Good morning, everyone. It's James Hall speaking from TPG. Welcome to our Q&A session for our half year results for the 2022 financial year, and thank you for joining us. In the room with me, along with Iñaki Berroeta, our Managing Director and CEO, and Grant Dempsey, our CFO, we have several other of the executive team. Trent Czinner, our Group Executive for Legal and Corporate Affairs. Kieren Cooney, our Group Executive for Consumer. Jonathan Rutherford, our Group Executive for Enterprise Government and Wholesale, and Sean Crowley, our Deputy CFO, as well as myself and other members of the investor relations and communications teams. I will shortly hand over to Iñaki to start. Before I do so, I'll just remind everyone to ask a question. It is star one.
I will now hand over to Iñaki to make some introductory comments before we hand over to Q&A.
Thank you, James, and thank you everyone for joining us today. I just wanted to start by saying that we have a half year that was characterized by building a strong momentum. We started the year in a lower point than the corresponding period in 2021 and still under restrictions. But during this half, and especially in the second quarter of the half, we carry a very good customer gain. At the same time that we deal with some of the shortages that we anticipated on Fixed Wireless, and we're exiting this first half with a very strong momentum commercially. We see that also in the first weeks of the second half.
But also on the Fixed Wireless, we see now that we are going to be able to deliver better numbers, again, confirming this 160,000 number that we mentioned for the second half. We also did significant restructuring in the business. This was done early in the half, and I think that all these factors, between the customer momentum, the Fixed Wireless, and also some of the reductions that we've done in the beginning of the year, will really accelerate momentum into the second half of 2022, where we will see and we anticipate a high single-digit EBITDA growth, compared to the corresponding period of 2021. That, I think, is my introduction. I think that, you know, we are now ready to get any questions.
Once again, thank you very much for joining us today.
Thank you, Iñaki. The first question is from Eric Choi at Barrenjoey. Good morning, Eric. Please ask your question.
Thanks, James, and thanks, team. I had a few. I might ask them one by one, if that's right. The first one, I'm just trying to gauge exactly how much better the second quarter earnings was versus the first. If we use slide 11, and I use those numbers to sort of back solve your revenue, it suggests second quarter EBITDA might have been about AUD 22 million higher or about 5% better than first quarter. Is that the case, maybe for Grant?
Hi, Eric. Look, I'm not gonna provide quarter-on-quarter EBITDA numbers, I don't think. As you know, you know, the margin can move around a little bit month-by-month. The reason we provided revenue, quarter-over-quarter sort of indications, but that's a bit smoother. It's a bit more of a better indicator over the long term. Certainly, as you know, it's a, you know, it's a leveraged business, so if you increase revenue, your margin does go up, you know, slightly higher than revenue. I think the point of that chart is to show that, you know, this is like turning a ship around. The ship started to get turned around late last year, as we talked about in terms of the customer metrics.
It does take a bit of a lag in terms of coming through the financials. That trend is really clear on service revenue. It's more lumpy in terms of EBITDA just because of lots of things that go in and out of it. Certainly the trend over a half-on-half and a year-on-year perspective is good. I think the other point that, just to highlight, Iñaki's sort of view, we did sort of start the year, sort of double digit down in EBITDA, and we finished the half, you know, high single digits in terms of corresponding periods. In that sense, you can really see quite a strong trend coming through, and it's continued into the third quarter, I think is the other point on that chart.
Just on that point, Grant, that's helpful, and I can understand you wouldn't want to commit to an EBITDA number. Whatever the second quarter versus first quarter delta is, would it be fair to assume you'd expect that delta to accelerate into third quarter and fourth quarter, given you've got all the same mobile drivers, you've got the same Fixed Wireless, and then on top of that, you've got this NBN price kicker. You'd think the quarter-on-quarter EBITDA growth should improve in 3Q and 4Q?
It'll certainly continue. Accelerate will depend on obviously, you know, again, we're not providing guidance as it were. I think in terms of the price thing, which I'm sure, Iñaki and I will talk about, that kicks in throughout the half. I'm not sure. That's probably more a story for the fourth quarter and into 2023 in terms of the benefits of that. The margin improvement will continue for sure in the second half.
Awesome. Just a second question. I guess the accelerating top-line drivers are pretty, but I'm just worried the fixed cost base will accelerate as well. Can you just give us a bit of an update on the EBAs that you previously flagged you were negotiating this quarter?
It's still being negotiated, and I think we're hoping by the end of the third quarter, we're in a position where we're getting to that point. It's not something we can really comment on in that timeframe.
