Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to TIM first quarter 2025 presentation. Paolo Lesbo, Head of Investor Relations, will introduce the event.
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to TIM first quarter 2025 results presentation. I'm here with the CEO, Pietro Labriola, the CFO, Adrian Calaza, and the rest of the management team. Today, we present the highlights of the first quarter and review the main operating and financial results. At the end, there will be the usual Q&A session. I point out that Sparkle is treated as a discontinued operation, as indicated in the guidance provided in February. Therefore, it is excluded from this set of results unless otherwise stated, and so it will in coming quarters. Please refer to the Safe Harbor disclaimer in the appendix for the definition of the results perimeter. Now I end the stage over to Pietro. Pietro, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Paolo. Good morning, everyone. Let me start with what I believe are the most relevant messages for this quarter. First of all, since our February call, Poste Italiane agreed to acquire a 15% stake from Vivendi. Once completed, Poste will become TIM's largest shareholder, holding 24.8% of ordinary shares. This marks a fundamental step toward greater governance alignment and long-term industrial stability. More on this in the next slide. The competitive environment in Q1 saw the domestic consumer market broadly stable, with some early signs of improvement following the Fastweb + Vodafone deal, the enterprise market growing as expected, and Brazil remaining rational and profitable. Our results were fully in line with the budget, confirming that we are on track. We have also extended our revolving credit facility to 2030 and reduced its size from EUR 4 billion to EUR 3 billion, reflecting the stronger profile of TIM, post-Netco.
Lastly, the hearing for the 98% concession fee is set for May the 27th, earlier than expected, potentially anticipating any profit and loss effect. Slide three. As you know, Poste has agreed to acquire a 15% stake from Vivendi. Once completed, they will hold 24.8% of ordinary shares and 17.8% of total capital. Completion is expected by mid-year, subject to antitrust clearance. Poste has publicly stated this is a long-term strategic investment and that it intends to support the consolidation of the Italian telco sector, something many of you in the market have long advocated for. We strongly welcome Poste as our main shareholder. From an industrial perspective, there are multiple opportunities. First, PosteMobile. We are at an advanced stage of negotiation to grant access to TIM's network. Migration is expected to start in Q1 2026.
This was a key assumption in our 2025-2027 plan, and the risks are outlooked significantly. Beyond mobile, we are jointly evaluating partnerships in areas such as payment, energy, media, digital content, and IoT. Lastly, TIM Enterprise could become a key ICT partner for Poste, historically one of the largest IT spenders in Italy, where our share has been limited. We expect to be able to provide additional information on the potential value of these initiatives later in the year. Slide four. Q1 was a quarter of good execution, strong operational delivery, and solid fundamentals. Results were on track both at group and domestic level. Our growth is best in class versus European peers and is a function of a more stable consumer operation and high single-digit growth in the enterprise division, with cloud services driving the performance. As usual, Brazil is a strong contributor.
For the group, revenues were up 2.7%. EBITDA after lease increased 5.4%. CapEX was EUR 0.5 billion, representing 14% of revenues, and EBITDA after lease minus CapEX was up 24% at EUR 0.4 billion. Due to the usual seasonality of working capital absorption at the beginning of the year, equity free cash flow was negative by around EUR 0.2 billion, a sharp structural change versus last year when Netco was still consolidated. Adrian will provide more details on the cash flow dynamic. Net debt after lease was EUR 7.5 billion with a 2.05 times leverage ratio, slightly up versus EUR 7.3 billion in December. At domestic level, revenues increased 1.6%. EBITDA after lease was up 4%. CapEX was EUR 0.2 billion or 10.7% of revenues, and EBITDA after lease minus CapEX was up 27% at EUR 0.2 billion. Slide 5. TIM consumer performed well in Q1, with total and service revenues stable year on year.
This is the fourth consecutive year of price adjustments across wireline and mobile customer base. In Q1, we informed over 1 million consumer wireline and 0.7 million mobile customers of new pricing effective from Q2, and additional actions are planned in the coming months. The benefits are evident. Wireline output continues to grow. Mobile remains broadly stable. Meanwhile, churn is marginally declining, a remarkable result considering multiple rounds of price adjustments introduced over time. Our customer base continues to show strong stickiness driven by the quality of TIM services and increasing integration of our platform into users' digital habits. The good performance on churn also suggests that the market remains highly competitive but is somewhat cooling down. In Q1, some competitors increased the street price of their wireline and mobile offers, and we hope to see more in coming months.
Wireline net debt improved sequentially, and we strengthened our leadership in the FTTH market, reaching a solid 27% share and 1.7 million active lines well ahead of competitors. Mobile net debt improved as well. Notably, for the first quarter in years, we recorded a neutral number portability balance, a sign of strengthened customer retention and competitive position. This is significant considering that SIMs involved in mobile number portability have an output of around EUR 12-EUR13, whereas the SIM loss in Q1 was mostly secondary, low or no traffic lines with an average output of just EUR 1, meaning they will not have materially contributed to the top line. Should this trend hold in coming quarters, negative net debt will have limited impact on service revenues. Slide six. TIM Enterprise continues to accelerate, delivering another quarter of solid growth.
