Digi Communications N.V. (BVB:DIGI)
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At close: May 7, 2026
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Earnings Call: Q3 2020
Nov 13, 2020
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for joining our Q3 results presentation. We are happy to walk you through our numbers. We believe we had an outstanding quarter. Yes. We would like to share our numbers with you as well. 9 months results, EUR 950 million, 8.7% growth year-on-year. RGUs, we've added almost 2 million RGUs in the past 12 months, reaching 17.7 million as of end of September. EBITDA, including IFRS 16 results, amounted to more than EUR 350 million. EBITDA without the IFRS 16 would have been EUR 300 million in the same period. These numbers basically are a result of outstanding work of our teams, of our colleagues, in Romania, Spain, Hungary, Italy.
It's also the result of exceptional trust that our clients put in us, in our services, in our execution, and the high value of the technology and services that we offer to our customers. In Romania, we continue our growth trend, and we reached 4.6 million Pay TV users as of the end of September. 15% growth year-on-year. Internet is just similarly an outstanding result, 17% growth and 3.2 million users in total. In Spain, we exceeded the 2.2 million mark in terms of the mobile users, and we reach almost 200,000 fixed broadband users in the market. All in all, it was an exceptional quarter. Difficult for us to repeat, but we will try as much as we can to do our best going forward. Yeah, we are extremely happy about these results. Not to forget, we still go through the COVID pandemic.
Certainly, the telecom industry was spared in comparison with other sectors of the economy, which continue or are severely affected. We on the other hand, enjoy the high demand, high necessity for our services, and we try to service our customers' needs as much as we could throughout this period by providing as many new connections as it was possible, by upgrading our infrastructure to make sure that all our customers are able to enjoy the best services in the most convenient way. Going forward and just going into more details on the numbers. EBITDA margin for the group, 37% over the nine months period. Almost 38% in the last quarter, including IFRS 16 results. Without IFRS 16, the margins are respectively 31% and 32%.
Romania continues to generate EBITDA margin above 40%, with Spain being more or less constant at 20% and Hungary, being in the area of 15%-20%. The next page shows the distribution of revenues, EBITDA and CapEx. In the third quarter, the revenues picked up somewhat, mostly due to the fact that the effect of pandemic that existed in Q2 somewhat disappeared, and we could catch up on the revenues that were not generated in the second quarter. All in all, EUR 327 million. Again, Romania and Spain are the driving parties or forces in this equation, both in terms of absolute size, but also in terms of growth. Again, growth is primarily led by the increase in the number of RGUs. In Spain, we certainly did not have any Forex impacts on our operations. However, Romania and Hungary are more susceptible to Forex risk.
Yeah, during this year, there was certain impact that affected our revenues. Despite all this, as you see, we have generated very robust and strong results. EBITDA, EUR 123 million, including IFRS 16 numbers. In the middle of the chart, but the bottom chart shows EBITDA in the quarter without IFRS 16 impact, EUR 106 million. A growth of EUR 1 million year-on-year from EUR 105 million that we had before. Similarly, growth in comparison with Q2, when we generated less than EUR 100 million as EBITDA. With this, I will let Smaranda discuss the RGUs, but as well as our segment operations.
Good afternoon. We are proud to report an outstanding growth of 12% at RGUs at the group level. We have reached, at the end of the third quarter, 17.7 million RGUs on consolidated basis. Now looking at this chart, you can see that the fixed services segment, meaning the Pay TV and fixed internet and data, have a strong and sustained growth of 11% and 16% at group level. Romania is driving the growth on the fixed services side, with an overall increase at its level of 11% of RGUs. In terms of the mobile segment at the group level, we have reached 6.2 million services sold at the end of Q3, and here Spain is leading the way of the growth pace. Spain overall had an increase of 36% of RGUs at its level.
