Good morning, and welcome to Telecom Italia Q4 and full year 2023 preliminary results conference call. Paolo Lesbo, Head of Investor Relations, will introduce the event.
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to TIM full year 2023 preliminary results presentation. As usual, I am here with the CEO, Pietro Labriola, the CFO, Adrian Calaza, and the rest of the management team. Pietro will provide an overview of last year achievements, while Adrian will illustrate the financial results. A Q&A session will follow. Finding out our safe harbor disclaimer on page 2, let me hand it over to Pietro. Pietro, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Paolo. Good morning, everyone. Today's call is very important for two reasons. First of all, we disclose preliminary results for 2023, which is the second year since this management team took office. At the same time, it marks a turning point in the history of the group, as this is the last call on TIM, as we are used to know, a single integrated company. We fully understand that you are already focused on what will come after NetCo closing, and that you would like to know about the future TIM, its growth trajectories, and cash generation potential. But today, we will focus exclusively on the results of TIM as is, also to give credit to all the people who have worked very hard in the last two years to improve the group performance.
We will reconvene in two weeks at the Capital Market Day to open a new chapter entirely focused on the new perimeter. You will get pro forma figures, and we will disclose the 2024, 2026 plan together with guidance. So we ask you to be patient for a while and focus on what we delivered so far. Let's start. The last two years have been eventful, not to say that we navigated in the perfect storm. And as we already mentioned, we have been carrying out two jobs at the same time: managing the operation and the refinancing of the company, and at the same time, the layering team to pursue our long-term strategic view of a ServiceCo no longer vertically integrated.
When we started in 2022, inflation did not exist, risk-free rates was in negative territory, and the Italian economy was in a good shape. Since then, a sequence of events made the macro scenario much more complex, towards energy price soaring, inflationary spiral to which the market and industry were no longer used. A sharp increase in interest rates followed and is still present today. Let's not forget that in 2021, 2022, the Italian market was driven by very strong price competition, and that we were the first to introduce elements of rationality. Today, the market remains probably the most competitive in Europe, but it has improved in the last two years. For example, Back book repricing has been implemented by almost all operators, and the washing machine effect in mobile is significantly lower.
Despite these challenges, we managed to improve the domestic operation and lay the foundation for long-term structural growth, while Brazil reaped the benefits of what we see in six years of restructuring. For the second year in a row, we present results in line with full year guidance on all metrics. Something never happened in the last 12 years. 2023 results are another important step in building investor confidence. The successful development of our bonds signals that the market believes in our layering strategy. For us, this is very important, and of course, we are fully committed to a timely and successful closing of NetCo deal. Let's move to slide 5. As I said, 2023 group and domestic metrics are all in line with full year targets.
At group level, service revenue are up 2%-3% year-on-year, reaching the low single digit growth target, while EBITDA is up 5%-7% year-on-year, in line with mid single digit target. At domestic level, service revenue are broadly stable, while EBITDA is up 1.7% year-on-year, in line with flat to low single digit growth target. At the beginning of 2023, we were confident to achieve the guidance because we knew that operation will continue to improve, thanks to positive drivers unfolding throughout the year. You may remember the slide which presented last May, outlining the quarter by quarter trajectory. Nonetheless, delivering the targets was not, was not a given, and I'm happy that our execution has been flawless. Let's go to the next slide to deep dive on Italy. Domestic performance continues to improve both year-on-year and sequentially.
For the first time in 22 quarters, service revenue are back to growth in Q4. EBITDA turned positive in Q2 after more than five years, and is up for the third consecutive quarter with a robust +5.5% year-on-year. The direction of travel is clear. Italian operation are steadily moving towards structural growth. We are confident, and I stress, we are confident that domestic ServiceCo is well positioned to confirm this trend, not only on the economics, but mainly on the financials. Slide 7. Today, I give you the usual high-level update on entities with the same disclosure we have, we have provided so far. At the Capital Market Day, we will disclose pro forma figures based on the final perimeter and on the Master Service Agreement with NetCo. TIM Consumer service revenue trend is steadily improving.
If we look at the positive evolution of fixed and mobile ARPU, it's clear that pricing up the customer base has been a successful move, even more so considering that churn has remained stable. The migration from copper to fiber is also ongoing, with TIM having the highest market share in FTTH at over 25%. Lastly, year-end target of NRRP 5G coverage tender has been overachieved. TIM Enterprise developed faster than the market, also in 2023, with service revenue increasing over 5% year-on-year. Considering how the mix has changed over the last two years, it's clear that our strategy to defend the core telco and grow in ICT has worked out. Over 60% of the top line now come from value-added services, 9 percentage points more than it was in 2021. I also highlight our leadership in cloud, with over EUR 1 billion revenues in the full year.
Having said that, connectivity revenues declined only 2% year-on-year, better than our internal expectation. The pipeline is very strong, with about EUR 1.5 billion from ongoing negotiations. Slide 8. One week ago, TIM Brasil reported strong results across the board, over-delivering versus full-year guidance. Thanks to the operational performance, the company delivered the highest-ever operating free cash flow, reaching over 17% of net revenues, a strong base of cash generation supporting a solid shareholder remuneration. Again, we anticipated this performance at the time of the acquisition, and we delivered. NetCo confirmed the positive trends, thanks to the new regulated prices that we strongly ask in order to ensure an adequate return on investment and improved technology mix. I point out that after several years of competition in wholesale market, today, NetCo still holds 77% market share. Year-end target of 5G backhauling tender was overachieved.
For the Italian One Giga, we are on track in six out of seven regions. We are below target only in Sardinia, mainly due to the issue related in prior quarter, which is the scarcity of specialized manpower, a structural problem which Infratel is well aware of. We have set up a task force to cope with it anyhow, and we still have some month to recover the gap, and we not expect any deduction on contribution. Slide 9. The transformation plan is on track. In 2023, we did slightly better than the EUR 800 million incremental target, of which around EUR 500 million OpEx and EUR 300 million CapEx savings. Main contributors were the full decommissioning of the 3G network and the public payphones, the optimization of our real estate portfolio, and of course, labor costs, where we leverage early retirement, voluntary exit, and hourly reduction.