Total revenues rose mid-single digit to EUR 0.8 billion, with service revenues up nearly 7%. Cloud stood out as the growth engine, with service revenue up 24%. For the first time, cloud has become our largest business line, surpassing connectivity and marking a strategic turning point that confirms our role as one of Italy's leading ICT partners. Our distinctive positioning, combining proprietary data center and advanced cloud capabilities, continues to set us apart, especially in enabling secure and sovereign digital services for the country. Revenue from other IT services remained broadly stable, reflecting a deliberate reshaping of our portfolio to phase out low-margin activities and focus on higher-value solutions. Connectivity in line with expectations saw a slight decline in revenues, fully consistent with our repositioning strategy.
Looking ahead, TIM Enterprise is investing in the next wave of innovation, developing proprietary solutions in frontier technologies such as quantum computing and advanced cybersecurity, poised to become growth levers going forward. Slide seven. TIM Brasil reported on Monday, so I will not review the results in detail. Just a few comments. While the market remains healthy and rational, TIM Brasil continues to deliver a solid performance. Top line grew mid-single digit, driven by mobile service revenue. Customer-based monetization remains a core focus, with upselling from prepaid to postpaid, leading to the highest output in the market. Efficient operational execution is driving a consistent EBITDA growth with margin expansion. OpEx are running below inflation, and EBITDA after lease reached 36.4% of revenues, with an on-year growth well above 6%. TIM Brasil is outperforming peers also in terms of cash flow generation, with robust operating free cash flow expanding double digit.
I now hand over to Adrian.
Thank you, Pietro. Good morning, everyone. Before diving into cash flow and debt evolution, let me share a few comments on group CapEX and domestic OpEx. Group CapEX were just under EUR 0.5 billion, almost 14% on revenues and in line with the full-year target. With Brazil almost in line with the plan, domestic CapEX were, as planned, slightly soft and below 11% on revenues, particularly on the network side that will recover in coming quarters thanks to the new radio access network contracts. Differently from 2024, we expect a more linear trend over the year. Domestic OpEx, as a percentage of revenues, reduced by 50 basis points, driving a proportional increase in EBITDA margin, even absorbing lower capitalized cost compared to last year. As in the past three years, efficiency remains a core focus.
The transformation plan contributed with around EUR 40 million to EBITDA after lease minus CapEX in Q1, in line to reach the annual target. Equity free cash flow after lease was approximately EUR 0.2 billion negative, slightly better than our internal plan. As usual, the first quarter presented the seasonal working capital absorption, especially considering the significant CapEX level of last year's fourth quarter and a proportionally higher effect of the extraordinary working capital effects due to the final payment of the old dead zone contract. It is worth noticing the sharp structural change when compared to the negative EUR 1 billion in Q1 last year when Netco was still consolidated. Going forward, we expect equity free cash flow to be broadly neutral already in Q2 and clearly positive in the second half of the year.
I remind you that we had a significant percentage of the equity free cash flow generated in Brazil. Below equity free cash flow, we had around EUR 0.1 billion of outflow, mainly related to dividends to TIM Brasil minorities. Net debt closed at EUR 7.5 billion, with leverage at 2.05x organic EBITDA after lease, confirming our position as the least levered listed telco in Europe. In the appendix, you may find a slide with all the details. Now, back to Pietro for his closing remarks.
Thank you, Adrian. To wrap up, the entry of Poste Italiane strengthens our governance and opens up valuable synergies. We will provide updates once these are quantified. Q1 performance confirms that we are on track to deliver on our full-year guidance, both operationally and financially. The Sparkle disposal is expected to close in Q4, delivering an additional 0.2 leverage reduction versus the year-end target. The timing of the hearing for the 98 consensual fee marks a potential anticipation versus what we initially expected for the resolution of this long-standing case. I remind you that the recognition of the P&L gain will depend on the outcome of the final ruling. We remain focused on execution, cash flow, and unlocking value. With this, we are ready to take your questions. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our Q&A session. For analysts who wish to ask questions, please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. Once your name has been announced, you can ask your question. If you need to withdraw your question, please lower your hand using the raise hand function. Thank you. The first question is from Mathieu obilliard at Barclays. Please unmute yourself and ask your question. The next question comes from Joshua Mills at Exane . Mr. Mills, please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hi, guys. Thank you for taking the questions. The first from my side is just around the potential for consolidation in the Italian market. I think both you and Poste have been more vocal about this recently. Has anything actually changed on the ground? Are you still talking to other parties? Given the political oversight of any consolidation deal that would come through, what do you think the red lines would be, or the important things to think about would be if you were to come forward with a proposition for a merger with another party? Do you think that those are achievable in the current context? The second question is a bit shorter. Perhaps if you could just give us an update on your latest views of the competitive environment in Italy. I know you've raised some prices.