In terms of the mobile RGUs in Spain, they have surpassed the 2.2 threshold in this country. In terms of fixed services, they are at 228,000 RGUs, fixed internet and fixed telephony services combined. On this slide, you can see Spain's result, which for more than seven consecutive quarters have reported growth also in terms of RGUs, operational growth, which translated in increase in revenues and increase in EBITDA numbers. Moving on to the financial liability snapshot at the end of the third quarter. Our total net debt is EUR 1.1 billion, rather constant compared to previous quarter, Q2 2020. Our net leverage is at 2.7 times. The big-ticket items are the same as in prior period. No significant changes have occurred on this front for our group in the third quarter. Having said that, we invite you to Q&As, to be written via the chat option of Zoom.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. The questions started to come in. We will start addressing them. The first questions are coming from Nora Nagy. Could you please share with us, where did the Romanian cable TV RGUs stood in third quarter 2020?
I will take this question. Beginning with this quarter's reporting, you may have noticed that we changed certain presentations of some of our operational KPIs. This change is made in alignment with the trend that we have observed with other telecom operators in the European space of having this presentation at a more market-relevant way. Therefore, starting with this quarter, we have presented, for instance, Pay TV's RGUs, which present combined the former cable TV presentations and DTH presentations. It's the add up of these two. We feel that presenting in this way, we give you more relevant information regarding the future development of these services in our view. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question, still from Nora. Can we still expect the Romanian 5G auction to take place in the fourth quarter 2020? What are the latest developments? I think there have been some communication from the authorities, but in fact, and it was rather towards early September, which still indicated that there was a faint chance of the auction taking place still this year. In fact, in the meantime, we don't have any other proper outlook and overview, and it's highly unlikely that the auction in fact takes place this year. Especially due to the fact that we have also general elections at the beginning of December. I think that both the government and simply the parliament are busy with the normal political life.
The best expectation or the soonest expectation on our side is to have this auction in the first quarter of next year, or maybe even later, but certainly not this year. Third question, how much did AKTA contribute to the revenue growth and operating expenses in third quarter 2020? I'll let Smaranda just address this.
At Romania's revenues level, the contribution that the transfer of these RGUs have brought in the third quarter, it's around 1%, let's say. Let's put it this way.
Okay. Let's move on. A question from Lajos Nagy. "Digi Kft will not be participant in the 900 MHz and 800 MHz auction." I'm not sure if it's a question or a comment, but in any case, we should address this. We announced publicly today. Hungary has announced its second round of auctions in the last 15 months. The first one was announced in August last year. It was the 5G auction, which we ultimately could not participate in. A couple of months ago, the Hungarian authorities have announced the 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz spectrum auction to be held in Hungary. It's basically a relicensing of existing portfolio of licenses of the incumbents. Similarly, and unfortunately to the last year auction, we, Digi, were not allowed to participate in this auction.
We strongly contest this situation because we believe it is illegal, and we, as well as any other party, should be free to participate in spectrum licensing in Hungary or elsewhere. We will contest this fact and this event, both at Hungarian and European authorities. Yeah, it's quite unfortunate, but we've been barred once again from participating in the auction. In this way, there's no competition. It's a mere redistribution or continuation of the existing licenses. We strongly oppose to what the Hungarian authority is doing, both by not promoting the competition, but also, simply directly disfavoring the government or basically, making the government not generate any cash or any money in the market from the competitors. The next question is from Laura Homcy. "Do you have any plans to refinance the 2021 maturities? Why do you no longer provide..." Sorry. Yes.
That's the first question. The answer is yes. I'll let Smaranda Ștreangă to comment.
Yes, indeed. We are planning to have a refinancing of the syndicated facility from 2016, which has maturity in 2021, in October, to be more precise. We are planning to have this refinancing exercise somewhere, probably in the second part of next year. We haven't yet decided on a specific date for this exercise.
