Good afternoon, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to the video conference to release the results of the second quarter of 2024 of Unifique Telecomunicações S.A. I emphasize that those who need simultaneous translations that we have these two available on the platform. To access, just click on the interpretation button through the globe icon at the bottom of the screen and choose your preferred language, Portuguese or English. For those listening to the video conference in English, you can change the option clicking in Mute Original Audio.
This video conference is being recorded and will be made available at the IR website, in which it's available the complete material of our results. It's possible to download the presentation in the chat icon, including in English. During the company's presentation, all participants will be with their microphones disabled. We are going to start with Q&A.
To ask a question, click in Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen and write your question to join the queue. When you are announced, a prompt to activate your microphone will appear on your screen. You may activate your microphone and ask questions. We advise that all questions be asked all at once. We emphasize that the information contained in this presentation and any statement that may be made during the video conference regarding the business prospects, projections, and operational and financial goals of the Unifique Telecomunicações S.A. constitute beliefs and assumptions of the company's management, as well as information currently available. Future considerations are not guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions, and they refer to future events, and therefore depend on circumstances that might or might not occur.
Investors should understand that general economic conditions, market conditions, and other operation factors could affect the performance of Unifique Telecomunicações S.A. and lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking considerations. Today, we have Fabiano Busnardo, CEO, and José Wilson de Souza Júnior, Financial Director of Investors Relationship. I will hand the floor to Fabiano, please.
Good afternoon, everyone. Fabiano here, and I would like to start asking about the quarter we had. We had some important facts and what were our highlights. First of all, was the climate tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul in May. It impacted our operations and many cities that we work in were strongly affected. We had problems with investment to redo operations, rebuild the infrastructure.
We had also decisions to give bonuses to thousands of customers because we believe it wasn't fair to charge them while the population was going through such a terrible situation. That had a negative impact. The positive impact, and looking at the half-full glass, the impact was not as severe as we expected at that time. I would say that despite being a meaningful event, we managed to, one way or another, walk out of that. Our investments in 5G are starting to speed up in OPEX, people working. We have subscribers in dwellings. We have service sales being assembled, specialized in this Rio state area. They bring more support. We have to speed up costs to be pretty prepared to render good services in this area.
Another important point that I would like to highlight and just to finish the 5G issue. At first, it would hit our results, but it's according to what we have planned and estimated. We are going to do that slowly, so we won't suffer so much in relation to results. We won't be able to not do that because it's a market we believe that soon will have a positive impact on Unifique. I would also like, because it was pretty relevant to us, we increased the number of employees in the second quarter, almost 200 extra employees that came to the operations of Unifique. We could improve the service quality that increases customer satisfaction and strengthens the relationship with the customer. Also brings operational efficiency and improves the image of the company.
We believe that from this point on, in June is here to show that, it shows a small positive impact in sales increase, addition of net subscribers. Having said that, we are prepared for the next quarters, and if we don't have any other tragic event, probably we will be able to harvest the fruits. At first, it impacted costs, of course, but we see some interesting results like the churn, that for the quarter it was 1.55%, but in June 1.49%. It is, in fact, we reached the goal we had. We had this churn in the past, maybe three years ago, but then things somehow went out of control. We had 2.42% churn.
We started working with the implementation of a better filtering in sales and many other measures that were unfolded throughout time. Now it seems that it's bringing results, positive results. Those are data that are pretty important, and we make sure that we will highlight today. From now on, we need revenue to improve so we can absorb. In the second half, we had the negotiation with the union for the collective bargaining, increasing our payroll, the largest cost of the company. Now in the first, second, third month, it impacts. Now we are going to try to improve revenue and somehow balancing the impact we had, diluting a little bit the impact we had in the beginning.
Having said that, what I would like to highlight, I will hand the floor to José Wilson de Souza Júnior, our CFO, for the presentation of our results and we will continue, and we can further clarify if any question may arise.
Hello, it's José Wilson de Souza Júnior here. A second quarter of 2024 had a very positive scenario in which we start to harvest the fruits of a lot of learnings and investments of the last quarters. Let's start our presentation. Here we have some highlights of the second quarter of 2024. In the second quarter of 2024, we reached a gross operational revenue with a 17.2% increase, reaching BRL 315 million if compared to the previous year. B2C, an increase of 16.4%, and B2B, an increase of 20.5%.