I think we heard earlier from Swisscom they were raising prices as well, but a view of the broader landscape would be helpful. Thanks.
Thank you, Joshua. About the consolidation, I think that you are experiencing in this period of time at European level a completely different approach because we are having a lot of situations in which, through the renewal of the frequencies or through discussion related to the market consolidation, it seems that everybody has understood that the sustainability of this industry is coming through some of these steps. We say welcome to all the activity that we allow through the renewal of the frequencies, that is something that we are asking in Italy too, or the merge between the different players and the consolidation, the possibility to give sustainability to this market. It is clear that we are in favor of a consolidation in Italy.
We never had that Iliad could be a possible deal to do something, but at the same time, it will not be for us a nightmare, a case of a consolidation, for example, between Wind and Iliad. If you look also at the amount of frequencies and all these kinds of things, I think that in any case, we will continue to pursue the possibility of a deal with Iliad, but also a deal with Wind will not be negligible. In the meantime, we still continue to work on our number because the most important thing today is to continue to deliver our number. About the competitive scenario on the consumer, I will leave the stage to Andrea to give some more details.
Thank you, Pietro. Thank you, Joshua, for the question. The competitive environment has shown some changes in Q1. We see, in particular, not only the front book price up from Fastweb on the mobile and from Vodafone on the broadband, but also notably a continued trend of softening in the portability number of Iliad that are broadly in line with Q4 2025, that has been the lowest number of net adds in the history of Iliad. We also see, which is very relevant for the dilution effect, a general reduction in the volume of churn in the mobile market. Therefore, we have positive effects projected coming from the reduction of dilution in ARPU from portability. On the broadband side, we also show a decline in fixed churn year over year with improvement of net adds in our trends.
Joshua, what is important is also the statement of Fastweb + Vodafone this morning when they declared that they are looking for a value strategy. I have to remember to everybody that it was 2022 when, in our plan, we told that our strategy was from volume to value. Four years later, our numbers are showing that the results are good and the other players are starting to follow us. This is very important because the level of price in Italy is very cheap and low.
Great. Thank you.
Next question is from David Wright at Bank of America. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hello, guys. I hope that has worked. Yeah, just Pietro, if you could just clarify this concession fee process. You said the hearing is due May 27th. What could be the outcome there? When would you potentially receive the cash? Would you be free to use that as you wanted, or would there still be restrictions being able to use for working capital, etc.? If you could just confirm that process for us. I guess just beyond that, a question for the wider industry right now is how the increased spending on defense nationally is presenting an opportunity to the telcos. I think in general, the answer is yes, but you have the added advantage of your strong government relationship, but also the data center ownership.
I wondered if you could give us any indication of that opportunity, the timing, maybe even quantifying if that's possible. Thank you so much.
Thank you, David. Let's start from the most complex question that is not the concession fee. I'm joking. About the situation today in the market and the increase of defense expenditure, I think that our companies, the company, as you were mentioning, that is best positioned to get some further increased advantages because when we talk about defense, we have to start to remember that we are talking also about cybersecurity. We are one of the leaders in Italy in terms of cybersecurity. This is also another important element because in the portfolio of the services that Telsi is managing in TIM Enterprise, security through Telsi is one of the platforms that is owned by us. It means that with that kind of services, we can have an increase of margin.
What is important is also the point that you highlighted is that everybody now is discovering the importance of the sovereign cloud. We are the player that today is most advanced in the country to manage this kind of challenge. We are working with Elio and Eugenio in these things because this is something that we did not have in our plan. It could be a potential upside also in the medium and long term because we are not here to make a company great in the next two, three years, but to give a perspective to our company in the medium and long term. About the hearing, the 27th of May, we will have the hearing on the concession fee. We expect that there will be a judgment on that. It could be in terms of number of hearings.
We think that it will be just one, so we do not have to have further steps to go through. We do not think that it will take years to have a decision, but we are waiting for the answer. Let's say in an optimistic way, it was two months ago that was undetermined the date of the hearing. Now we have a hearing that is the 27th of May that will allow us to further accelerate all our strategy in a case of positive results.
Thanks so much.
Question is from Domenico Ghilotti at Equita. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Good morning. A couple of questions. The first is on the domestic EBITDA. You have started at around 4%. We have a guidance at 5%-6% for the full year. If you can help us understand, say, the phasing of your EBITDA growth at domestic level. The second is a comment on the equity-free cash flow. Adrian, in his speech before, was mentioning that Q1 was rather better than initially expected. I'm trying to understand if you see some upside for the full year and in case what are the areas that could provide this upside on the equity-free cash flow. The last question is on the next general meeting. In the past, you mentioned that you could consider also a reduction of the share capital. I wonder if you are looking for that for the next general meeting.
