Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, welcome to Telefónica January to June 2016 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you should require any assistance during this call, please press star zero. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Pablo Eguirón , Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon, welcome to Telefónica's conference call to discuss January to June 2016 results. Before proceeding, let me mention that financial information contained in this document related to the first half of 2016 has been prepared under International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted by the European Union, that this financial information is unaudited. This conference call webcast, including the Q&A session, may contain forward-looking statements and information relating to the Telefónica Group. These statements may include financial forecasts and estimates based on assumptions or statements regarding plans, objectives, and expectations that make reference to different matters, such as the customer base and its evolution, growth of the different business lines or the global business, market share, possible acquisitions, divestitures, or other transactions, company results, and other aspects related to the activity and situation of the company.
We encourage you to review our publicly available disclosure documents filed with the relevant securities market regulators. If you don't have a copy of the relevant press release and the slides, please contact Telefónica Investor Relations team in Madrid by dialing the following telephone number, 3491-402-8700. Now let me turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, José María Álvarez-Pallete.
Thank you, Pablo. Good afternoon, welcome to Telefónica's second quarter 2016 results conference call. Today with me is Ángel Vilá, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer, during the Q&A session, you will have the opportunity to address us with any questions you may have. I'd like to begin this presentation by highlighting how our strategy is working in the second quarter of 2016. Firstly, this is the basis for the rest, profitable growth has remained solid. Service revenues growth is leveraged on positive data monetization and higher customer lifetime value. The service revenue growth, together with efficiencies and merger synergies, are the drivers of OIBDA margin on operating cash flow growth. Secondly, we have built on best-in-class technology platforms with fiber premises passed reaching 33 million and LTE coverage expanding to 55% or 84% in Europe. Thirdly, our competitive position is superior in main markets.
Spain is back to growth in operating cash flow. Brazil and Germany expanded margins. Hispam is leading value growth. U.K. stood out in customer acquisition and loyalty. The fourth element I'd like to stress is that we are committed to deleveraging through better business trends and lower FX headwinds, flowing directly to free cash flow, along with a broad diversity of financial and portfolio measures and attractive debt refinancing. Finally, we are pleased to reaffirm that we are fully on course to meet our 2016 guidance and dividend along with midterm leverage target. Turning to slide two, you can see that our organic growth profile is supported across our key financials from service revenues to operating cash flow. FX has impacted reported headlines. However, I'd like to highlight that these negative FX effects at OIBDA level were offset at the free cash flow level.
Net income for the quarter was EUR 693 million, leading to a reported EPS of EUR 0.13. On slide three, we explain the impact that FX and our perimeters have had on our first half results. Although these factors have been reduced in the second quarter, FX dragged 11.7 percentage points in revenues and 10.7 percentage points in OIBDA in the first half of this year. However, this effect will ease in the second part of the year as main depreciations took place in the second half of 2015. Perimeter had a positive impact of 3.3 percentage points in revenues and 2.3 percentage points in OIBDA in the first half of the year, with no impact to be had in the second half of this year, as the consideration of GVT and DTS took place in May 2015. As shown on slide four, we are on track with our full-year guidance.
Following its criteria, we are growing 5% in revenues, 0.1 percentage points in margin, and reach a CapEx to sales ratio of 15.1%. We confirm that we will pay the 2016 dividend of EUR 0.75 per share in two tranches. The first will be in the form of a voluntary scrip of EUR 0.35 per share in November this year, with the second tranche of EUR 0.40 to be paid in cash in the second quarter of next year. In addition, the board of directors will decide in the second half of the year regarding the potential amortization of 1.5% of treasury. Finally, we maintain our midterm net debt to EBITDA target of lower than 2.35 times. On slide five, we demonstrate that our free cash flow generation is improving both sequentially and year-on-year, as shown in graph on the top left of the slide.
Free cash flow is up EUR 1 billion in the first half of the year versus the previous one, thanks to improved operating cash flow, lower spectrum, CapEx, financial payments, and minority, despite higher working capital consumption and slightly higher taxes from non-recurrent last year. Free cash flow is also up versus the previous quarter due to working capital and financial payments. For the second half of the year, we expect free cash flow to improve further due to better operational performance, lower FX drag, and other seasonal effects. The quality of our customer base continues to expand, as seen on slide six, driving service revenue growth and average revenue per access. We are increasing penetration year-on-year in the different value segments, namely smartphones, LTE, fiber to the home, and VDSL. As such, the bundling of this LTE and FTTx is allowing us to have high-end pricing power.
Finally, churn levels were down versus the last quarter and last year. Clear proof that our winning proposition is creating customer loyalty. To review the quality of our revenues, please turn to slide seven. Organic service revenue growth, 1.5% year-on-year in the second quarter, have outpaced total revenues, and also across all segments, offsetting the decline in handset sales, which impacted all businesses. Revenue growth is mainly levered on broadband connectivity and service over connectivity, which are fueling service revenues, maintaining similar growth trends as in the previous quarter in most markets. On slide eight, we review our sustained OIBDA growth. Organic OIBDA grew for the eighth consecutive quarter, mainly due to impressive OPEX control measures, which led to a 0.8% year-on-year decline.
This mainly included the synergies from the GVT and E-Plus mergers and the global simplification and efficiency programs, such as personnel, IT and networks, among others. Profitability continues to improve, with margin expansion in all regions except Hispanoamerica, and operating cash flow back to growth in Spain, and continuing to show a powerful expansion in Brazil. Lastly, we have a highly diversified portfolio, which is impacting positively on OIBDA performance. Slide nine shows the tangible results of data monetization. LTE customer base doubled versus June 2015, and average usage increased by 68%, driving an ARPU uplift of around 10%. In particular, increasing prepaid data penetration in Hispam, and a wider implementation of recurring data plans is boosting data prepaid ARPU, delivering an 18% uplift in the second quarter. As a consequence, non-SMS data revenues grew in the quarter 16%, leading to a 9% year-on-year increase in data revenues.