It's important to highlight that this is justified by M&As, something that the company performed properly, done between the second quarter of 2023 and the second quarter of 2024. The acquisition of Planalto in June 2023, we acquired 23,000 customers. And Naxi in July 2023, we acquired 18,000 customers. Vex in January 2024, and we acquired approximately 28,000 customers. Those are companies that are already incorporated, except those that are not incorporated that we have acquired in January 2024 that were Vexs and Sivic. That was not incorporated. Except that, all other companies were incorporated and incorporated in a way that we are already in the maximum capture of synergy. In relation to the net operational revenue, we have an increase of 18.3% if we compare to 2023.
The highlight is the fact that we keep the balance of the PCLD provision in a stable manner, and the provision is due to the stocks. In fact, the actions that we have adopted since the beginning of 2023. Credit analysis and score, and also collection-specific actions. We are performing pretty well. The outstanding rate is stabilized at 3% per month. There are some months that are a little bit lower, but we have an average of 3%, and this is extremely positive for the financial health of the company. Another important point that is worth highlighting, because it added to the growth, was the low churn. In the second quarter of 2024, we reached a churn of 1.55%. This milestone is due to the actions to avoid canceling.
We offer alternatives or incentives for customers to reconsider canceling the service. Our service portfolio, things that we have been selling and using for retention like telemedicine are bringing good results. Probably we are going to have a year with additional services, with additional BRL 5 million. It's a start. Another point was customer service. As Fabiano mentioned, we improved the support, the customer support, and we are more agile in solving problems. Since the beginning of the year, we have increased the service and the number of technicians on the field, and that improves the customer experience, and we have seen that. This is the metric of churn is amazing. It's a reference to the market. Continuing to the next slide, the performance, the economic performance on the financial side.
In the second quarter of 2024, we had an EBITDA of BRL 122 million. It's an increase of 17.2% comparing the second quarter of 2023. If we compare with the first quarter of 2024, there was a minimal reduction of 1%. The EBITDA margin in the second quarter of 2024 was 47.9%, and it was aligned with the margin that was obtained in the second quarter of 2023. There, highlighting what Fabiano mentioned, the expenses with personnel was one of the greatest events that impacted EBITDA on the second quarter. Of course, we had an increase in the number of employees. If we consider the second quarter of 2023, we have 2,053 employees, and now in the second quarter, we closed with 2,254 employees.
As it was mentioned, we also increased 5% in the salary. It was a collective bargaining with the union June 2024. We are going now to look for revenue to accommodate all the increases in the major costs we have. Costs with personnel. Net profit, amazing second quarter of 2024. We've reached BRL 41.1 million and an increase of 37.5% compared to the first quarter of 2023. It's a great profit for this period. Moving to the next slide, we have operational performance. The operational performance, we have the second quarter of 2024. We've reached 3.4 million Homes Passed. If we compare to the first quarter of 2024, we had an increase of 1%. That's the reflection that since the fourth quarter of 2023, Unifique reduced the constructions of ports.
Today, the investments are dedicated mainly to the constructions of radio base stations. For this exercise this year, we have a CapEx that we planned of around BRL 240 million-BRL 250 million. The major challenge here is for the following months to manage to have investments in these stations. We have hired that, and we are with a strong work to expand more and more the construction of these stations. The number of Homes Connected increased 1.1% in the second quarter of 2024. This happened mainly in July, in which Unifique had a net addition of 4,825 customers.
June, we had 761,000 accesses, and 567 in Santa Catarina, 175 in Rio Grande do Sul, and 8.5 thousand in Paraná. This growth in June is a signal for the month. Of course, we wanted to bring our organic growth that was higher in the second quarter, but as mentioned, the tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul got on the way. We were below 1,000 net accesses in May, and this is totally justifiable because we had a movement of employees from Santa Catarina to Rio Grande do Sul to rebuild the network. We have some help now with the perception that Unifique is a different company and has conditions and technology to serve the customers. May was a very slow month.