Okay. Thank you, Domenico. About the trend between the different quarters, we confirm, as we told also in our press release, the target. We do not see an issue to reach our target. Your question helped me also to state better and do, if I may, some education on our company and numbers. Today, our company is no more a pure consumer company. Our revenues and EBITDA are coming by consumer and enterprise. Consumer is the business that you were used to look to. It is very forecastable quarter by quarter. You look at the number and the things. TIM Enterprise is a business of large corporate. We can get a contract the 31st of March or the 1st of April. It can change through the quarter the trend of the number, but it does not change when you look at the overall year.
This is the time also to show that the cloud services in our enterprise segment reach 40%. If I may, our TIM Enterprise is no more a telco. It is more a cloud company. This is also important to evaluate in the medium and long term our company. About the next general assembly meeting, it is important to remember that we do not have a must to proceed in the reduction of the capital in this general assembly meeting. The decision will be taken in any case by the board the 23rd of May. We have time to proceed on that. Last, I leave to Adrian to talk about the equity-free cash flow.
Yeah. Hi, Domenico. Yeah, clearly this first quarter equity-free cash flow was slightly above our projections. It's too soon to say if we will be above the level that we guided for the full year. Honestly, also in terms of working capital evolution, it's performing better. Probably we'll see in the next quarters that there may be some improvement in terms of financial expenses. Again, what we can tell you now is that we confirm our guidance in terms of equity-free cash flow. Anyway, yes, it has been performing better. This gives us comfort for the rest of the year.
Thank you.
The next question is from Giorgio Tavolini at Intermonte. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my three questions, please. The first one is a follow-up of Domenico's question on the equity-free cash flow guidance, which you are confirming despite the forex impact from Brazil. I was wondering if it could be interpreted as an upgrade indirectly. Is it fair to assume this? The second one is on the energy cost. We saw the recent government support package for the sector, EUR 630 million, that does not include measures for the telecom operators, which are particularly energy intensive. I was wondering if you consider possible that there is a package for energy costs that could be approved by 2025, and entitling you to receive the additional earnout of EUR 400 million by year-end. The third one is very simply on the INWIT master service agreement.
I was wondering if you see room to discuss the terms of the master service agreement with INWIT or evaluate in a constructive way the activities along the lines of what Vodafone and Fastweb recently suggested. If you see an opportunity to evaluate the run-sharing, especially in the low-dense areas with Fastweb + Vodafone. Thank you.
Thank you, Giorgio. Let's start from the last question that is related to INWIT. It's clear that if you look at our profit and loss, but also below the profit and loss on the leasing, the network cost is a good part of our cost structure. On both INWIT and FiberCop, and also Open Fiber, in a constructive way, we will always look to the possibility to create further efficiency in our number to have a better cash generation. It doesn't mean that there will be any kind of fight, but there are opportunities. You mentioned also the sharing of the network. This is for sure a trend, not only in Italy, but in several countries in the world.
This is something that we can foresee, not necessarily only with Fastweb + Vodafone, but also with Wind or any player who is interested to share with us the cost. To be clear, in the past, antennas were a competitive tool. Today, when the coverage is quite the same through everybody, there is for sure room to do further efficiency. About the energy earnouts, I was always transparent on the energy earnout. I think that the percentage that something will happen this year is very low, while I'm much more positive on the remaining earnouts. On the energy, I'm positive in the medium and long term. Some of you can laugh because I'm starting to talk about medium and long term, but we are back to being a normal company.
We do not have only to talk about quarter-on-quarter results, but that is to give a long-term perspective to this company. On the energy side, I am optimistic that something will happen in the medium term, also because it is becoming an issue for the competitiveness of the country. Everybody is talking about AI. AI needs a high consumption of energy. We have the data center. We offer the services. For sure, our country will have a level of service that will be more expensive than the other countries, not because of us, but because of the cost of the raw materials. This is a discussion that we are having also in terms of association with the Italian government and also inside Confindustria. I leave the stage to Adrian to talk about equity-free cash flow.
Yeah. Hi, Giorgio. Thank you for the question because it's important to clarify about the effects of the real against the euro. Remember that we mentioned on the plan presentation that we've been working about hedging our cash flows coming from Brazil since probably 2022. For this year, we already had 75% of the full-year equity-free cash flow. And if you consider that during the first quarter, the exchange rate was mostly aligned with what we projected for the budget, so something around BRL 6.18 or BRL 6.20, this 75% covers probably the following nine months. We shouldn't expect any impact or negative impact coming from the FX evolution. On the other side, probably there could be some upside. Brazil, I think that you saw the numbers. It's performing very well. We may have some positive surprises coming from at the cash flow level.
Honestly, we should not expect any negative impact on that side. It is also in terms of equity-free cash flow, the performance of the domestic that has been improving should improve going forward. Again, we see if we are only confirming now the guidance for the equity-free cash flow, honestly, we see only upside risk at this level.
Thank you.
