challenger mindset that has underpinned Superloop's growth to date.
With that, I'll move to our FY 2026 outlook and the completion of our existing three-year Double Down strategy. We're now less than 30 days from the end of our current three-year strategy and expect to meet or exceed all of the ambitious targets we set some three years ago. We remain on track to achieve the AUD 700 million revenue run rate by June 2026. Our underlying EBITDA margin is already tracking in the mid to high teens range, consistent with the ambition we outlined at the start of the strategy period.
Just as importantly, we have already achieved positive NPATA and positive NPAT. These were significant milestones and a clear reflection of the quality of the earnings we now produce. When you look across the four key metrics on this slide, all are either achieved or are on track, which gives us the confidence not only in the strength of the current performance, but in the momentum we've built for the next chapter of our journey. Excuse me. Reflecting that continued momentum, we are upgrading our FY 2026 guidance. We now expect underlying EBITDA to be in the range of AUD 118 million-AUD 122 million for the year.
This represents a growth of between 28% and 32% on FY 2025, and an increase on the guidance range of AUD 112 million-AUD 120 million that we provided in February. This upgrade includes approximately AUD 700,000 of contribution from Lightning Broadband post the acquisition completion.
CapEx guidance has increased by AUD 2 million to between AUD 34 million and AUD 37 million, excluding the IRU payment. That upgraded CapEx range includes some additional CapEx associated with Lightning Broadband following the completion of the acquisition as the business continues to track well. Overall, this upgrade reflects the momentum in our business, the quality of the second half trading performance, and the operating leverage now coming through as we scale. I'm now going to move to SUPERCHARGE 2029. This is our next three-year strategy and the framework we believe will drive the next phase of revenue growth, earnings expansion, and shareholder value creation. Before we look forward, though, it's worth briefly reflecting on the journey that has brought us to this point. Our first chapter was our three-in-three strategy, which was fundamentally centered around turnaround, simplification of the business, and portfolio optimization.
During that period, we stabilized the business, we strengthened the balance sheet, we invested in the network and the systems capability. We grew our customers tenfold from around 30,000 to over 368,000. We also tripled both revenue and underlying EBITDA. We declared three-in-three a success. Our second chapter was Double Down, the objective being to double the revenue over the next three years, to realize operating leverage and accelerate earnings growth. Pleasingly, we have delivered exceptional organic growth. As I've highlighted previously, all core ambitions are either on track or already delivered, including the AUD 700 million revenue run rate target, a mid to high teens EBITDA margin, and a positive NPAT and NPATA. We're not quite at the end of the period yet, but we intend to declare Double Down a success as well.
SUPERCHARGE 2029 is the next chapter of our journey, and it builds on the foundations we've built previously through the successful execution of the prior three-year plans. These are the main financial metrics delivered under the Double Down plan. Before the numbers, though, I need to highlight that the FY 2026 revenue and EBITDA figures in this slide are based on a blend of actual first half 2026 numbers and consensus estimates for the second half. Customer numbers have grown from around 368,000, as mentioned in June 2023, to more than 890,000 in April 2026. Revenue is expected to more than double from AUD 322 million in FY 2023 to an estimated AUD 662 million in FY 2026. Underlying EBITDA is expected to increase from AUD 37 million in 2023 to an estimated AUD 118 million in FY 2026, with margins expanding from approximately 12% to close to 18%.
Perhaps most importantly, we've moved from an AUD 43 million loss in FY 2023 to a positive NPAT in FY 2025, and that positive NPAT continues well into the first half of FY 2026. That shift is fundamental. It shows that growth is not only continuing, but that it's translating into durable profitability. The central message from this slide is that while operating leverage in the model is now clearly visible, with earnings growing faster than revenue, we expect this leverage to continue into our new SUPERCHARGE 2029 financials. Turning to SUPERCHARGE 2029, that next strategy of ours. It builds on those achievements of Double Down and sets out the priorities that will drive the business over the strategy period. At the heart of SUPERCHARGE 2029 are five key objectives, which together provide the framework for how we intend to grow the business, strengthen earnings quality, and create shareholder value.
First, we will of course maintain focus on a strong core business performance that underpins our cash earnings growth. Second, we intend to remain the lowest cost provider in the industry. Continue to drive efficiency and operating leverage. Third, we want to build our Smart Communities business to enhance our earnings quality and durability. Fourth, we will execute accretive M&A to enhance shareholder returns. Fifth, we continue with disciplined capital management. At the core of SUPERCHARGE 2029 is continued organic growth and increasing efficiency. Slide 19 here sets out our SUPERCHARGE 2029 plan on a page. You can see that our purpose has evolved. Previously, we defined the Superloop purpose as enabling better internet through competition. I think it's fair to say we've certainly successfully enabled many challenger brands through our wholesale offerings.
We feel now, though, it's time to refine our purpose, which has become, here, enabling better internet through reimagination. We can see a world where Superloop sets the market standard in innovation and customer experience, regardless of the market segment we are referring to. We believe all Australians deserve high-performing, intuitive, and affordable internet, simple to acquire, simple to consume. That's the purpose that unites our SUPERCHARGE 2029 strategy. Under SUPERCHARGE 2029, we have five strategic priorities: leading consumer broadband growth, transforming customer experiences, driving AI-enabled operating leverage, scaling Smart Communities, and delivering profitable growth. These priorities are underpinned by our values. To start with the customer, unleashing possibilities, and winning together. They're not simply cultural statements, they shape the way we operate on a day-to-day basis.
Excuse me. On slide 20 here, having set out the strategy and priorities under SUPERCHARGE 2029, let me now turn to the financial ambitions we've set for the period. By FY 2029, our ambition is for group revenue to exceed AUD 1 billion, up from a consensus of AUD 662 million for FY 2026. We're targeting group underlying EBITDA of at least AUD 200 million, an increase of some AUD 82 million, and we are aiming for a reported EPS CAGR of more than 30% during the period. These are bold aspirations, but we believe they are achievable, supported by the organic growth trajectory in the business today, the improving quality of our earnings, the operating leverage embedded in our model, and the opportunity for disciplined, accretive M&A. To be clear, these are ambitions rather than formal guidance, and they remain subject to risks and uncertainties.