We even stopped sales because it was a tragic moment, and we acted in that moment. We made this decision. We made many decisions, in fact, that somehow got in the way of the quarter. Anyways, we managed to deliver good results, and I'm very confident that in the third quarter, we are going to have even better results when compared to the second quarter. As Fabiano mentioned, we expect there is no other tragedy that would get in the way of our evolution. However, the third quarter of 2024 is a quarter that will bring us great expectations.
I would like to highlight here that in June 2024, the performance of net adds was due to the implementation of new strategies of digital marketing, new partnership models with sales, construction sales, and optimization of sales and installation processes. The hiring of new employees made a huge difference in relation to installation of customers. Now, moving to the next slide, market share. Here we can see that it's worth noting because here it reinforces the leadership of Unifique in the state of Santa Catarina from the second quarter of 2023 and the second quarter of 2024, we had an increase of 78 net additions in broadband. This is amazing.
It has an inorganic aspect, but it's a healthy inorganic aspect of a company who knows how to work with that and can deliver results with profitability. Hence, Unifique kept the leadership in the Santa Catarina state with a market share of 20.6% above 16.9% of Claro and 7.1% of Vivo. If we look a year ago and compare results, you can see that Santa Catarina is a state in which we are growing, and we are growing a lot. Last year, we had Claro as leader with a similar amount that Unifique has today. We changed places, and we are still growing.
The potential of the state for exploitation is huge, and we are making this to happen, and we will be able to understand the state of Rio Grande do Sul, and we are starting to replicate this scenario there. We can see here the cities in which we are leaders. We are leaders in 66 cities in Santa Catarina, second quarter of 2024. Rio Grande do Sul, considering all the scenarios, we are leaders in 31 cities, but we are searching for growth. For sure, we are going to mirror the Santa Catarina scenario in Rio Grande do Sul. In the second quarter of 2024, it was a good result. It's always a reference for us. It's the city of Blumenau.
We are leaders there now with a market share of 32.6% and we are ahead of Claro, that has 32% of market share, and then Oi with 19.9% of market share. Moving to the next slide of indebtedness. The second quarter of 2024, we reached an indebtedness of BRL 880 million and BRL 309 million. The net in relation to EBITDA, it was 0.63, showing here the good financial health of Unifique and, as a consequence, a capital structure that allows us to continue being a consolidator. If we look to all other market players, no one is comparable to this capital structure that Unifique has. It is a, the structure of a major company capable to consolidate the market.
The good news here is that with this capital structure, it, we will be able to, in the second quarter of 2024, a distribution of dividends, in relation to its own capital in BRL 55 million. It's a good financial health. The result of the company is good, the profitability is good and allows us to be a company that pays dividends. Well, the second quarter of 2024, here we had the third issuance of debentures in the amount of BRL 300 million indexed to IPCA plus 5% per year. Those are resources that are in our cash available, but it's also part of a strategy to elongate the debt. We had a centralized debt on the short term.
We have an installment to be liquidated right in the beginning of the next year from an acquisition of Sygo that we performed. We have a final installment. It was pretty centralized in the short term. Here it's just to accommodate and allow us to place debt ahead to see this accommodation of the cash flow. Moving to the next slide for 5G mobile network coverage with our own infrastructure. We see that Unifique operates in six cities with its own coverage, and we are working in many other cities also. In other cities, we still have interconnection with big telco, and we have agreements therein which we have different prices. We are in Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul already operating with the trading of broadband.
Here, just a reference, what is worth mentioning here is about how we have been performing in these cities, because those are recent operations that in a way or another, they bring good results. We have Guaramirim, we started operating in November 2023. We had three points to cover the city. In June, the city had 19,000 CHIPS active, and in this date it has 526 in the city. A point that was pretty important in this scenario of entering the city we are moving to. A highlight is that mobile telephone leverage the sales of mobile internet, mobile connection, reaching the market share of 27.4% of broadband.