In any case, it's a smaller exercise of approximately EUR 100 million as size. We do not foresee any issues in rolling this maturity over. The next question is: "Why do you no longer provide the revenue details by segment, by country, for example, cable revenue in Romania, mobile revenue in Romania?" It's true, we have provided these numbers so far before, but we ourselves were somewhat lost in the numbers, and we preferred to provide simpler metrics with fewer, but we thought more relevant details. Next question is: "I understand you're not allowed to participate in the Hungarian 5G spectrum auction. Please share your thoughts." I think I've addressed, so yeah, we'll move on. "Orange is acquiring Telekom Romania. How do you see the competitive landscape changing as a result?" Well, it's true.
The Romanian market has consolidated over the last two years, and Vodafone merged with UPC. Orange has just recently, this week, announced that they will take over the fixed operations of Telekom in Romania. Yes, there are fewer participants, which ultimately means stiffer and higher competition in the market, which ultimately means more benefit for the customers. Yeah, we really encourage this thing because we believe it's a good dynamic. It's a good trend. To be more specific, it's really difficult. We're sure Orange will do a good job of integrating Telekom operations. Then we'll have to see the rest. Again, Lajos Nagy. "What is the plan with the mobile network?" Sorry, I don't understand. It's not clear what the question refers to, whether it's Romania or any other territory. No, sorry.
The next question is: "Will Digi finish building the mobile network covering the west part of Hungary?" Yes. The answer is yes. In this context, I understand the question. You refer to Hungary and probably in the context of us not being able to participate in the mobile frequency auction. Well, as we said at the end of the 5G auction, despite or regardless how sad we were of not being able to participate, it's a similar result this moment. However, it doesn't change our strategy. We still believe in convergence across all our markets, and we will continue providing fixed and mobile services, and particularly in Hungary, with the limited resources that we have at this moment. No changes on our side. The question was asking whether we will continue building the mobile network in the western part of Hungary.
The reality is we have not been concentrating on east or west or anything else in particular. We've been building throughout the entire country. Yeah, that effort will continue. Again, strategically, no changes on our side. The final question in this series, will Digi finish upgrading the Invitel network? Similarly, we have not invested significantly in Invitel network immediately after the integration, immediately after the acquisition, because we've been affected by the local competition authority, GVH, which was withholding final approval for a period of almost two years since the acquisition. The final approval was given to us early this year, in the first quarter. Yes, we will improve and upgrade Invitel's networks. It will take some time, I don't know, one or two years. Well, two years most appropriately from today. The next question is coming from Bruno.
Please, can you explain the higher costs related to Spain?
Well, looking and analyzing the operating expenses of Spain, we can say that they are mirroring the normal pace of development of the business. For instance, we can see higher levels in interconnection costs, both for the mobile and the fixed growing number of RGUs, which is a normal trend at this point of the business. For instance, another cost category that's increasing are the salaries. The explanation is that Spain has a higher employees base compared to previous period, which of course attract higher salaries costs. Overall, the trend is in line with the development of the business in Spain.
Thank you, Smaranda. Again, Lajos Nagy, can you expand further in west part of Hungary? Sorry, yeah, I think we've addressed that, so yeah, we move on. Petar Grgasovic. Can you address lower EBITDA margins, cost increased more than the revenue? Can you provide us more details about it? Our understanding of our numbers is somewhat different. We have continuously improved our EBITDA margin in Romania over the last few years. We have been stable and will continue to be stable with our EBITDA margins in Spain. These are appropriate margins for a reseller type of business that we operate mostly there. Our margins have been, and yeah, we discussed this also in the previous calls, under pressure in Hungary due to the fact that we are indeed supporting a fixed operation and a mobile operation, and the mobile operation doesn't have enough critical mass.
However, Hungary, if you look closer at the numbers, is constantly decreasing as a proportion of, or as weight in the total contribution to EBITDA, both revenues and RGUs. Group revenues and EBITDA. As such, its importance is decreasing for our overall results. Otherwise, the driving force of Romania and Spain is certainly offsetting our results in Hungary. A question from Vlad Podea. Any updated guidance for CapEx for the rest of the year? What about the next year? Yeah. It's a good question. We're now being quite advanced and late in the year, and with the hindsight of the first three quarters, as you noticed, we have invested EUR 270 million in the first nine months. The expectation for the year end is approximately EUR 350 million.