Got it. Okay. Then maybe a third one, just going over to enterprise. Obviously, margin's growing at the moment and still quite high, but you've called out a push into NBN Enterprise Ethernet. Maybe if you can give us a steer on what the margin outlook for that division looks like.
Yeah, thanks, Eric. As I mentioned before, roughly approximately 35% of business would go through on NBN. We do favor on net, one, where we've got connected buildings, and secondly, where we've got an ability to use mobile services as well, either FWA or 5G. We wouldn't give specific guidance on the underlying margin, but we would signal that it's clearly as we grow revenue, we'd expect to see some dilution in margin percentage, but with an aim to grow absolute margin by being efficient how we allocate capital to the right network builds.
That's helpful. Thanks, team.
Thank you, Eric. The next question is from Lucy Huang at UBS. Good morning, Lucy.
Morning, James, and morning, Iñaki and Grant and team. I've got three questions as well. Firstly, just wonder if you can give us an update on the IT transformation, how that's going, and how should we be thinking then about the associated costs out beyond kind of FY 2022 as a result of these IT projects. Secondly, with mobile ARPU mix, just wondering if you can give us some color as to what proportion of subs are now sitting on the lower budget brands such as Lebara. Then also with felix, any color on how that brand's also trending, that'll be great. Thirdly, in relation to fixed wireless subscribers, you've maintained the guidance of 160,000 by the end of this year.
Does suggest a bit of a ramp-up of net adds in the second half. I guess, can you give us some color as to what gives you the confidence. Is modem availability increasing? Thank you.
Thanks, Lucy. Great. I'll do the first question, and I'll leave it to others to answer some color around the second. Look, in terms of IT transformation, it's probably a broader transformation than IT. IT is pretty important in it, of course. In terms of the transformation, as you would have seen, we did focus on that. Giovanni and Ana talked about that at the Investor Day. We're really still leaning into that. The reflection of the cost this year is twofold. There was elements as you see of sort of the redundancies that really had to do more with the last bit of the synergy sort of requirements out of the merger, which happened at the beginning of this year. Which really starts to get us into simplifying the organizational structure.
Now, as we talked about at the Investor Day, we're leaning into simplifying both the IT infrastructure. That'll also be looking at products and brands and all the things that go across the whole organization. These can be multi-year projects. Anybody who's done IT transformation and especially building systems and lots of architecture together, so they will be multi-year. I think the planning of that's probably this year and next in terms of the heavy lifting that we're doing. The types of numbers you see this year, we called out AUD 55-AUD 60, which is a range and an estimate that already includes the AUD 35 we've spent. I suspect that'll continue into next year. Beyond that, I think it starts to become much more part of business as usual as we work through that transformation.
I think that's how we're looking at it. A lot of the transformation costs will also be in the CapEx side of it, but we have also, you know, we've already included that really in sort of the broad guidance we've given of sort of that 1 to 1.05 of CapEx over the next couple of years. Already includes both transformation of the 5G network and also transformation of the IT architecture. I'm gonna hand over to-
Yeah. I think on the mobile ARPU, maybe ask Kieren to answer that question.
No problem. Thank you, Lucy. On the first question around mobile ARPU and the performance of the lower cost brands or the value leading brands that we've got. Currently our value leading, you know, our value brands sit around a third of our customer base. That's probably the big. As I understand the question there. The second question is what confidence we have in the build up to the 160,000 Fixed Wireless. As we've spoken about, there has been chipset and modem issues throughout the year, and we're in a much better position than we were months ago. One, that gives us confidence. The second key point is as we head into the second half, we'll start to sell into our 5G Standalone network.
That gives us a whole new tranche of customers. We know that with this new wave of customers, we're able to get a new jump in sales as well.
Thank you. Thanks, everyone.
Okay. Next question is from Kane Hannan at Goldman Sachs. Good morning, Kane.
Good morning, guys. Just three from me as well. I might ask them in turn as well. I suppose maybe just to start, so eight months into the year, you're talking about this accelerating earnings momentum. You know, the quarterly trends are helpful. Is there a reason why you haven't put full year guidance out there? I mean, wouldn't that be an easier way to show that earnings have troughed in the first half?
You're about to answer three questions. I can answer that now. I think, well, look, we haven't provided guidance before, as you know, Kane, so I think, we're providing most of the outlooks in terms of how you can get to guidance. No, there's no particular reason why we haven't provided guidance at this stage, other than it is accelerating through.