Within what we have been trying, we understood that in these cities in which we are not very strong, but it has a good fiber network, when we come with the mobile telephone, we also leverage broadband sales. Guarumirim is a city that we entered. It showed exactly that to us. We also have cities that include Gabiroba. Gabiroba, we have one radio base station. We have one of them only. In June 2024, they had 22,000 CHIPS active and Unifique on the same date already had 904 CHIPS active. A market share of around 4%. Timbó is a case for us. It's our headquarters, and here we installed six stations to cover in the entire city. It's the best coverage of the city for sure.
In June 2024, they had 52,000 active CHIPS and in the same date, we have 3,835 CHIPS, assuring a market share of 7%. This is a recent operation. We started February 2024, and we reached these numbers. Later we have Tijucas, and we installed five radio base stations for the coverage of the city. Tijucas have 67 active CHIPS, and in June we had 452 CHIPS in the city. One percent of market share. Then we have more recent cities in which we have São João do Itaperiú. We've mentioned June 2024 and Taquari. Now, in fact, Taquari in Rio Grande do Sul, we have our own operation now in Rio Grande do Sul, and we started also for just a few days.
We have one. It's a radio base station, but sales have become pretty satisfying considering what we expect. Our scenario is pretty positive in relation to 5G. For 5G, it's important to mention that in 2024, Anatel, our agency, allowed us to use 700 MHz to Unifique, and we requested the coverage of 565 cities in the state of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. Our obligation now is just to add all these operations, all these radio base stations working within a deadline of 18 months. Those are higher things. We have a capacity to invest in that. It is a new operation that in our understanding, we are pretty comfortable in order to move forward. To finish, next slide please.
We have the event of the rains in Rio Grande do Sul. In the peak of the operation, we had 35,000 customers that had no connection. They were totally disconnected. When we made the announcement to the market, we had 23,000. Later, we made a survey of how many customers were disconnected, and we didn't bill them. Today, in August, we have almost 100% of our customers active. We had affected our backbone routes. We got some pictures, affected presence points, POP, and also sources that were flooded. Here, just to highlight what the company has done. We sent 55 technical O&M teams just from Santa Catarina and eight technical teams of network management that works remotely. We spent there for 45 days with the technical team. Not mentioning, of course.
I apologize. I think he got disconnected. Are we back? Well, we had some technical glitches, so we are resuming. Fabiano, the floor is yours.
Can I continue?
Yes.
I don't know where we have stopped. I will revisit the last slide. Here we were talking about the measures adopted to reestablish the services. As I've mentioned, the teams from Santa Catarina who supported Rio Grande do Sul. Here finishing the fact that we acquired fleets and we sent people, those were things that made Unifique strengthen its brand in Rio Grande do Sul. This helped us a lot, and we feel in July, before everything that we mentioned about the actions we have adopted, we feel a good June month and a month of July that is even better.
We expect this movement to continue, and we are pretty confident about that. Now, I will open for questions if you may have any.
We will start our Q&A session. Keep in mind that to ask questions, you should click on Q&A on your screen and type your question. When you are announced, you can activate your mic and ask all your questions at once. Let's start. It's Marco Nardini from XP. Marco, you may continue.
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the question. I have two here. My first one is about authorization of the 700 MHz frequency. I would like to understand if it is in the entire city and with 5G you expect to talk about the CapEx for the next 18 months?
The second is about EBITDA margin for the next quarters. If you can, comment if there is any margin problem looking ahead and maybe investments in 5G or this margin reached the minimum and we can see an evolution in the margin for the next quarters?
Thank you. Well, here's Fabiano Busnardo. In relation to the EBITDA margin, maybe we won't be able to have 100% of control because we have 5G investments that have pushed a little bit. We believe we will be able to keep in that level and continuously, we're soon with the mobile operation that will move forward, we will be independently, we will be improving. Our idea is that we are at our worst moment. Of course, acceleration or a reduction of 5G may change.
As we are now today, we will keep at this level with an improvement, a perspective of improvement. In relation to the 700 MHz, I would like you to repeat the question, please, Marco.
Sure. About the frequency 700 that you've mentioned, I would like to understand if it is in the entire cities that you've mentioned, 500-something cities, and in reference to 5G. If you can talk a little bit about the perspective of CapEx for the next 18 months, please?
Sure, sure. In relation to the implementation, we are going to speed up and it will give us the chance to cover with less sites. And for sure, this will make us speed up. And we had this commitment with 18 months.
