Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our Q3 results presentation. We are very happy to have you together with us, to discuss the results, the outstanding results. So just let's start. So Q3 2023 was an outstanding quarter. Our revenues grew 12%, reaching in excess of EUR 1.25 billion for the last nine months. Our RGUs increased 15% year-on-year, reaching more than 23 million units, and EBITDA excluding IFRS 16 went up 17%, reaching almost EUR 368 million. This was helped, and I'll repeat this a couple of times more during our presentation, by growth in our RGUs in Romania and Spain.
Romania, we grew by 10% and, as you see, mobile continues to be our best performing segment, with 90% year-on-year growth, reaching 5.6 million RGUs. Pay TV is the second largest segment, also at 5.6 million RGUs, having 5% year-on-year growth, and broadband services in Romania reaching 4.5 million users at 10% growth. Spain had outstanding performance during the quarter, with mobile growing 24% to 4.5 million RGUs. Broadband reaching 1.2 million users at 67% growth year-on-year, and fixed telephony exceeded 400,000 users at 61% growth year-on-year.
We remain committed to our strategy, which basically implies growing across our core markets, expanding our customer base, expanding the network, which lays the foundation, the basis for our customer growth, and we also continue working on new markets, on the launches, on the developments in the new markets, Portugal and Belgium. Portugal, we are busy building our mobile network, and in Belgium, we are very excited to have signed in August the national roaming agreement with Proximus, which will allow us to launch services during next year. Just a bit in more detail.
Also, as I mentioned a bit before, in August, we signed a 5-year roaming agreement, which allows the joint venture that is run by us in partnership with Citymesh in Belgium to offer mobile services using on the Proximus network in the next 5 years. Also, as part of the agreement, we have the ability to purchase around 400 mobile sites in the next 4 years for Proximus, which will help our rollout of our network, and it will help the development of our network in that market. Based on this development, we are aiming to start our commercial services in the second half of 2024.
In Spain, in October, we were happy to close the deal to have the first closing of the deal that we earlier announced with abrdn in the first part of the year. At this moment, we have transferred to Digi Andalusia 1.35 million homes passed, which represents the first tranche of the total of 2.5 million homes passed, that are supposed to be operated by the joint venture in the Andalusia region. The total project value is EUR 300 million, and it will be partially financed by Digi Spain, abrdn, but may also involve bank financing.
With this, we are over half of the project build-out, and the second phase has a total of 1.15 million homes passed to be delivered over the next years. So moving on, we are discussing, we are looking at our numbers here, and basically, we see revenues of almost EUR 260 million in Romania, EUR 166 million in Spain, and almost EUR 8 million in Italy in the last three months of the quarter, totaling EUR 430 million, and with other income, it's EUR 434 million. EBITDA amounts to EUR 129 million, excluding IFRS 16 numbers, 99 of which were generated in Romania, almost EUR 32 million of which were generated in Spain.
As we mentioned, the basis of growth comes from the RGU growth, which exceeded 23 million users at the end of the quarter. Of course, Romania continued to be the largest market, with 16.6 million RGUs. Spain surpassing 6.1 million RGUs in the quarter. Looking into more details at our numbers. Basically, you see total revenues and net and other income at EUR 434 million, up from EUR 385 million a year ago, a 13% growth. EBITDA, including IFRS 16 this time, amounted to EUR 150 million, up from EUR 126 million a year ago, 19% growth.
Total CapEx in the quarter amounted to EUR 155 million, and CapEx in the first nine months amounted to EUR 569 million, as you see on the left part of the chart. CapEx was higher in the first nine months and will be higher during this year due to accelerated payments that we made for mobile infrastructure using ECA... sorry, ECA type of financing, so Export Credit Agency financing. And the adjustment in this CapEx acceleration amounted to EUR 122 million. So without this, the CapEx will be somewhere in the area of EUR 450 million in the first three quarters.
EBITDA, sorry, revenues in Romania reached 261 million EUR in the quarter, up from 255.52 million EUR a year ago, a 4% growth. Revenues in Spain grew 30% to 166 million EUR from 128 million EUR a year ago. In terms of EBITDA, total EBITDA amounted to 150, as I said before, of which 129 million is EBITDA without the impact of IFRS 16. And here we have a growth of 21% year-on-year from 107 million EUR.
Commenting on the sales and profitability, just as we had this discussion, more or less repetitive on our every call, this is the result of our growth, of the expansion of our network and growth in customers, both in Romania and Spain. Spain is outstanding with sales growth at 30%, and Romania 6% growth, including other income. Moving on, we see the RGUs, which have also grown impressively by 15% to, as I said, 23.1 or almost 2 million units. Mobile is the fastest growing segment with a 21% growth rate, reaching 10.5 million users, both in Romania and Spain.