This is somewhat higher than what we expected initially at the beginning of the year. CapEx in the range of EUR 320 million, so a 10% increase approximately. For the next year, we have not drawn our plans. We keep the liberty to maintain the numbers in this area. Yeah, more or less. We are engaged in a number of network development projects in Romania, Hungary. We are developing mobile again in Romania, Hungary. Yeah, we expect CapEx to continue. The next question is from Julia Yildiz. Starting November 1, ANCOM imposes the reduction by 30% of the maximum fixed call termination rate, with the new rate thus being kept at 0.098 euro cents per minute. Consequently, how does this regulatory measure imposed by ANCOM impact DG's business? Well, first of all, it's a very positive move, the fact that ANCOM is revising interconnection rates.
The interconnection rates are not helping competition. They are distorting the competition, and the lower they are, with them totally taken away, the better it is for the market. The market really competes on quality of service and not on other metrics. However, referring especially to this is a reduction in interconnect rates of the fixed business. The fixed business is very, very small, and the traffic in the fixed business is a very small part of the overall business, and we certainly do not expect this measure to impact our results, let's say, significantly. Question from Matt Seto. Can you discuss ARPU trends? How are you thinking about CapEx for 2021? CapEx, we've addressed a bit earlier. On the ARPU trends, if you say trend, automatically the question is a complex one, because the trend depends on many factors.
The easiest one to control on our side is the prices, and we do not expect variations or changes in the prices in the coming future. Certainly, we will not repeat what other competitors did in the last two years with sequential price increases. Otherwise, yeah, we try to see, to try to watch what the competition is doing, how the market is reacting. We try to be quite vigilant here, and we have all the freedom to readjust our pricing if needed. At this moment, no particular desire to do anything. Any estimation for ARPU on mobile segment in Hungary after commercial launch? That was the question from Vlad Podea. Thank you very much for the question. I think we've skipped the traditional slide with recent developments.
If it was there, we would repeat once again that we have announced that in Hungary, we are stopping the promotion as at the end of September. Sorry, at the end of December. Basically, starting with January, we will have a proper priced service. We have announced the service plans. In fact, we have two major tariffs. I mean, two major packages in the offering. One is a data package, having 30 gigabits of data traffic included, which costs HUF 1,000. Second one is a voice package with some mobile data and some voice minutes included in this package, and it also costs HUF 1,000 VAT included. It's quite an attractive price for Hungary. A question from Bruno. I understand RGUs being combined. Sorry, difficult to read. The RGU is being combined. Why do not we split ARPU as before?
Similarly, we thought, and anyway, the market is converging to unified and converged services. We thought that one metric is really speaking best and about our results, and again, this is in line with all the rest of the competitors that work with us together on this market and report similar metrics. Yes. Alex Mikaelson, could you give an update on any thoughts surrounding M&A activity? You seem to have room to incur more debt under the debt documentation, so any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Well, thank you. It's probably a classic question for us and for many other issuers. Yeah, probably we still stick to classic answers, that we remain open and vigilant to any opportunity. We have had, I don't know, medium-sized M&A, if you can call it this way.
We have integrated, at the beginning of August, part of the fixed operations of AKTA DCS, the fifth largest operator on the market. We are busy upgrading, improving the infrastructure, upgrading the services, and trying to provide the best experience to these customers who have recently joined our network. Apart from this and looking forward, yeah, there's little to say on our side. We just remain open to opportunities. Again, a question from Bruno. When do you expect Italy to become profitable? Well, Italy is basically on a thin margin with us, not necessarily losing, not necessarily generating any significant cash. We are still committed to the market. We are still committed to the operations and no hard decision on our side. It's difficult to foresee profit or higher margins, given that Italy was a more challenging technical market for us.
