Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Gaye, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the OTE Group conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the second quarter and six months 2025 financial results. All participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Kostas Nebis, CEO of OTE Group, Mr. Babis Mazarakis, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Panayiotis Gabrielides, Chief Marketing Officer, Consumer Segment of OTE Group, and Mr. Evrikos Sarsentis, Head of IR and M&A. Mr. Nebis, you may now proceed. Mr. Nebis, I'm sorry, we cannot hear you.
C an you please start over? Mr. Nebis, you may now proceed.
Thank you. Can I stop now? Super. Okay, greetings to everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our second quarter results review. Let me start with a very recent significant development regarding the disposal of our Romanian operations. A few days ago, we received the anticipated approval by the Romanian authorities, a key step in the completion of the sales transaction that will allow us to optimize our portfolio and unlock additional value for our shareholders. I expect that we will be signing the required documentation with our counterparty shortly, leading to a possible completion of the transaction within the third quarter of 2025, subject, of course, to the approval of certain issues by ANCOM, the telecom regulator.
Now, when it comes to our operations in Greece, I'm pleased to confirm that the strategic pillars we introduced a year ago when I stepped into this role are already yielding meaningful outcomes. We have remained focused, disciplined, and determined in building the foundations to achieve our vision, and today's results reflect the early benefits of these efforts. We delivered another solid quarter with both revenue and EBITDA increasing once again, supported by a broad-based contribution across all our core segments. Our strong commercial momentum, our comprehensive portfolio, and continued operational discipline led to an improvement in EBITDA growth this quarter, a clear validation, I would say, of our strategy. In fixed retail, I'm particularly pleased to report a return to revenue growth after several quarters of muted performance. This turning point was driven by multiple key factors. Our network leadership remains unmatched.
Our FTTH network, the country's largest, keeps expanding in both reach and customer penetration. As a result, our fiber-to-the-home services continued their strong momentum, reaching a new all-time high of customer satisfaction across both retail and wholesale, a clear testament to the growing demand for fiber connectivity and the trust customers place in our tech. Our success has been supported by the National Fiber Voucher Scheme, stimulating higher adoption and penetration levels across the market. Broadband subscriber strengths also turned positive this quarter, fueled by the successful launch and progressive rollout of our fixed wireless access service. Fixed wireless access, or 5G Wi-Fi, which is our commercial product name, is gaining traction, addressing customer needs for faster broadband speeds in poor copper service networks as a bridging technology until fiber infrastructure reaches them.
We have recently enhanced this product with full voice service capabilities, further strengthening our proposition to better serve our customers' needs vis-à-vis alternative infrastructure solutions and providers. Our TV service remains a strong pillar within fixed retail. Our contract partnership with Nova delivers a compelling value proposition for both new and existing customers, driving growth in our customer base and output. Looking ahead, we expect that the implementation of the new antivirus legislation, cleared by the Common Ministerial decision a couple of days ago, will further improve the pay-TV environment, steering the market towards legitimate services. Turning to our mobile segment, our service revenue growth significantly accelerated this quarter, fueled by the strength and reliability of our network, combined with compelling commercial propositions and a broad, diversified range of services.
The continuous migration of customers to contract plans, along with enhancement in our prepaid offerings, are supporting our growth and strengthening our long-term trajectory. Ongoing growth in the mobile business demonstrates the deep trust our customers place in our tech and reflects our commitment to deliver a superior mobile experience through continuous innovation and customer-centric solutions. We remain ahead of competition, operating Greece's only commercially available standalone 5G network. Our network excellence has once again been validated by UCLA and Umlaut certifications for the best and fastest mobile network in the country. This suite of unrivaled retail services enables us to remain optimistic against competitive challenges, which are also fueling our growth targets for the future. The ICT business once again delivered another quarter of double-digit growth, underscoring our ability to support the digital transformation of businesses and the public sector across Greece.
This quarter's performance underscores a strong track record, the value creation resulting from our strategic investments, and the strength of our integrated services portfolio. With a comprehensive range of bundle offerings and network excellence, we consistently deliver superior customer connectivity, fostering deeper customer relationships, higher loyalty, and enhanced lifetime value. With these foundations in place, we remain committed to driving profitable growth and creating long-term value for our shareholders. We are well- positioned to capitalize on future opportunities and continue to lead the market with confidence. Babis, on to you.