On the other hand, fixed data traffic is accelerating its growth up to 50% year-on-year due to fiber expansion, over-the-top video, and multi-device proliferation, which open ups a huge monetization potential. Turning to slide 10, digital services continue to show solid growth, with total revenues up 15.7% year-on-year in the quarter, leveraged in particular on video, security, machine to machine, and cloud. I am pleased to highlight the continuing integration of our own platforms, products, and services into our customers' offering and into our own internal processes. Consumers, businesses, and institutions are increasingly seeing the benefits of having Telefónica as the digital solution provider and helping them to transform their business models, thereby increasing efficiency and productivity.
On slide 11, we show the good progress made in enlarging our ultra broadband footprint, as shown by the double-digit growth in premises passed with fiber and the expansion of our LTE coverage, with Voice over LTE already available in six countries. Network modernization towards All-IP Advanced, i n order to have a more efficient network with more capabilities, with the deployment of a new metro network in Spain with optical transport and the launch of a native Voice over Wi-Fi solution in Germany. Additionally, we continue to work to have smarter systems with Full Stacks projects in 15 countries, and a strong push in our big data platforms by tripling their capacity year-on-year with the aim to provide extremely valuable real-time information. Ángel will now explain in more detail the performance in the quarter.
Thank you, José María. Please turn to Slide 12 for a review of our domestic business. Over the past years, we have invested heavily to build a very robust platform. Our ultra broadband network, a state-of-the-art TV product, and the continuous improvement of the offerings' quality have translated into a very high level of customer loyalty. As a result, Q2 trading is gaining momentum on the back of churn reduction across the board. Our convergent offer continues to deliver outstanding KPIs. Double-digit year-on-year growth in subscribers and ARPU, driven by customers upgrading towards higher value packages. In July, we launched a new Fusión+ portfolio, updating tariffs while adding again more value, namely TV content and additional mobile lines. Moving to Slide 13.
Our successful upselling is flowing into revenues, posting sustainable growth in service revenues across all segments, despite tariffs update having a lower impact in the Q2 year-on-year comparison. On profitability, we captured the first savings from the restructuring program, which are reflected in the 2.6% OIBDA growth year-on-year, and 1.1 percentage point margin expansion to 41%. I would like to highlight that operating cash flow was back to growth in the quarter. In an increasingly dynamic market in Germany, on Slide 14, we maintained operational momentum with a higher contribution from partners. This, together with lower handset sales, impacted revenue trends in the quarter. With integration activities on track, we posted an OIBDA margin expansion of 1.9 percentage points year-on-year to 25%, which will continue throughout the year, as we will have incremental savings in the second half and as transformation OPEX peaked in Q2.
Margin increase is reflected in the 17.3% growth of operating cash flow in the quarter. As a result, the company is reiterating the outlook for OIBDA, narrowing the range of mobile service revenue outlook to slightly negative, and lowering the CapEx outlook due to more efficient spend and LTE rollout phasing, therefore improving the implicit operating cash flow expectation. Very importantly, the company is committing to midterm dividend growth over the next three years. Please turn to Slide 15 for a review of O2 U.K. O2 continued to post a solid performance in Q2, after posting the strongest net adds in six quarters and an all-time high customer loyalty. One of the main drivers of this was the outstanding LTE adoption, with penetration up 17 percentage points year-on-year to 43%.
On financials, mobile service revenues excluding O2 Refresh remained stable year-on-year in the quarter, as the benefits from customer base and subscription growth were offset by the impact of roaming and MTR cuts. Topline growth in the quarter was also affected by a market-wide slowdown in handset sales. Profitability remained strong and was broadly flat year-on-year at 26.6% in the quarter. To review Telefónica Brasil, please turn to Slide 16. With a rational and data-centric strategy, we continue to lead in contract. We captured 55% of new contract customers in the last 12 months, reinforcing our leadership with a market share over 42%. Q2 data ARPU accelerated to 41% year-on-year, thanks to high 4G adoption. In the fixed business, 50% year-on-year growth in ultra broadband and IPTV led to a very solid ARPU performance.
Moving to Slide 17, it is worth highlighting that service revenue accelerated its year-on-year growth to almost 2% thanks to mobile, with data revenues increasing their weight to 52% of total mobile service revenues. Once again, OpEx improved year-on-year trends through efficiency and better than expected synergies. This allowed OIBDA to increase 6% year-on-year with a margin expansion of 1.5 percentage points to 31.7%. As such, Vivo posted an outstanding growth of 35.3% in operating cash flow in Q2, resulting from consistent OIBDA and optimized CapEx. Finally, we have identified additional opportunities in terms of synergies, allowing us to build a case for a trending NPV of about BRL 25 billion. In Hispam, as shown on slide 18, we are reinforcing our leadership in high-value segments as investments in quality are paying off.
In mobile, contract net adds more than double versus Q2 2015, despite intense competition, which particularly affected prepay. Smartphones and LTE continue to thrive, but still penetration is far from the group average. Meanwhile, in fixed, the growing adoption of bundled services leveraged on the differential pay TV offering and higher speeds in fixed broadband led to an improvement in churn levels across services. Moving to slide 19. Revenues grew 3.6% year-on-year organically in Q2, leveraged on mobile data and the strong performance in the fixed business, +16% year-on-year, in which all operations accelerated and registered positive growth. OIBDA was impacted by Forex depreciation and strong competition, which also resulted in higher interconnection costs. Let me now move to the financial slides starting on slide 20.
As a traditional seasonal effect, net debt in the second quarter grew by nearly EUR 2 billion, mainly stemming from the cash dividend payment despite the progress made in free cash flow generation, which reached almost EUR 750 million in the quarter. Consequently, our leverage ratio has topped 3.2 times as no deleveraging measures have yet kicked in, as is the case with the announced voluntary scrip dividend for the EUR 0.35 dividend payment due in November this year, or the recent disposal of 1.5% in China Unicom for over EUR 300 million. Other corporate actions, jointly with our expected improving cash flow performance, will be key in showing deleveraging process for the remainder of the year. On slide 21, we continued reducing the effective interest cost, which has moved down by 96 basis points year-on-year to 4.35%.
Our liquidity cushion is robust at EUR 17.3 billion, including cash and undrawn facilities. Such cushion has been strengthened with our EUR 5.5 billion long-term financing year to date, accessing different pockets of liquidity and benefiting from lowest historical benchmark rates. I will now hand back to José María to recap.