It's also probably a more dynamic and complex market than other markets that we operate in. Yeah. A question from Piotr Raciborski. Good afternoon. Could you please provide us with some update on frequency auctions in Hungary? Will you participate in them? Yeah, thank you. I think I mentioned, maybe repeat. We are willing to participate, but unfortunately, the Hungarian authorities do not like us and do not want us to participate in the Hungarian auctions. So far we've tried, but with little luck and little chance. We'll see if our attempts to contest the 5G auction and our attempts to contest the current auction will bring or will bear any fruit in the future. We very much hope so. Question from Petar Gregasovic. Would you be interested in OTE Group mobile segment in Romania?
They will be selling that segment in second half 2021, as announced. Well, thank you very much for the insight. We were not aware of this. We will look opportunistically at any opportunity. The answer is yeah, we are interested to learn about any opportunity. A question from Oliver Berg. What was the contribution from after DCS agreement to Romanian RGUs in the third quarter 2020? We are not disclosing this number. But the idea is the following. How shall I put it easier or better? The overall contribution of the fixed service RGUs of DCS AKTA is certainly less than, I don't know. Around 1%. 1% of our operations. Overall it's not a material addition. It's not a significant addition. Can you give an update on CapEx guidance for 2020? I think you've previously mentioned the 320.
Yes, I repeat what we discussed earlier, EUR 350 for the full year. Piotr Raciborski, could you please provide us with some estimates of the pandemic impact on your EBITDA result in Q3 2020? What was the year-on-year drop in roaming sales and EBITDA in third quarter 2020? It's a valid question. Indeed, roaming has decreased as a revenue segment. However, in our case, it has little or no impact on EBITDA because basically roaming revenues that we were generating were passed through to the client, and basically we were just recharging and recovering the cost that we used to have. The decline in roaming revenues meant no impact on EBITDA for us. In this aspect, we are quite different from most other operators who charge higher fees for roaming services. In our case, this was rather a benefit to the customer than anything else.
Matt Seto coming back. Can you comment on the EBITDA margin decline this quarter? Yeah, no, I think we've addressed this, but we don't have anything else to add. I would move on. Would DG be interested in buying mobile subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom in Romania? We've covered that already. Question from Oliver. Would you have an interest in. Sorry, no. Sorry. The questions keep repeating. Whether we're interested in Telekom Romania Mobile. The answer is, again, I just repeat, that we are open to learn about opportunity, and if something comes and we're able to execute it, we'll certainly look at it. So there is interest, but we can't say anything else. One more follow-up, please. Can you give any guidance around CapEx for Q4 2020?
We've given the full year CapEx of EUR 350 million, which should be helpful. Could you give us the outlook on the Spanish market competition for 2021? Do you think the Spanish market needs consolidation? If yes, what role can Digi play in this process? It's a good question. Thank you. The idea is the following, we are not necessarily the acquirers. We are rather builders and organic growers, if I can call it this way. Whatever is happening on the Spanish market, if it's consolidation or more competition, we will mostly stick to what we can do best. This is to service our existing customers and try to gain new customers based on offers that we have today, or similar offers that we have in the near future. No changes in our strategy, but so far so good. Okay. A question from Matthias Caro.
Are you planning to do any price increase in Romania in Q4 or Q1? Pricing environment supposed to be favoring this. We've discussed this. The simple answer is no. Do you expect lockdowns in Spain or other countries to negatively impact revenue growth in the coming quarter? Yeah. Well, thank you again for this question. I think it's a good way to discuss COVID again. What we had in the first part of the year, what we had over April, May period was exceptional with Romania, Spain, Italy, and partially Hungary being completely shut in terms of people movement, and certain of the activities were limited. As we all probably see, we see governments trying to walk a very difficult line, thin line, of continuing the activities as much as possible, but also preserving health. I think there is an important element here.