We are really going deep in transformation of the cost base, revisiting the governance of each major spending area, pushing on digitalization, and cutting as much as possible any avoidable cost. Another area where we are truly transforming the cost base is customer care, with a significant reduction in human-driven activities, the review of make versus buy mix, and the adoption of digital solution across the board. This allowed us to reduce customer care costs by 6% year-on-year. On CapEx, we've been very strict in rationalizing the investments, revisiting the contract with key suppliers, and prioritizing the spending, in particular, on IT. All in all, we are delivering what we promised two years ago, also in terms of cost discipline, i.e., to keep OpEx stable over time. Adrian will expand on this, so I hand it over to him for the full-year financial results. Adrian?
Thank you, Pietro, and good morning, everyone. Let's start with a short summary of our main group financials. Results are in line with guidance, also because the positive drivers were indicated at the beginning of 2023 and folded as expected. In particular, full-year group service revenues grew 2.3% year-on-year, with a further acceleration in Q4 at 3% versus 1.7% in Q3. Group EBITDA increased mid-single digit in full year and was very robust in Q3 at 6.5% and Q4 at 6.8%. Additionally, EBITDA After Lease grew by 9.4% in Q4, boosted by sites decommissioning in Brazil.... At domestic level, service revenues were broadly stable in the year, and EBITDA increased 1.7%, reaching the upper part of the guidance. Next slide.
As Pietro anticipated, domestic OpEx were broadly flat in the last two years. This was not a given, and it's clear that the transformation plan has been key to build a strong cost discipline throughout the company. We still see room for further efficiencies, so this is an area which we will continue to push. Looking at the dynamics in detail, variable costs are up 1.9% year-on-year. The increase in COGS, due both to ICT revenues dynamic and costs related to other goods sold, is not fully upset by the reduction of interconnection and equipment. Commercial costs are also up year-on-year, mainly driven by higher content and VAS, due to higher multimedia revenues and higher commissioning costs only for accounting effects, but reducing year-on-year in cash terms. Industrial costs are up 4% year-on-year, with higher energy, industrial spaces, and provisioning, despite lower network maintenance costs.
Energy is up 5% year-on-year, mainly for higher prices in Q4, with no fiscal benefits versus Q4 of 2022, despite volume efficiencies. GNA and IT are down for the reduction in professional services, utilities, and fleet management. Lastly, labor costs continue the sequential decrease, down 6% in full year, thanks to solidarity and lower FTEs. Next slide. In slide 13, you can see details on CapEx. We closed the year at around EUR 4.0 billion for the group, with domestic at EUR 3.1 billion, in line with the guidance. We continued to invest heavily in Italy in FTTH and 5G, with specific focus on NRRP projects. In our Brazilian unit, the extension of 5G coverage with the standalone technology is on track and represents a significant part of the total CapEx envelope.
As we guided back in November, equity free cash flow was broadly flat in the year. I remind you that equity free cash flow was positively impacted by the anticipation of the NRRP funds, amounting to over EUR 750 million in Q4. Therefore, net debt after lease is decreasing versus Q3, landing just a touch higher versus last year. Despite tough market conditions, we raised more than EUR 4 billion, including the debenture in Brazil, and secured a strong liquidity margin, which fully covers the maturities until the end of 2025. With this, I hand over to Pietro for the closing remarks.
Thank you, Adrian. So let's remember, for the first time since 2010, we delivered results in line or above guidance for two consecutive years. Not many people would have bet on it. The domestic growth trajectory is confirmed, with service revenue back to positive and three consecutive quarters of EBITDA growth. The transformation plan is well executed, ensuring full cost discipline, and we can push further. We have cashed in over EUR 700 million of NRRP funds. We refinanced more than EUR 4 billion in the year, with maturities covered until the end of 2025. The delivering plan is on track. The Golden Power authorization was obtained, while the separation activities are in line with the execution plan.
Let me say that we are proud of what we achieved against all odds, but the fun never stops, and in two weeks, we will reconvene to open the chapter on the future TIM. With this, let's start the Q&A session.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session is now open. I'd like to remind you that if you want to register for your questions, you can do so by pressing star followed by one. To cancel your reservation, press star followed by two. Thank you. The first question comes from Mr. Giorgio Tavolini of Intermonte. Mr. Tavolini, please.
Hi, good morning, gentlemen. I have the three question on, from my side. The first one is on mobile. We saw weak, net adds in Q4. I imagine, this is mainly concentrated in the low-end segment. So I was wondering, how are you responding to, recent, flash offers by some operators such as Iliad? And in particular, if you intend to strengthen your second brand, Kena, maybe, opening it to the 5G network, I don't know. Or if you intend to continue the win-back approach with below-the-line offers. The second one is on mobile. I was wondering, what was behind the double-digit decline in, in retail, in Q4, - 21%, if I remember correctly. So should we expect a similar decline also in Q1? And the, very last question is on NetCo.
Considering the observation recently made by the European Antitrust, by the OLOs and separately by Vivendi... Are you still confident of getting the green light of the deal by July? And have you set up a long stop date with KKR for the deal? Thank you.
Ciao, Giorgio. Let's start from the end about NetCo. The answer is very, very easy: Yes, we continue to be confident about the timeline. For who of you is used to follow us and the entire market, it's quite normal that all the ORs usually ask for something also when there is no ground. To be clear, the request that, not TIM, but KKR, and it's better to stress, KKR alone, due to the European antitrust, is related to a concentration. To have a concentration, it's a matter of math. You must have two company that concentrate in one. In our case, we are discussing about something that is not the case. This is, it's the opposite, and what we are doing is to follow the indication of the European Union that asks for an wholesale, pure wholesale player.