They are the outcomes that we are focused on delivering under the SUPERCHARGE 2029 strategy. To achieve these ambitions, we are targeting revenue to grow at a CAGR of around 15% from FY 2026 to 2029 to that target of more than AUD 1 billion. Underlying EBITDA is expected to grow even faster, at a CAGR of around 20%, requiring greater levels of efficiency as we scale. On CapEx, BAU CapEx is expected to remain at around 4.25%-4.75% of group revenue. While Smart Communities CapEx is expected to be in the range of around AUD 16 million-AUD 20 million per annum across the strategy period. We also expect around AUD 4 million of integration CapEx in FY 2027. This CapEx will enable us to connect the Lightning Broadband existing buildings to our existing on-net fiber backhaul and integrate IT and network equipment.
While we continue to invest for growth, CapEx as a percentage of revenue is expected to remain broadly flat over the three years, supporting strong cash flow generation. More broadly, this financial trajectory underpins how we think about long-term value creation. We see shareholder value creation through three core elements: delivering growth, generating free cash flow, and maintaining disciplined capital investment. With revenue growing at a CAGR of around 15%, EBITDA margins expanding towards 20%, and cash conversion of underlying EBITDA of between 80% and 90%, we are forecasting a gross operating cash flow capacity of more than AUD 160 million by FY 2029. Within Smart Communities, we see attractive opportunities to invest at returns above a 25% IRR. On capital management, we intend to keep leverage below 2.5 x net debt to EBITDA.
As cash generation increases, we will continue to balance reinvestment, accretive M&A, and capital returns, including buybacks or dividends where appropriate. Overall, this is a business that's evolving from a pure growth story into one that combines growth with increasing profitability, stronger cash generation, and disciplined capital management. We see this combination as a compelling proposition for our shareholders. With that, I'll hand over to Mehul Dave to take you through our consumer segment.
Good morning, everyone. My presentation today covers Superloop's performance in the consumer division over the last three years, particularly a standout performance in FY 2026, some of the core drivers of that performance, and our strategic focus going forward. Over the last few years, we've had an ambition to gain 5% share of the NBN market, and I'm pleased to say we are fast approaching the goal. Over the last three years, we've added a net of 200,000 NBN broadband customers, making us one of the fastest-growing retailers in the country. Importantly, all of the growth over the last three years has been completely organic. FY 2026 has been a standout year, a year in which we saw intense industry change. The NBN changed the wholesale cost and speed tiers of its consumer products alongside accelerating its FTTP upgrade program.
Superloop has done well to navigate the change and the competitive environment, and we've seen consistent growth throughout the financial year. We forecast to deliver our highest net organic customer growth in FY 2026. Our new customer order share on the NBN increased from 7%-9%, which is almost twice that our overall market share. We continue to attract a higher skew of customers living in HFC and FTTP premises, which now represent 87% of our new customer orders. We also continue to attract a higher skew of customers with a need for high-speed plans, which now represent 82% of our customer orders. A core enabler of our growth has been the investments we've made to grow the awareness of the Superloop brand in the market.
Superloop brand awareness has doubled over the last three years. We forecast to close FY 2026 with 34% of the market aware of the Superloop brand. What's more pleasing to see is that the customer traffic to our website and our mobile apps is increasing at a much faster rate. Our cost of media per new customer order remains stable. What this implies is that while we scale Superloop's brand awareness in the market, our cost of new customer acquisition remains stable. Only 34% of the market is aware of the Superloop brand. We are yet to reach 66% of the market. What's key is, the investments we make in the brand today are creating a compounding engine for growth for the years to come. Both our brands have contributed to our growth.
The Superloop brand is designed to attract families with a need for high-speed internet that are low to medium on the price sensitivity scale. On the Superloop brand, we offer a range of broadband plans on the NBN and OptiComm networks and a range of 5G mobile plans on the Telstra wholesale network. The Exetel brand was refreshed in July 26 and is designed to attract technology-immersed, value-conscious customers. It offers a single high-speed plan on the NBN, HFC, and FTTP footprint only, and a single high-data 5G mobile plan on the Telstra wholesale network. Importantly, the entire sales and support journeys for Exetel are 100% digital. New customer activation volumes on Superloop are consistently growing and growing faster than Superloop's brand awareness in the market. New customer activation volumes on Exetel are growing and are completely incremental.
That is to say, they're growing without having any cannibalization of Superloop's growth. Together, our brands are forecast to deliver a 37% increase to our new customer activation volumes in FY 2026, which is almost three times the growth we saw in the prior year. Another core enabler of our growth has been the customer experience delivered through our network, our unique products, and our customer support. Superloop has been awarded Fastest Fixed Broadband Network in Australia by Ookla, recognized as one of the best internet service providers in Australia by Product Review, and frequently recognized for innovation in the category by Canstar. Superloop customers have come to love their product features, Superloop Teddy, Superloop Refreshify, and Superloop My Speed Boost, while Exetel One customers love the simplicity and the value of the product.
Our customer advocacy is a powerful driver of brand preference and customer loyalty. It comes through loudly on customer review ratings on the key review platforms across Australia. We are very proud of these accolades as they are some of the highest seen in the industry. As Nick will cover later, our AI and automation deployments are already creating material value for the Consumer division. Our customer support touchpoints have seen a large-scale transformation over the last three years. More customers choose to interact with our digital agents, Teddy, Mo, Refreshify, and X-Ray, than over voice calls. In fact, voice calls as a percentage of overall inbound support transactions is now just 36%.
With customer support being led by digital agents, it leaves our customer support staff to manage more complex customer issues, in turn, resulting in a 40% improvement in customer staff to customer ratio over the last three years. Another growing area of opportunity for us is the adoption we're seeing across generative search platforms. Generative search platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini are forecast to be the primary source of traffic to consumer find and buy journeys over the next five years. We have already commenced uplifting our digital capability for this change and are seeing a large increase in Superloop mentions and citations across these key platforms. As Nick will also cover, AI for us is not a bolt-on approach. What we're seeing is every new customer we acquire costs us less to support than the one before, supporting the consumer margin story.
In summary, and reflecting over the last three years, we're on track to achieve our ambition, enabled by growing Superloop brand awareness, strategic positioning of both our brands that is growing new customer activation volumes, our network strength and unique products, creating a customer experience that is unique, and that in turn is creating customer advocacy and loyalty. Our AI and automation deployments, creating a competitive advantage for both customer experience and cost efficiency with significant further upside. With that, we turn our attention to the next three years and the consumer SUPERCHARGE strategy, in which we look to build on the growth momentum we already have.
