Good day, welcome to today's Orange H1 2026 results conference call. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. I'll hand the call over to Koen Van Mol. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, welcome to the presentation of Orange Belgium's financial results for the first half year of 2026. I am pleased to have with us today Xavier Pichon, our CEO, for the first time, we have Matthieu Bouchery, our CFO, appointed since the 1st of July. They will share with us the strategic progress, performance highlights, the outlook for the coming months. Xavier will begin by providing an overview of our new strategy, Trust the Future, as well as the main highlights of the first semester of 2026.
Matthieu will take us through the commercial and financial results. After their presentations, we will open the floor for questions. Without further delay, I'll now pass the floor to Xavier. Xavier, the floor is yours.
Thanks, Koen. Hello. Good morning, everyone. We hope you're well. Thank you for joining us today as we present Orange Belgium's financial results for the first half of 2026. Today, we're pleased to share our strategic vision for Orange Belgium as we aim to become the preferred digital partner by leveraging trust and innovation. Our journey is guided by clear ambitions and priorities that will shape our growth and impact over the coming years. With our new strategy, Trust the Future, we are leveraging trust to establish ourselves as preferred digital partner.
This involves strengthening our reputation through consistent delivery of reliable services and innovative solutions. We emphasize our technology innovation leadership. We are investing in advanced network technologies such as 5G and fiber to maintain our competitive edge and meet future connectivity demands. In terms of customer experience, we lead the market by focusing on providing high-quality, seamless services. This includes expanding our entertainment offerings and improving customer support.
We are also transforming our enterprise model to be more agile and collaborative, fostering partnerships and leveraging shared resources within the Orange Group to enhance our service offerings. We remain committed to our societal and environmental responsibilities, supporting community initiatives and sustainability goals that align with our long-term vision. Move to slide six. Moving to our technological innovation leadership, we are proud that Ookla has recognized our 5G network as the fastest in Belgium.
We are firming our position at the forefront of mobile technology. We are also innovating in entertainment and digital safety. Our new TV box not only enhances user experience but also aligns with our sustainability goals by reducing energy consumption. Furthermore, our Last Mile program is bringing ultrafast, reliable connectivity to households in Wallonia, closing the digital divide and reinforcing our leadership in high-speed broadband. For our FTTP rollout, we are introducing innovative robotized street cabinets, fostering innovation and efficiency.
Slide seven. Our focus on customer experience has been recognized with the Brand of the Year 2026 award, which was attributed to hey!, an historic achievement in our category. Testaankoop also awarded hey! with a double Best of the Test label, which emphasizes the strength of our brand and our customer-centric approach. In addition, we expanded our entertainment portfolio by partnering with Disney+, offering our customers access to premium content. We have reintroduced Belgian football for our customers, bringing the excitement of local sports back to our network.
All these initiatives are designed to enhance customer satisfaction, deepen loyalty, and differentiate us in a competitive market. Slide eight. We are transforming our enterprise model to be more agile and collaborative. This includes virtualization and platforming within the Orange Group, which will enable us to share resources and expertise more effectively. We are upgrading our optical network with Nokia to ensure 5G leadership as well as to meet the demands of quantum-resilient security and AI scale computing.
These investments are crucial for maintaining our technological edge. Additionally, we are exploring innovative AI use cases to enhance operational efficiency and customer service. Our employees of WBCC have also approved the new social agreement reinforcing our commitment to a positive and inclusive workplace culture. Slide nine. Our commitment extends beyond technology and business. We are also committed to people, society, and environment.
Orange Belgium has become the main sponsor of Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, a partnership rooted in shared values and a love for football, promoting community engagement. We are also raising awareness about digital safety, especially in esports, to protect young users from digital abuse. Moreover, we are fostering innovation through initiatives like the Orange Fab program, which crowned six AI innovators this year. These efforts demonstrate our dedication to societal impact, digital safety, and fostering innovation.
Now I'd like to hand over the floor to Matthieu Bouchery, who joined us as the new CFO on July 1st this year. Matthieu will now walk us through our commercial and financial results as well as the outlook for the coming period. Matthieu, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Xavier, and good morning everyone. I'm pleased to be here today as the new CFO of Orange Belgium, having joined the team very recently on the 1st of July. I look forward to sharing with you a detailed overview of our financial performance for the first half of 2026, as well as our outlook for the months ahead. Over the past few weeks, I've been closely involved in analyzing our results, value growth drivers, and meeting the teams. Let me walk you through the main drivers behind our performance and our key financial highlights.
Let's start by some of our key achievements for the first half of 2026. Commercially, we've maintained growth despite a challenging market environment. Our mobile postpaid customer base increased by 41,000 net adds, reaching 3.59 million, which is a 2.2% increase year-over-year. On the fixed side, our cable customer base grew by 8,000, totaling over 1 million customers, a 1.3% increase this semester. Financially, revenues reach EUR 966.5 million, a slight increase of 0.4%, driven by balanced volume and value management.
EBITDA grew significantly by 10.5%, reaching EUR 292.5 million, mainly due to synergies, cost efficiency, and also some one-off impacts, including football rights. Our investments in network infrastructure, particularly in mobile and fixed networks, continue to support our growth ambitions with eCapex at EUR 184.8 million. Now let's look more closely at our commercial performance. On the fixed side, our cable customer base growth of 8,000, reaching over 1 million, is supported by our high-speed gigabit network.
These results highlight the continued success of our convergent offers and our focus on delivering high-quality connectivity. Our mobile postpaid customer base increased by 41,000, driven by improved customer management and attractive offers, bringing us to 3.59 million subscribers. This demonstrates our ability to retain and attract customers in a challenging market. Turning to our financial results, we generated EUR 966.5 million in revenues, a modest increase of 0.4%. Major part of this growth is thanks to the service revenue being up 0.7%.