Yeah. Perfect. I can ask these two in a row. Just the restructuring charges and I suppose one-off charges you're calling out in the first half. Was there anything in FY 2021 associated with those AUD 70 million in synergies that you delivered? Any restructuring or other one-off costs? Oh, you go.
Yeah. No, not really, no. These were new for this year. We held off a lot of that last bit of the organizational simplifications till the start of this year. So most of the synergy realization over the first 18 months post-merger was really around sort of networks and sort of telecommunication costs, as it were. Some of that in terms of restructuring around our shop fronts and all that kind of stuff and the distribution. In terms of the restructuring costs we've called out this year, this is really the first time we've seen any significant ones. It's not just the redundancies from the organizational restructure, it's also, as I say, leaning into the next phase of simplification.
I mean, one of the things I think gives a bit of confidence into how why we think they are one-off and they do have future benefits is we do adjust them when we come to the dividend calculation. We do adjust and add them back in. We are ignoring them in terms of our adjusted net PAT and paying a dividend out as if they didn't happen, because we are confident they're one-off and they provide future benefits.
Yeah. Perfect. Just the, on the enterprise side, that 20% of legacy revenues overall, I mean, is the margin on that revenue broadly the same as the division at around 50%? Just how do I think about the phasing of decline of that revenue base?
Yeah. Thanks, Kane. Broadly speaking, some of the legacy revenues would look very similar to the overall base. The decline in it will be phased in three different ways. There's legacy revenues linked to copper shutdown, and those will follow the copper shutdown program that's running as networks move over fully to NBN. Second is, there's legacy revenues that are linked to our IT transformation, and that will follow as we decommission data centers or services. Then the third area is there's some legacy revenues linked to products which we've made a strategic decision to stop, sell, and replace with new services, such as software-defined networks in the future. It'll be slightly different phasing across it, but yes, the margin mix of that looks very similar to the margin mix of the base.
That should be mostly out of the base by the 2025 billion-dollar targets you guys have set?
Exactly, yes.
Perfect. Makes sense.
Thank you, Kane. Our next question comes from Roger Samuel at Jefferies. Good morning, Roger.
Hi. Morning, guys. I've got two questions. The first one, just wanna unpack the high cost in this half. So, can you tell us like the main drivers in terms of, you know, the synergies from the merger? It sounds like there wasn't much in this half, and there's more to come in the second half of this year. And then, maybe there's an increase in handset subsidies as well, because I remember you subsidized some new iPhones earlier in the year. So maybe there's some costs coming out of a year from there. That's my first question. Second question is on or more around your cost of debt.
I understand that you've got a lot of debt which is ballooning. Just wondering what's your forecast for your interest costs going forward?
Sure. Look, on costs, nothing's really changed much since Investor Day when we went through it. Really where the costs are at is we have got a fair amount of benefits from the synergies in the first half that'll flow through to the second. That is there. It's obviously hidden a bit by some other cost pressures. I think in particular, obviously, there's restructuring costs, which we've talked about, which is the main new cost into the business. As you called out, really, the handset margins is driven by two sort of things. Handsets are getting more expensive themselves, but largely the increase to the cost is in the financing of the receivables that we offer. As you know, people can take up interest-free handsets.
The financing of that, which is usually with third parties, has increased dramatically over the last six months. As interest rates rise, these things rise. That's probably been a bigger driver of cost around the margin. Electricity costs, you know, we are ramping up the activities around 5G in terms of 5G upgrade, which means the actual use of energy is higher. It's a bit across the board in terms of costs and cost pressures. Certainly if we hadn't had the synergies flowing through, those costs would've been much higher. What was the second question? Yeah.
Just on the cost of debt. Yeah.
Yeah. On the cost of debt, I think it's two things. Obviously, we've mitigated that with the payment down, and I think a little bit of hedging. I think when we last gave a bit of a sensitivity, it was sort of for every 50 basis points, it was AUD 22 million. I'm looking at James to make sure I don't get this wrong. And that's sort of now down to about AUD 17 million going forward for every 50 basis points moving. We are continuing to look at hedging, so that sensitivity may change. I think for us, the biggest change in the tower thing is we have a lot of natural hedge now in our lease debt.
The more we've got our sort of bank debt down, the less sensitive we are to movements in interest rates.
Yeah. Can you give us some guidance in terms of your interest costs?
I think it is that for every basis points it moves, it's about AUD 17 million in cost.
All right.
Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. All right. Great. Thanks.
