Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of Orange Belgium's financial results for the first half year of 2025. I am pleased to have with us today Xavier Pichon, our CEO, and Antoine Chouc, our CFO. They will guide us through the company's performance and key achievements. Xavier will begin by providing an overview of the highlights and milestones of the first half year, followed by Antoine, who will take us through the financial details. After their presentation, we will be open for questions. Without further delay, I'll now pass the floor to Xavier.
Thanks, Koen. Hello, everyone. Good morning. Thank you for joining us today as we present Orange Belgium's financial results for the first half of 2025. Our first half-year performance reflects the resilience and agility of Orange Belgium in a strong competitive market environment.
Our performance was supported by net addition, particularly in the B2C segment, driven by the success of our mobile portfolio and targeted promotional campaigns. Let me start with some key highlights on slide number four. We are actively progressing with the implementation of the RAN-sharing agreement with Proximus, a strategic partnership that we anticipated being finalized in 2026. This collaboration will enhance our network quality and expand mobile coverage while also achieving substantial cost efficiencies. As part of its commitments to network leadership, we have been modernizing our 1 Gb fixed internet access network to meet future connectivity demands. By investing in distributed access architecture and next-generation network technologies, Orange Belgium reinforced its position as a leader in delivering innovative, high-capacity broadband solutions.
As laid out in our Lead the Future Corporate Strategy by 2024, Orange Belgium aims to cover its fixed network footprint in Wallonia and six municipalities in Brussels, with two-thirds fiber to the premises and one-third hybrid fiber connectional technologies, paving the way for speeds of 5 Gb and 10 Gb furthermore. In addition, we have started our FTTP deployment in the Brussels region, a key step forward to expanding our fiber network and ensuring that more customers benefit from cutting-edge broadband services. In June, we presented a leading B2B solution in the Belgium high-end market. The collective expertise of Orange Belgium, Orange Business, Orange Business Digital Services, and Orange Cyber defense is combined to create a powerful synergy that no other tech co-player in Belgium can offer to SMEs, corporations, and public organizations.
This marks another milestone in the Lead the Future strategy, providing a unique B2B value proposition for present and future ICT, connectivity, and cybersecurity needs. Building on its 2024 success in the B2C segment through substantial investment in future-proofed multi-gigabit fixed and mobile networks and enriched customer experience, Orange now positions itself as the leading and go-to partner in connectivity and cybersecurity solutions for Belgium enterprise. I also want to highlight how our ongoing data and AI transformation is delivering tangible benefits. We are seeing a positive impact on reducing customer churn and call volumes, while also enabling proactive network maintenance that lowers operational costs. We continue to focus on achieving our circular economy targets, such as refurbishing our customers' devices, for which we are providing incentives to encourage participation.
On the people side, we can confirm that the HR harmonization efforts following the VOO integration have been finalized, resulting in standardized practices and streamlined workflows and a cozy work environment. We'll now move to slide number six. Now, let's take a closer look at the numbers, which clearly demonstrate the strength of our performance. We achieved commercial growth, reflecting the successful execution of our strategy Lead the Future. Despite a market with stagnating growth, we have delivered strong commercial results. In Q1, our net customer additions have significantly outpaced our market share, demonstrating our competitive strength. Our mobile postpaid customer base grew by 3.6% year-on-year, reaching 3.5 million customers. This growth was driven by the continued appeal of our mobile offers in combination with targeted promotions. On the fixed side, our cable customer base also increased by 3%, totaling more than 1 million customers.
This growth reflects the success of our convergent offers. Our ability to deliver high-speed connectivity on our gigabit network supported this success. Revenues slightly declined by 1.5% year-on-year, reaching EUR 963 million. This decrease was mainly following the decrease in the non-margin activities, as well as a slight decrease in service revenues. While we've moved past some challenging times, we hope that the coming period's results will improve, especially as the repricing of our mobile portfolio is expected to have a positive impact. EBITDA saw a growth of 4.7%, reaching EUR 265 million. Despite some headwinds, this increase clearly reflects the realization of the synergies achieved through the integration of VOO, on top of our ongoing focus on cost optimization. Finally, eCapEx increased by 2.2% to EUR 184 million.
This reflects our continued investment in key areas, such as the RAN-sharing program, 5G deployment, and the expansion of our fixed network, including the early stages of our FTTP rollout. These investments are critical to ensuring that we remain at the forefront of technological innovation and are well-positioned to meet the future needs of our customers. These results show the strength of our strategy, the quality of our execution, and the dedication of all teams. At this point, I'd like to hand over to our CFO, Antoine Chouc, who will provide a deeper dive on our financial performance and explain our guidance for 2025.
Thank you, Xavier. Thank you, Xavier. Hi, everyone. Thanks for being on the call. Let me take you through the details, starting with the evolution of our mobile postpaid and cable customer base. At the end of H1 2025, our mobile postpaid customer base grew by 3.6% year-on-year, reaching 3.5 million customers. This growth was driven by the evolution of the mobile portfolio, and the sustained growth demonstrates our ability to retain existing customers while attracting new ones in a competitive market. On the fixed side, our cable customer base increased by 3%, totaling more than 1 million customers. This growth reflects the success of our convergent offers. The continued rollout of high-speed connectivity supported by our gigabit network and the early stages of our FTTP deployment have further enhanced our ability to deliver value to customers now and in the future.