Thank you, Ángel. To finish, please move to slide number 22 for our final conclusions. Today's results demonstrate our ability to execute while building for the future as we bear the fruits of our structural transformation. As such, network upgrades and product differentiation drove good operational momentum on value and quality, improving business sustainability, profitable growth, and market positioning. Furthermore, let me highlight that organic growth, free cash flow, and FX drag will improve in the second half of the year. Finally, we reiterate all our commitments, including the dividend and leverage. Thank you very much, and we are now ready to take your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question at this time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To cancel your question, please press star two. Once again, that's star one to register a question and star two to cancel. We would kindly ask you to ask a maximum of two questions per participant. If possible, we recommend you not to use your cell or hands-free phone. There will be a short silence while questions are being registered.
We will take our first question now from Georgios Ierodiaconou from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yes. I had two questions, please. The first one is around CapEx levels. Both in Brazil and Germany, you mentioned there may be opportunities for slightly lower CapEx. Is it possible to give us some idea of how you expect CapEx to progress later this year, but more importantly in 2017 across the group? My second question is on the U.K. You highlighted some of the headwinds you had in the second quarter, I wanted to better understand why you've seen the margin improvement reverse in this quarter and whether it's something that's going to carry on because of the change of the mix of the revenues with the roaming regulation. Thank you.
Thank you for your questions. In terms of the CapEx level, we stick to the guidance of around 17% CapEx over sales ratio this year, as there is a phasing effect in the second half of the year that always occur. Therefore, before reviewing that, we need to check what is the impact of that seasonal effect as the approval process of the CapEx takes basically six months to get through. We will revisit at the end of the year. We expect our revenues to continue growing next year, we expect the CapEx over sales ratio to be reduced in 2017 as our CapEx effort during the last four years is starting to pay off in terms of value revenues coming through our accounts.
Summarizing, I think that before reviewing this year's CapEx, we need to check what's the trend during the second half of this year, remember that FX also have an impact on CapEx. Secondly, we do feel that going forward, CapEx intensity will be progressively reduced. In terms of the financial performance, namely in margins, in the U.K., the improving trend that we have been seeing in subscription rates has been offset by lower roaming margins, this is a trend. We also think that due to phasing of marketing spend and underlying cost saving, we might have lower functional costs going forward, namely in the second half of this year. Also, take into account that lower handset sales due to the market slowdown is resulting in lower hardware margin, that's also affecting our margins.
The roaming effect, the termination rate cut, the handset impact that had a positive impact last year is not here anymore. That's what has been affecting our margins. Depending on the handset activity going forward, the margin would evolve accordingly. There are some effects that are here to stay, some others that will depend on market evolution, namely on the hardware margin part of the business.
Thank you, Georgios. Please.
Thank you. We now have a question from Mathieu Robilliard from Barclays.
Yes. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking the question. First, with regards to Hispanoamerica, obviously very strong performance in fixed, but we've seen some decelerations on the mobile side across different markets. I wanted to understand, please, if this is something structural that is affecting the region, or it's just a coincidence, and it's something that could revert in the next few quarters. The second question had to do with your leverage. You highlight that you expect deleveraging by the end of the year. I just wanted to understand if that was compared to H1 or the end of last year. Also, when you talk about the midterm target being still below 2.35 times EBITDA, what do you mean by midterm? Is that 2017, 2018, 2019? Thank you very much.
Thanks for your question. In terms of Hispam, let me highlight first that we do think that we are the best-positioned operator in the regions. I would like to highlight that we have outperformed across all core markets our major competitor in the region. It is true that we have had a weaker performance in terms on the mobile side, but on the fixed side, our performance, our growth has been accelerating. In spite of everything, we continue posting growth in revenues in the region. It is true that some of the markets, namely Mexico, and on the mobile side, somehow Peru as well, have been weaker compared to the first quarter. There are some effects that have been affecting our performance, namely MTR cuts, significant MTR cuts in some of the markets.
In the specific case of Mexico, it's a very aggressive competitive landscape that has significantly affected our revenues. On that regard, I would like to state that Mexico represents 3% of the total group, and therefore the impact is more limited on our side than on some of our competitors. Going forward, we think that some of those trends will ease, namely the mobile termination rates decline. The rate of decline should at some point start to diminish. We do see an overall more rational environment in Hispam. In most of the markets, some of the zero-rated tariffs are starting to disappear. The unlimited data tariffs are also starting to disappear because of the financial situation of some of our competitors. We do think that also overall, Forex impact will ease progressively during this year.
Summarizing, on the fixed side, the growth has been accelerated in our different units. On the wireline side, weaker trends in Mexico, in Peru, and somehow in Chile as well because of termination rates. Overall, sound competitive positioning, we do think that some of those effects would start to ease progressively. Again, let me stress the fact that we see overall a more rational environment in the region going forward.
Hi, Mathieu. Regarding leverage, we maintain our commitment to a midterm target of 2.35x. What do we mean by midterm? That would be end of 2017. We also plan to make visible progress in that direction during 2016. To this end, you have to bear in mind the seasonality that our debt level has. It's been traditional in the last several years to have a lower level of debt at the end of the year compared to the one at June. Maybe out of the last five years, maybe one, because there was a big Venezuela devaluation, this was not the case. In all the other years, net debt at year-end was lower than net debt in June. Bear in mind the seasonal effect. We will have very strong free cash flow generation in the second half, as you also saw last year.
We plan to implement financial measures, we will execute on portfolio management.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mathieu. Next question, please.
Thank you. We have a question now from Giovanni Montalti from UBS.
Hello. Thank you for taking the question. If I may, can I ask you to guide us through your different deleveraging options? Obviously, you have many, but I think it would be good if you can help us have a framework discussing briefly each of the options you may consider. Thank you.
Hi, Giovanni. First and foremost, strong free cash flow generation. You saw that in the first half of the year, our free cash flow is EUR 1 billion higher than it was last year. For the second half of the year, we expect a strong performance on this metric. Why is that the case? Well, first, because as per our guidance, you will see that operating cash flow is going to perform strongly. As José María was saying, the FX impact, the FX drag will ease very substantially in the second half. The big devaluations took place in the third and fourth quarter of last year, so comparisons will improve. With respect to spectrum, to June it has been not significant, and the figure that we will have for the full year could be in the few hundreds of million euros compared to what was EUR 1.6 billion last year.