Thanks, Roger. Next in line is Entcho Raykovski from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead, Encho.
Morning all. Martin, this question is just a clarification. In Iñaki Berroeta's opening comments, you spoke about high single-digit EBITDA growth in the second half. Just to clarify, is that ex restructuring costs and how good is your visibility on this?
I don't. What was the agreement? I don't think I did give a view for the second half. I think we had a bit of a run rate in the first half, and it was corresponding over the first half last year, so they had different numbers.
Okay. I thought Iñaki Berroeta made some comments as part of his opening remarks about high single-digit EBITDA growth. In any case, maybe I misheard.
Yeah. No, we did. There's no sort of let's say we didn't give guidance for the second half of what the EBITDA is gonna be. I think we did end the half much higher corresponding, sort of, the quarter from year-to-year.
Okay. I guess if we're thinking about that run rate, so was that on an ex restructuring cost basis or was it with restructuring costs included? Was it on a post restructuring cost basis you had that sort of run rate?
Yeah. We do it pre-restructuring costs. Yeah. We're looking at this as a pre-restructuring cost and then add back the restructuring costs.
Okay. Got it. If my second question around CapEx, if we look at your CapEx guidance on slide 31, should we take that to be consistent with the prior guidance of AUD 1 billion-AUD 1.05 billion? I think, Grant, you repeated that number earlier. It's just that if I sort of add up all the midpoints, I get to 1.06, but maybe I'm just reading too much into it. I guess even if you're retaining the CapEx guidance, what are you seeing in terms of inflationary pressure on capital costs?
I'll do the first one first. Yes and yes is the answer. Yes, the guidance stays the same, and yes, you're reading too much into it, but I can see how you do. Because I would take the midpoints as well and come to a slightly higher number. We really put that in as that's consistent with what we showed at Investor Day, and we just divided it by two, to be honest, just to say, for a full year, that's our estimates. Yeah, we'll still sit within that range, we think, for the year.
In terms of inflationary pressures, look, you know, again, as we mentioned at the Investor Day on the CapEx outlook, a fair chunk of it is in the RAN, which has sort of fixed contracts through the course of it. That's not to say there won't be some around the margin in terms of electricity usage, but even there we have a three-year sort of rolling view on pricing there. I think we feel pretty comfortable in terms of our ability to manage inflationary pressures in the CapEx. You know, obviously we've talked about OpEx. That will have some inflationary pressures over time. In the CapEx, I think we're much more comfortable.
Okay, great. And the final one on postpaid ARPU, so it was down marginally year-on-year, and half-on-half when you exclude roaming. I'm just trying to reconcile that with the comment at the Investor Day that you're seeing strong ARPU performance. And maybe it was a relative comment or it's something that you're thinking about into second half. How should we reconcile that sort of slightly down ex roaming outcome with strong ARPU performance ex roaming? And should we expect underlying ARPU growth ex roaming into the second half?
Yeah. I think we maintain a bit the comment that we did in the Investor Day. One side, still the recovery of roaming has been limited for the first half. There was very little recovery on the first quarter. We start to see that ramping up on the second quarter, and we expect to get to similar levels pre-COVID probably during the next year. Despite that, we also see the tendency of postpaid ARPU good. I think that, you know, ultimately you need to look this into more longer term than the different transitions that we may see during different quarters based on promotional activity, et cetera, et cetera. Overall, we are optimistic in terms of postpaid ARPU moving forward.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thanks, Encho. Next in line is Brian Han from Morningstar. Hi, Brian.
Hi, James. Thanks. Three questions from me. First, can you please confirm, because I'm now thoroughly confused. When you say you expect a strong increase in second half EBITDA, are you referring to growth over second half 2021 or first half 2022?
Probably both, to be honest. Yeah. We'll continue to, I mean, obviously our focus right now is how we're coming out of the second quarter into there. The focus has been on where we are now and growing into the next half. We do expect continued momentum into the second half from where we are, where we've performed in the first half year.
Yeah, just to elaborate on that. Maybe when I didn't explain myself very well when I did the opening remarks, but we will see EBITDA growth versus the second half of last year and versus the first half of this year because the starting point of this year was significantly lower. We started to gain customer momentum. At the end of last year, we're starting to see already revenue momentum, and we do see EBITDA momentum building for the second half. Why is that? Well, that's on the back of, like I said, very different customer numbers. Population is going to help us. On the other hand, we also see the fixed wireless momentum building up on the second half versus the first half.
All those factors are the ones that give us these growth versus, like I said, first half and also the second half of last year.