We'll do this by continuing to invest in growing Superloop's brand awareness in the market, by scaling our go-to-market across Australia's breadth, adjacent products and high growth channels, strengthening customer retention with a superior customer experience and appealing product bundles, scaling our AI and data-led operating model to reimagine customer experience, transform marketing journeys, and reduce costs. We'll continue to look for inorganic growth opportunities that are accretive. Thank you for listening, and with that, I'll pass to Daisey.
Thank you, Mehul, good morning, everyone. I'm going to be covering wholesale and also business. I'm going to start with wholesale. Wholesale is an increasingly important part of the Superloop growth story. It gives us exposure to multiple growth avenues, plays to our network and operational strengths, and positions us well to support other challenger brands to scale in a market that continues to evolve. It's a market we know well, and one where our capabilities will continue to differentiate. We think about wholesale in three distinct but highly complementary categories. First, we have the challenger telco products. Here, we leverage our own fiber network and operational capabilities to support other telcos with high-quality, scalable services. We also combine that with deep integration into NBN and other last-mile providers, allowing us to deliver national and international solutions for MSPs and wholesale customers.
Second, we have the NBN backhaul and aggregation products. These products are designed for customers who have invested in parts of their own network and are looking for a partner who can help them extend reach, improve economics, and simplify delivery. Third, we have our white label and layer three capabilities. As part of our Double Down strategy, we identified a strong opportunity to help the non-traditional players enter the telecommunications market. We acquired market-leading platforms and capability to help meet that demand, and it has already delivered outstanding results. We see this as an exciting platform for continued growth. Importantly, all three categories leverage a single set of core systems and a single Superloop network, creating operating leverage and improving capital efficiency. What does the next three years look like for wholesale at Superloop? In short, disciplined growth, stronger partnerships, and an even broader opportunity set.
First, we will continue to support our challengers in the market. Our addressable market is the challenger segment, and we have the full suite of solutions to support customers regardless of how much network capability they have built themselves. Whether they need part of the stack or the full solution, we are well-positioned to partner with them. Second, Origin remains a major strategic focus. As Origin grows, our solutions scale with them. We are supporting that growth not only through the connectivity, but also through enablement, optimization, and AI-driven capabilities that improve performance and customer outcomes. Their momentum is creating meaningful momentum for us as well. Third, we remain focused on protecting and strengthening our existing wholesale base.
This is a competitive market, but our strategy is clear: retain loyal customers, continue improving value, and ensure our traditional wholesale solutions remain relevant, reliable, and commercially attractive. Finally, we see real potential to diversify wholesale revenues over time. That could include selective inorganic expansion, and where the market dynamics are attractive, geographical expansion into areas where we have a genuine right to play. Origin continues to deliver strong growth year-on-year, with particularly encouraging momentum in the higher speed tier 500 Mb customer cohort. Our partnership with Origin is a great example of how Superloop can do more than provide connectivity. We can help enable growth. Through a series of go-to-market operational efficiency and capability programs, we have supported Origin as it has rapidly expanded its market position, and the numbers speak for themselves. When Origin onboarded with Superloop, it had around 124,000 customers.
The most recent public announcement cited 250,000 customers just two years later. That is exceptional growth, and it positions Origin as one of the fastest-growing NBN retailers in Australia, with Superloop proudly helping power that journey. Superloop's DNA remains firmly and anchored in challenging challenger brands and helping deliver better connectivity outcomes for Australians. I'm now going to move to the business segment. The business segment is a broad, yet attractive part of the market for Superloop, with multiple sub-segments that allow us to address customer needs from the small business through to larger corporates and specialized Smart Communities environments. It's a segment where our connectivity, mobility, voice, and security capabilities come together in a highly scalable way. In the small and medium business market, our go-to-market model is both direct and indirect, giving us efficient reach across a large addressable customer base.
Here, we provide a compelling core telecommunications offer. From business-grade TC-4 connectivity solutions through to the higher performance symmetrical grade EE and EA services, often bundled with mobile and VoIP to deliver a simple, high-value solution for customers. As can be seen in the results of our competitors, for the last few years, this segment has seen significant headwinds stemming from price erosion in the market and moving away from legacy solutions to the new internet and cloud-based architectures. With this dynamic reaching the end of its cycle, pricing has now stabilized, and we see a credible pathway for this part of the portfolio to return to double-digit growth over the next three years. As we move into the upper mid-market and large corporate segment, typically customers with 50 to 200 seats, the proposition becomes more strategic and higher value.
In addition to connectivity, mobile, and VoIP solutions, we offer advanced networking and security solutions such as SD-WAN and SASE, enabling customers to simplify operations, strengthen cyber resilience, and improve accountability across their environments. The segment is certainly attractive, with gross margins of around 40%, contracted terms of one to five years, three years on average, with strong renewal characteristics. Our focus is on building a technology-led business with scalable economics, not a people-heavy model. With incumbents serving this part of the market less effectively, we see a clear opportunity to continue gaining share, and we expect to announce some new logos in the months ahead. Finally, we have Smart Communities. It spans both FTTP, Fibre to the Premises, and managed Wi-Fi solutions. In managed Wi-Fi, we have a clear strength in purpose-built student accommodation, PBSA, as well as hotels and other connected community environments.
This is a segment where Superloop has established real capability and momentum, and I'll talk about that some more on the next slides. The key strategies for the business segment. Our strategy is to grow the customer base across connectivity, including expanding the take-up of our own on-net fibre products and increasing product penetration across the existing base. Our indirect channel is the key scale engine. Following significant investment, our focus is on creating a digital-first partner experience that reduces friction, accelerates onboarding, and makes it easier for partners to order and manage their services with Superloop. In the back book, where margin pressure has historically been more pronounced, our strategy is to improve the product mix and the economics by moving customers up the stack into the higher-value solutions.
We are also deploying AI-enabled capabilities across our sales processes to improve targeting, support access to higher-value accounts, and strengthen our market positioning. Finally, we will continue to scale Smart Communities through a combination of organic growth and selective inorganic opportunities. Smart Communities. It's a key pillar of the business segment and an increasingly important driver of earnings quality and long-term growth. It combines infrastructure ownership, recurring revenues, and long-dated contracted pipelines, creating a more predictable and durable earnings profile. It will be no surprise, given our M&A announcements, that Smart Communities is a strategically important part of Superloop's business segment. Importantly, this is not a new ambition for Superloop. We have already built strong momentum in this area, securing key logos including Resimax, Mirvac LIV, the build-to-rent portfolio, Investa, Gardner Vaughan Group, Pask, and many more, expanding our contracted footprint. I'm now going to briefly outline that market.