This is the reason for which we don't foresee any specific issue. Let me give you also some highlight about the Co-investimento, because someone has tried to, how to say, talk about the instrumentalize, this is the right word, the Co-investimento. I have to remember to everybody that I asked to the national authority, the national watchdog, to have the Co-investimento with the recovery of the inflation. We didn't receive it, so for a matter of economics, it's impossible to work with that kind of model without recovery of the inflation. So no issue. We don't foresee any kind of issue on the, at the antitrust level.
About mobile, the double-digit decline, it is mainly for a matter of seasonality, because as you have seen in the number that we disclosed, the retail proceed in the right way, so there's no issue, and we are growing quarter-over-quarter of the same year, not year-over-year. So the retail is continuing to proceed, and the churn control and the ARPU increase is giving us the result that we're expecting. About wholesale and visitors, you have to keep in mind that, there's a seasonality. This year, in the fourth quarter, we have a worse seasonality of the visitor, and then compared to the previous year, we have less, let me say, one-shot recovery related to the mobile virtual operator contract. So we don't see that there could be any kind of impact for 2024, as you ask.
About mobile, then I will leave to Andrea to elaborate on that. But it's important to understand that we are defining a strategy about 5G that we'll disclose in the following weeks, and also during the Capital Market Day. So we don't want to accelerate the pricing competition. If you see, our numbers are proceeding in the right way, so it makes no sense to put gasoline on the fire, but we have to continue to work to improve the quality of the network, to try to monetize better 5G and to stay rational in our approach.
Then I leave to Andrea to give some more details, but we are planning also in 2024 to do something on churn that is different from what was done by all the other players, that is not related to aggressive pricing.
Thank you, Pietro. Thank you, Giorgio, for the question. Indeed, in Q4, we had a bit of a softer net adds performance, but you are right, it was concentrated on the low end. It's explained by two factors. First, we had the effect of a repricing campaign that were very successful in raising ARPU, but also triggered, clearly, a bit of rotation. I have to underline that anyhow, our portability performance, net portability performance has been better year-over-year despite this, and this was the seventh consecutive quarter in which we have been the best performer in portability versus the big players in the market.
The net adds has been more concentrated not on the portability, that is the higher value, in the acquisition, but on the so-called gross adds, a specific segment, low end. So we concentrated more on controlling churn and portability balance.
Next question?
Many thanks.
The next question comes from Mr. Fabio Pavan of Mediobanca. Mr. Pavan, please?
Yes. Hi, thank you for taking my, my two questions. First one is, when, when looking at the, capital market day, I was wondering if, in that occasion, then you will also provide us detailed breakdown for consumer core and enterprise, and, and which kind of KPI you eventually will, share with us, on, on that occasion? And my second question is a follow-up on, on the, what you have already discussed. Thanks for the update on, on mobile. I was wondering if you can share with us some update on business trend for fixed. Thank you.
Fabio, sorry, could you repeat the second question? Because we didn't understand very well.
Yes, yes, just an update on the fixed business, how the trends are going, just same picture you have shared with us with mobile, but on fixed side. Thank you.
Okay, Fabio. About the first question, about the Capital Market Day, we don't disclose anything because it's a surprise. No, I'm joking. I'll leave then to Adrian to give you some of the details.
Hi, Fabio. Oh, clearly, on the Capital Market Day, we will disclose many details, obviously with the focus on ServCo and on the domestic business. We will include definitely specific KPIs on the consumer side and on enterprise. Probably in the same way we did it last year in July of 2022. Anyway, in terms of disclosures, this should be the way that we will disclose the results going forward.
Okay,
Thank you.
To be clear, Fabio, also, because sometimes it's important-
Yeah
... to remember the huge work that the structure is working on, because it seems that we started 10 years ago to discuss about all these things, but in two years, we put under control the operation. We sign, I think, the third deal ever in Italy, the fifth deal in the last five years in Europe, the thirty-first deal worldwide, putting a check of more or less EUR 20 billion on the table. In the meantime, we are managing the carve-out of the NetCo. In the meantime, we are building the pro forma of Consumer Co and Enterprise Co. In the meantime, we are continuing to control Brazil, to allow that Brazil will continue to grow as expected.
So you must be patient on something, because sometimes it's impossible to do everything at the same time, but I think that we will enter in the Guinness in terms of number of activity that we did at the same time. The second question were related to the fixed. Yes, the fixed is proceeding. When you look at our number, we are having very good performance on enterprise. On enterprise, it's clear that every year, the fourth quarter is the highest of the year, because there's a matter also of seasonality, and you don't see in the enterprise number, yet the good result that could come fully with the PSN, but then I leave to Elio couple of minutes to elaborate on that.
While on the fixed, the repricing activity that we did and the strong push on FTTH is allowing us to continue to improve our number. Today, fixed is going better than mobile, but we think that we'll be able to arrive also on the mobile with the same good number on the fixed. In any case, you are more than satisfied about the number, because again, if you remember, two years ago, March 2022, when we disclosed our strategy, churn control, pricing rationality, premium offer, everybody were looking at us as ET. "It's impossible. It doesn't work." Two years later, we are driving the market rationality, and if you remember, there were also a lot of questions related to the European M&A.
I was always vocal at European level about the need to work on that, and also on that, there were a lot of doubts, but, the rumors that you have heard in the last day about that, say that we did, we told, and we did always the right things. But now I leave to Andrea a minute to talk about the fixed and Elio to elaborate on the enterprise.