The next question is from Mathieu Robilliard at Barclays. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hello. Good morning. Thank you. Hopefully, you can hear me now. Apologies before. I had two questions, please. The first one was following up on the EBITDA question. I was looking at enterprise, and as you said, the strong growth there, but obviously, there is a different trend between the different business lines. I was wondering how the changing business mix would impact the overall margin of B2B. I know you do not communicate on it, but if you could give color on that, because the point is connectivity certainly has the highest margin, but it is declining. Other parts are growing, but IT is typically a lower-margin business. I guess the question in a nutshell is, should we expect kind of stable margins in the B2B business, or could it be diluted?
Then the second one on the synergies with Poste, you mentioned in your presentation a number of potential sources of synergies, obviously the MVNO. You also mentioned that Poste has a large ICT spend. Could you quantify how much they spend in a given year so that we get a sense of potentially how much you could gain from that? Second, there were the press reports that you could collaborate with Amazon through Poste, notably on cloud services. Now, I understand you already have a partnership with Google under the Nouvel Umbrella. I was wondering if you could add a different partnership with Amazon, be it on cloud or on data centers. Thank you.
Thank you. I will leave it to Elio to give details and colors about the enterprise, but I would like to say something related to Amazon. When I read the article, I was thinking to be back to my young age when there was Fantasy Island. It seems that some newspapers continue with putting on the table something that sometimes is not realistic. It is fair enough to say that the multi-cloud is the future strategy, but we have partnerships in place with big players that are not second to other ones. It does not mean that we do not have the possibility and the doors open to discuss further development, but I think that the way in which it was put in the press is not the right one.
About the synergy with Poste and the number, I think that we will be able to disclose some more details ahead in the year because it seems that Poste became our shareholder one year ago. They still are waiting for the clearance, but we are working on that also on the consumer. For sure, after the summary, we'll have some surprise in terms of new services that we will put on the table. About the colors on the EBITDA, I leave it to Elio. On the EBITDA of TIM Enterprise, I leave it to Elio. Also in this area, we are taking note about some signs of market rationality. There was a public bid to offer to the public administration at EUR 1.5 to 100 gig offer; no one participated.
I think that the market is starting to understand that the business is not put revenue, but generating cash. Thank you.
Thanks, Matthew, for the question. Good morning, everyone. I thank you very much because I was getting sad because nobody was giving me the opportunity to comment about our cloud performance. On margins, as Pietro said, this is the first quarter where we have cloud as a first revenue stream in our business. You can probably remember that two years ago, we said that by the end of 2025, we were expecting this to happen. Actually, it happened with nine months in advance. We feel very proud about this. On margins, we do not see risks. I mean, I can help you to do maths about our business. As you have seen in the slide Pietro presented at the very beginning, we divided in three buckets our revenues: connectivity going slightly down, cloud, and the other IT that includes IoT and cyber.
Now, on the other IT, so on the third line of business that includes all the other IT, so network management, device management, software, hardware, licensing, IoT, and cyber, we actually expect margins to go up because we will get rid of all revenues that are heavily diluting our margins. We will focus much less going forward to revenues that are not generating margins for our business. When you look at the other two pockets, actually, you have connectivity. I give you the math of this quarter because this is a very good example to understand why margins are not at risk. We have lost EUR 10 million in absolute terms in connectivity revenues that, as you said, have good marginality, but they are going down. We generated EUR 56 million incremental revenues on cloud, which is a business that we have said runs at 20% margin.
Actually, directionally, this is exactly where you want your business to be. Because we know that connectivity will go down, but at a very low path. While if cloud keeps ramping up the way it is doing now at 20% margin, this will clearly offset the connectivity risk and will give us opportunity going forward for even increasing margin during the next few years. The last comment on this is on the, so I give you an answer to a question that you did not ask, but I think it is just to complete my answer. When we look at this business going forward, cloud becomes more and more prominent because when we look at the contracts that we have already signed, the amount of cloud that we have in that basket of revenues is north of 50%. This is exactly where we want it to happen.
We are very happy about this. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Question is from Luigi Minerva at HSBC. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Yes. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my two questions. The first one is on consolidation. Pietro, you were very clear about exploring a potential combination with Iliad. I was wondering if, from your perspective, whether it would make sense for that combination theoretically to happen at the group level or perhaps whether it would make sense for it to happen at the operational level, so perhaps with TIM Consumer directly. The second question is on the use of proceeds from the concession case and whether your preferred use remains simplifying the capital structure on the savers' shares. In that context, how do you see the trade-offs between a conversion of the savers or a share buyback? Thank you.
Thank you, Luigi. About the last question that is related to the proceeds, I have to say the thing that I'm used to stating every time. It's quite clear for everybody that the capital structure of this company is for sure not the most efficient one. So sooner or later, this item must be addressed. The second is that whatever we will do must be market-friendly toward all the categories of shareholders. Thanks to God, compared to one year ago, we are in this position that we can achieve and solve all the remaining issues of the company. I think that we are our EPI problems, the ones that we have to face. About the consolidation, we are continuing to study the value and the number because number comes first.