First up, we have build to sell, covering both high-rise apartment developments and broadacre house and land communities. In this segment, we deploy a wholesale, open access FTTP network that we own and operate over the life of the asset. It's a sizable market, with around 100 to 120,000 addressable new lots each year, and one where Superloop has continued to build capability, relationships, and indeed, a growing pipeline. Second, we have the purpose-built student accommodation, or PBSA, where Superloop has established a market-leading position. Our offer combines fiber connectivity, high-capacity managed Wi-Fi, and where relevant, integrated smart building capabilities. We have materially strengthened our national position in PBSA, giving us a strong base from which we will continue to grow in a segment we know very well.
Third, we have build-to-rent, an emerging segment that has become increasingly attractive as the institutional capital continues to support the new supply. Here, we provide an FTTP connectivity experience to customers such as Mirvac LIV, designed to support a premium resident expectation, flexibility for owners, and a more seamless building-wide digital environment. It remains a relatively new market, but one where Superloop has already demonstrated its ability to win meaningful projects, including recent exclusive appointments with major developers. Developer sales. This is where Smart Communities translates engagement with these developers into the long-term contracted growth. Our focus is not simply on volume for volume's sake. Our focus is on disciplined share gains that preserve market economics and support sustainable returns. One area of particular focus for Superloop has been the strategic developer agreements.
We have already secured multi-year exclusivity, and it also gives us improved visibility over future pipeline. We have executed these types of arrangements, such as Bradfield Development Authority, BDA, across broadacre, multi-dwelling developments, and retirement living, and they provide an efficient way to build contracted lots over time. We have broadacre. An attractive part of the market. It has historically been dominated by the two largest providers. Superloop is increasingly demonstrating that there is room for a credible challenger with strong delivery capability and, of course, the open-access wholesale model. These projects can take longer to build because they are staged over multiple years, but they offer large lot counts and strong long-term value. We have MDUs, or multi-dwelling units. They are typically faster to construct and monetize, with build and to billing time frames often in the one to two year range.
The recent completion of Lightning Broadband materially expands our footprint and capability in the lower end of this segment. It broadens our reach across the MDU market and complements our existing strengths in broadacre, build-to-rent, and PBSA. PBSA and hotel Wi-Fi remain particularly attractive because they are faster to deploy, faster to build, and they play directly to Superloop's established strengths in the managed connectivity part. In PBSA especially, we have built a market-leading position through a combination of strategic wins, specialized capability, and national reach, giving us confidence in our ability to continue growing in this part of the market. Across these subsegments, our objective to continue converting that momentum into contracted growth is clear. We are targeting 25,000 new lots signed each year.
Based on the progress already made and the expansion of our Smart Communities footprint, we see a credible pathway to more than 260,000 contracted lots by 2029. I'm now going to ask Jason to continue with the Smart Communities presentation. Thank you.
Thank you, Daisey, and good morning, everyone. What this slide demonstrates is that we've deliberately built Smart Communities into a scaled platform over time. We started with PBSA, where we established our operating model and became the market leader. From there, VostroNet expanded us into residential FTTP, significantly broadening the addressable market. We then strengthened the network layer with Uecomm, adding over 2,000 km of metro fiber. More recently, Frontier Networks expanded us into retirement and lifestyle communities, further diversifying the portfolio. With Lightning Broadband, we've materially accelerated both our existing base and our forward pipeline. The key point is this: following the ACCC's approval of our joint functional separation undertaking, we are now moving from building assets to monetizing them at scale. Today, we are formally launching neoloop, our open access wholesale FTTP platform, enabling multiple retail service providers to utilize our infrastructure.
This will transform Smart Communities into a larger, more diversified, and now highly scalable growth platform. As Paul mentioned in his opening, neoloop is our new wholesale FTTP platform, bringing together all of our FTTP assets under a single integrated brand. What makes it different is that it launches with immediate scale, leveraging the broader Superloop platform and our tier-one network. It is also built on a proven operating model across product, network assurance, and increasingly, our AI capabilities. We are not starting from scratch here. It provides a clean, wholesale-only proposition, removing channel conflict for retail service providers. Importantly, it is underpinned by the same disciplined challenger mindset that has driven our growth to date. The important point here is not just what neoloop is, but what it enables commercially.
It allows us to attract a broader set of retail service providers, including new and emerging brands, by offering a scalable, wholesale-only platform with no channel conflicts. That expands demand across our footprint and drives higher utilization of our assets. It materially strengthens our competitive positions versus NBN and OptiComm, both in winning developers and in supporting retailers with a credible alternative platform. Thirdly, it allows us to better align with developers, offering a more flexible, open access model that supports long-term monetization of our networks. The key point is this: neoloop transforms Smart Communities from an asset base into a multi-channel, scalable revenue platform. I'm going to now take you through the financial metrics for the Smart Communities business. As you'd expect, Smart Communities delivers attractive infrastructure-style economics with strong returns on capital.
Today, blended ARPU sits at around AUD 46, reflecting the current mix of purpose-built student accommodation, which has lower spend per user. As our portfolio shifts towards FTTP, particularly wholesale, we expect ARPU to increase to AUD 50-AUD 55 by FY 2029, consistent with or above NBN wholesale benchmarks. Activation rates remain strong at 70%-78%, demonstrating high utilization across our assets. Our gross margins are expected to sustain at 70%-75%, reflecting both the infrastructure nature of these assets and our metro FTTP footprint and metro fiber footprint. This all translates into 2.5-year-3.5-year payback periods, which enables efficient capital recycling. Importantly, these are long-life assets with expected 40- to 50-year operating profiles. As a result, we are consistently generating IRRs above 25% on our capital that's deployed. In summary, this is a high-quality capital investment delivering high return, long-duration growth within the portfolio.
I want to talk about our order book. We have, as Paul announced earlier, a substantial contracted order book today with about 64,000 active services and a further 98,000 contracted lots that are yet to be built. This forward contract pathway provides us with a delivery profile over the next couple of years of 50,000 lots within three years and a further 38,000 lots across years four and five. This equates to 87,000 additional lots expected to be constructed over the next five years. This effectively underwrites our medium-term growth. Importantly, this is our contracted pipeline only. This excludes any new deals that Daisey's team are expected to sign in the coming years. The key point I want to leave you with is this: We have a clear, visible pathway from contracted lots through to active services, revenue, and earnings growth.
Thank you for your attention, and I'll now hand over to Nick.