Let's go into the financials on slide eight, focusing on the revenues and EBITDA evolution, as illustrated in the waterfall graphs. In the first half of the year, we generated EUR 963 million in revenues, a 1.7% decrease year-on-year. This slight decline is attributable to several factors. Firstly, a structural decline in wholesale revenues, especially SMS, due to reduced traffic. However, since traffic is very well balanced among operators, margins remain unaffected. Secondly, we experienced pressure on our service revenues, driven by two main factors. On the one hand, the intense promotional activity on the convergent packages, particularly at the end of last year, which slowed down our convergence growth. On the other hand, the impact of our customers' adoption of the new mobile offering portfolio, which had been launched in June 2024. Our go-portfolio launched four years earlier was no longer generating sufficient commercial traction.
However, the short-term financial impact is largely offset in terms of value by a sharp decrease in churn and renewed commercial appeal for the Orange brand. Looking ahead, we anticipate an improved revenue trajectory in H2, supported by modest price increases implemented from July 1st. Turning to EBITDA on slide nine, we achieved nearly 5% year-on-year growth, reaching EUR 265 million. The waterfall graph clearly illustrates the key contributors to this performance. We successfully improved our gross margin by nearly EUR 10 million. Labor costs increased by EUR 2.4 million, primarily driven by inflationary pressures, which we managed to offset partly through other efficiencies. The remainder of our indirect costs saw a positive reduction of EUR 4.7 million, further supporting our margin improvement. Following the new management services agreement that has been agreed with Orange SA, on which we communicated also this morning, we have an increase in comparison to last year.
Nevertheless, we continue to deliver strong financial performance, partly driven by the successful realization of the synergies, and this underscores our ability to adapt and optimize our cost structure effectively, even in a challenging environment. Let's move to slide 11 on eCapEx. In the first semester of 2025, our eCapEx, excluding license fees, totaled EUR 184 million, representing an increase of 2.2% year-on-year. This reflects our continued investment in key strategic areas. A significant portion of this spending was allocated to the implementation of the RAN-sharing program, which is critical to optimizing our network infrastructure and spendings. We also invested in upgrading our cable, and we started the initial stages of our FTTP rollout. Let's now move to the last slide about our guidance on slide 12. I would like to reaffirm our guidance for 2025, which we established at the beginning of the year.
We anticipate EBITDA to be in the range of EUR 545 million -EUR 564 million, with eCapEx expected to be between EUR 365 million and EUR 385 million, excluding license fees. We are confident that our EBITDA will be positioned towards the higher end of this range. With that, I would like to conclude my presentation, and we'll be more than happy to answer all your questions.
Thank you. We will now have a Q&A session where you will have the opportunity to ask questions regarding the results. Operator, may I ask you to open the floor for the questions?
Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. You will be advised when to ask your question. Please provide your name and company before asking your questions. We will take our first question. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. David Vagman from ING. Thanks for taking my question. First one is on revenue growth or revenue guidance, let's say, for H2. I understand it will improve. Can you describe a bit the ARPU dynamic you expect in mobile? Then maybe discussing quickly about H1. You had the mobile customer base up 3.6%. Then okay, it's not fully comparable, but mobile-only service revenues were down 6%. It looks like the drop in mobile ARPU was north of 6%, maybe up to 10%. Can you comment on how much of an improvement should we expect, basically, in H2, maybe year-on-year? That's my first question. Secondly, on the new MSA, can you explain to us a bit the dynamic and how we should basically moderate?
We've got the EUR 15 million a bit stable for three years, but then going forward, should we see that as a percentage of sales, like between, let's say, 75 bps of your sales and 1%? Is this, when you prepare the 2025, let's say, business plan, is this, in the end, what you negotiated? Is this better or worse than what you had in mind? You knew you had to renegotiate. Maybe final question. Can you update us on the VOO synergies and your total savings? I think the VOO synergies, you said at the end of last year, you were close to EUR 15 million of synergies. An update would be welcome. Thank you very much.
I'll answer. Hi, David. I will answer your question. Maybe starting with the MSA. As you saw in the press release this morning, yes, there is a cap of EUR 15.4 million a year for three years. This agreement will have to be rediscussed with the group with the same 797 procedure, protecting the interest of the minority shareholders. I think it's reasonable to consider that as long as the service rendered by the group has the same scope, and as long as there is no, I know, an organic move from Orange Belgium with a significant increase of our revenues, I think it's quite reasonable to consider that in the long term, this amount will remain flat, even if it will have to be rediscussed in three years with the group. That's maybe the first answer to your questions.
When it comes to revenue, yes, as you may have seen, we slightly increased our prices as from July 1st, with a positive impact on H2. That will help us to have a better revenue dynamic in H2 compared with the impact on H1. The main impact for the first semester was clearly the fast migration from the old go-portfolio to the new mobile portfolio. Once again, we have an ARPU impact over the semester due to this migration, which started in July last year, but it's offset by a better churn. In the medium term, it should clearly have a positive impact in terms of value. What I can tell you is that with this new mobile portfolio, which, if compared with the churn we had on the go-mobile portfolio in H1 last year, we have a huge drop in our churn by around 30%.