Of course, in the short term we are not going to change the implementation, but next year we are going to speed up so we can honor the commitment. In relation to investments, what we had in our pipeline was 12 months, not 18 months. Twelve months, we have returned investment to BRL 300,000 per station, Radio Base Station, with an expectation of 100 installations per year. We know how it is, how difficult it is. In 700 MHz we know that we are reducing that. We have a good for BRL 300,000 , and we will start $19,000. That is way lower. That is the price.
We have the scenario and there may be a reduction, a meaningful reduction that fits with our cash flow at the company. We intend to install 300-500 hubs. Of course, the cost is not only equipment, and we have other infrastructure points. I believe we could reach an investment in the next 12 months of BRL 150 million that I believe it's pretty okay to accommodate that. It's interesting because we are able to bring revenue to the company in relation to mobile. 8,500 CHIPs, and we believe that in the next months we can speed up a little bit more.
We will have a balance, a nice balance in fact, 300-500 sites in the next 12 months with an average cost of $50,000 each site, considering if we add 5G, 4G and some other infrastructures that are necessary.
Perfect, Fabiano and José for the answers.
Next question comes from Maria Clara Infantozzi from Itaú. Maria Clara, please, the floor is yours.
Hello, Fabiano, José. Thank you. You've elaborated a little bit in the call the drivers that have improved the churn, but I would like you to bring more details about what to expect about churn in the future. Also please comment how you have realized the churn where you have 5G. Thank you, guys.
Maria Clara, our goal here, our internal goal at the company is 1.5%. We understand that this would be the best of the best. We got 1.5 to 5 in the second three and 1.49 in the highlights. This is the threshold. The threshold we can perform. In the future, we intend to have around 1.5, what we consider amazing. Oh, in relation to the churn in the cities. Well, we expect to have some positive situation, but we didn't have time to measure that. Anything that we say now, the contracts are pretty new and there are some difficulties in this commercial 5G business. Equipment needs to be registered. We managed to register many models of devices, but the fact is that we still have hundreds that are not working in a new network.
All that makes sales go down because you sell and by the time you use, you discover that the device has some difficulties. It is a little bit premature to foresee that. We expect that to happen. We believe this data we will start sensing in the beginning of next year. We are going to have customers with one year of contract, and we'll see if in our subscriber base what's going to happen. Another point related to your question.
Today, almost two-thirds of our sales of mobile are related to the fixed operation, and we expect these contracts. Here I'm talking that our goal is 1.5% when we are talking about fiber. When we are talking about. Oh, no. When we are talking about fixed plus mobile, I don't have a reference, you know, to tell you, but we expect this number to be lower than 1.5%, but today I cannot tell you a precise number. I believe I could add to that.
We don't have an exact number for that. Guaramirim, we can see the city, how much it is in the churn in a city isolated. Guaramirim is a city we started. It was the first one that we had broadband. The churn of Guaramirim, isolated from anywhere else, there in June, the churn was 1.24%. It's a low churn, and it's a city that we can have a reference because it's a little bit more mature. All the rest, it's too difficult to have a measurement, a precise measurement in the beginning of the operation.
Excellent. Thank you very much for the complete answer.
Keeping in mind that to ask questions, you have to click Q&A in the lower part of your screen. Wait while we are collecting more questions. Now, I'll hand the floor for the company to answer questions sent by the chat.
We have the first question from Itrio. Well, before the last authorization from Anatel to use 700 MHz, the company had as its purpose to extend the 5G signal for 40 cities until the beginning of 2024. With the current authorization for 565 cities, does it change the goal in the short term? No.
We are keeping on the short term what was defined, so we will continue working in 40 cities, so we can conclude up to the beginning of 2025. From that point on, we can have some acceleration. All the work is underway. At this moment, we cannot bring details for the next phases. People are finishing this work, but we expect that we will have a acceleration on that.
A second question from Itrio. The company states that the CapEx in the fixed network reliability focusing in the infrastructure improvement of acquired network and change of equipment due to the acquisition deceleration. Do you expect the need of these investments to decelerate still in 2024?