Thank you, Jason, and good morning, everybody. What I'll be doing today is doing what every good corporate presentation seems to do these days, and that's talking about AI. Rather than focusing on the technology itself, I want to focus on something far more important, the results we're seeing delivered through our P&L. Five years ago, we embarked on a digital transformation journey with three clear objectives. First, to consolidate the myriad of legacy systems that have accumulated over time. Second, to enable our organization with a platform that could support and accelerate future growth. Third, to create a technology foundation that will allow us to go to market across multiple channels, products, and brands in a streamlined and scalable way. As part of that transformation, we consolidated onto singular core backend systems and third-party gateways.
They're at the bottom of the slide. More importantly, however, we introduced two foundational layers into our architecture. The first was a business process layer, a horizontal cross-platform capability that not only automates processes, but orchestrates them across the organization. These are our process hub and group API. The second was the introduction of our experience API. That sits between our customer touchpoints and our business processes, ensuring we deliver a consistent customer experience regardless of the channel a customer chooses to engage with. By doing this, we removed much of the variability that existed across legacy front-end and backend systems and created a uniform cross-platform customer experience. It is this digital transformation that has become the foundation of our AI advantage.
As momentum built and experimentation with AI accelerated, it became very clear while applying AI to existing processes would deliver incremental benefits, the much bigger opportunity was for us to reimagine those processes from the ground up in an AI native lens. When you think about it, every business process in operation today has been built around humans. Processes, workflows, and systems have all been designed to accommodate human interactions, human decisions, and human handoffs. That's why we made a deliberate decision early on. We weren't simply going to bolt on AI onto our existing processes. Instead, we took a step back, challenged ourselves to rethink how those processes should work in an AI-enabled world. Not how to automate what we'd already had, but how to redesign them from the ground up. That mindset has shaped our approach to AI across the organization.
As a result, we've focused our efforts across five key areas where we believe AI will have the greatest impact. The most advanced today is our AI-powered customer experience capability, which I'll talk you through shortly. Alongside that, we're driving initiatives across business process automation, revenue assurance, customer growth and retention, autonomous network operations, and the development of new AI-enabled products and services. While these initiatives span different parts of the organization, they all rely on the same foundation. It's critical we operate with a unified enterprise AI and data platform supported by consistent governance, compliance, and risk management framework. This ensures we can scale AI safely, responsibly, and effectively across the business. I wanted to take a moment to talk you through our AI agent architecture. You'll notice two distinct layers in the diagram. At the bottom are the large language models themselves.
Platforms such as Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and others that continue to evolve at an extraordinary pace. Our architecture and investment is deliberately independent of those models. We recognize that those models' capabilities are improving faster than any individual organization can keep up with. At the same time, the economics and capabilities of those models continue to change as competition increases and new entrants come to market. For that reason, we made a conscious decision not to optimize our strategy around any single model, provider, or token structure. Instead, we focused on building capabilities that sit above the models. Our objective was simple, focus on the value layers to ensure that we can always take advantage of the best model available at any point in time while maintaining flexibility, performance, and cost efficiency.
This gives us an end-to-end AI native framework that allows us to redesign workflows and business processes from the ground up rather than becoming dependent on individual vendor solutions. We simply didn't adopt siloed vendor-based AI capability. The agentic layer connects tools, data sources, systems, and orchestrated business processes ensuring that AI interactions are governed, structured, and controlled. It provides consistent quality, predictable outcomes define workflows while significantly reducing the risks associated with hallucinations and uncontrolled AI behavior. Just as importantly, it allows us to embed governance, compliance, and risk controls directly into every interaction. The result is a platform that enables us to innovate and deploy capabilities significantly faster while reducing complexity across the organization. Perhaps most importantly, it ensures that the intellectual property, expertise, and competitive advantage created through our AI investments remain within Superloop.
All of this technology is great, but ultimately none of it matters unless it delivers measurable outcomes. Let me take you through an end-to-end customer journey and show you how these capabilities are translating into tangible, operational, and financial results. There's quite a bit to get through on this slide, but I'll take you through the customer life cycle from left to right. Let's start at the beginning of the customer life cycle, sales or ordering. Today, nearly three-quarters of all customer orders are placed through our digital channels without any human intervention. Of course, human channels are still part of our go-to-market strategy. Our objective is simply to make every channel as efficient and as frictionless as possible. The simplification delivered through Exetel One has removed the friction from the buying experience, making it easier for customers to purchase services and accelerate digital adoption.
When an order is received, our orchestration platform, Processify, takes over. The way I like to think about Processify is simple. It takes an order, regardless of how it was placed, and ensures it becomes a functioning customer service as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Today, approximately three-quarters of all our orders are delivered on the same day. Importantly, less than 10% of our order volumes require any human intervention at all. Even with that small percentage, much of that interaction is deliberate rather than reactive. For example, when a service is activated, our system performs multiple validation checks across the network and customer environment. However, we know that customers may not have connected or powered on their modem. Rather than leaving the customer to discover that later, we proactively contact them to ensure the service is working exactly as expected and deliver a closed-loop provisioning experience.
One of the most impactful initiatives we've delivered over the last two years has been Refreshify. Interestingly, Refreshify began as a project that we called the Magic Button Project. The original concept was straightforward, to provide our customer center agents with a tool that can reduce call handling times. Very quickly, we realized we were thinking too small. Instead of helping agents solve problems faster, why not allow customers to solve those problems themselves? That's exactly what Refreshify does. Year to date, Refreshify has generated approximately 400,000 customer interactions and avoided more than 125,000 customer calls. The real value isn't in the avoided calls. The real value is in the customer experience. Customers can identify, diagnose, and resolve issues immediately without waiting in a queue or speaking to an agent.
If the issue isn't within our network, Refreshify can identify where the problem resides, whether that be Wi-Fi, a modem, or another device within the customer's environment. This has been genuinely transformative. Building on that foundation, we developed Teddy and Mo. At first glance, you might think they're simply another AI chatbot. They're not. The difference is Teddy and Mo have access to the same tools, systems, capabilities available to our customer service teams. They can execute actions, diagnose issues, initiate workflows, and leverage capabilities such as Refreshify. Once a customer's been authenticated, there is effectively nothing Teddy and Mo cannot do that one of our service agents can do. The result has been powerful. We've now processed more than half a million customer interactions through Teddy and Mo. Approximately two-thirds of those interactions are fully resolved without any human involvement.