Essential services. Despite not necessarily being declared so in Romania, but telecom is an essential service, has been, if not favored, then at least let free to do their work. Because it's extremely important to have the networks operational, running, and it's extremely important to provide the services to the existing and new customers. Again, despite the lockdowns, we were able to provide continuous service. We were able to provide continuous repairs during the spring period, and we have the same regime now in all our markets. So far, again, so good. No changes, no impact on our operations, and yeah, we could continue. Again, you never say never, and certainly things can be much worse from where we are today. So far we were able to execute our operations constantly and fully. A question again from Lajos Nagy.
Can you expand the optical cable network in the west part of Hungary? There is demands to compete with telecom. Thank you. Again, yes, we cover all of Hungary. There are certain areas in Hungary where we're still not present. We try to expand our networks into these areas as well. It's quite difficult for us to say when we will be able to cover the entire country. At this moment, the coverage of Hungary is still 50%. Again, it's not concentrated geographically. We are not in the east or south or just some part of Hungary. We are mostly everywhere. But still, there are white spots. There are cities where we're still not present today. Yes, over the coming years, we will cover those as much as we can as well. A question from Vlad Podea.
If I understood correctly, the contribution of the agreement with AKTA, DCS, to the revenues has been around 1%. The answer is yes. Is it similar to the expense side? We don't track expenses that precisely. Revenues are easier to see, but the general answer is yes. As you see, 1% is anyway an immaterial number. Amy Palvianen. Can you give guidance on net working capital move for 2020? Can you comment on your M&A pipeline and appetite for larger deals, for example, Telekom Romania mobile segment, or focused on bolt-on deals? Yeah, sorry, I don't understand exactly the question. Can you give guidance on net working capital? Sorry, it's written all together, but you meant to ask net working capital move for the full year 2020. So-
I will take the first part of this question. The net working capital movement in this quarter, it's negative, which is rather similar with the movement that we've been reported over several periods now. Specific for this quarter, the largest variation came from the trade receivables side, where we have analyzed the movement, and we concluded that this increase comes from a natural development of the business, which has, as a result, an increase of receivables which remain in balance at the end of a certain period in time. Apart from that, we are managing our working capital with different kind of facilities being overdrafts or lines for guarantees or short-term facilities. We don't have really a certain trend that we are following. We are just within the norms for our industry.
Yeah. The second question was about the acquisitions. I don't think we necessarily, again, have a rule. If Telekom Romania Mobile is offered for sale, we'll certainly have a look. The next question, I think, is just a repeat again on Telekom Romania Mobile acquisition. Ekaterina Biris: Do you notice a change in MásMóvil strategy after the change in shareholder structure? Do you expect any consolidation of Spanish mobile market? What is your growth expectation in Spain in 2021? Yes. No. So far we have not seen any significant change in MásMóvil strategy after they have been taken private. Whether there'll be more consolidation on the Spanish mobile or maybe telecom market, it very well could be. We don't see ourselves part of that consolidation, neither on the sell side nor on the buy side.
Again, I said it earlier that we will continue our organic growth and organic development. In terms of our growth expectation in Spain, I think we would like to be able to continue our growth in absolute terms as we had in these last quarters. It's our wish whether we are able to do so. I repeat what we've discussed throughout our many meetings, because it's a market where we act just as a reseller. The number of variables and uncertainties is much higher for us. Just a small addition here, similar, just to emphasize the recent developments. About one month ago, we have extended our network agreement with Telefónica for the next six years. Basically, as of today, our agreement with our host in Spain runs until 2026. A question from Oliver. Sorry, apology.
A question from Piotr: What is the main reason for Digi's adjusted EBITDA drop in Romania and Hungary in third quarter 2020?
I presume the question is by comparison with the third quarter from 2019.
Yes.