Thank you, Kostas, and welcome to everyone on the call from me as well. Let's start with Romania. Following up on what Kostas mentioned regarding the upcoming change of our Romanian operations, let me add that we are currently in the process of finalizing the relevant documentation with the parties involved.
In parallel, we are also awaiting regulatory approvals for certain key elements of the transaction, including the transfer of spectrum and prepaid customers. Once all these steps are completed, we will be in a position to conclude the deal, which we expect to happen within the third quarter of 2025. As we have stated previously, it is our intention to provide an extraordinary distribution to shareholders. However, as you can appreciate, the exact amount to be distributed remains contingent upon the final agreed consideration between the parties, along with several items to be considered, such as adjustments, expenses, provisions, etc. We need to focus now on the key priority, which is the completion of the transaction. Once this is achieved, we will provide the market with all necessary and relevant information. Let's now turn to our quarterly figures.
For Greece, total revenues increased by 1.1% in the quarter, supported by steady performance across mobile, TV, broadband, and ICT services. These gains offset the anticipated decline in wholesale revenues and lower handset sales. On the EBITDA front, we achieved sequential improvement, posting a 2% increase, which strengthens our confidence in meeting our full-year growth targets. Specifically, retail fixed service revenues marked a positive turnaround this quarter, posting a 0.6% decrease after several quarters of subdued performance. This growth mainly reflects a sustained solid momentum in the TV segment, the positive impact of the Gigabit Voucher Programme, and the expansion of the fixed wireless access services following the rollout earlier this year. Looking ahead, these drivers, alongside the ongoing expansion of our fiber-to-the-home, now covering more than 1.9 million homes in Greece, are expected to continue supporting revenues in the fixed retail segment.
On our TV business, we delivered another strong quarter of growth, with revenues up 16%, maintaining the double-digit growth trajectory. These trends reflect the full impact of our sports content agreement. Our customer base increased by 7%, with a positive net gain of 2,000 new customers, a positive outcome, particularly given that the second quarter is typically the weakest one due to the sports program seasonality. Turning now to our fiber-to-the-home service, we achieved record retail additions of 40,000 new customers this quarter, bringing our total FTTH base to 470,000, and this represents a 45% year-on-year jump. Our retail fiber-to-the-home customers account for 20% of our overall broadband base versus 14% a year ago. This growth, together with continued wholesale demand on our infrastructure, is driving higher network utilization. The market response to the coupons has gained strong momentum. We are now seeing consistent uptake, which is accelerating customers' migration.
To date, more than 70,000 vouchers for connections have been utilized. Supported by the ongoing expansion of our fiber-to-the-home network and our wholesale partnerships in place, our infrastructure is seeing increased utilization, now reaching a 31% rate and an increase of 7 percentage points year-on-year. During the quarter, we passed over 100,000 new homes, bringing total coverage to approximately 1.9 million, and we remain on track to reach our target of 2.1 million homes by the end of this year. Turning now to our mobile operations, we see a clear acceleration in service revenues, growing by 3.2%, reaffirming the strong momentum in this segment. Towards the end of the first quarter, we introduced new pricing initiatives in the prepaid segment, with the introduction of €15 top-up instead of €13 across our physical channels.
This adjustment is supporting our ARPU evolution while also facilitating the ongoing and successful migration from prepaid to postpaid plans. Our postpaid base continues to grow, recording a 6% decrease in the quarter, with 46,000 positive net additions driven by both conversions from prepaid and customer acquisition. Our position as a network leader remains a key differentiator, with 5G now covering more than 99% of the population and 5G+ surpassing 70%. Data usage was once again up, reaching 17.5 GB per user per month, representing a 33% year-on-year increase. In wholesale, revenues decreased by 3.3% this quarter, bringing the six-month impact to €12.7 million, of which the national wholesale revenue accounting for €7.4 million dropped, which is largely in line with our full-year expectations. The drop is driven by lower international transit traffic and the natural evolution in the national wholesale stream as competitors expand their own fiber networks.
However, our existing wholesale agreements are generating higher wholesale volumes from competition, with a record of 34,000 wholesale additions in Q2 that allow us to partially mitigate the downside and further increase the utilization rate of our Fibre to the Home infrastructure. On the rest streams of the revenues, our system solution, the core part of our ICT services segment, delivered a robust 17% growth in the quarter, continuing the strong momentum from prior periods. Building on these trends, we expect the strong growth in this segment to persist throughout the year. The growth in ICT services partially offsets the drop in the hatch and revenues, which is largely due to discontinuation of very low margin activity. Total operating expenses, excluding depreciation and amortization and one loss in Greece, increased by €3.2 million in the quarter, broadly aligned with revenue trends.