Even amongst the remaining third, many customers simply prefer speaking with a person rather than requiring escalation. The reality is that Teddy and Mo are now capable of resolving many issues more consistently and effectively than our best-performing customer contact agents. Another major journey we targeted was relocation. Around 1.1 million households move home every year. Making relocation one of the largest drivers of customer contact within the broadband industry. Historically, relocating a service involved multiple interactions, manual processes, and significant customer effort. Today, customers can complete the entire relocation process through our app. They can select their new address, view available services, choose whether to transfer or upgrade their plan, schedule activation dates, and book any required appointments in real time. It's a fully digital, end-to-end relocation experience delivered entirely on the customer's terms.
Many of those capabilities I've discussed today actually originated from one of our earliest AI initiatives, and that is our transcript analysis. For the first time, we were able to analyze every single transaction at scale. We could understand precisely why customers were contacting us, identify recurring pain points, assess service quality, measure customer sentiment, and uncover variability in the customer experience. Those initiatives have directly informed our roadmap and continue to shape our priorities today. The transcript analysis delivered another powerful capability. Because we can now transcribe and analyze conversations in near real time, we're able to identify critical situations as they occur. One example is vulnerable customers. If a customer contacts us while experiencing circumstances such as domestic violence or other forms of vulnerability, our systems can detect those indicators immediately.
Rather than relying solely on the individual agent to recognize and escalate the situation, our platform generates a real-time alert and engages a specialized support team who can proactively intervene and provide assistance. For me, that's one of the most powerful examples of what AI can achieve. Not just improving efficiency, not just reducing cost, but helping us deliver a better, safer, and more human customer experience at scale. Let me finish with this. What we've shown today is that our approach to AI has been fundamentally different. Rather than bolting AI onto existing systems and processes, we're focused on reimagining how those processes should work in an AI-enabled world. That's allowing us to move beyond experimentation and deliver real outcomes across the business. Not pilots, not proofs of concept. Real outcomes, real operational improvements, and real value for the business.
Thank you, and I'll hand over back to Paul Tyler.
Thanks, Nick. That draws the content to a close. Before we open for questions, let me summarize the key messages that we'd like to leave you with. First, that the business has strong momentum, and that momentum is translating into operating leverage and improving earnings quality. Second, that the Double Down strategy has delivered, driving revenue growth, margin expansion, and sustainable profitability. Third, that SUPERCHARGE 2029 gives us a clear path to scale the business, expand earnings, and continue creating shareholder value. Our ambitions of AUD 1 billion in revenue, AUD 200 million in underlying EBITDA, and more than 30% EPS CAGR over the period reflect both the opportunity ahead and our confidence in the model. Put simply, Superloop is a scaled, profitable growth business with clear momentum and a disciplined plan to keep delivering. Thank you for your time today and continued support.
We now open for questions. I'll ask Dean to join me on the stage. Is this on? We'll take questions from the floor first, and then we have Eleonora, who will field questions online. Okay. It's a little hard to see.
Hi, guys. Is it on? I'll just speak loudly. There we go. Thanks for taking my questions. Just one quick one on margins. You were running at about an 18% EBITDA margin in the first half. You've spoken about benefits from AI. You've also recently acquired Lightning Broadband at a much higher EBITDA margin than the base business. Your targets imply a 20% EBITDA margin in the three years' time. Given the operating leverage from the growth that you're doing at the moment, do you think you've been a bit conservative there? Maybe some headwinds to margins in your expectations that I'm missing in that?
Do you want me to go? Look, our targets for the end of the period reflect a mix of risks and opportunities and need to balance out lots of things that could happen in the mix of the business. Clearly, our consumer margins are lower than our more durable, say, Smart Communities margins. We've tried to model a number of alternate pathways to get to our targets. If we can do better than the targets that we've set out, then great. We think they're prudent targets and they reflect a blend of headwinds and tailwinds that are likely to emerge over the period of time.
Great. Just one more from me on balance sheet. You mentioned accretive M&A as part of the pathway there. In terms of the wholesale division, do you see much scope for M&A there or are we likely to maybe be focusing more in the Smart Communities area when it comes to M&A going forward?
We love all of our children equally. We think there are M&A opportunities across all of our segments. Clearly, our focus in recent times has been on building our Smart Communities business. We have all the capabilities we need in our Smart Communities business now. Where there are opportunities to scale just the volume in Smart Communities, of course, we'd like to do that. That's not to suggest that we're not also interested in M&A, say that quickly, in M&A across the different segments in the business. I think more generally in M&A, maybe we'd think back to what we actually did over the Double Down period. At the start of the period, we said our ambitious target would be 50% achieved through M&A and 50% through organic growth. We actually participated in a whole raft of M&A opportunities, and we didn't find value in that many.
Our organic business ran well ahead of the plan. We got to the target largely organically. I think that's another way of thinking about the SUPERCHARGE 2029 strategy. We have multiple alternate pathways to get to the ambition. We believe M&A will be part of that, and we have lots of ideas how that M&A could plan out. We won't do poor M&A, and we don't need to do M&A at all if we don't find value. We have alternate pathways to get to the target. M&A will be part of that, I believe, and it could be across the business.
Thanks.
Someone give something nice and detailed to Dean to.
I've got a great one for you, thank you.
Oh, Nick, you're perfect.
Just joking. Hi. Congratulations also. Sorry, Nick Harris from Morgans. Congratulations on hitting your Double Down targets. I think you just answered the first one, which is the easy one, which is that AUD 200 million seems like it's mostly organic. If organic's not going to plan, that could actually include M&A as well. Is that right? Your AUD 200 million FY 2029 target?
Nick, I'll just leave it the way I said it. There are multiple pathways we can get there. Three years is a long time. It's a very competitive market. Lots of things can change in the market. We want to ensure we get to the target. We can overcome any headwinds or challenges that we see through that path. We will get to that number, and there's lots of ways we could get there.
Cool. Thank you. Thanks for the lot more detail on Smart Community. There's quite a lot we can unpack on that. Do you want me to ask those questions or is that a Daisey?
Please.
Jason-
Please go.
Yeah. Cool. Okay, your 290,000 target, that's contracted or built lots, right? That drives your CapEx. I'm just trying to make sure I understand the numbers you're throwing around.
260,000. It was 260,000, wasn't it?
Yeah.
That's contracted.
Contracted, yeah.
What we've given you in the slides is a breakdown of how we expect the contracted books to be built over the next five years. Jason went through the bill profile. We've given you indication of the CapEx spend that we expect to incur, somewhere between AUD 16 million and AUD 20 million for each year. I've spoken previously, I still believe the investments in Smart Communities, the CapEx has an amazing return. One of the best spots in the telco market to invest in that. If we're spending more money on CapEx, I think it's a problem that I'd love to have. It would indicate that Daisey and her team have outperformed in terms of sales pipeline as well. I think Jason summarized it very well, which is there's a contracted book which will ensure revenue growth.