Broadband is the second largest quickest growing segment at 90% growth rate, reaching 5.7 million users from 4.8 million a year ago. And Pay TV in Romania continues its growth at 5%, surpassing 5.6 million users as of Q3 2023. All in all, these are outstanding results, and we are very grateful both to our customers and for their choice to work with us. Looking at the markets, Spain has reached 6.1 million RGUs from 4.6 million RGUs a year ago.
Romania, as I mentioned, has surpassed 16.6 million from 15.1 million RGUs a year ago. And we have also a nice growth in Italy of 14%, reaching almost 410,000 users as of September. The quality of sales is represented by portability, number portability. As you see on these slides, we basically we have Romania and Spain competing with the results being the with the port in results being quite close in the first three quarters in the mobile segment. Romania at 700, 702,000 mobile numbers ported into our network, and Spain at almost 720,000 mobile numbers ported into our network.
Spain is also outstanding in fixed number portability, with 135,000 numbers ported during the first three quarters. So all in all, this represents a high quality of our growth and of our customer base. It also shows the achievement, but also the trust that customers put into our services. Just briefly, looking at the slide with our financial debt... So you see the total gross debt at EUR 1.5 billion. Net debt is slightly above EUR 1.3 billion. Leverage being at 2.7 times on a net basis in Q3 2024. As you see...
Well, as we were discussing, 2023 has had little maturities during the year. In 2024, we have just a bit over EUR 100 million in maturities, and 2025 has a higher number of maturities with a higher amount of maturities, with EUR 600 million being due. Most of which comes from the first tranche of the bond, EUR 450 million, that matures in February 2025. We intend to refinance the bond tranche, mostly using our own sources, but also using the undrawn facilities that we have today, and we expect this refinancing to take place in the second part of next year. With this, I'm done with the presentation.
I hope I did not rush you all through the numbers, and you're welcome to ask questions which will- which we will happily address. Well, thank you very much, and just maybe couple of 20 seconds, 30 seconds for the questions to start to show up, and we'll start. We have our first of first set of questions from Joshua Mills. So, one, can you give us an update on the remedy progress associated with the Orange-MásMóvil deal in Spain? You have said publicly that you are interested in remedies. Can you say how far you are in the process, and what kind of commitments you're willing to make in term or in terms of investments, network coverage, and pricing? When should we expect to get an update on this?
Thank you for the question. Indeed, we have said earlier that in light of the possible Orange-MásMóvil merger, we would be interested to take part in remedies. I think at this stage, we can't comment more on this topic. This is how much we can say, but certainly in the future, whenever the situation changes, we will address this issue and we will communicate to the market more. In any case, with or without remedies, with or without the merger, we are very committed to Spain. We are very committed to grow, to continue improving our presence there and to growing in this market. Thank you very much.
Second question: When do you expect to launch mobile services in Belgium, and do you have an agreement in place to offer fixed-line broadband services? How do you think Xavier Niel taking a stake in Proximus could change your relationship with the operator? So it's a long question, also with having today's news in it. Basically, I did mention a bit earlier in the presentation that we are very happy to have signed the national roaming agreement with Proximus earlier in August. It will help us to speed up our market launch, and we do expect this. We're working on it as we speak. We do expect to launch these services in the second part of 2000, well, of next year, sorry.
I'm not sure I can address the other parts of the question, and I mean, I don't know if Xavier Niel's investment will change anything, and I sincerely hope that what we have is a good deal for both Digi, Citymesh joint venture in Belgium, but also for Proximus, and that nothing should be changed. How many FTTH lines do you have in Spain currently? And are you planning to sell this infrastructure to fund the acquisition of remedies? I'm not sure I understand the word line, what it means. Maybe if it means customers, we have over 1.2 million customers in Spain. Our network has a footprint of over 7.3 million homes passed in Spain.
Basically, we, and, and, and I think the main or the most important part of the question is whether this network is for sale. It is not for sale, but once again, we are open to opportunities, and we will consider this question or this topic at an appropriate time. As of today, as you know, we don't have any remedies, and we just execute our strategy as it goes forward. The first question is, how much do you pay Telefónica each year in wholesale fees? We are not disclosing this number as part of our reporting, so I will keep this number confidential for now. Okay, so yeah. So I hope I did address Joshua's questions. Next question comes from Anonymous. How will you find, how...