The majority of this increase is driven by costs directly linked to top-line growth, including third-party fees within other operating expenses related to the strong momentum in our ICT services segment. We continue to exercise cost control measures across the board, with ongoing savings particularly evident in the personnel front, where we once more again experience the benefit from the voluntary exit schemes. While we're increasing spending in strategic areas and our commercial activities, our overall indirect cost declined by almost 2% in the quarter. As a result, adjusted EBITDA after leases in Greece increased by 2% in the quarter compared to 1.8% in the prior quarter and 1.6% in the full year of 2024. This definitely reflects the continuation of positive momentum we have seen in the recent periods.
Our EBITDA margin improved to 39%, up 40 basis points year-over-year, driven by retail service revenue growth, particularly mobile and TV, which more or less offset the expected declines in legal services and national wholesale, along with certain cost efficiencies that I just mentioned. Overall, this performance reinforces our confidence in achieving our full-year EBITDA objectives. A few words about the operations in Romania, which were down 8% in the quarter, reaching €61 million. This drop was primarily driven by ongoing pressure in the postpaid segment. Our operations in Romania are still facing a demanding market environment, particularly in the postpaid where competition has further intensified. As a result, Telekom Romania Mobile's adjusted EBITDA after leases was impacted by ongoing pressure on the top line. Let's now have a short look at the rest of the group items.
Depreciation was up by 24.7% in the quarter, totally attributed to a €40 million write-down recognized in the quarter related to Telekom Romania Mobile. If we exclude the write-down, depreciation would have been lower by €2 million. Finally, a few words on the cash flow statement. CapEx was up nearly 13% in the second quarter, largely reflecting the investments for the FTTH rollout and higher payments in the quarter related to TV. Free cash flow after leases stood at €155 million compared to €121 million in the comparable quarter last year. The increase is primarily driven by lower income tax payments, which is expected to be offset in the second half of 2025 when the corresponding tax payments by OTE are due.
Now, regarding our guidance, as a last word, as we have released today, this remains unchanged and pending the completion of the Romanian disposal when we will be in a position to adjust our key figures and our communication. Now, turning to operators, we are now available to provide any further clarification to your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Draziotis Stamatios with Eurobank Equities. Please go ahead.
Hello there. I hope you can hear me well. Thank you for taking my question. A couple of questions from my side, please. Firstly, on Romania, you mentioned the further €40 million write-down in Q2. Could you just clarify what the remaining book value is as a cash and dollar extra buyback, I mean? Secondly, on Greece, you've been flagging that Greece appears to be tracking close to your +2% full-year target in terms of growth. What has been outperforming your expectations so far and what's maybe lagging, if there's any lagging component? Related to that, while it's still early, are there any initial thoughts you would like to share with us on what could be a sustainable EBITDA growth rate beyond 2025, assuming, obviously, the macro backdrop holds around 2% GDP growth in Greece, please? Thank you.
Let me start by taking the last question first, and then I will hand over to Babis for the Romanian details. First of all, we are not surprised when we're not lagging behind any particular business line. Hence, we are reiterating our initial outlook for the year around this 2% of EBITDA growth, which for sure is an indicator, I would say, of what you would expect going forward. I mean, ideally, even more, as the market and the whole overall macro environment would allow us. When it comes to Romania, Babis?
Yes, to Romania, the current value at the group level is around €50 million, after all the accounts in the settlements. I think we were very clear in the presentation that the net debt proceeds, once they are defined upon the closing of the deal, will be announced and will be distributed to the shareholders. Now, the mix between cash and share buybacks will be decided based on the size of this amount. Please bear with us for hopefully not so long from now when we complete the transaction in order to be quite open to spark the market to what the amount is about.
Okay. Got it. Thank you. Just a follow-up, if I may, because obviously the key benefit for OTE Group is the tax benefit, in essence, stemming from the disposal next year. How are you thinking about deploying this windfall? Do you have a targeted distribution ratio in mind, also considering the potential spectrum needs in 2027? Thank you.
Yes. As you said, the realization of the tax break requires first to complete the transaction. That's step number one. It will be realized next year, in 2026. When we announce the shareholder remuneration policy at the beginning of next year, we will make quite clear how we plan to fold all what is said in. It's in our regular screen, and we'll come back very precisely when the time matures.
Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Taparis Stathis with AXIA Ventures. Please go ahead.
Hi, all. Congrats for a solid execution. I've got one left, actually. Can I follow up on the Romanian tax asset? Is it just above €100 million, if we can confirm that? On the Greek operations, can you get a call about post-PPC entry, what do you see on the ground, and also how close are we in a potential telecom/energy offering from OTE, either combining with Protege? Protege has been a potential rumor. If you can comment on that, please. Thank you.
Okay. Let me start with the last question first. With regards to PPC, PPC's entrance into the telecom market is not a surprise to us. We have been monitoring their efforts since late last year with some pilot propositions as well as go-to-market initiatives. The only thing that I can remind at this point in time is that their footprint remains relatively limited. They're covering less than 10% of the broadband market. In these particular areas where they have decided to roll out, a big portion of our customers, be it on retail or wholesale, have already migrated to our fiber infrastructure.
When it comes to how they are approaching the market, they are approaching the market with a fixed broadband-only product, while we offer a far more comprehensive portfolio of fixed voice, broadband, pay-TV, and mobile services bundled in FMC constructs, which have been recently actually enhanced with additional benefits around ordering payments, insurance, hardware purchases, you name it. These are all provided by the Magenda 1 proposition. By the way, 70% of our fixed broadband base is already in this Magenda 1 proposition, receiving all these benefits. On top of that, as you indicated already, we have the cooperation with our energy partner, Mettlen or Protege, which also provides for another €5 discount per month on the telco bill of our customers who choose Protege as their energy provider.
All in all, as you understand from my presentation, we consider so far the PPC challenge as manageable, and we are equipped with an extensive set of differentiating elements in our portfolio to allow us to defend our customer base. Of course, always ready to adjust our propositions as per the market dynamics develop going forward. With regards to the clarification on the Romanian tax.
Romania, yeah, the exact amount, obviously, in order to define, we need to have the transaction completed. In the manual, it is exactly or close to what you mentioned.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Maricevic Sofia with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you very much. I have two questions. The first one is in the Greek fixed market. I'm just wondering, how are you thinking about your fixed growth into the second half of the year and into 2026, given that it has inflected now? How much of this growth will be driven by FTTH and how much by pay-TV? How is your recently launched fixed wireless access product progressing? That's the first question, all in fixed. The second one is on the cost efficiencies. Beyond personnel and energy cost savings, do you see scope to increase efficiencies elsewhere? Thank you.
Thank you, Sofia, for the question. Let me start with the fixed retail market. First of all, I would like to repeat what Babis said before, that we are extremely pleased with the fact that our fixed retail service revenues have turned to the positive territory for the first quarter after several periods or years of weak performance. We are optimistic that we will stay on the same positive year-over-year territory, at least for the remaining of the year, and of course, looking into 2026. It is important that we highlight a few underlying drivers of this turnaround. For sure, the strong double-digit pay-TV business growth has been one of them. The second thing is that we see an improving fixed broadband growth in revenue, also backed up by the fact that we have turned into the positive territory when it comes to the broadband net adds.
We generated 6,000 net adds this quarter, which is the result of a couple of things. First of all, is the great momentum of our fixed wireless product. We introduced it earlier in the year. So far, we have managed to attract 20,000 customers on this product. Actually, we have recently also enhanced this product by adding the voice element, which was missing from the service, in order to accommodate the needs of even more customers in poor copper service networks. This is one. The second is, of course, the growing fiber-to-the-home base. We recorded a new outstanding quarter this year, the best net add that we have had so far. To a great extent, this is also supported by the demand coupons.
All in all, we are happy that we have managed to turn around the retail fixed revenues, and we remain optimistic for the remaining of this year, but also looking into 2026. Regarding the cost efficiencies, let me clarify here that the root cause for seeing all these reductions in the personnel and the energy is that our primary focus is to transform the way we operate and change the underlying, let's say, processes and workflows, which then are exalted to more efficiencies, also using start using also the AI tools that we have available. All these now are gradually being translated, and we see the first signs. This is how then we can operate with much more efficient human resources and energy. On the other side, there are elements in our cost structure, which are inflated, driven like the labor-intensive services we buy from the vendors.