We know it has infrastructure-like returns and sort of annuity periods. We're still very solid in our conviction that we want to be successful in Smart Communities. I think Jason summarized it very well. We've now reached a point with the launch of neoloop that indicates we're really at scale, and we're ready to go out and compete very hard in the market and build on the capabilities we have today.
Yeah. That business should be doing north of AUD 100 million of gross profit in a few years' time if I'm doing my math loosely right?
Well, I think for all the analysts in the room, we've given you all the breadcrumbs to work it all out. You've wanted more details. We've laid out the profile from ARPU down to GP, and we've given you the build profile. I think there's a lot of details there you can work through to work out what it looks like in three and five years' time.
Just on the structural separation, obviously that's relevant to neoloop as well. Are you going to report them separately now, so that rather than under the business segment, so we can understand it a bit more post structural separation?
In FY 2027, Smart Communities will remain in the Business segment. Moving into FY 2028, we'll give some thought to how it should be split. The most likely path forward would be that the wholesale components of Smart Communities will be reported within the Wholesale segment. Just for FY 2027, it will remain as is. Smart Communities will be reported within the Business segment.
Thank you.
Hi, it's Annie Zhu from Barrenjoey. I just had a question on the trading update you provided today. Third quarter looked like quite a strong quarter for net adds. Just looking at the rate of net adds so far in the fourth quarter to date, it looks like a bit of a slowdown sequentially in both consumer and wholesale segments. Is that just seasonality or is there anything you'd call out there? How would you expect June might play out?
Actually, April was very good. April had Easter in it this year. Compared to the prior years, April was a very strong result. No, I wouldn't read April as being slowed. May is trading well as well. I think what we've touched on today is we have a combination of good service, good brand, good network, and that's contributing to the momentum we're seeing in trading more generally.
I had a few clarifying questions on Smart Communities as well. Just regarding the CapEx of AUD 16 million-AUD 20 million over the FY 2027 to FY 2029 period, just trying to reconcile those numbers with the AUD 8 million-AUD 10 million that was called out in February, I think, for the Lightning, the step-up in CapEx from the Lightning acquisition. Is that just combined with the rest of the Smart Communities business, or has there been a step-up in the spend expected?
No, it's combined.
Yeah.
...itself was spending around AUD 7 million. In our numbers for this year, there was AUD 37 million of sort of CapEx, of which around AUD 7 million of that was associated with Smart Communities. With the Lightning acquisition, obviously that increases our CapEx profile as well. We're having good continuous success in terms of new sales as well. A good result for us would be AUD 16 million-AUD 20 million of CapEx spend each year.
Got it. With the 187,000 contracted lots that was called out, just clarifying, that's comparable with the 170,000 that was in the February? That seems like quite a strong performance in a short period of time, especially compared with your 25,000 per annum target.
Yeah, we've had some great results in terms of sales wins in Smart Communities, and we have added 17,000 contract lots between mid-February and today. We've had some major contract wins, which we'll announce in August as well.
Got it. Thank you.
Liam Robertson, Jarden. Just a couple from me. Maybe just following on, firstly from Jimmy's, I guess, margin questions. If we rewind 12 months, you guys obviously led the market on price in the consumer business. You've now followed in this cycle, so Telstra have moved, TPG have moved. Looks like you've put your prices through now, so you'll hopefully be willing to provide some color here. My first question is just very general. Obviously you've held the 500 constant into next year. Can you just give us a sense on what you're seeing in the market? Obviously, it looks like there's been a step up in intensity and competition over the last 12 months, so just keen to get your comments.
I think that's exactly a fact. There's definitely been a step up in level of aggression in the market. The really pleasing thing is we've continued to trade extremely strongly through that aggression. An interesting dynamic that Mehul called out is it's not necessarily the cheapest players who are winning share. In fact, the cheapest players are generally losing share on aggregate. We've taken a mixed approach to our price changes this year. Yes, we have a similar approach with some of the larger players you called out there around the 500 Mb plan. It's definitely the sort of the center ground of or it's the battleground today, where it's the volume plan. Some of our other plans, you can see on our pricing schedule, you can see there's some various movements, ups and downs across the different, mainly ups, across the different speed tiers.
It's not just Telstra who have taken that approach on the 500 Mb. It's pretty common across the industry now to have eaten the CPI indexation at that point. It's definitely a more aggressive battleground. We continue to do well through that period, which I think really speaks to the differentiation of the proposition itself. It is simply a better product to buy, a better product to consume. It performs better. People just prefer the proposition. It's not just about price anymore.
Maybe just as a continuation, if we're thinking about consumer gross margins into 2027, I think, call it 40%-50% of your base is probably on that 500 Mb plan. You've then got Exetel, I'm not going to say outperforming your consumer brand, but contributing really strongly to growth, which is-
Yep.
...at a lower margin. Historically, I think you've sort of spoken about being willing for gross margins to sort of trend back towards the 25% range. Not that that will play out next year, but is that sort of the framing that you've built your 2029 ambitions on?
No, I don't think so. I think what's been really pleasing, in terms of our consumer performance over the last 18 months, is we're taking significant market share. Last year, FY 2026 has been excellent. Without any change to the GP percentage we've been achieving in consumer. We're taking share and holding our margin. If you look at the price changes we just put through, we will recover the NBN costs, so we're in good shape. We haven't had to eat any of the NBN costs in terms of moving into FY 2027. I guess from the financial perspective, I would've liked to seen perhaps the industry move a little higher. For various reasons, they haven't. As a consequence, we've had to follow a little bit, but we're certainly not leading the price in the market down.
We've said we will respond, but we're not going to lead the price down.
Perfect. Just last one on the Smart Communities piece. The 25,000, I guess, annual lot sales target, if I think about how you've positioned that over the last few years, it's probably been 10,000-15,000 organic, and then obviously you've topped that up with a bit of M&A. My question is, are you taking a view on the market around BTS, BTR, and the opportunities there accelerating, or do you now think your product is in a position to be able to take incremental share of the opportunities?
It's the latter.
It's the latter, yeah.
Okay. Maybe Eleonora, any questions online?