Thank you. Thank you, Pietro. So on the fixed performance, in general, I think we had a positive progression, in terms of especially of the repricing effects and related churn impact. We see a good balance, and overall, a relatively good stickiness. The market has been a bit more aggressive in Q4 with the back-to-school promotion, but the net balance in value has been very positive, and we see overall good progression. The price market is still quite aggressive. During the first weeks of the year, we see a bit of a better and more rational position by the new players. Elio?
Yeah, thanks, Andrea. Thanks for the question. I will elaborate a little bit on what Pietro said. So, as you have seen, enterprise figures are trending, generally speaking, quite well. There, as Pietro said, there is also in enterprise a very high seasonality concentrated in quarter four. Just for you to know, on a big average, normally in quarter one, quarter two, and quarter three, we do register EUR 700 million revenues, while in quarter four, one year ago, we did EUR 918 million, and this year we did EUR 981 million.
Let's say on the growth is mainly driven by two effects: connectivity doing better than we were expecting, and actually trending much better in H2. We started the year at
Total -2.6, we ended up on -1.9, and on cloud, as Pietro said, the national strategy gap is really taking off, because the combination of what we were used to do one year ago on the previous SPC cloud and what we were supposed to do this year on PSN, we had an expectation of, in quarter four, of making EUR 94 million on cloud, on public cloud, and we generated EUR 183 million. So basically, the reason why there is a high spike in quarter four is because cloud business on the public side is really taking off, and this looks really promising going forward. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Next question comes from Mr. Domenico Ghilotti of Equita. Mr. Ghilotti, please.
Good morning. Two questions. The first is if you can elaborate a little bit more on the comment on the EU white paper led by the Financial Times. You are mentioning the opportunity on market consolidation. There is also a comment related to the fair share and so if you have any comment on these two topics is very welcome. And the second is a clarification on your bylaws, in particular, when looking at the dividend. So I understand that if you distribute reserves, you can pay the same amount to ordinary and savings shareholders. In this scenario, my understanding is that the distribution to savings shareholders reduces also the accumulated preferred dividend that you have to pay to savings shareholders. Is it correct?
On the dividend distribution, can you help us also in understanding the different dynamics between the income at the holding level and the income at the consolidated level? It's quite, quite complex.
Thank you, Domenico. The second question is difficult, and Calaza is on strike, so I'm unable to answer. No, no, I'm joking. I will leave to Adrian to answer about the bylaw. About the first question, the comment about the EU. I- if you remember, I always touch three topics. The first one is the number of player in Europe compared to all the other countries. Math is math, so if you have three player in U.S., three player in Brazil, three player in China, so on and so forth, it's very difficult to imagine that the industry in Europe with more than 100 player can be sustainable. Then, if you look at the Italian case, we are perhaps in the worst situation today.
If you consider the price that we paid for the 5G licenses, the level of electromagnetic frequencies, all these kind of things, the market repair is the only path to improve our number. Also, because increase the price, it's more complex, it takes more time, while a merge of the infrastructure allow to reach much faster cost efficiencies. The second point is the fair share. I think that was José María Álvarez-Pallete in the third quarter quotes that say, stated something like: "We want our money back." That's the truth.
When you have some OTT that increase the price of their package of EUR 5 to give high definition, 4K and 8K services, you have to imagine that if I have to gather all the traffic in that way, I should have an increase in the backbone cost that is unsustainable if you don't pass that to the customer. So the only model to do that could be to be back to the traditional interconnection model that was in the past for the voice, or in some way to give some target of control of the volume for the high spender of data. And these are the two things that we are proposing. The third one are the law, the rules. Just to be clear, how do you consider WhatsApp? Do you consider WhatsApp a telecommunication service or a social?
My point of view is that it's a telecommunication service. So why it's not possible to apply to WhatsApp all the rules that in Italy, but also in the other European country, the different player follow? Just to give you an idea, I'm obliged to give to my customer a call center services 24 hour per day with human assistant. So each call that I answer is a cost of EUR 2. Why other player that play this kind of game are not obliged on that? Then there is a strange situation where there are company that are starting to choose their headquarter based on the privacy law, fiscal law, regulation. I think that the best solution is not to regulate that, them, but to allow her to have the, to have the hands free to compete exactly in the way that they compete.
Then, about the dividend, I leave to Adrian to give you some more colors.
Yeah, thank you, Pietro, and hi, Domenico. You're right on the first part of your question. In terms of the bylaws, the savings shares have the privilege on the dividends only when the company has a net profit, and-
... And when I say the company, in this case is Telecom Italia S.p.A. So the kind of holding company. You know how we determine the effects of the results of our subsidiaries in the Telecom Italia S.p.A. only when we receive dividends from those companies. And you will see a clear effect of this when we release the full set of results in May, in March the 6th. And you will see the evolution of the net income of the S.p.A. There will be a clear effect coming from the dividends that we received in Italy, from Brazil.
But this said, as you were mentioning, if there is not a profit, we do not have privileges on the, on the saving shares dividends. So could be the case that we distribute the same for the ordinary or for the saving shares. But again, this won't be the case on, on 2020, on 2023 results, probably. This is something that we will start to discuss once we close the deal. Probably we can make some assumptions in the next months, but, your assumption is right, yes.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Mr. Luigi Minerva of HSBC. Mr. Minerva, please.
Yes. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for the presentation. I have a couple of questions. The first one is on the NetCo, and I was wondering if you can summarize the next steps ahead, not from now into the closing of the deal, what are the key steps and hurdles? And secondly, still on NetCo, I wanted to ask a question about how binding is the contract you signed with KKR? I know you've been quite clear on this, but it's a fact that in the market there is a lot of noise about this topic. So if you can clarify, it would be helpful for everybody. So how binding is the contract, and essentially, what can go wrong from here?
Is there any condition that allows KKR or Telecom Italia to step away from the agreement signed in November? And lastly, a question about the market. So if I look at the MSA between ServiceCo and NetCo, there are volumes discounts, so you disclose that in the Q3 presentation. So volumes discount means that smaller players are likely to struggle more. So Pietro, I wanted to hear your views, whether you think that the NetCo spin-off will essentially trigger consolidation in the retail market in Italy, because players will need more scale. Thank you.