The fact that there we managed to keep it basically stable or with slight increases, again, is due to the fact that we also change the way we operate. All this introduction is just to say that the savings we are seeing are sustainable in terms of what we reduce in personnel and other areas. On the energy side, specifically, we are also benefiting from agreements that we are making. This is a volatile environment. Although we are introducing quite a few of PPA agreements so we can stabilize our costs, there is an element that although it has helped us in the first quarter and in the first and second quarter of the year, pending on the developments in this market, we may see some adverse looks in the coming months and quarters. We are protecting ourselves through the PPAs. This is how the whole cost efficiencies work.
If I could add something especially to pick up on this AI-based operating model transformation, we need to understand that whatever efficiency we have been delivering so far, I mean, AI has played only a small role in some parts of our operating model. We have been adding a complete overhaul of our entire operating model, trying to find ways and areas where AI could really deliver a far more efficient way of working going forward. I would be extremely optimistic looking into the outer years when it comes to how we make the most out of this technology across every single element of our operating model, progressively rolling out in the next, I would say, quarters and years.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Sonia AJ with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi guys. It's AJ here from JP Morgan. I've got three questions. The first is around your Romania pre-capital headwind. You said for this full year, I think you previously said it was going to be €70 million. What's that headwind been so far in H1? The second question is around your fixed wireless access net adds. You've seen good take-up here. Do you expect these to soften out after the summer period? Are these contracts monthly rolling, or are they locked in for 12 or 24 months? The last one is just what's the impact been from the PPC office so far, and what's their overbuild in your current base from what you can see at the moment? Thank you.
Just to clarify, your second question was about fixed wireless access or a different product because the line was not very clear.
Yeah, it's around fixed wireless access. You've already had a good take-up of this. Do you think that's because of the summer period? In which case, would it tail off into Q4? On those contracts, are they monthly rolling, or are they 12- 24-month contracts?
Yeah. I mean, the majority of the customers that signed up to this product are on 12- 24-month contracts, rolling contracts. Standard, I would say, fixed broadband contract. This is where we see the majority of the customers. I mean, when I say the majority, it could be 99%. This is one. For sure, just before the summer holidays, as Greeks start visiting their second homes, we have a peak in demand. At the same time, the way we have positioned the product and the way we are rolling it out progressively is always trying to find which are the copper-based customers who are not satisfied by the speeds, notwithstanding whether these are prime houses or secondary houses, and then approach them proactively or reactively based on demand.
I would not expect that the demand for the product will go materially down with some seasonality, of course, during the before-summer months. Now, on the third question was about Romania. No, no, no. There was another one.
Of overbuilding.
I think I have already commented. PPC's overbuild is still addressing a small part of our fiber rollout. In these networks, we have already migrated quite a lot of our customers, or at least the ones who need these FTTH speeds, to our fiber infrastructure. I would say immaterial impacts so far. Nothing to comment further than that.
Your question about Romania, yes. In the previous call, we had mentioned that if we were going to operate Romania for the whole year, the cash flow would have been - €70 million. We expect now, and this is just an estimate, it may change also in the remaining period we have the company. You can estimate that probably we will deplete close to €60 million out of this. This all depends on the timing and on the payments because of all the capital undertakings.
If the €60 million are already gone, there's not a huge amount of free cash flow upside for your full year from selling this asset in October, or September, October time?
Yes. The amount is skewed because there are certain volatile capital undertakings and obligations undertakings that need to be satisfied in order to be able to complete the transactions. Out of the initial, let's say, top, probably we'll have about €10 million- €15 million unused out of this.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Kiridis John Visjon with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hello, everyone. I've got some OpEx and CapEx questions, please. Firstly, regarding the revenue question. Regarding the revenue erosion because of national wholesale, the national wholesale revenue erosion, what was it last year? What do you expect it to be this year and to what extent? How do you expect that to be affected by the FTTH wholesale agreement that you have? Secondly, regarding the FTTH wholesale agreement, are your partners, Nova and Vodafone, pulling their weight? Or do you think that OTE might need to spend extra CapEx to cover any gaps in geographic coverage, for example? Thirdly, regarding the linking of the Cosmote and the Telekom brands, are you likely this year to incur exceptional costs, exceptional OpEx in order to boost customer awareness? If so, what would be the details? Lastly, what's the outlook for personnel cost savings this year and in future years, please?
Thank you, John, for the question. Let me start by taking something, and Babis will be free to chip in. As far as the wholesale developments are concerned, let me highlight a few things. We have had a record high quarter when it comes to our FTTH net adds in wholesale. There were 34,000 net adds compared to 28,000 in last quarter, which was another record quarter, which is a validation, I would say, of these wholesale agreements working. Both Vodafone and Nova are moving using our infrastructure where they are addressing the retail customers. As when it comes to how they are rolling out, they are rolling out more or less in line with our expectations and vis-à-vis the wholesale agreement volume discount. Nothing to flag there as a potential risk.