Once we understand the detail, the number and this kind of deal, and we can understand better the amount and how much will be accurate, we'll go more in-depth about the way in which we can afford it.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question is from James Ratzer at New Street. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Yes. Good morning. Thank you. Can you hear me okay?
Yes.
Great. Yes. Good morning, Pietro. Thank you. Two questions, please. The first one, would like to go back and just explore a little bit more your optimism about the potential to receive some of the earn-out payments in the event of a FiberCop transaction. I mean, bigger picture, I suppose, what gives you that optimism at the moment? In more detail, specifically, I think the current terms suggest you would get 70% of the potential financial benefits from a deal. Would you be willing to lower that 70% level if that is essentially a trigger that's needed to get a combination done? Because if I was in FiberCop shoes, I would be thinking I might wait another 18 months until 2027 and not pay the earn-out. It would be great to get your thoughts on that.
The second point is I think you have kind of 1.7 million FTTH lines at the moment. Now that you have separated out the Netco, could you kind of talk us through how many of those lines are actually with Open Fiber and how you see your FTTH mix going forward between FiberCop and Open Fiber? Thank you.
Okay. I will leave it to Andrea to give some more colors about the mix of FTTH between Open Fiber and FiberCop. Let's remember that if you consider that in Italy, we have 20 million households, and that in the white and gray areas, you have with Open Fiber, seven. In theory, when we reach a regime situation, 30% will be for sure with Open Fiber because there are areas in which there is only Open Fiber. You will have the black areas. Part of the black areas are overlapped. In that black area, the only player that we can use is FiberCop. There is a part that is not covered by FiberCop that is covered by Open Fiber.
In this way, I gave you in some way an answer to both the questions because I gave you an idea about what could be the share between the two suppliers. It gives you the idea about why I'm optimistic. At a certain point, 30% of the line will be on the Open Fiber network in a way or in another. The deal happened between the two players, the less will be the money that will be left on the table by the two players in the overlapping activity. Now, if you want some more details about the way in which our 1.7 million FTTH, I leave it to Andrea to give you these details.
Pietro, before you jump to that or to Andrea, can I ask, would you be willing to change the terms of the 70% share of the earn-out if that's required to get a deal done?
It's too early. Let's sit and discuss.
Okay. It sounds like that's not a red line for you.
I told you. Let's sit and discuss. I'm a pragmatic guy, but I have also a broader shareholder that I have to follow too.
Yeah. Thank you, Pietro. Thank you, James. Just quickly, we started working with Open Fiber in the white areas last year. And so far, we accumulated less than 10% on the base on Open Fiber. We started working also in the black areas with Open Fiber at the beginning of 2025, which is very important for the availability of service for the customers. This is an improvement of our competitive position and competitive performance. The share of Open Fiber lines, as Pietro also highlighted, is slightly growing. The majority of our current activation and the customer base is clearly on FiberCop.
Thank you. It sounds like it's kind of just over 90% is with FiberCop of the 1.7 million.
That's correct. It's actually lower than 10% today.
Okay. Great. Thank you.
James, I think that it is 90%-10%. It permits me to explain also why the sale of the network for us is something that allows us to further exploit our market. Just to give you an idea, until we were also the owner of the network, for us, migrate customer from FTTC to FTTH in these 7 million households, that is 30% of the market, was a nightmare because it should move from a zero EBITDA impact with a loss on the EBITDA. Now that we have sold the network, we are back to be competitive also in those areas where we are migrating the customers. The 90%-10% distribution is related to the delay with which we started, but we'll speed up that.
Thank you. Appreciate all that. Thank you.
The next question is from Andrew Lee at Goldman Sachs. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Good morning, everyone. I had a follow-up on the consolidation questions from earlier and then a question on MP&Os or MP&O revenue, should I say. Just on the consolidation, Pietro, you're very clear in terms of a couple of different scenarios, TIM with Iliad, Iliad with Wind Tre, which you said would not be a nightmare. Just checking, but does that mean you think it's not possible to have the other potential scenario, TIM combining with Wind Tre? Anything you could just help us understand in terms of the likelihood you think of TIM being a key player in the consolidation? Any kind of further insight you have on timing? Obviously, you've been talking about discussions for a long time now. I wonder what do you think's hindering execution on that?
On MVNO revenues, those were up in the first quarter despite the loss of the co-op contract. I just wondered why that is. Are your MVNO revenues being front-end loaded in 2025? Are you seeing greater customer spin down into MVNOs? Just any color on what's going on there would be helpful. Thank you.
Andrew, can you repeat the first question because I was unable to catch in details? Sorry.