Thank you, Luigi. Also, because you help us to clarify, because again, there is a lot of thoughts, sometimes on a voluntary basis, about what is happening, but everything is very clear. I cannot go too much in details, but you have to consider that the market today is a market where there are services that are, and will continue to be regulated, because there's no competition on that. Market on which there will be the liberalization. Just to give you an idea, wholesale rental, it was already liberalized, but not because of us, because of regulation. While FTTC and the unbundling continue to be regulated. And then there is a market that is by factor, deregulated, the FTTH.
Because now, if someone say that the FTTH in the black area is not a competitive environment, I want to know him in person, because I think that there's a real issue. Then, so if you look at these things, we're not beginners. So the MSA that we signed is based on this principle. It's difficult to imagine that we can sign something with volume discount on something that is regulated. While what is not regulated, there could be volume discount, but also on that, if you had the chance to read the market analysis of AGCOM, that consider TIM as a vertically integrated player, they consider the possibility to have, in the area of competition, volume discount.
So let me say, I'm not disclosing anything about the MSA because it's confidential, but if as a vertical integrated player, the national watchdog say that you can have volume discount, when you become a pure sale player, you can continue on that. I don't know if it was clear. Again, for a matter of confidentiality, I cannot go in details, but stated in this way, it's very clear the situation. So we don't foresee any specific issue on this part. Then, about the steps we have to go through, I think that the most important one is the authorization at EC level, on which, as I stated in a previous answer, I don't foresee specific issue, because concentration, it's a matter of nature. I have two that become one, as a song, if I'm not wrong, about the Spice Girls.
But, with this, this is not the case. So we don't foresee specific issue on that. The next... So once we do that, then the next two important step is the liability management, but this is important more-
... to have the right evaluation of the cash in that we will have, then for the closing of the deal. Because the LME, if you remember in this chart that we show you, we define a certain amount, but if it works in a better way, could be also higher than what we forecasted. Last but-
Yeah, the LME is. It's not a condition. It's something that probably will add value and will help NetCo in terms of the kind of financing that they will have, but it's not a condition.
Yeah. But I was giving-
Yeah.
the step we have to go through. So the LME, it's quite possible that will be managed between April and May-
Yeah
... after the general assembly. And then there's the activity that we are putting in place that are related to the carve-out, because we are refining all the TSA to proceed. So we continue to foresee as a deadline, before the summer, the closing. So then, to give some more colors about, the level of binding, that I confirm that is binding. So there are some, someone that is trying to argue that is not binding, this is not the truth, but I leave to Agostino, the legal counsel-
Yeah, thank you.
to give more colors.
So the contract is binding. There is no way to skip the closing. In terms of condition precedent, as Pietro said, we are just waiting for the last condition precedent, which is the antitrust. We have done everything. We are ready to close. So as soon as the antitrust authorization comes, we will go to closing. In terms of risk on the antitrust authorization, again, the antitrust authorization refers to the concentration. So they have to check that there is no concentration effects on the market as of the transaction. Now, it's clear to everyone that KKR has no activities in the European market, so it is neutral per se. There could be no concentration at all.
All the rumors, again, about the relationship between TIM and KKR and NetCo, frankly speaking, are usual noises, but please consider that TIM and NetCo will be the first wholesale-only operators in, probably, in the world. So again, if someone is saying that it's anti-competitive having an independent wholesale operator vis-à-vis TIM integrated, I mean, it's something really surprising. And whatever happens to the board of TIM, to the TIM management, to the board, the contract is to be closed as per the provisions. And so again, we are very close to the end, and we are still confident that in June, July, we will close.
Everything clear, Luigi?
Thank you very much.
Great.
Thank you very much, indeed. Thanks.
The next question comes from Mr. Stéphane Beyazian of Oddo. Mr. Beyazian, please.
Oh, yes, thank you. You've done quite a lot in terms of savings, on track with your EUR 1.5 billion, which should complete by at the end of 2024. I was just wondering whether you believe that there is still potential after the sale of NetCo? Because the one thing I don't know is, how those savings split between NetCo and ServiceCo. And do you think that after the sale, so beyond 2024, there is potential to further adjust your cost base at ServiceCo? Thank you.
Thank you. There are still room. For example, I heard a lot about artificial intelligence. Everybody are saying that artificial intelligence will allow us to have a huge amount of saving. I can tell you that until today, we work with more traditional tool. Just to give you an idea about the potential saving that we did in until today, that only a small part was related to the NetCo. Just to be clear, because today on ServiceCo, we have still room to further improve our cost base. Just to give you an idea, about call center, we have something close to EUR 220 million of call center cost. So you can choose a number of calls reduction, and you can calculate that.
When you will look at this amount inside the number of EBITDA of ServCo, is not a small number. Then I have to remember that we continue to keep the mobile network on us. So Leo Capdeville, that join us from Brazil, is working to try to do and to have better efficiency in the way in which we manage the mobile network. Also, in terms of perspective increase of cost, 5G perhaps in this stage of our life, is more useful to reduce the unitary costs of for transportation of the data, than not to habilitate further services. Then we have the sales commissioning. On this area, we still have room to work on that.
When we talk about the commissioning, you have to consider the impact on cash, and not immediately the impact on the EBITDA, because the sales commission today is depreciated in four years for mobile and eight years for fixed. Then we continue to have good margin to improve also the collection costs. That is another area on which we are working. Let's remember that then, we have also the heritage of something that we did in the wrong way in the past. Perhaps everybody forgot that, we put a provision of more than EUR 500 million for the zone.... starting from 2025, the impact that is in terms of cash, something close to EUR 100 million-EUR 150 million per year, will disappear.