Sorry, how will you finance the remedies from MásMóvil Orange deal? Well, sorry. So I see that the whole discussion gets apparent towards Spain and especially towards remedies. As we mentioned, we can't comment on this stage, and I think making such, let's say, early stage prognosis is yeah, is a bit premature. So it is difficult to answer this question, but thank you. A question from Norman Mark. I just have two questions. Can you please tell us what resulted in a very low OpEx increase year-on-year in Romania? Is this still due to the energy price cap as previous quarter? I think it's a broader question, and thank you.
All in all, a very simple version is, it's our continuous focus to manage the costs and to make sure that we maintain OpEx within limits. Which also helps us to provide high-value services, but at prices that are affordable. So, I'm just repeating boldly our strategy, but this is what we do. On a more particular level, I don't think it's only energy. So energy was relatively constant. And, it's not energy. It's a mixture of costs, including salaries, including other costs that we just manage and try to keep as stable as possible.
Is the Belgian business launch in second half of 2024 earlier than you expected? If so, what were the reasons behind? So, yes, you can say so. With the help of Proximus national roaming agreement, we will be more confident to launch earlier than we previously expected. So yes, the simple answer is yes. Question from Molly Whitcomb. I have two questions, please. Do you see the sale of Vodafone Spain as having the potential impact on your business? No, we do not. I mean, just speaking very broadly and on, so from a very high level, the Vodafone sale does not involve any concentration of the market.
So from this point of view, we do not expect the, just the sale in itself to have any, impact, on us and our operations going forward. And the second question, are you still looking to launch in Portugal in the first half of 2024? Yes, we are. So as we mentioned, as I mentioned during the presentation, we are aiming to, start in Portugal in the second quarter of 2024. So next question comes from Andrew Webb. Regarding Portugal, are there any updates on roaming agreement or plans for broader fixed-line access? Any updates on the timing of commercial launch? As we speak, we do not have, any roaming partnership or agreement in place. We are open to such, possibility, opportunity.
However, it would involve also the existing operators to be open or to be willing to grant an affordable roaming service, which has not happened yet. And the timing of the commercial launch so is just a repeat Q2 2024. Also question from Molly, so coming back. There's been some front book November promotional activity in Romania with some very low prices. Could you comment on the promotional pricing environment in Romania? I'm not so sure. So I think for us, for Digi, November, but also the year 2023, is more or less business as usual. We run our usual pricing promotions and promotions in general. It's...
I'm just guessing here, it may be that you have caught or have glimpse some of the promos related to Black Friday. That may sound different or outstanding. In any case, this is in line with our past activities, and this is well reflected in our results, both in terms of growth but also revenues and EBITDA. A question from Alexander Petrazhik. Do you have any appetite in MEO's assets? When do you expect to launch services in Portugal? I think the simple answer to the first part of the question is that we are better as an organic growth operator, not necessarily an acquisitor.
Our main business case involves operating, developing and operating our network, our assets, and so on. But other than that, never say never. And the second question, also from Alexander: Do you have plans for refinancing 2025 bonds? With which instruments? So I did mention earlier during the presentation, and more or less, it's continuous from our previous discussions with you, the investors, during the previous calls. We aim to refinance the 2025 bonds in the second part of next year. And we, at this moment, we aim to use our existing funds, so the cash on balance sheet and the other own facilities that we have readily available for this purpose.
Another question from anonymous: Why is Spain RGU and revenue growth so strong in Q3? I think, Spain RGU revenue growth is not strong only just in Q3. We had continuous performance of this kind in the last several years, and this is, among other things, due to outstanding performance of our Spanish team, but also our commitments to the Spanish market, the investments that we made, and also not least, to the partnership that we have with Telefónica in that market. So all in all, I think, and we hope that we have contributed to the competitiveness, to the welfare of the Spanish customers, but also Spain has been very kind to us.
Another question from Molly: You saw excellent EBITDA improvement in Spain this quarter. Is this improvement sustainable, or are there any one-offs? Thank you. I think it's a very nice question. Thank you very much. We sincerely hope, sorry, we don't have one-offs, and we do sincerely hope that it's an improving trend. And when I say hope, I could say also stronger, that we are aiming, and we are working to improve profitability also during 2024 and also, too, during 2025. The question from Laura Cabanillas Lizarraga . How far along are the talks with Orange MásMóvil over the remedies proposal? Do you expect this deal to be approved by December 31? Yeah, sorry. Thank you very much.
I do smile answering, but we cannot comment at this stage. Thank you. And second question: What are you hoping to achieve if you get the asset? What are your plans for Spain? How do you balance them with ambitions to expand in other countries like, Portugal and Belgium? I think it's a complex question, and regardless of remedies or let's say, with or without them, as I mentioned earlier, we are very committed to Spain, and we hope to continue our growth there, both in mobile segments but also in fixed segments. We have invested significant capital in that operation. We have been rewarded so far by our customers or the customers that have chosen our services, and we will certainly aim to continue this forward.