Okay. Two more questions, if I may. My second question was just a little bit more on restructuring costs. If the regional deal with Telstra gets approved, do you expect that to also lead to much restructuring costs?
No, the restructuring cost is related to the organizational changes that we made this year. We're not going to have any comment on what the implications will be. You know, we don't anticipate anything that has to do with organization or nothing material. I think the implications of something like MOCN or another type of activities, I think that will disclose at a time. You know, once the ACCC approves, we will comment more. All in all, we always have explained that, you know, from a cash perspective, it's something pretty neutral for the company.
What it does is really, you know, transfer a significant OpEx and also CapEx that we have in that part of the region into different type of payments with multiplying the amount of sites that we have present times five. That's really the ultimate implication of the MOCN. Yeah, the restructure that we have done beginning of the year was more around, you know, the organizational structuring that we need.
Okay, thank you. My last question was, in terms of roaming revenue, can you please remind us what it was pre-COVID?
It was about AUD 80 million pre-COVID.
Great. Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you, Brian. The next question is Fraser McLeish at MST Marquee. Hi, Fraser.
Yeah. Hi, guys. A couple from me. Sorry, I forgot to listen to the presentation beforehand, so hopefully you've not answered these questions already in that. The broadband price increases, can you just give us an idea of what percentage of the base that's gonna apply to and how they're likely to flow through? And also maybe how you're thinking of increases in NBN wholesale costs next year that are potentially gonna offset some of that price increase. That's the first question. Second question. Maybe I'll just ask that and then come back to the second, if that's okay.
Yeah. Look, I think that the pricing increases are not because of anything that we are considering moving forward. There's still quite a bit of movement in terms of wholesale pricing with the new consultation on SAU. This is really a reflection of the way that NBN costs have changed in the last two years, mostly related to, you know, the dependency on home broadband as a way for people to continue working and also educating, et cetera, et cetera. There has been a shift in the way that this infrastructure has been used that has created probably good revenues for NBN. But then it has also put some pressure on the industry.
So far we have absorbed that, and now we are in a position where we really need to bring this into a better margin of our NBN business. The changes, to your question, will apply roughly to half of our base.
Great. Thanks. That's helpful. Just another one on mobile post-paid net adds. Obviously good that they're back to a bit of growth. However, I guess given borders reopening. Well, one question, how much are borders reopening? Are they gonna impact post-paid much going forward or is that really mainly pre-paid? Also, I mean, your price discount to the other guys on post-paid has blown out quite significantly. Would you not perhaps be hoping to do a bit better in mobile post-paid net adds? Thanks.
Kieren here. Thanks, Fraser. From a percentage that's come through from, or, you know, where we see the opportunity from borders opening, it's a couple of levels. One is on roaming that we were talking about before for an outgoing. From an incoming point of view, it benefits both pre-pay and post-pay, so it depends, and that changes throughout the year. Pre-pay tends to be more tourism, whereas post-pay tends to be students and immigration. What we saw in the first quarter was more of a student phase as the year begins. There's usually a second one of those in the third quarter, a little bit. It kind of depends when. It's a little bit of both to answer the question.
Depends on the time of year, the impact. At its height, it was about a third of our net sales are coming through from international, and then another month, it drops down. On the second question, in terms of how we are looking from the pricing compared to our promotions compared to net adds, so we're comfortable where we are now. As we've mentioned before, as we try to strike the balance between the level of pricing or the level of discounts or the pricing options that we have, combined with where we really see our opportunity in terms of net growth. We think we've found some price points where we think we can compete profitably and really strongly. That's been our approach.
Okay, thank you.
Thanks, Fraser. Harry Saunders from Evans & Partners is the next question in line. Hi, Harry, please go ahead.
Hi, guys. First question from me. The consumer margin decline, how should we think about that in the second half and sort of the movement expected in mobile versus fixed? Just also on that, are you confident of recovering the decline in sort of implied NBN margin in the second half, you know, given the recent price rises announced?
Yeah, I can have a first go and then Kieren can fill in the gaps. I think the answer is, yes, the consumer margin will grow in the second half. If you look at a lot of the stuff in the waterfall, some of those things are lessening. In terms of this, again, this is a comparison first half over first half last year, so there's been quite a bit of movement in that. With that service revenue growth, which is largely consumer driven, that'll continue to support the margin growth, so margin will improve. Some of the elements as we talked about, the handset financing costs are still there with us. Those have continued to increase with interest rates.