We start to have also some improvement that will come from the fact that some mistake that we did in the past will disappear. Then, I don't want to bore you to go in details of all the costs, and we work on that for the presentation of the 7th of March. But it was just to give you an idea that we have a clear understanding of the issue that we can manage, a clear understanding of the cost base of our company, and as we did in the last two year, we foresee that we can continue to further improve our cost base.
Very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Mr. Joshua Mills of BNP Paribas Exane. Mr. Mills, please.
Hi there, and thank you for taking my questions. I had a couple of definition questions just ahead of the Capital Markets Day, and then I'll ask a couple more operational ones. But the first thing is, I think the last time you gave headline revenue, EBITDA, CapEx figures for the consumer and enterprise business segments was in July 2022, and since then you've given us growth rates for service revenue over the course of the year. So the question is: Can we still use the disclosure from July 2022 as a perimeter for the new segments, which we're going to be given detail on at the Capital Markets Day? Or has all, have all of the company's different moving parts changed and will the perimeter be, be, redrawn?
The reason I'm asking is, it's obviously important to get a sense of what we should be modeling before the event. The second question is somewhat related, but the growth figures, which you show on slide 7 and 8, for example, where you can see service revenue growth through the year for consumer, and you also recognize it for enterprise. Will those figures be the same under the new perimeter that is disclosed at the Capital Markets Day? And then finally, I just wanted to check, in 2023, the NRRP payment was received at the end of the, end of the year, in the fourth quarter. I would assume that's the case for 2024 as well, and hence, your guidance for Servco will not include any contribution from NRRP because those payments will go to the NetCo business. Is that the right assumption? Thank you.
Hi, Josh. I'm Adrian. I'll try to ask you to answer you the first question. There is a little bit of noise in the line, so maybe probably, I don't know if we got it right then, so please let us know. But in terms of the disclosure that we did in July 2022, on our Capital Market Day, and what we will disclose in a couple of weeks, it will be pretty similar. Consider that the final perimeter of the deal with NetCo was almost the same than the one that we discussed in July of last year, of 2022.
There will probably be some difference on the MSA agreements in terms of what we mentioned in 2022. But you will find a similar approach in terms of disclosure. By that time, we also gave a lot of information on the business units, on the enterprise, on consumer and on Brazil. We'll see what we are discussing, what kind of guidance we'll give. We'll try to be clear in terms of what we will expect for the next three years. So yes, you can assume that there will be some relations between what we will disclose in March the 7th and what we did in July of 2022.
On the second question, Pietro will take it, but probably we'll need some clarification on the last part of the question.
Joshua, I think that you are using a line of the competitor because there was a lot of noise. I'm sorry, I'm joking, but it was very difficult to understand the second question. Could you repeat, please?
Hi there. Can you hear me better now? Does this work?
Yeah.
Yes, slightly better.
Yeah. Thanks. You are, you are right. I'm on a Vodafone network. So you are correct there.
Yeah. Yeah, but you can move to TIM as soon as you will come to Italy.
Okay. So yeah, no, thanks. That was not the answer. The first question was clear. The second question was, somewhat answered already, which is: If I look at slide number, slide number 7 and see the trajectory for revenue and service revenues, will they be the same under the new disclosure? But I think the answer is yes, based on what you said. And then the third question was that in Q4 2023, you received a significant payment from the NRRP subsidies. I just wanted to check that in 2024, should we assume that all of those subsidies, that most of them go to-...
the NetCo, and therefore, the guidance you give on the ServCo will, you know, if you do talk about free cash flow, not include any subsidies, because they usually come at the end of the year, and you'll have sold the NetCo by then.
Yes, exactly, there again. Well, on the PNRR anticipations. Put it this way, because we are not talking right now in terms of subsidies. This is part of the compensation of the CapEx that the company is doing for the development of the NRRP projects. What we had in this quarter was the anticipation of part of this of these contributions coming from the company. We discussed a lot, this was something that Pietro took himself in terms of discussions with the authorities, because at the end, we were the only industry that for which these funds were recognized only 18 months after the declaration of the project.
So this is an impact, consider obviously, the actual interest rates that we have. So, these were these discussions were interesting with the government. They agree of this impact, so we had the anticipation of these funds. Consider that probably until the closing team would have done, more or less EUR 1 billion of the almost EUR 3 billion of NRRP projects. So this is somehow covering in terms of contributions of what we did. Hope I answered the whole question, but if there is any doubt, please let me know.
But generally speaking, what we did, we didn't put in the presentation today details about what we will show the 7th of March, because our desire was to focus the attention on everybody in the way in which we are managing the operation today. Because during these two years, sometimes all the rumors around the company didn't allow to show in this way the good job that all the team did. But for sure, the 7th of March, you will receive all the answers related to the ServiceCo number, the relationship with NetCo, and all the details that will allow you to do the right evaluation of our company. And as we always stated since the beginning, because this was the first question, ServiceCo will not be a bad company.
ServiceCo will be a company that will be able to compete in the market in a healthy way from the strategic and financial point of view.
Andrew, thanks very much.
Joshua, remember to buy the TIM SIM next time.
The next question comes from Mr. James Ratzer of New Street Research. Mr. Ratzer, please.
Yes, good morning. Can you hear me okay?
Yes.
Yes.
Great. Yes, good morning, Pietro and Andrea. So two questions, please. The first one is, if I just look at your core consumer wireline business, the trends are actually in the past, you know, three or four quarters are remarkably stable. You've been seeing 60,000 line losses, roughly speaking, per quarter, and you've also seen ARPU growth of around 5% year-on-year, net of the activation fees. So just interested in your thoughts on, you know, the continuity of those trends. What do you see potentially changing either of those trends for the better or worse, as you look ahead over the next year or so? And secondly, with regards to the NetCo, ServCo split, on the balance sheet as of Q3, you had about EUR 1.7 billion for provisions and employee liabilities.