Substantially lower figure in spectrum. Working capital is going to contribute positively, although it's already normalizing. The figure that you should expect could be around one third of what we had last year. Financial payments, taxes are declining, will decline for the full year in the low teens versus 2015. All in all, we expect a very strong free cash flow performance in last year. If you remember, in the second half of last year, we generated free cash flow well in excess of EUR 3 billion. This year, we feel that it should not be different, should be similar. First and foremost, strong free cash flow generation. Second, we're implementing already financial measures. The scrip dividend, the voluntary scrip dividend is already approved by the shareholder meeting.
It will depend, obviously, on the take-up of shares by the shareholders, but this will not contribute to a huge cash drain from the cash generated in the second half, and this will help deleverage. We have other potential financial measures available to us, like hybrids and so on, that we could use, but we will be pragmatic but prudent on those because those are expensive instruments. If anything, some single tranche benchmark issuance at some point, still undecided. On portfolio management, you know that we have been active and pragmatic in the last few years. What we do not want to do is to not realize the value of stakes or assets that we may divest. We have very attractive opportunities ahead of us. Telxius is something that is public that we are working on.
We also, by having consolidated the U.K. back, this helps us our debt service. We will evaluate another already starting preparatory work for potential minority divestment in the U.K., be it on the public markets or on a private transaction. We also have non-core assets. We have stakes, transversal businesses, and the geographic review of our portfolio of assets, which we have all the time. We have multiple options. We plan to make progress already in 2016 towards the target of leverage by the end of 2017.
Thank you. Sorry, if I may follow up. Among all these options, I don't know if you can hear me because I hear my voice. Hello?
Giovanni, please go ahead. We can hear you.
Sorry. Among these options, should for any reason the operational performance be, let's say, less good than expectations, should any of the portfolio management options not be viable for market conditions or anything else? Would you consider a pragmatic approach to dividend as you have showed already this year, considering a larger portion for the scrip? Can we consider that your priority is the leverage, and therefore, if needed, you will be pragmatic about dividend, at least for, let's say, the balance of 2016 dividend and eventually for 2017 dividend if needed? Thank you.
Let me take that question. First of all, let me stress that the free cash flow trends that we see, and that Ángel has mentioned, are improving at the group level. Let me try to cover that in a little bit more of detail. The two largest units that contributes more to the free cash flow generation of the group, namely Spain and Brazil, both turned the corner. In fact, in the case of Spain, it's a turnaround move that took place after four years of decline and with a significant CapEx effort. In Brazil, we are talking about double digit local currency, free cash flow growth. Germany is improving as well. We have a much more balanced quality of free cash flow generation, therefore more recurrent. We depend much less on working capital contribution.
We are seeing an acceleration contribution of OIBDA minus CapEx of operating cash flow. As a result, the free cash flow estimate that we have for 2016 comfortably covers nominal dividend, including the scrip part that we have just announced that we will make, and therefore we count on that part to accelerate our deleveraging process. Overall, we foresee a very robust free cash flow generation in the second half of the year, as Ángel was saying. Keep in mind that free cash flow has already grown with negative FX headwinds in the first half of this year, more than EUR 1 billion compared with the previous year.
As a result, going forward, we think that the simplification effort that we have been doing and that we plan to accelerate jointly with the synergies programs that we have in place in two of the largest units of the group, like Germany and Brazil, should help us to grow OIBDA. All of that, jointly with the measures that Ángel covered, make us think that the current level of dividend is comfortably covered and that we can do both things, that we can show that we can deleverage, and that we can show that the EUR 0.75 of dividend is compatible and sustainable at this level. At the end of the year, we will review, and we will revisit, but those are the trends that we see right now. Keep in mind also the answer that we give to the first question.
We see CapEx intensity being more moderate in the coming years as a result, therefore that should also contribute to this acceleration of free cash flow.
Thank you, Giovanni. Next question, please.
Thank you. Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs has our next question.
Yes, thanks. Good afternoon. Just a question on U.K. and then on Brazil, please. In the U.K., I just wonder if you could talk to us about your plans to address what looks like increasing convergence pressures, in the absence of consolidation, which could have helped lower the cost base. What can you do to compete more effectively on a quad-play basis there, and do you think that's a problem? Secondly, on Brazil, I just wonder if you give your view on the macro picture there and how you see this impacting the telecoms market through the second half. Thank you.
Well, thanks for your question. First, let me say that after the failed approval process of the European Union level of the O2 Three transaction, we have now a much clearer picture of what other players in the U.K. markets are really looking for in the different layers, in the different segments of competition. We do believe that with the current market structure, there is room for a pure mobile leading brand mobile player. Let me remind you that O2 is the best mobile asset in the U.K. market. It has the best operational performance among the MNOs, is the best brand in the market. It has a differential value proposition to customer, it has effectively the lowest churn, and it has an outstanding commercial activity during these two quarters.
As Ángel is saying, we are exploring all alternatives, and we will be analyzing the different moves in the market. It is inevitable that the U.K.'s convergence take-up will increase. It is also true that this is starting from a very small starting point, as some customers will always seek, will look for value versus discount quad-play services. Convergence is not new in the U.K. Virgin Media is offering it since 2007, but it has had so far a relative low take-up. We do think, according to our own experience at the group level, that convergence so far is not demand-driven, is much more supply-driven, and therefore it implies that in order to be forced, you need to do significant discounts on the bundling. We do not see BT going into that direction so far. That's why their quad-play traction since launch has been minimal.
In fact, their overall mobile base has been declining in the last year, while our mobile base has been growing. Therefore, it looks like there is continued appetite for mobile-only propositions. As a result of all of that, we will be analyzing the different movements that might occur in the U.K. market, and that's why we are preparing our unit for those scenarios. But we do think that we have the best mobile asset in the U.K. market, that it is increasingly valuable because of what we have been seeing as the different approaches that most of our competitors have done during the failed approval process of the Hutchison transaction. Therefore, we think that we have optionality centered around the fact that we have the best mobile asset in the U.K.