In terms of the, as I said before on the NBN pricing increases, that really is gonna flow through during the fourth quarter, but is not gonna be really ramped up in terms of impact, you know, until probably we'll see it next year. That will help recover some of the costs that Iñaki just talked about that's increased over the last couple of years, but we'll start to see the full benefit as we move into 2023. It will be helpful in the second half, obviously.
Right. Thank you. Just secondly, on this sort of on-net fiber target you previously had of 150,000 subs at the end of the year, looks like that's not in the preso now. You know, have you sort of walked away from that? Just, I guess, while we're on the targets, the Fixed Wireless target of doubling the 160,000 FWA two years and reaching 20% of the FWA space over time, does that still stand?
Yeah, yeah. We are going to do the 160 for the end of the year, that the same way that we explain in the investor day, investor presentation is, we have during the first half some challenges on chip availability. We see that that is now changing, and at the same time we are leveraging on a much more significantly more 5G rollout. We have completed about 1,500 sites. We are now expanding significantly our 5G footprint. The combination of those two things will allow us to ramp up on the second half and make the 160 that we spoke about.
On the second point of the question, there's nothing that we've seen that gives us any doubt about the longer term picture of 20% of the base. We know that when we've got a very high acceptance rate when we offer Fixed Wireless to existing customers, and we've increasingly seen it work in from an acquisition point as well. We stay confident that 20% of our base longer term will be on Fixed Wireless.
You know, maybe you are a bit confused with the number because the 150,000 that we mentioned on net, this is not Fixed Wireless. This is actually on our access network that we are now completing the functional separation, I think it's next month. That is the number for the existing fixed access network, 150, and then 160 will be Fixed Wireless access. They are two separate numbers. If you combine both, that is 310 total on net customers.
Yeah. Sorry. No, perhaps there was some confusion, but my question was you originally had a target for the end of FY 2022 for 150,000 subscribers on that, the fiber on net network, you know, up from 135 at the end of last year. It looks like, you know, that 135 is flat, so I can't see that 150 now. You know, have you sort of walked away from that target?
Harry, no, we're not walking away, but we will launch functional separation a little bit later than we would've originally thought when we put the aspiration out in the market. We're on track now to have functional separation, as Iñaki said, by next month. You'll see some news about how we're bringing our networks to market through that functional separation that we're delivering. We still have the ambition. We still see there's a very strong opportunity, bearing in mind we have 400,000 premises passed that we can connect up. We just have a little bit of phasing and timing as we launch functional separation next month.
Okay. Sorry, just a couple more. The restructuring cost that you're recognizing or expect to recognize during the year, are you expecting any spill over into 2023 of restructuring costs?
Yeah, I think that the transformation of our business will certainly go into next year. Whether it'll be a similar amount or not is something that we'll work through the course of this year and provide that at our full year results. I think for now the reasonable expectation is the activities that we're leaning into now require a lot of planning, a lot of execution, and so we will continue to have some kind of. The mix will change in terms of the restructuring costs, but I don't think it's much more in terms of redundancy. It's more actually moving into you know the IT architecture and the simplification process we've been talking about.
Great. Just finally, I just wanna clear up any confusion. You know, in the opening remarks, Iñaki, you talked about high single digit EBITDA growth. Just wanna confirm, you know, that's correct and, you know, versus the first half or second half.
I think that's where we exited the second quarter based on last year, you know, as a comparison. These comparisons are interesting, so you can work them. The models, obviously, you know, from the comparison last year, the business momentum has shifted. It continued to go down for a while. It started to turn at the end of last year and has now turned between the first and the second quarter. It's not necessarily, again, we're not providing any soft guidance as it were. It's just a view that we entered the year probably close to high single digits, double digits down on comparison year-over-year, and we've finished it in that range.
It is meant to be a positive thing that we have got momentum in the second half, but certainly don't read it as half over half. We're giving you any guidance that way.
Right. Effectively, if you maintain that momentum then, it would effectively be your high single digit EBITDA on the second half of last year?
No, not necessarily when you do the math, no. Because second half last year had some movement from the first half. It's really just a trajectory for you rather than being stuck on, you know, what percentage over this half or last half. It's just that the momentum shifted. It's like a big ship, big cruise liner. We've got that momentum going, which gives us confidence into this year, into the second half of this year and next year. It's not a number that you should use in terms of applying over a particular other number.
Thank you.