Could you give us just an indication of how that EUR 1.7 billion was split between NetCo and ServCo? Thank you.
Okay, about the consumer core, before to leave to Andrea, just some market alike. What we did in these two years was to be rational, become to play the role of the market leader, because the way in which we set the price, set the price of everybody, starting to work to transform our services in premium, and try to understand how to manage the churn reduction. In the following quarters, the idea is that to continue to work in the churn reduction through the bundling with further services, because what we have seen is that, for example, TIMVision is an important element of churn stabilization and contention. It's clear that you have to do that having a content offer that is not burning cash. And this is what Andrea is working on, but I leave to Andrea to give some more color.
Thank you, Pietro. Thank you for the question.
... Indeed, we had a pretty stable price trend in terms of performance quarter-over-quarter. We had an improvement in the full year performance of net adds, slight improvement year-over-year, mostly due to the first two quarters, in which we had less repricing activities. But overall, we had an improvement also in the full year, if you take into account the specific performance of broadband lines, excluding FWA. The repricing activities have been pretty successful. We managed to have stability of churn, despite an increase of ARPU that was quite significant.
As Pietro explained, we see positive contribution from the so-called customer platform approach, so including convergence services with entertainment, and also financing of devices based on the bill, which has given a positive contribution to churn stability. So what we see going forward is that with further convergence expansion, we should have a pretty stable trend in churn. We need to see, of course, how the market develops in terms of aggressiveness of offer from competitors.
Yes, on the second question, James, about the distribution of NetCo and ServCo, of this provision. I think we mentioned it last quarter. Clearly these are, these are provisions that we booked during 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, of the different agreements that we had with the unions, and were related to layoffs that we have during this year. So in terms of of cash effect, this will remain on ServCo. Then we'll see what happens in 2024. This could be something different, but up to now and, and, and what it related to those, to those provisions, the effect in terms of cash, you will see it on ServCo.
As we see today, if you look at our adjusted free cash flow, the effect is always in the working capital. So, this will be the same going forward on ServCo. Okay?
That's clear. So although it's live with ServiceCo, just coming back to this point from Andrea, is there anything you can say about 2024 on your plans on pricing strategies for this year? Thank you.
Let me say, we do not disclose details. Certainly, we believe that repricing is a common practice in the market, and we will continue depending on the opportunities from the competitors' aggressions.
Many thanks. That's great. Thank you.
The next question comes from Mr. Ottavio Adorisio of Société Générale. Mr. Ottavio Adorisio, please.
Hi, good morning. A couple of questions on my side. The first is on the enterprise. You provide a lot of colors. You emphasize the seasonality, so quarter-on-quarter really is minimalist. But year-on-year, you have a stellar performance, and from one of the speakers say that it was to do with the cloud, public cloud. So I was wondering if do we have to expect that particular performance to continue in the next few quarters, or it's going to subside? The second one is basically on all the talks about Sparkle. There's been many iteration about that deal. The last one, it looked at could be you asking for a minority in the business.
So just was wondering what the rationale for Telecom Italia to keep a minority in Sparkle if you decide to sell. The third one, it's to Pietro, is on volume discounts. Now, I appreciate that there are volume discounts today, but as you stressed many times, what you're doing, it's very unique in Europe. It's not been done. So the sheer size of ServiceCo in the retail market will be very unfair to get volume discounts. So in case the antitrust will come to the same conclusion, if that will be a deal breaker for you, if there will be stop in the volume discount towards ServiceCo? And the fourth one is the CF4. We talk a lot about ServiceCo, and you haven't given the historical. I understand there's a number of things that are moving pieces on the MSA.
Now, in March, when you're going to give us some numbers, are those numbers will be just pro forma, or are you going to be audited, so therefore, there will be a third party to look on these numbers, before sharing with the markets or after you've been sharing with the market? Thanks.
Okay, I will answer to the second and to the third. About the volume discount, I tried to give the details to explain why this is not the case. First of all, today exists a pure wholesale player in the market that de facto on the FTTH, that is the only market in some way deregulated, is offering volume discount. And none of the players that today is claiming in Brussels, is saying that it's unfair that the main competitor on the wholesale business is offering volume discount.
... The second, the market analysis made by the National Watchdog is putting at disposal of the vertically integrated TIM volume discount. So I really don't understand when you say, and sorry if I says that, because I cannot accept that in a public call we talk about unfair, because if we don't know the details, we generate rumors on something that is not the truth. Here, no one has never discussed about volume discount, about unbundling, FTTC, so on and so forth. So I don't see any kind of things that is unfair. I give you the details. My competitor on the retail side are buying with a kind of volume discount from the main competitor on FTTH. The National Watchdog is discussing about volume discount, so I think that at European level, everybody are asking also about that.
So perhaps I should use a different word. Finally, we will compete in a fair way, because until today, we were obliged to compete in an unfair way. Can you tell me why, in the replicability, I must consider having all this customer as the smallest player to build my offer? I think that someone is starting to understand that in the market, with the capability to compete in a fair way, we'll have much more opportunity than in the past. It's like to have, Marcell Jacobs, that is the winner of the 100 meters at the Olympic Games, that have to compete against the other with, Havaianas, and he will lose. Now, someone is understanding that we run no more with Havaianas, but with the normal shoes to run, and perhaps they are scared. But the truth is that, there's no unfairness.
It's a rebalance toward the fairness about that. About Sparkle-
Pietro, uh-
Sorry.
Yeah, I think it's one thing that's been lost in the... All the conversation is that your market share has been built over the years where you're an integrated operator, so you start from a, we'll call dominant position, but because of the virtue of being integrated, so you will be rewarded for this volume discount for your history.
Yeah, but-
I understand going forward will be a different one, but your market shares today coming from being an integrated operator for many years.