Thank you. On Brazil?
Talking about the macro in Brazil, we are more positive than the market overall. What we see ahead of us is a Brazil that is better prepared than in previous occasions for the shock it has had. It has been most of all, a political crisis. It has affected the macroeconomy, but the stabilizers of the Brazilian economy in terms of internal consumption and in terms of domestic reserves are acting effectively. We think that the trends that we are seeing recently in the last weeks are more positive than in the previous year. As a result of that, you can see that the Brazilian real has been significantly strengthening. In fact, it's much stronger than it has been in the last 12 months.
Remember that the depreciation move of the Brazilian currency started in September last year, therefore in the second half of this year, this positive effect of the translation effect should start to flow through our P&L. In the meantime, we have been able to keep growing in Brazil. Our unit, Vivo, has been the only telecom operator that has been able to grow in the middle of significant decline of GDP. We do feel, according to the commercial activity that we see in the market, that the worst is behind and probably, in our opinion, and again, this is just our own internal estimates, recovery could be faster than what most people is anticipating.
In our case, remind that the second half of this year, the currency effect should start to flow positively through P&L, therefore the headwinds that we have been having so far against the real should significantly ease. We are pretty positive about Brazil.
Thank you. That's really clear.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Thank you. We'll take a question now from Mandeep Singh from Redburn.
Hello. Thank you very much for taking the question. I just really have one question.
Yes, Mandeep.
Around monetization of football rights. Previously, you were charging an extra EUR 25 for premium football. Now you're no longer charging that, and instead you're increasing the prices of various Fusión packages. Can you just explain the dynamics of, obviously not everybody was paying the 25, and some people are on promotions. Can you explain to us the before and the after, and maybe give us some comfort that you're effectively able to cover the extra football cost that you've been incurring? Thank you.
Certainly. Thanks for the question. First, let me try to clarify the impact that we are going to have, namely, for example, this year in 2016, because of the football rights in Spain. We are going to have two wave of impacts. The first one already occurred. It happened in the first quarter of this year, which was that the fact that we were accounting for the Champions League that we didn't have a year ago, and therefore that extra cost is already flowing into our accounts. The second one is going to be starting end of August, September, which is the extra cost of the auction of the next three years of the domestic championship. Therefore, there are going to be two negative impacts on more football rights cost in Telefónica de España accounts. The strategy that we are trying to follow is the following.
We have increased the value of our basic offer by including eight of the matches of the next season in the basic product. We have upgraded the value of that product EUR 3. Therefore, now all our Fusión base product is already accounting for some of the football rights for a EUR 3 extra cost, and therefore that applies to a significant larger amount of customers than the previous add-on that we have on the football rights. On top of that, we will have the add-on of the best match of the weekend, and therefore we have reserved some upselling effect for the most significant match of the weekend. As a result, we expect to have a more positive effect on the impact of those costs into Telefónica España revenues.
Overall, I think that you should take into account the OIBDA global impact, and therefore, in order to judge our strategy, not just on the football rights, also on other sports like Formula One or movies or series, is the OIBDA margin is the only thing that is absolute truth. On that regard, Telefónica de España, in spite of having that extra cost of the first wave of the Champions League during the first half of this year, have been able to slightly increase OIBDA margin in the first half of this year because of the efforts that we are doing in other fronts, like the voluntary retirement plan in Spain, and also the efficiency measures that we are taking on our distribution chain.
Overall, at the end of the year, you will have a full year of the extra cost that is going to be here to stay for the next 2 years. By the way, this additional price upgrade that we have been doing already in the first week of July has not been taken as a result, a pickup in churn. It proves that the value proposition for customers is fair, and in fact, the churn levels of the fiber product or the Fusión products keeps being historically low levels. I think that by the end of this year, we will have a full picture of a full year of the new equation, of cost in Spain, and we stick with what we said previously.
We think that the cost measures that we are taking to take down cost will more than compensate the extra cost of the content rights in Spain.
Thank you very much. Can I just follow up very briefly, if you don't mind?
Please go ahead.
Yeah. You obviously absorbed the extra Champions League costs and the headcount reduction savings have kicked in to offset that along with other measures. Clearly, if you then end up, but you obviously have to then absorb extra cost from the end of August, early September, can you still grow margins with that extra cost given that the headcount savings have already kicked in? Or do you expect some margin pressure as a result of those extra costs from the end of August?
When we are talking about the extra cost being more than compensated by the savings program, we are talking at year-end. We do think that by year-end, you will have a full picture, we think that with the extra revenues that we are getting from the offer upgrade, jointly with the cost measures, we can more than compensate extra cost of the content.
Thank you very much.
Thank you Mandeep. Next question, please.
Thank you. We have a question now from Keval Khiroya from Deutsche Bank.
Thanks. I've got two questions, both related to the headcount reduction. Roughly 3,000 employees have now left the Spanish business versus the end of 2015. Can you give us some color on where we should expect that number to be by the end of the year, just so we can get an idea of where the person expenses should get to? Secondly, related to that, could you give some guidance on how much we should expect the restructuring charges to be within the cash flow statement for this year and the year after? Thank you.
I'm afraid I didn't get the first part of your question. Sorry for that.
No, that's okay. Within the Spanish business, the number of employees is 3,000 lower than where it was at the end of 2015. Can you give us some guidance on how you expect the number of employees to evolve over the year in the context of the leavers plan?
Oh, yes. As we shared at the time of announcing the program, we were expecting 6,000 people joining the program during the three years of the program. More than 3,000 already left in the first half of this year, therefore the program is going according to plan. I don't think I have the cash flow effects here. I would hand it over to Juan.
Yes. The treatment of this pre-retirement is we took a hit in our EBITDA at the end of last year. We are paying it in the subsequent years. You can see it in the waterfall of debt as an increase in debt after what we call pre-retirement commitments. The figure that will flow into debt due to pre-retirement commitments in 2016 is around EUR 700 million, of which 332 have already been included up to the month of June.
Thanks. Can I just follow up? Should we expect that number to accelerate as more people leave?
In 2017, the estimate we have is slightly lower than 2016. In 2018, around EUR 650 million.
That's clear. Thank you.