Thanks, Harry. Next up is Darren Leung from Macquarie. Hi, Darren. Good morning. Please ask your question.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for the opportunity. Just two very quick ones from me. One on the fixed wireless ARPU, please. It's gone up sequentially as you've highlighted on slide 35, that's AUD 4.40 per month. Just given where pricing and I suppose promotions in the market have gone, is it possible to give us a feel as to what second half might look like? Or alternatively, what the exit rate was at the end of the first half, please?
Look, I think that we have said that as we move more of the mix to 5G products with higher data speed, we will see that ARPU growth. We're not going to talk about what is the implication of that for the second half. You can understand that we started this on a 4G technology. We are now moving to a 5G technology. The products have a different ARPU, so that should be the trajectory that we expect moving forward.
Just the second one, just on the MOCN deal. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding was there was meant to be a preliminary decision with the result today and then a finalized decision in October. I'm keen to understand as to what's changed, so to then shift it to December, please.
Yeah. Maybe I'm going to ask Trent Czinner to answer to that question because he's more familiar with the process of the ACCC and the approvals.
Thanks, Darren. There was, I think, meant to be a statement of preliminary views around this time, but not coinciding with this results announcement. That is a matter for the ACCC to decide when they publish it. However, the date we announced this morning and the ACCC updated this morning on its website for the final determination is now 2 December. Although they do note, you'll see a November/December 2022 possible date for that decision. That's changed upon discussion with the ACCC to provide them sufficient time to conclude their investigations and assessment.
That's clear. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. We've now got Ian Martin from New Street Research. Thanks, Ian. Please go ahead.
Well, thanks for that. Yeah, I've just got a few questions around the Fixed Wireless access strategy, you know, which I think's potentially quite meaningful going forward. I'm interested in, you know, relative usage on Fixed Wireless versus the rest of the fixed network, and how you're managing that capacity-wise. Just a couple of questions. One, how many of those 113,000 are voice only? What's the relative use in terms of, you know, gigabyte download per month on Fixed Wireless versus the rest of your broadband base or fixed customer base. I note your comment about looking at millimeter wave, from, I think, 2025 you're talking about. I just wonder what kind of capacity constraint you're going to face between now and then. Thanks.
Thank you, Ian. We spoke about this, but the way that we do Fixed Wireless is basically by using geographical areas where we do have a spare capacity. The consumption, obviously, of a Fixed Wireless product is much higher than a mobile. That is why we are targeting this product on areas where there is not high usage of mobile. The evolution is obviously towards a millimeter wave to later on do an offloading of the C-band spectrum for more mobile usage as the penetration of 5G mobile increases. That's a bit the roadmap of
This is a roadmap of the Fixed Wireless and, you know, in that sense, the capacity is more about a better usage of capacity rather than having to, at this point, allocate incremental capacity for Fixed Wireless.
All right. How many of the 113,000 are voice only? Are you able to share that?
It's Kieren here. Thanks, Ian. Very few that, because we've sold it largely as a broadband-
Yeah.
...alternative or a broadband access alternative. The other thing I'd mention just on the question about to use your previous question in terms of does the usage of Fixed Wireless change compared to when they're on NBN. Because a lot of our customers have come from migration, we're able to see that change, and we've seen very little difference. Albeit it is still relatively new for us, but we haven't seen people's behavior change as they've moved from a fixed broadband technology to a Fixed Wireless broadband technology.
All right. Just one last question about legacy fixed revenue from DSL products. It was a AUD 15 million drop because of that. Is there much legacy fixed revenue still?
Sorry, Ian, you might just need to repeat that question. We lost you for a moment there. It was a little garbled.
Is there much more legacy fixed revenue to come out of DSL products or are they pretty much all immaterial now?
Lastly, I think if you, again, you're garbled again, but I think you were asking about the consumer legacy. We were wondering whether it was consumer or commercial legacy. It's certainly declined dramatically, and there's not much to go. Is the short answer.
Very good. Thanks for that.
Thanks, Ian. We're now on to our final question, or final question queued. It's Nick Harris from Morgans. Please take it away, Nick. Thank you.
Thanks very much. Just a couple from me. The synergy target, the 125-150 for the full year, did you clarify anywhere what you got in the first half?
No, no. It's largely. We're largely probably at that run rate now, to be honest. There's a little bit more to come in the second half. The last bit of it was the restructuring we did early in the year. It was done in the first quarter in terms of flowing through.
Does that mean costs should, like all things being equal, broadly hold half on half rather than decline because the costs have been right?
All things being equal, but yes. There are some other, you know, things that aren't equal, obviously.