Regarding your question on the VOO synergies, we think that we'll be able to deliver synergies up to EUR 80 million in 2025. The first results delivered in H1 make us very confident that we will be able to achieve this ambition.
Could you repeat the number for the synergies for 2025, please?
EUR 80 million, eight zero.
It's 80. Thank you. Very quick follow-up on the MSA. How is it booked? Is it all indirect cost, or is it a bit split between cost of goods sold, etc.?
No, no, it's only indirect costs.
Thank you.
Indirect costs, and of course, we have half of it in H1. As you said, maybe I didn't answer this part of your question. It was already embedded in our guidance because we knew at the beginning of the year that this agreement was renegotiated. We didn't know at that time when we issued the new guidance for 2025 what will be the final cut on this, but we had at least an idea that we embedded it directly in the guidance. The final result was very close to what we had in mind when we built this guidance.
Okay, very clear. Thanks.
We will take our next question. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, morning everyone. It's Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank. I have two questions, please. First one, just going back to the price increase. Xavier and Antoine, you just mentioned the second half increase. If I think about that increase coupled with the, I guess, removal of the low-end fee tariff a couple of months ago, are you feeling a bit more comfortable around the better dynamics in the market? Are you seeing perhaps less pressure from Digi after their six months of their launch now? Anything you could say right now would be super helpful. I appreciate you don't necessarily give the split, but it's fair to assume that you've seen a bigger portion of gross ads on your challenger brand versus previous quarters. The second question is just around fiber.
I think, Xavier, you mentioned the target of covering Wallonia and, I think, certain parts of Brussels with 2/3 of fiber. What is the kind of coverage target for this year, and how should we think about that glide path going forward, particularly in the context of the, I think, discussion that the regulator is having around coverage in the rural areas? Thank you.
Yeah. Hi. Hello. Thanks for your questions. Maybe just to come back on your last one. You know that moving forward, we are since years, I guess. I think it's five or six years that we are having, of course, the goal to make sure that we'll have also the best network proposition in the south, but also the way we will implement with very good value and return the FTTP network on top of. This is something we are still discussing with Proximus in a good shape. You know this is something that also is well seen and well noted by the authorities, IBPT and the BMA. It's moving forward. I guess it's moving on.
This is, of course, very important for us to keep our Lead the Future, I would say, first ranking position in state-of-the-art networks in the future in the south of the country, including the six municipalities in Brussels. On your first question, right to say so, this is, I would say, actually a mixed feeling, mixed balance feeling. I think we are having very, very good net ads results in the Q1. We said that during the speech, either on the fixed convergence and the mobile, but we see the market growth, I would say, decreasing a little bit on the fixed. It's not something new. We've seen that, started to see that in 2024. It continues in the H1. Of course, this is very important to keep the pace and to maintain our volume dynamic.
This is why also we have this promotional effort in Q4, and it has impacted a little bit the H1 dynamic, as we said. On the mobile, as Digi commercially vanished, I would say, since Q2, we see a pretty good dynamic either on the volume, but also we are confident that we'll be able to keep our ARPU dynamic in H2, as explained by Antoine, as such. In a way, that's why we are expecting better trends on the revenue side and especially on the service revenue side for H2.
That's great. Thank you.
Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. We will take our next question. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking the question. Just have one on fiber and your cable growth. Still growing on cable, which is good to see, but the rate of growth is clearly slowing. There have been a number of press reports on Digi's fiber rollout expanding outside of Brussels into other regions. Could this explain some of that cable customer growth slowdown? From what you're seeing, are Digi now gaining meaningful fiber footprint nationally?
Yeah. Thanks for your question. I guess at the moment, I would say there is no link, sorry, no ties between some local rollout development for Digi in Brussels and in the south of the country, in Wallonia, and the market slowed down, as explained. This is something that has started in 2024, maybe in H1 or in H2, coming up and coming back to the numbers we've shown you lately. The goal for us would be to, in this market slightly decreasing in terms of dynamic and growth ads, of course, to focus either on our share of net ads. This is why we are very satisfied with the Q1. We'll see the Q2, but in the Q1, we are really largely higher than our market share broadly, and I would say in whole regions.
Point number two, and we emphasized this during our speech as well, to focus on the churn avoidance and to make sure that our value management program would be successful to make sure that either keeping the ARPU at the highest level, but also, of course, reducing the churn rate, which is, I would say, historically a bit higher in Belgium and at Orange Belgium than in other countries. This is the goal in a market that would be maybe in the same dynamic for H2, as you mentioned.
Thank you very much.
As a final reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. We will pause for a quick moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. There are no further questions on the line, so I will now hand you back to your host for closing or additional remarks.
Thank you for your participation in this call. Would you have any other follow-up questions? Please do not hesitate to contact the IR team for any further comments. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Bye-bye. Take care.