Thank you, Keval. Next question, please.
Thank you. We have a question now from Luis Prota from Morgan Stanley.
Yes. Thank you. I have one question on, or actually two questions on revenues in Spain, whether you expect revenues to continue growing in the third quarter and the fourth quarter, taking into account two things. First, the lower wholesale revenues from football rights from August, and also the new Fusión tariffs that Mandeep was asking about, whether while in the medium term, the value in terms of upselling and cross-selling is obvious, whether in the short term we could have some kind of small dilutive impact. The second question is about the roaming contract with Yoigo that apparently is not going to be renewed following the acquisition by MásMóvil. How are you seeing this impacting your revenues and EBITDA, and from when, please? Thank you.
Thanks for your question, Luis. In terms of revenues from Spain, do we see revenues growing ahead of us? Well, let me remind you that this quarter, the second quarter of 2016, is a quarter in which we have not had any price upgrade. On top of that, we are comparing with a previous quarter of 2015, in which we have a price upgrade that was relatively significant, and therefore, is probably one of the toughest quarter in terms of comparison. In spite of that, we have been able to grow our service revenues, taking into account the fact as well that we are fully consolidating Digital+. If you were to do an apple-to-apple comparison, we will be growing service revenue significantly in Spain in spite of not having the price upgrade.
Take into consideration the fact that we have been doing a price upgrade in the first week of July of EUR 3 to the basic offer and EUR 5 to the second tranche. Therefore, we think that the third and fourth quarter should help us to keep going into this path of revenue recovery. Also, if you add to the fact that the SME segment is starting to recover as well, and is therefore further contributing to revenue growth. I think that the overall picture for the Spanish business as we see it today is much sounder even than a year ago, because we have been able to prove that we have upgraded the offer, and at the same time keep the lowest level of churn. I do think that those trends are sustainable.
In terms of the wholesale revenues that you were mentioning, it is true that we have, on one part, lower wholesale revenues coming from the football rights, but it is also true that because of the price increase of that offer, we have some other further contribution on that side. I think that the overall picture is probably going to be much more compensated than what you were describing. Then finally, on the roaming contract with Yoigo, we don't have any official statement coming from MásMóvil, and therefore I cannot answer you. Just to put it in context, it is EUR 100 million of revenues out of a total of EUR 12.7 billion in Spain, so it is a relatively small issue. Having said that, we are still waiting for the final resolution on that.
Thank you, José María. Can I follow up on the first point? You don't see any major risk that clients that previously were paying for football EUR 25, and in total, they were somewhere between EUR 90-EUR 105 per month, depending on whether they were in the 30 megs or 300 megs offer. You are offering everything except the best match of the week for EUR 70-EUR 85, particularly the EUR 85 price per month, that some of them are just saying, "Listen, I just miss the best football, the best match of the week, and I'm just sticking to EUR 85", and that is giving rise to some dilutive implications in the third quarter or fourth quarter.
Well, two things. First, remember that it is true that we are putting eight match on the basic package, but it is also true that that supply a much wider customer base than before. Therefore, in terms of marginal revenue contribution, it applies to a much larger number of customers than before. Then second, we have the best match of the weekend that is an add-on. Allow me to remind you as well that Fusión ARPU as the basic measure and the basic metric keeps growing. It has been growing 12.8% year-over-year, if I remember correctly. Then finally, let me remind you that we have been adding a new mobile line on the package, and therefore we are adding also new mobile customers. The answer is that overall, we foresee revenue trends in Spain to keep going into the same direction.
In fact, the equation is going to be affecting also to EBITDA as I was trying to describe before. I think that during the third quarter, you will have all the effects already embedded. The new content cost, the new offer already in place, therefore the new revenue trends already in place, the churn levels, once we have been upgraded the offer for the third time in less than 14 months. Overall, I can share with you that the picture that we see today of the Spanish market confirms the strategy that we were outlining in the previous two years.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Luis. Next question, please.
Thank you. We have a question now from Akhil Dattani from JP Morgan.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon. Two questions, please, if I may. Firstly, just to follow up on the last few questions we've had around the Spanish revenue outlook. If we just look at this from a much bigger picture, and obviously I appreciate there's lots of differences between operators. The service revenue growth that we've seen reported by your Spanish peers has been in the mid-single digit range, which has obviously accelerated much more than we've seen from yourselves. Now, you mentioned the tougher comps you've had this quarter. Obviously, your price increases are coming through a little bit later.
As we look through into the second half of the year into next year, with all of these mix effects going forward, do you see some opportunities to start to see that revenue difference converge, or are there other structural differences we need to think about that make you feel that that's an overly optimistic view? The second point, I guess somewhat related to that, is that there's been some commentary from some of the players in the Spanish market around Jazztel and some of the aggressive offers they've got in the market. Maybe you could just give us a little bit of color in terms of what you think about that and to what extent that is or is not impacting how you think about the competitive environment. Thanks a lot.
Thanks for your question. In terms of the comparison with our closer competitors here in Spain and their performance in terms of revenue growth, I think that this comparison needs to be made In the context of a comparable basis, and that has to do with the phasing of the offer upgrades that each of us have been doing. Again, for us this quarter, we are comparing with the previous quarter, and we will have a price upgrade and a value offer upgrade. We don't have one this quarter. Our competitors have different phasing in terms of their offers, in terms of their upgrades.
I think that will be progressively normalized because the trend that we see in Spain is more for more, which means that us being the leader on the market, we are trying to show the path of data monetization in terms of capacity, gigs included in the offer, in terms of speed, megabits per second included on the offer, a symmetry of connection. Therefore, we do not see a major structural difference going forward. Probably rather the opposite. We think that we are becoming, again, a value brand in Spain. I think that the Jazztel brand has not repositioned much since it was acquired. I think that they are staying more aggressive than the rest. In fact, Vodafone has already been complaining around that.
What we have been doing in our case is we have been trying to match some of the attributes of the brand, preserving value differentiators. We have included a second mobile line in our Fusión offer, and that is going to help us to mitigate the impact that aggressive offers for Jazztel are having on the high-end value customers. Overall, to make a long answer short, I think that there is no reason why trends should be diverging. I think that the market is going to one direction, I think it's the right one because this is infrastructure-based competition in Spain. It's a rational environment, I think that data monetization is going into the right direction, we are the leader.