Moving parts, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. Excellent. Second question is just on the mobile trends. Obviously, your competitors have pushed some mobile price rises through in the last month or so. Clearly you haven't. The relative attractiveness of Vodafone, I would've thought, has increased. I'm just curious, with those price rises in your competitors, have you seen any change in the mobile momentum? You know, have your adds started to accelerate or move at all?
Thanks, Nick. It's Kieren here. In and of itself, not particularly. What we've seen is the mobile market around us moving very vibrantly. That's one set of players, but we've seen just as much change at the lower end as well. We see entry from supermarkets and so forth. I think I'd characterize it overall. It's a very vibrant and competitive industry sector rather than that particularly has made a change. I would of course note that some of those price changes are yet to actually materialize onto customers' bills. We may well see some of that change coming up.
Okay. Thank you. I just had two other questions. One was, just going back to the MOCN agreement. I guess that obviously it's been pushed out given the ACCC needs more time. Should we? You sound very confident it'll still happen. I presume you don't think that changes the equation at all. Also last question, which is just the Fixed Wireless traction. I think, Grant, you mentioned, the acceptance rates of your customer base. Obviously, it's really targeted offering. I was just curious if you were comfortable sharing some of those acceptance rates because that'll have a big impact on your ability to roll out through the network. Obviously it's a much higher speed, better value, or sorry, higher speed, plan for the same price as an NBN connection.
I was just interested if you could give us a bit more detail because that is quite material. Thank you.
Thank you for the question. Let me start with the MOCN, and then I'll pass on to Kieran, and then he can talk to you a bit more about fixed wireless. On the MOCN, the time that the ACCC takes to review these things, you know, it is a significant change in the market, so it is understandable that it's something that, you know, they need to look at it. But that does not change at all our view, which is also the view of the minority of the responses that the ACCC has received, except some interested party, that this is pro-competitive.
From that perspective, we maintain a good level of optimism because ultimately, you know, not only for us is a very good solution to get to 5G in a much larger footprint a lot quicker, but it's also an ability for us to compete in a market that previously we haven't. That ultimately, you know, has a great benefit to the public and to the consumers, which is ultimately what the ACCC is looking at and not so much at the particular commercial interests of other parties.
One particular. Yes. Thank you.
Thank you, Nick. It's Kieren here. If I take the second half on Fixed Wireless. If I understand the question, it was on the acceptance rate. Probably a few things to note as I answer this, so, in picking up on Iñaki's point earlier, which was that we really don't. Our Fixed Wireless service is not broadly available. We don't offer it to everyone. We don't offer it everywhere. We offer it in areas where we're very confident we have more than enough capacity to offer as good or better service to the customers that we're offering it to. That's probably the first point. Our actual numerator is quite a tight amount. What we look at depends on the plan, it depends on the time, but we've seen a really positive uptake of the offer.
It depends on the offer and depends on what stage of the rollout. It's been anywhere from a quarter to a third as an uptake. What I would say is that as we go forward, one of the opportunities towards the end of the year is, as Iñaki mentioned earlier, we've been rolling out our 5G network and our 5G Standalone network, we have yet to start to sell Fixed Wireless onto. We will do that in the second half of the year, and then that allows for a new tranche of customers that we can start to offer this service to.
That's excellent. Thank you very much.
Well, thanks, Nick. That concludes the queued questions, and I will just hand to Iñaki to make any closing remarks before we wrap up.
Thank you, James, and thank you everyone for joining us this morning. The first thing I want to say is around strategy. We continue our strategy on track. Performance and execution is going well, and we continue with the delivery of everything that we have said. I think that the most important part of the first half of the year is the build-up in momentum. We enter the year with a decline in 2021, and we exit this first half with a good customer momentum. This is something that in the second half, like I said before, will give us an exit rate in the high single digits.
I'm talking about the EBITDA for the second quarter, and we see that translating into the momentum of the second half. We continue to invest in simplification of our business. We are and we want to be a very efficient player in terms of how we manage our costs, but also in the ways we invest. This is something that is required, some investment in the simplification and transformation of the structure, and we're working hard on that. There's been a lot of good progress, and we will continue to do that at the same time that we manage the transformation of the network. We continue to deliver 5G sites at a very high rate.
We are also, as we have always been, optimistic around our MOCN deal being a very strong proposition for the market and for the consumers. We also continue, like I said, before, strengthening our balance sheet. You've seen, you know, the way that we execute on the tower sale and moving forward, making our business healthier and more competitive.