Adorisio, sorry, do you know which is our market share in Milan? Tell me the number.
Sorry?
Do you know which is our market share in Milan?
I do not,
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Milan is not Italy.
Yeah.
We are both Italian, so we know Milan is an exception.
Y-
The rest of Italy-
No, no, no
... is well above 50%.
No, but Adorisio, sorry. If you want, we can discuss in details, and I like to have people in front of me with the number in their mind. What I mean is not only Milan 18%, but if you look at Turin, the main cities, that is the things on which the market analysis are giving us the opportunity to do market volume discount, are like that. Now, why I'm unable, in the city where I'm below 20%, to compete as the others? And again, if you look at the market share on FTTH, which is our market share on FTTH? We are discussing to compete on FTTH. Do you remember our market share on FTTH, not on FTTC? So if you look at our market share on FTTH, we are not the biggest, by far. We are equal to the others. So...
Then about Sparkle. About Sparkle, it was not asked by us about the possibility to have a minority stake. It was asked by the potential buyer because it was a kind of support in reaching the number, because the buyer is not an industrial buyer, and so they feel more comfortable to have on their side someone that help them in delivering the number of the plan. So it's nothing strange. Then about Enterprise Co, I leave to Elio.
Yeah. Thanks, thanks for the question. So, we do believe we can deliver a solid, steady growth on service revenues going forward, particularly when we focus on cloud. And more importantly, as you mentioned, the public cloud, well, as you probably know, we do represent the 45% of these National Strategic Hub, which is a program made for improving capabilities of a public administration to move to digital, so to move to cloud. And this is a very long journey. We are at the very beginning of that journey because the program is set for stay there for 13 years, and we just ended the first one.
So the, the growth that we registered at the end of quarter four in 2023 will keep accelerate going forward. We do see early signals of this acceleration already and in the beginning of 2024. Let me underline something which is very relevant to this exercise. So not only we do believe we will deliver a steady growth on cloud services, but margin-wise-
... these will become more interesting going forward, because we will switch from professional services, where we are making a tremendous effort today for migrating customers to cloud. We will move into the more prominent part of revenues going forward will be infrastructure services. And, as you know, we have 16 data centers, where the marginality of that business, once you have made investment, will become much more relevant. So not only we, let's say, we stay on the statement that we believe that service growth will be steady, but going forward, margins will become more interesting. Thank you.
Ottavio will take your last questions about what we'll be disclosing in March the seventh. No, clearly, on the Capital Market Day, we will give you pro forma figures. But anyway, we are working on the audit process, both on NetCo and on ServCo, and we will probably have these for late March. You know, that we will need these also for the liability management exercise. Anyway, on the NetCo side, we will probably be fully audited. On the ServCo side, in terms of pro forma, probably we will, we'll have a limited review because it's not mandatory to have a full audit. But anyway, you will have by late March additional comfort on the figures anyway.
We think that with the pro forma, we'll be pretty sure about our numbers. I would like to come back on the volume discounts, because it's extremely important what Pietro mentioned. These discounts are not different of what we are seeing today in the market, and this is probably the main matter here. It's not different of what our competitor on the wholesale side is doing. And honestly, I don't agree with the fact that these volumes were constructed during the period that we were merging. Because at the same time, during this period, we lost probably 50% of our market share on the broadband, so it wasn't a benefit. Anyway, it's not...
Just be sure that it's not different of what we are seeing today in the market. Okay?
What is important is to discuss based on the numbers, because this is a market that proceeds based on words, and numbers are more than words, so more than happy to have a discussion based on numbers.
Pietro? Hello?
Yeah, Ottavio.
Yeah, this is just a very quick one. I actually fully agree. So were you going to provide visibility on market shares, not just the nationwide, but potentially regional, so we can see where your strength and your weakness are, so we can discuss by numbers?
Yes, Mauricio, but I'm surprised that you don't know that AGCOM release every year these numbers.
But the cities, as you said earlier?
If you look at the AGCOM number, you can see the market share.
Nationwide.
The last question comes from Mr. David Wright of Bank of America. Mr. Wright, please.
Hello, guys. Thank you very much. Yeah, congratulations on the second year of guidance and somewhat remarkable reference to the Spice Girls. Just a very quick question, Pietro. We've seen Iliad's second attempt to acquire Vodafone. We've seen Vodafone say no. We have reports of Fastweb circling some kind of a deal with Vodafone. We've seen WindTre pull out of their infrastructure deal. It feels like there are multiple moving parts in Italy right now. Do you have any perspectives you could share? And could ServCo even be part of this game as we look into the next 12, 18 months? Thank you.
Hi, David. Thank you. I, I appreciate that you love two Spice Girls, so but again, if you talk about the-
I didn't say that. I didn't say that.
I'm joking. But again, about the market view, what is happening is that for sure, until July, when we'll have the closing of the deal, we can only set the window, because it's difficult to have or to participate this kind of move while we are finalizing the carve-out and to have the authorization. While proceed ahead, we can be part of that game. It's important to understand that, if we set the window and it happen, we will have some advantages. If we participate in an active way, in an active way, we will have advantages, but we have to be ready to understand what can happen. Then, if you ask me, which is the best solution to have the real market repair, is that someone merge with Iliad. All the other are suboptimal.
What I mean is that, if you ask me if I should prefer Iliad-Vodafone or Fastweb-Vodafone, I should prefer Iliad-Vodafone. It's, it's a matter of way in which the market can be repaired. But again, we are ready to do our part in the next month, once we will finalize our deal. And so after the summer, we can try to understand which could be the move. But flexibility is what we need, because nothing is yet defined, and we have to understand how to proceed.
Okay, very good. Thank you so much.
Okay, this was the last question. Thank you very much for participating today. We will reconvene in three weeks for the Capital Market Day. Have a nice day. Bye bye, everybody.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is over. Thank you for calling.