We are the market leaders, we are starting to be back again in having the best brand perception among the Spanish competitors. We do not see a reason why we should be diverging from our competitors here.
Thank you, Akhil.
Thank you.
Okay. Next question, please.
Thank you. We have a question now from James Ratzer from New Street Research.
Yes. Good afternoon. Thank you very much indeed. Two questions, please. The first one was just going back to some of the early questions around portfolio management. In particular, you talked about geographic review. Are there any specific other markets you might consider for disposal, and could you confirm, would you consider selling down part of your stake in Telefónica Deutschland at all as a means of deleveraging? Secondly, was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the trends you're currently seeing in Peru, where you've seen some service revenue weakness in the second quarter. Do you think that's a temporary effect, or are you seeing a structural increase in competition there? You mentioned a reversal of a provision supporting EBITDA in the quarter. Was wondering if you could quantify that, please. Many thanks.
Hi, James. On portfolio management, first, let me elaborate a bit. First, I would like to talk about Telxius, which is something that we have been working a lot on. Telxius is a very attractive company. It's predictable, and it's resilient. It's a company that enjoys long-term contracts, mostly denominated in euros and dollars. For instance, no pound exposure. It has an attractive free cash flow yield at the time of low interest rates. The valuation of its comparables is going up. It's as defensive an asset as it gets and the right asset to hold in the current volatile times. On this one, as you would expect, we are monitoring market conditions, and will be ready to move expeditiously. Moving to geographies, the first that I would want to talk about is U.K.
As we have been saying, and José María was talking about, U.K. is performing well. It provides us with a great platform in a key and attractive market. We have decided to retain control of that business to realize its full potential. We have fully consolidated it back into our portfolio. This allows us to have better dividend coverage, to have better debt service, and improves our geographic exposure. We continue to explore alternatives for O2 U.K. whilst maintaining a control position. As I said before, we are open to minority divestment, be it in potential public flotation or potential private transaction. We have several alternatives that we're considering, and we are getting ready to act on that. Regarding Telefónica Deutschland, we have no such intention to reduce our stake in Deutschland. Actually, we may increase our stake over time.
Regarding other geographies, as you know, we are always monitoring our portfolio of assets along two axes. One is revenue market share in a specific market, the other axis being operating cash flow margin. We try to get our businesses to the top right-hand part of this matrix. Therefore, more share of operating cash flow, more share of value in the markets where we operate. Those businesses that we feel with the strategic plan or the business plans cannot move in that direction, they are candidates for some potential inorganic action. I hope with this, I've given you some color.
Taking the second part of your question around Peru. Well, first, let me stress that we have been having in Peru solid results in terms of the higher value part of the customer layers, namely postpaid smartphones and pay TV. It is true that it has become a very intensive, competitive environment. In pay TV, we are growing 15% year-over-year. In fixed broadband, we are growing 6% year-over-year. In contract, we are growing 1% year-over-year. It is in prepay in which we have been declining 11% year-over-year. The second quarter results on the mobile side are strongly affected by an MTR cut of more than 19%, and that's why our revenues have been down 2.1%.
If you were to exclude the regulatory effect, our revenues will have been growing 1.4% in the second quarter versus a decline of 0.2% in the first quarter. Therefore, this is the like-for-like comparison. We have been turning around the growth in our revenues in Peru, if we were to exclude this regulatory effect. On top of that, we have been having a very solid performance on the fixed business. It has been accelerating its growth to 4.2% in the quarter compared with 3.3% in the previous quarter. I'm afraid that we do not disclose the impact that you were mentioning so far. Overall, acknowledging that revenues have been declining -2.1%, keep in mind this regulatory effect, because without that, our revenue would have grown 1.4%.
Thank you. Just quickly going back to the Telefónica Deutschland comment. Are you suggesting you might be willing to buy shares directly off KPN, or did you have something else in mind there?
We may increase our stake over time buying shares. These are bearer shares.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Yes. Next question, please.
Thank you. We have a question now from Dhananjay Mirchandani from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you very much for taking my question. This relates to Spain. You have pushed through a number of price increases in the Spanish market. Firstly, there are two parts to this question. Typically, you would observe two to three percentage points in incremental churn in the order of magnitude of price increases that you've pushed through. What sort of incremental churn rates have you observed on a hard, well-measured cohort basis? Second question, mid to long term, under what preconditions would you expect the competition regulator to step in and declare joint dominance in what effectively is a three-player market? Thank you very much.
Well, first, in terms of churn increases, I'm going to try to give you the exact number. Churn in the first quarter of this year was 1.3%. Churn in the second quarter is 1.1% on Fusión overall. Remember that we have our first price upgrade during the first quarter of this year. We have not been seeing any major impact on that so far. As far as the July upgrade, we feel that we are similar levels in spite of the fact that it's too soon to conclude. We have not been seeing any major impact of the offered upgrades, because remember that this offer upgrade has been combined with much more value put in place. We are talking about more speed of access, 300 megabit symmetric speed. We are talking about more capacity on the mobile side. We are talking about a second mobile line.
We are talking about putting the eight football matches on the basic offer. We try to compensate the nominal ARPU uplift with significant value. So far, the customers are starting to appreciate the fact that they are taking more value. Thanks to that, the ARPU performance in Fusión, I said it was 12.8, I was wrong. It's 11.8 year-on-year. So far, we have been able to increase ARPU year-on-year, roughly 12%, with a level of churn that is below the one that we had a year ago. We think the equation makes sense. It makes sense for the customer. It makes sense for us. It allow us to preserve margins, therefore we will be going into the same direction.
In terms of the competition authorities, allow me to remind that in most places in Spain, you have at least three networks, which is not the case in other places, namely in the U.K., on the wireline side. I think that the regulatory strategy that Spain has been applying during the last five years have significant positive effects. First, Spain is today the leader in Europe in terms of ultra-broadband deployment. There is more Fiber to the Home in Spain than in any other market in Europe, and we are the third country in the OECD. You have now three networks in Spain competing, you have a partial deregulation in the places where you have three networks, ex post regulation in places where you have two networks, and ex ante regulation in places where you have one network.