Yeah, there's a couple. Is this on? Yep. Okay. Yeah, there's a couple of questions online just on trading and marketing spend. I'll just combine a couple of them. Given the strong trading you just talked about earlier, what level of marketing has been required to achieve this? Related to this is on the neoloop rebrand, and whether you will be supporting this brand with incremental marketing in FY 2027, and how much will you be looking to spend?
Maybe I'll deal with the last part first and then, Dean, if you comment on the marketing spend today. neoloop is our wholesale brand. It's not a consumer-facing brand. We will support the launch of the brand, but it's not going to be a big sink of spend. It's a brand that we really just position with the property developers themselves and the retail service providers who would be selling on it. Our main investment on brand is on Superloop. It will remain on Superloop going forward. In terms of absolute quantums, do you want to?
I've always said many times we come in and out of the market based on the cost to acquire. The fact that we've had excellent trading results, you should read that we've been acquiring at a good cost to acquire. In fact, it's been excellent over the last two or three months. I think what we're seeing is the brand is certainly giving us a halo effect, and we're getting increased efficiency through our marketing spend. We previously indicated, I think the first half, we had AUD 16 million. We indicated we would like to spend a similar amount. We've actually spent a little bit less because we haven't needed to. We're pleased with our volume and the efficiency in terms of cost per order has been excellent over the last three or four months.
Okay, great. Thank you. I've also got a question just on Exetel. What are your plans for Exetel given that seems to have been performing well? Do you expect your Exetel volumes to increase next year, FY 2027?
Look, Exetel is a fantastic product, but it's a product that meets a particular market niche. It's not a product that is supported by a lot of marketing spend. It is a cost-optimized proposition that needs to survive primarily on a viral basis through word of mouth, referrals, and some digital support. We're very happy with the way the Exetel One plan is performing. We think it's got a series of customer journeys that's quite unique in the marketplace. It's got to continue to operate in a really efficient basis, or it won't make much sense to us. Our plans for Exetel One are to continue doing exactly what we're doing today.
Okay. I've got another one, and then maybe we'll check with the floor again. What should we expect to be the M&A priority supporting SUPERCHARGE 2029?
Three is a very long time, and lots will happen in that period of time. I'd just answer it in the same way I answered previously, which I know is not that helpful, but you can't really expect me to answer it any other way. We continue to look at opportunities in all three of our segments, reflecting the different quality of the segments. Of course, our interest in the higher margin segments will be stronger. That doesn't mean we're not continually interested in, say, a consumer base should such a base be available to us on the right terms. We don't need to buy in any of our segments. We're happy with the breadth of our portfolio now. It really is about market share and an opportunity where such opportunities should represent value and be available to us on the right terms.
Accretive, clean assets that aren't full of all sorts of legacy headwinds and skeletons, and appropriately priced. They've always been our M&A criteria. They continue to be our M&A criteria. We're always looking. We're in M&A discussions right now. That doesn't tell you anything. We're always in M&A discussions. We've not really completed a lot of M&A transactions over the last 18 months, but it wasn't for lack of participation in lots of processes. We only want to buy well because we don't need to buy. We want to make sure anything we do buy is a great and accretive transaction.
Wanted to check if there's any more questions on the floor.
Cam.
Morning, guys. Cameron Bell from Canaccord. Just a couple of questions, Dean, maybe for you so you can calm me down a little bit. The contracted lots numbers that you've given, that was at 187 at the moment.
Yeah.
Going to 260.
Yes.
You do the math on your contracted at the moment and you overlay it with the three years. Are you basically saying in three years, based on the ARPU and the gross margin and the activation, you've got AUD 60 million gross profit coming from Smart Communities? In three years' time, that number goes up again, looking forward to AUD 100 million or north?
Cam, you're highly capable of doing the numbers. I think we've broken them down in terms of what it looks like. What we've painted, though, is a profile for how it works. We're giving you the data. In essence, the way it works is we win the contract. It takes usually somewhere between 12 and 24 months for an MDU. Sometimes it's longer for a broadacre. We've given you an indication of what the build profile is. Yes, we want to keep winning in the market. If we can keep winning at 25,000 new contracted lots each year, we want to grow the contracted book. If we can grow the contract book, that adds more value over time as well.
Cam, I'd also reflect on the construction profiles that Daisey talked about between the different types of developments. MDUs have a certain construction life cycle, broadacre something else. It's laid out in Daisey's slide there. You'll need to form your own views on what you think the mix of those sales opportunities will be. Clearly, when we turn them on is a function of what we win. We're not giving three years of guidance.
Yep. No, that's loud and clear. Could you give us a sense of what the current level of revenue and gross profit in that business is?
Look, as I said, I think you can almost work that out. We've given you the existing active services, and we've given you the ARPU. You can pretty much work out what the revenue is on the active base today. If you take the bill profile we've given you can pretty much work out what it'll look like over three and five years as well.
Also the AUD 11 million for Lightning EBITDA that's added into FY 2027 goes on top of the data points that you've got for the Superloop Base business.
Yep. We're giving you a lot of data, so we're happy to take questions afterwards as well to walk you through it. We've been asked a number of times to explain what the economics looks like in Smart Communities. We're giving you the ARPU profile and how it grows as we have an increase in FTTP in our mix. We've given you the activation rates, which is important, and we're giving you the bill profile. They're the three real drivers, and that's really how you model it out. It's as simple as that. It's not a hard business to model out with those inputs.
Just one last one. When does Bradfield start kicking in?
That one takes a little while. That is a big profile. That's a classic example. In Daisey talk to that sort of exclusive arrangements. It takes a number of years before that comes through. That's probably in the outer years. That's more likely to be in sort of years two, three, four, five. It takes some time. That's why things like the acquisition of Lightning is important, because that business is focused on MDUs, and they turn on more quickly. What we've got there is a mixture between what might've been on the left-hand slide of Daisey's slide, which is sort of almost exclusive whole of business arrangements versus more tactical sort of MDUs that turn on more quickly. That's why we gave you a sort of blended number, and you'll see it in the bill profiles.
Thanks, guys.
Anything else online? One more online. Okay, and then maybe one in the room, and we'll call it a night.
The question is the AGL wholesale still expected to cut over from 1 July to ABB?
Actually, I'm not sure of the exact timing, but it will be in the first quarter of 2027, is our expectation. Okay. Any other questions in the room? All right. Let me wrap. Just thank you for your time, and thanks for your support. We think there's a really exciting three years ahead of us. The board, the executive team, and I are really looking forward to the coming three years. We think there's a lot of opportunity for the business. We thank you for your support, and we hope we all have a lot of fun through the strategy cycle. Thanks very much.