Moving on to the branding topic, yes, this year we have been investing a bit more in marketing, but this is more, I would say, related to the market competitiveness, which is stronger and heavier compared to last year. Also, the need to support a number of initiatives, including our position in the market in order to strengthen our position and differentiate ourselves stronger. This is it, I would say. Whatever you see as a result of a number of different initiatives, initiatives that were new in the market that we had to bring in order to support our new positioning are effectively justifying this extra investment in half one this year compared to half one last year.
During the next two questions, for the national wholesale, our forecast, first of all, in the first half of the year, the national wholesale went down by almost €7.5 million. This in line, €7.7 million is the exact amount. That was in line with our expectation for the year. We should expect an amount of about €15 million, which is not very different than what it was in the previous year. I must say that this one has been partially mitigated by the fact that just because of the wholesale agreements, we are co-selling now lines that are in the FTTH versus what it was before in LLU or copper. This is a mitigating factor that allows us to partially offset, of course, the national and the natural reduction of the access lines because of competition migrating to their own network.
On the personnel, I can say that if we look in the back, we see that this optimization and transformation we are doing is helping us to reduce the human resources cost. The trajectory we saw in the first half, we should expect this also to be more or less the same also in the second half. Now, looking forward to the next years, as we said, the aspiration is that we will continue to optimize and transform. I cannot put a specific number of reduction for 2026 versus 2025, but we should see again personnel costs being lower in 2026 versus 2025 exactly because of this transformation and the natural attrition.
Thank you both very much.
The next question is from one of our webcast participants, from Mr. Patrioch Rezipolski with Bud & Co. "Assuming the Telekom Romania Mobile deal is closed in third quarter 2025, what should be the impact of the sales on your CapEx and FCF expectations for 2025?
On the CapEx, it will depend what will be the amount. It's roughly about €15 million- €20 million, the CapEx that will have been completed. This is something that remains to be seen. On the free cash flow expectation, as we discussed before, and as we had actually clarified back in our previous call, if we take out entirely Romania out of this year, if from what we had communicated in our previous call, the performance of Greece, the free cash flow of Greece only would have been around €530 million. By taking out the €70 million that we had expected for Romania, this is how the €460 million, which our guidance and the distribution level was taking out. Obviously, all these numbers are subject to completing the transaction. I want to stress it because the timing is very important when we will sell the business.
This is when the effect of Romania will go out. In the grand scheme of things, these are the underlying numbers.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from the line of Memisoglu Osman with Ambrosia Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Many thanks for your time. Just on fiber coupons, is it possible to give some color on how many more quarters of support should we expect? Related to that, given the strong fiscal position and continued focus on digitization by the state, when this runs out, could we expect a similar program or something in that range to continue to support the sector? Thank you.
Thank you, Osman. As far as the coupons are concerned, we have already commented on this one, but let me repeat the figures. We have two coupons. One is the demand coupon, which goes straight to the consumer. There, we have already consumed roughly 70,000 coupons. We're on track to reach 100,000 or slightly more by the end of the year, which is roughly 50% of the market. The other part of the coupons goes to the in-building installation. There, we have already processed roughly 30,000, and we intend to go up to 40,000 or slightly more by the end of the year. Both coupons are progressing well and in line with our expectations, what we have baked into our planning at the beginning of the year. Now, with regards to the ICT services business, the truth is that we have delivered another double-digit growth quarter.
To a great extent, this is on the back of a number of digitization projects for the public sector. There is still room to go, both towards the Greece public sector, but also the European public sector. We have a strong presence in Brussels. Both these, I would say, areas will feed our growth, at least for the next year or so. At the same time, we are positioning ourselves stronger in the private sector, focusing on particular verticals like security, for example. We are doubling down on past people investments there, but also on how to help the businesses make the most out of the AI technology. We feel confident that both towards the public, local, and Brussels, but also towards the private sector, we have enough growth levers looking into the next years.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Kostas.
As a final reminder, to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.
Thank you for your attention, questions, as well as a lot of interest in OTE. We are looking forward to our next discussion, which is scheduled for November, commenting on our third-quarter results. In the meantime, have a nice day. For the ones not yet there, enjoy your summer holidays. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling and have a good afternoon.