In fact, the approach to wholesale pricing is on a retail minus basis rather than on a cost basis. I think that the regulation that has been put in place has allowed Spain to go into the right direction, has allowed Spain to become the leader in the middle of the crisis, because remember that Spain has been doing that as overall in the middle of the crisis. Some of our competitors here have more fiber here than in their home country, which implies that they think this market is attractive with the current regulatory environment. I think that probably Spain is a model in terms of regulation compared with other European countries.
Can I just follow up on that very briefly?
Go ahead.
My question was specific to the price increases. I completely agree with your points around the structure of the market, my question is, at what point in time and under what circumstances do these price increases become a thorn in the eyes of the competition authorities, not the industry regulator?
Well, it's already there. I'm sorry if I didn't cover that part of the question. It's already there. Remember that in our case, in our specific case, every single offer that we launch needs the specific ex ante approval of the competition authority in Spain because of the remedies that were imposed at the time of DTS acquisition. Remember that so far, in terms of price per megabit or price per gig, prices have been declining in Spain. We are putting much more value, much more speed, for a little bit more of price. Competition authorities are already analyzing every single offer, and in fact, we cannot launch any single offer without the previous ex ante approval of the competition authority. It's already there. Sorry I didn't cover that.
Thank you very much. That's crystal clear.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Thank you. A question now from Jerry Dellis from Jefferies.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Two questions, please. In terms of Spain, you were very clear that you expect to be able to deliver an expanded margin by the year-end. Would you anticipate pro forma revenue growth, including DTS, progressively strengthening through the second half as well, please? In terms of the U.K. business, accepting your point that the operating trends that O2 has been reporting are certainly stronger than those that we see from Vodafone and EE, there remains the suspicion out there, supported by independent network tests, that O2's 4G network is perhaps not quite as good as that of EE, and that somehow the Cornerstone project with Vodafone might be a constraint on fixing network quality.
I wondered if you could just talk about what you feel that you need to do to the U.K. network in order to maintain the leadership of O2 in the U.K., and what constraints the network joint venture might place upon you. Thank you.
Thanks for your questions. In terms of Spain, we have said that we think that the cost initiatives that we are taking in order to take down cost will more than compensate the extra cost of the content acquisition, we stick to that. In terms of revenues, we stick to the fact that we see growing revenues in Spain, including everything. Take into account also the fact that handset revenues in Spain have been significantly declining. In terms of service revenues in Spain, we are already growing in service revenue in organic terms. Pro forma with DTS, we are already growing in this first half of the year in terms of service revenues, we think that this trend will continue all along this year. In terms of the U.K., we have the best brand perception in the U.K., including everything, including the network effect.
We believe that O2 have the greatest improved indoor coverage over the last 12 months, we continue and build on that. At the end of June, outdoor coverage is already 91%. According to some surveys, in fact, we have won the best coverage award in the last two years, voted by customers. The perception that the customers have on the overall impact of the brand is that O2 has the overall best service in the U.K. In spite of that, we aim to preserve that attribute, therefore we'll continue working into that direction. On that regard, we do not feel that the Cornerstone or Beacon agreement or our joint venture with Vodafone is refraining us from going into that direction. In fact, we are having very positive conversation with Vodafone on that front because we do both share the same interest.
First, as a starting point, we feel that we are leading because the customers feel that we are leading, we are the only operator that has committed to deliver 98% of 4G coverage by 2017, including the Cornerstone or Beacon agreement. We do not feel that we are at a disadvantage. We feel that we are aligned with Vodafone on that interest. Overall, the perception that our customers have Is that we have the best brand, the best service in the U.K.
Thank you, Jerry. We have time for one final question, please.
Thank you. Our last question comes from David Wright from Bank of America.
Oh, hi, guys. Yeah, I'll be super quick. Most of this has been addressed, but I guess just following up on Jerry's question. CapEx to sales throw to U.K., I believe, has stepped up to 13%, which is the highest it's been now for 12 quarters, and looks like one of the highest prints historically. You have increased investment a little. Is that anything intentional, and is that a new level we should now be using as a benchmark? Just back to the whole Spain content monetization, et cetera. I did notice another low Fusión net addition print, very similar to Q1, which I think you admitted at the time was slightly impacted by low promotions, but you have been promoting in Q2, still, the Fusión ads seem to be structurally lower.
Is that the kind of level we should now be running forward, 50,000, 60,000, when you used to do sort of 150? On that basis, given you're raising ARPU, is there even any incremental risk to that? Thank you.
Thanks for your question. In terms of the CapEx on the U.K., continuing investment remains a very important part of our strategy in the U.K. as we are rolling out 4G at the fastest ever rate for the U.K., especially after the failed merger. We intend to continue to invest efficiently in order to preserve this attribute of having the best brand perception. In fact, I would stress the fact that we are the only operator that have committed to this 98% 4G coverage in 2017. Yes, you should expect for us to speed up in 4G because we are seeing profitable growth ahead of us. Including when I was making my comments about the CapEx intensity of the group going forward, we were already acknowledging this impact of the U.K. situation.
Overall, we think it's worth to preserve that value because we have been having a good commercial reaction, and we keep adding differential value customers to our customer base. In the case of Spain, the net adds in the quarter were a bit lower because we have fewer gross adds, but we have an improved churn, and that has helped to preserve or to have. We have been having some promotions, but not structural promotions. Again, remember that the second quarter have a seasonality effect derived from the fact that after the end of the football championship, there is a seasonality. Once we have been putting in place our new offer in July, in the first week of July, we are starting to notice more traction.
Remember that that offer includes not just more football rights on the basic offer for three more years, but it also includes a second mobile line. Thanks to that, we are having better commercial traction in the most recent weeks. I think that by the third quarter, you will have more color of the impact of the new offer. So far, trends are going into the right direction.
That's very useful. Thank you very much.
David. Thank you very much to all of you for participating, and we certainly do hope that we have provided some useful insights for all of you. Should you still have further questions, please contact our Investor Relations department. Good afternoon. For those of you that are leaving for holiday soon, we wish you enjoy your summer break. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Telefónica's January to June 2016 results conference call is now over. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you.