Now looking at the EBITDA excluding IFRS. First, Romania. In the third quarter of 2019, we had a correction of accrual, a reversal of accrual actually, coming from the telecom tax, which initially was imposed through an ordinance 114 from 2018, which was an ordinance issued at the end of 2018. In Q1 and Q2 2019, we recorded accruals, which later on in Q3 when the legislation clarified and changed, we reversed it. Therefore, the EBITDA of the third quarter 2019 was positively impacted of this one-off event. Now, looking at the normalized EBITDA level from the third quarter 2019 and comparing it with our EBITDA in the third quarter from 2020, the results are positive, meaning that EBITDA is increasing in this quarter.
Operationally, there is an improvement in performance in Romania in this quarter, and there are no one-offs that might have impacted the results in this period. In Hungary, on the other side, you have seen probably a decline, which has been rather constant, unfortunately, in the last quarters that we have reported during this year, for instance. The decline is going in line with the fact that we are still investing and building and rolling out our mobile network. We haven't yet seen the benefits of a commercial launch, which would mean revenues on the top of the P&L to offset or counterbalance the expenses that are building up on our P&L side. That would be one of the main explanation for this decline for this trend of EBITDA in Hungary.
Yes. One second. Moving quickly to the current slide, the slide with the group results that we discussed a bit earlier. Again, focusing on the bottom chart below, you see that on the group level, the EBITDA without the impact of IFRS 16 increased from EUR 105 million to EUR 106 million. It was a 2% increase, 2% growth. However, EBITDA overall decreased by EUR 4 million, and as you see, we have almost EUR 6 million decline in EBITDA contribution coming from IFRS 16 adjustments. Now, I'm not qualified to discuss that, but there's probably a very technical explanation to that. In any case, we as management, we certainly follow the EBITDA without IFRS 16 because that's really the result that we are able to manage and that's really the result that is cash contributive to our operations. Yeah. Let's move on.
Digi invested a lot of money in Hungary in the last four years. By when will Digi Kft be profitable again? Well, Digi Kft is profitable EBITDA-wise. We are not losing money. It's just that the margins are thin. We have, at this moment, roughly in the area of 150,000-200,000 mobile users. After one year of operation, we are converting these users to pay users as of next year. We will see how our offerings roll out and how successful we are. In any way, the ability to generate proper revenues and gain more market share in the mobile is crucial for us to improve our profitability, and we will follow this continuously. When will this situation improve significantly or reverse is quite difficult for us to anticipate, but we are following it with big attention.
The acquiring of Invitel network area is attacked by other cable operators. Do you compete with them? It looks Digi gave up lots of towns, as I see." I'm not sure this is a fair statement. I think it's not right. In any case, maybe you're referring to something else. At the beginning of July, on July 1st, we had to dispose of a number of cities, 15 to be more precise, as part of GVH approval, terms and conditions imposed upon the acquisition. So approximately, I'm rounding now, 10% of what we initially acquired, somewhat less than 10%, but still in the area of 10%, we had to sell, and we sold those assets on July 1st. If this is what you mean by surrender, then yes, it was simply a legal obligation. Other than that, we have not left any other Hungarian city.
The next question is, "Digi lost a market against Telekom in Hungary. Is there any plan to fight back?" Well, again, we are continuously working in Hungary and we will continue growing market share over there. Thank you very much for the questions. It was quite intense. At the moment, we have reached the end of the list. If anyone wants to ask anything else, we're happy to answer. Question from Ekaterina again. "Do you have any plans to improve stocks liquidity? The liquidity at Bucharest Stock Exchange is very thin." Well, we wish we could have any answer to this. Our answer is yes. Apart from engaging with investors as much as we can, apart from delivering very good results as we believe we do, it's difficult for us to see what we can do. Well, once again, thank you very much.
At this stage, we will close our call. It was very nice to speak to you. It was very nice to share with you the results. We'll be back again early in 2021 discussing the fourth quarter results. Thank you. Bye-bye.