Yeah, sure. I was just trying to understand, given you talked about two potential scenarios for consolidation in Italy, i.e., either TIM and Iliad combining or Iliad and Wind Tre combining, you did not mention a third scenario, which would be TIM and Wind Tre combining. Is that because you do not think that is possible? Any further color you could just give us in terms of the timing of something being announced here, given discussions have been ongoing for some time, would be helpful. Thanks.
Very clear, Andrew. You are completely right. I will give you the answer. Let's consider something like that. A potential deal between TIM and Wind Tre will be very complex because the sum of the two will exceed between 40% and 50% of the market share on the fixed and on the mobile. Also, if I'm the most aggressive person toward the antitrust, I cannot ask miracles. It is quite impossible to have the approval creating a new player with 50%. Let's remember that synergy comes at the network level. It does not mean that at a certain point, there could be also a trend in the market where it will be not possible to merge the customer base. There will be synergy at the level of the network, the frequencies, the network sharing that could allow to further improve the efficiency of the network.
You are completely right. There are different scenarios, Team Elio, Elio poster, but we cannot exclude a potential scenario where the synergy will come from a merge or a deal at the network level, but without any kind of financial aspect. If you create a joint venture at the network level, you do not need to put inside a private equity or a financial investor because we do not need any more money. About the MVNO, I think that the market has to start, and I will leave it to Andrea, but what is important that you have to remember is that sometimes TIM is the player that today has the lowest amount of data in the network coming from the MVNO.
It explains also why we are able to have today number better than the other because we are able to exploit better our CapEX because the ARPU on the MVNO on the network is much lower than the ARPU of the traditional customer. The more you have volume of data coming from traditional customer, the more you are efficient. The more the data of the MVNO, the data that you carry on the network are coming from the MVNO, the less you can apply industrial marginal cost as an excuse to carry on this kind of customer. I leave it to Andrea to talk about the MVNO.
Thank you, Pietro. Thank you, Andrew. The answer on the quarter trend and on the yearly trend is that for 2025, we foresee no significant impact in the full-year performance of MVNO simply for the fact that the contract with Fastweb for the MVNO is still running. For 2025, there is no significant reduction of revenues because Fastweb is still having a relationship with us. I have to remind that the MVNO contracts are in a way similar to the big enterprise contract. Therefore, the phasing between quarters is not entirely linear in this contract. The revenues in Q1 have come a bit better, indeed. We have to see if this will be recovered in terms of phasing in the rest of the year. It depends also on the variability of the contract itself, which is also related to quantity and performance of the MVNO in the market.
Thank you. Just one quick follow-up, Pietro. Is there anything specific aside from just the different players coming to some form of resolution in terms of the consolidation discussions? Is there anything specific or kind of immovable hurdle that's causing, I wouldn't say a delay, but it means we haven't seen an announcement yet?
No, but I think that, not I think. We are in talk with everybody because we have to monitor what's happening in the market. What is happening today is that if you remember, if we were talking one year ago about the market consolidation, everybody were thinking that we were crazy because at that time, it was seeming impossible. Now it's becoming a reality, not only in Italy, but all Europe. We are working on that with attention, without forgetting that we have to deliver our number for 2025.
Thank you.
The next question is from Ajay Soni at JP Morgan. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hi guys. Thanks for taking the questions. I've got a couple. The first is around the domestic EBITDA. It is just a follow-up because that has come in below the full-year guidance. What do you expect to change in the coming quarters to be able to meet your full-year guidance for domestic EBITDA growth? The second one was a quick one around interest costs. You have had three quarters now where you have come in below your quarterly guidance range. Are you still expecting EUR 650 million-EUR 700 million for the year, or is that now expected to be a little bit better? Thank you.
Okay. About the domestic EBITDA, EBITDA after lease, what is happening is that we have also some seasonality. Just to give you an idea, for example, usually in the consumer, you have the second and third quarter that are stronger due to the roaming business, so on and so forth. There are also a method that is not related necessarily to the cost side, but is also related to the revenue side. In the meantime, we have a transformation plan in place that will deliver during the year the further step that will allow us to reach our yearly target. You do not have to forget that, as I mentioned at the beginning, we do not have to think that TIM is a pure consumer company.
Part of the EBITDA can have some drop and up through the quarter of the year related also to the TIM Enterprise segment. About the interest cost?
Yes. If you consider the slightly above EUR 150 million that we had in this quarter, probably that's the normal level today. There are no one-off effects as the one that we have in the fourth quarter of 2024. You can do the math for the full year. Clearly, we should expect some efficiency also at this level. Remember that we have maturities this year after the first quarter of EUR 2.6 billion we paid, for example, in April, the maturity of EUR 1 billion that we had. We still have an additional EUR 1 billion in terms of bonds, and we have around EUR 600 million in terms of loans of maturities. Probably with the cash level that we have by the end of March and probably also with the monetization of the concession fee credit, we won't be accessing the market at this stance then.