How do we balance Spain and other markets? It's a difficult one, but Spain is a proven and successful case, and for sure will continue. But we also very much believe in the potential of Portugal and Belgium, and we will aim to develop our services over there as well. Not to ignore, lastly, that also the existing or the oldest of our markets, Romania, besides being a very mature one, still presents us a very good good growth opportunity. And I do repeat myself, but with almost 20% growth year-on-year in mobile customers, 10% growth in broadband services, and 5% growth in Pay TV, this is an outstanding performance.
So, question from Josh, Joanna: What is your current coverage in Portugal for mobile and fixed network? I think it's, it's less, it's less relevant to report on these numbers now. We will certainly communicate this around our market launch. What is clear, we are, we are busy growing our presence and development, but it's, it's a bit early want to share these numbers now. A question from Cristian Petre . Hi, why did you choose to develop the network in Spain with abrdn and not finance in other way, debt equity? Do you plan to be asset light in the future? Yeah, I think it's a, it's a good question. It's a, it's, it's a long-term one. It's, it's strategy related.
Indeed, going asset light or going asset heavy, financing yourself with debt or financing yourself through asset sale, these are all valid ways of growth and development. The industry has become very versatile in the last years, both the tower operators, the fixed, basically the funds, let's say, the infrastructure funds, the infra companies, the infra costs, but also the operators have benefited from their presence. Not doing this type of expansion, in my view, in our view, would be limiting our options and our abilities, and we're certainly open to both ways of going forward. We wouldn't want to use only one model or the other. Each of them have their pluses or minuses.
I don't think there's a perfect way of financing your operations. But once again, we are open also to the classical financing, but we're also open to use, as you mentioned, asset-light way of operating things. Thank you. A question from Andrew Webb: Can you shed any light on CapEx for 2024, even directionally, versus your EUR 600 million target this year? So just a small clarification. So our nine months CapEx, as we mentioned earlier, amounts to EUR 570 million. And as I mentioned before, this number was impacted by acceleration of certain payments that were done through ECA type of financing.
Without that acceleration, approximately EUR 120 million, we would show EUR 450 million on, as CapEx, in the first nine months. Going on for the year, the total CapEx would rather be or is expected to be around EUR 720 million, and the CapEx adjusted for ECA financing would be in the area of EUR 600 million. So the number, the EUR 600 million number in your question sounds right, but I want to just repeat these numbers to make sure that we are on the same page. Now, now for the next year, we do expect the CapEx to be somewhat lower than this year, let's say, on a total basis, so with AC, ECA type of financing.
I would expect next year CapEx to decline from EUR 720 million to a range of EUR 600 million-EUR 650 million. I do hope it is helpful, and I do hope that it is an extensive answer. There's another question from an anonymous user, anonymous user, sorry. Do you think your pricing in Belgium will be similar to your pricing in Spain? It's a bit early to comment on the pricing, but the general strategy is to provide widely available services, high quality, and the most affordable pricing in each territory, in each market. So we can't really have one price for all countries, but we try to adjust our pricing to be as affordable as we can in each market.
Now, whether it will be similar to Spain, again, it's too early to say. It may be just as be better than in our Spanish market. I just repeating somehow, or emphasizing, in Belgium, we are developing an MNO model based on our own network, while in Spain we have an MVNO operation, which depends on the host operator. So our price flexibility in Belgium should be higher in comparison to Spain. There's a remark from Robert Moreno asking about cost of capital, but I'm not sure what the question refers to. Oh, sorry. So the full question is, what is the cost of capital? I'm not sure, I'm not sure I have an educated answer readily available.
Sorry for that. If you look at our debt overall, EUR 800 million-EUR 850 million worth of debt are priced at approximately 2.8%. The other debt is priced at more recent and higher levels, somewhere in the area of 5%-6%. I think it can be seen from the financials. So this is something that probably either clearly seen or can be deducted from the financials. There's a question again from the anonymous user: Is Romania going to join the Roam Like at Home regime or remain opted out? Thank you for the question. Romania used to be opted out.
Romania is a roaming market, so our Romanian operations, so Digi Romania, is applying Roam Like at Home like most other operators in the EU as we speak. So indeed, we for some time, for a number of years, we benefited from an opt-out option, but now we are not using it, so we are using normal roaming arrangement. Well, this is it for now. I hope it was helpful to all of the participants. We did enjoy the questions and their quality. And we speak to all of you again, mid-February or towards the end of February, discussing our Q4 results for 2023. So thank you very much once again, and hope to see you soon. Bye.