Yes. We expect some relief because we have invested a lot in up-to-date and update, and this will be felt in the future in 2025, and this may be revised if we have new acquisitions. Then the cycle of adjustments, well, we don't let go all operations, so we will do fine with our equipment because I believe this is what makes us to have less churn. We have some suffering with churn and sometimes it generates some discomfort. We won't let this go, so as we reduce the acquisition this year, and we haven't made any, we start to see that the churn improves, mainly because of this presence.
Ricardo H, he asks two questions. He congratulates us for the result and asks, "Does Unifique have a perspective of new acquisitions this year?" I would say that yes, Ricardo, we have a financial planning, proper financial planning, and we made a good organization of the house. Sales have improved. The churn has reduced. Now I would say that we are feeling comfortable to have new challenges in this territory. Of course, we need to have our business within the parameters we believe will generate value to our investors and shareholders. The data center sector presented a strong growth in the quarter. Could that be a new avenue for growth of the company? Yes. It may be a new growth avenue. We have dedicated ourselves to other segments.
This is a new segment that we have tried to act recently. In this quarter, in fact, second quarter, we amplified the area of our data center. We doubled the size, and we can still increase even more because it was forecasted for three phases. We have one-third already accomplished. Now we are going to the second third, then we have the third third. We have, you know, a great and promising market for the following periods. Now we have. Let's see if we have anything. Pedro. We have a question from Pedro Afonso Pizelli. The monthly average of organic acquisition of Q2 was around 2,800 to 2,900, and this is jeopardized by May, but aligned with the goal. How do you see things for Q3 and Q4?
Can we understand that to be around 3K or June 4.8K is a better proxy for the next months? Besides that, comment a little bit more about the 5G plan. Well, we have internal goal of 3,500 per month access per month, 10,500 for organic growth in the quarter. We didn't deliver that in the second quarter due to May that we were, we suffered a lot in Rio Grande do Sul. We expect in the third quarter to manage to achieve that, and if we do achieve or even do more than that, and I believe it's possible, we will have to wait for the following weeks to see if we can keep up with the rhythm as we had in June.
We are focusing on 10,500, and if we deliver more, well, we are doing our best. In relation to the 5G plan, well, we are aligned with what we have been talking about. We are moving forward strongly in 5G, but also in a very careful manner. We are not going too fast. 5G is a new technology. The smartphone market that is here has to go through updates, so we should not speed up things, otherwise we are way too ahead. Well, anyways, we try to search for balance. My personal opinion is that the major 5G year for the company will be 2026. There, we are going to have a variety of approved material, 5G equipment that is way better than currently. I believe we are learning to work with that.
It's not easy because we sell fiber and now we have to sell mobile. It seems to be similar, but it's totally different. We are learning. Every month we evolve, every month we manage to improve. From our coverage, this will become stronger. We have installed many [ERBs], and we will be able to speed up the implementation of new hubs where we bring technology, new technology and a service quality that is different from what people are used to receive currently. We have built a history of success in the fixed internet, and we want to build the 5G history. I may tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not something that will happen from one quarter to the other. We won't see this major leap.
We will see a constant and consistent growth, and this will happen quarter after quarter, and then we'll reach 2030 occupying a relevant space in the segment, and I have no questions about that. Well, I think the answers are properly answered.
Okay, and the Q&A session is over. I would like to hand the floor to the final comments of the company.
I would like to thank the presence of all of you in our call. This was a quarter that even with all the adversities, it was a good quarter, and we are working hard to deliver good results. Fabiano.
Well, if there is any questions later, we are going to answer that to all of you.
I would like to thank you for your time and say that the second quarter for me could have been a little bit better, but with all the problems we had, we have more to celebrate than to complain. I believe that we are with a good pace for the following quarters. We are going to deliver organic growth, maybe what Unifique is yet to give to the market, we can improve. We improved in the second quarter despite the tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul, and I'm confident that in the third quarter of 2024, we'll be able to deliver organic growth level in which people will acknowledge our work in a more effective manner. Thank you very much for your attention, and we are as always available to all of you.
I inform that the result, the video conference for results of the second quarter of 2024 of Unifique is over. We are available to answer any further questions. Thank you very much to all participants, and enjoy the afternoon.