The market, it's always about windows and opportunities, and we'll see. We can clearly live with what we have today. We can expect, yes, some efficiency also in terms of financial expenses, but probably the main factor is that this EUR 150 million that we have this quarter at after lease level is probably the normal level for the level of debt that we have today.
Ajay, sorry. I give also some more colors about the EBITDA because I do not want to be misunderstood. As you remember, when we presented our plan, we explained that the growth in the EBITDA of our company was driven by two different trends. The first one on the consumer that is mainly related to the efficiency. The second on TIM Enterprise that is mainly related to the revenue growth, also with some efficiency. When you look at our number of TIM Enterprise that usually have a bump in the last quarter of the year, it is quite normal that part of the EBITDA of the growth in the EBITDA that we will experience will arrive in the fourth quarter jointly with the revenue increase.
To avoid that there is any kind of misunderstanding, let's remember we have to deliver EBITDA that is made by efficiency on the consumer because consumer has a flattish revenue. This is the job that Andrea, jointly with the team of the transformation, is driving. On Elio's side, on the enterprise side, it is made by, for sure, efficiency on which we are working, but it is driven also by the margin in the EBITDA that is coming from the delta revenue growth. If you remember, and if you look at our number, the fourth quarter of TIM Enterprise usually is much higher than the first, the second, and the third. Thank you.
Great. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Andrea Todeschini at Banca Akros. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. I have just a quick follow-up on Poste. I was wondering if you were able to give any detail about the margin of the MVNO contract and migration of PosteMobile, if we can expect it to be higher than the usual group average due to maybe possible lower costs associated with it. Second question regarding the other possible synergies with Poste. I know you were not able to quantify it, but would it be rational to expect the amount of synergy for TIM Enterprise to be greater in value than the value of the MVNO contract? Thank you if you can give any details on that.
Okay. Thank you, Andrea. The first question that is related to the margin on the MVNO is something that I was trying to describe also before. In theory, if you have a network that is empty and in the mobile, usually you do not have variable costs, but because network one is built, it is 100% EBITDA. What I was trying to explain is that can be, yes, more or less 100% EBITDA, but when you have 10% of the traffic on your network that is coming from MVNO, you can consider a very high margin level because you are going to saturate band that is not used. When you increase that amount, it cannot be like that because at a certain point, you must put further antennas, further equipment, and you cannot say that it is completely margin. This was mentioned today.
We are the player with the lowest amount of data coming from MVNOs in our network. This shows us as the most efficient player in the market. What is happening is that you are substituting the Fastweb volume with the Poste one. We do not foresee any specific increase in terms of CapEX. About the synergy with Poste, we already told that we need to work also because we have to go in details and we are not used to say something that is not possible to apply. Our story in the last four years was always that we deliver always what we told. Today, we have a potential partner that will complement our customer platform strategy that we declared in 2022.
At that time, it seemed sometimes too bullish, but the reality is that today, we are not only a pure telco player because you have to remember to everybody that today, we are the second TV platform in Italy, premium TV, someone we forget. We have to add energy. We have to add insurance. We have to add financial services because the future of the consumer telco in Europe is to become a customer platform. On that, I think that we are the most advanced player in Italy, also exploiting the experience of what we did in Brazil, where we launched this strategy in 2019. We have also the other strategy that can come from the Elio segment that is TIM Enterprise. To assure everybody that we are not sleeping, we have already signed an MOU with Poste to evaluate the different area of synergy.
We have created several work streams that we will disclose as soon as possible to the market.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
The last question comes from Mr. Giorgio Tavolini at Intermonte. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Just a follow-up on your financial profile. I was wondering if you consider a realistic scenario, the return on investment grade with the major rating agencies within the business plan horizon, so enabling a farther interest cost reduction. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you for the question, Giorgio. It's interesting, this discussion. No one could imagine this question just six months ago, but anyway, it's interesting. Just the starting point is, if you see today where bonds are trading along the curve compared to the industry peers in Europe, below us, you will find only investment grades below us in terms of spread. There are no even B B+ below us. And today, we are B B. So honestly, this thing may take time, as Pietro always says, with being a serial underperformer in the last, not the last, but in 10 years. Only these last three years, we accomplished the guidances and especially in the plan. So probably for the rating agency, this is an exercise that will take some time.
Honestly, what I can tell you is that there are no bases today to still be a B B. That is probably what we are expecting for the next quarters. Investment grade, it's something that we can see today in the coming years, yes. On the other side, today is not something that could be impacting since I mentioned earlier that we probably won't be accessing to the market in these actual conditions in the coming months. It's not something that may change significantly in terms of financial expenses. Again, I think that the market is the reality today, and our bonds are trading much better over actual rating.
Giorgio, if I may conclude with some fun, we never give up. We are like the Inter of Milan.
Absolutely. Thank you. Good luck.
No more questions at the moment.
This was the last question. Thank you very much, everybody, for attending today. We will be back at the beginning of August for the Q2 results. Have a nice day. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is over. Thank you.