This reflects our balanced approach to volume and value management, even amid some short-term headwinds like the decline in interconnection revenues and the temporary impact of the absence of football rights. Our EBITDA grew by 10.5%, reaching EUR 292 million, driven by synergies from recent acquisition on ongoing cost management efforts and supported by some one-off impacts. We maintained our investments in network infrastructure at a stable level compared to last year, with eCapex totaling EUR 184.8 million.
This was primarily driven by mobile network consolidation and initiatives in fixed deployment. Looking ahead, we are confident in our trajectory. We have upgraded our guidance for 2026, expecting EBITDA to grow by more than 5% in comparison to 2025, and maintaining our eCapex around EUR 360 million. These targets reflect our commitment to sustainable growth and technological leadership. With that, I would like to conclude our presentation.
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 questions?
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question at this time, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. The voice prompt on your phone line will indicate when your line is open to ask a question. Please state your name and your affiliation before posing your question. Again, it is star one to ask a question. We will now take our first question. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi, good morning, everyone. David Wagman here from ING. Thanks for taking my question. The first one is on the financial guidance for this year. Could you please quantify the full year one-off for 2026? Could you update us on the different building blocks of the EBITDA growth this year, including the VOO synergy tailwinds? That is my first question. Second question is on revenue growth. How do you see revenue and ARPU developed in the second half compared to H1?
Do you expect some further improvement on convergent revenues and mobile only? These two specifically. Last question is on the Orange NetCo. What is your view on the expected timing for the approval in Wallonia? Thank you.
Hello, David. This is Matthieu. Thank you for your questions. I will take the first two questions, Xavier will answer your third question. I will not be that specific, but if you look at the effect of one-offs for the first half on how this will develop for the second half. First of all, the EBITDA performance is a combination of operational execution on non-recurring items with some seasonality. The two temporary factors impact positively first half of EBITDA. First, as we highlighted, the agreement with DAZN was just signed, and no content costs related to these rights were recognized in H1.
This was partially offset by a lower contribution to revenue during the period. Secondly, we have a change in our accounting policy for the tax treatment of balance that will create a favorable year-on-year comparison in the first half. We will not disclose more in detail the impact of these individual items. If you look ahead, we expect that our underlying operational drivers, revenue growth, and value management strategy, together with the continued synergies and cost efficiency, will continue to fuel our EBITDA growth, and more importantly, in the second half.
The temporary benefits that you will see in H1, including the absence of football content cost, will reverse in H2. All in all, in the overall performance of H2, you will have a stronger contribution from efficiency revenue growth, somehow linked to seasonality. You have a reversed effect of one-off. Overall, the growth for the full year will be mainly driven by operational drivers. With regard to revenue growth in H2, without being too specific, we continue to expect service growth to core retail in the H2. You will see overall growth of this line for the full year, probably to a lower extent than the H1.
Okay. The lower contribution, let's say the lower growth in H2 is due to some specific factor?
No, it's just seasonality.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. We will pause for a moment to allow you to signal.
Sorry, I think we have not answered your third question, David, if I may. The question was on the Orange NetCo expecting timing for the approval. It's true to say that we've been in close relationship with the watchdog, the BCA and the BIPT in H1. I would say late H1, we've just sent through the BCA and BIPT most of the document, most of the long form that have been, of course, established with Proximus. We aim to get the approval, I would say we hope that by the end of the year or maybe much more in Q1 2027.
Of course, we will work hand to glove with the watchdogs in this H2 to be the most, of course, efficient and reliable to get it. By the end of the year and/or Q1 2027, we must be in this kind of timing in terms of clearance.
Okay, perfect. Thanks, both.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. We will pause for just a moment to allow you to signal. It appears there are currently no further questions at this time. With this, I'd like to hand the call back over to our host.
We still have.
Hold on. Apologies.
Yeah.
We have a pop-up question over the phone. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hello again. I didn't dare to ask four question in a row, I'll ask my last question. On the commercial momentum and zooming on broadband net adds, could you give us a rough idea of the different dynamic in the north and in the south of the country? Are you, for instance, taking share in Flanders still in broadband while losing a bit in Wallonia? As a follow-up to that, do you expect your HFC network investment in Wallonia to help with net adds in the coming semester or years? Thank you.
David, I will take this one. You're right to say that we do have different markets. You know that by heart now in Belgium. In the south of the country, we are co-leading the market with Proximus. Of course, it's much more something like an anti-churn market. While in the north, it's clearly and purely a flow of acquisition for us, a conquest market share at that time. We are leveraging, I would say, the two go-to market system using the two brands as well. It's clear that it's maybe a bit different in the South than in the North while we are migrating the VOO customers from the VOO brand to Orange at the same time.
We are closely monitoring these markets. The growth is clearly driven by the north of the country in terms of our market share, in terms of conquest market share.
Any view whether the HFC investment you've been making could help in the south on the road?
Actually, it helps. I think you've seen that our convergent service revenues are growing. This is, of course, leveraged by the continuous investment and modernization we've made on the HFC in the south. We are also, of course, emphasizing the speed as well. We have more and more customers that have been put on the one gig offers, and it helps also on the ARPU. You must have seen that the ARPU is growing on the broadband as well. This, of course, helps us on the ARPU.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you. Okay.
Thank you. There are currently no further questions over the phone.
Okay, we still have some questions which have been raised online. They are coming from Paul Sidney from Berenberg. First question is, what impact are you seeing across your mobile footprint from Digi?
We continue to see several impact on the mobile-only. It's a mobile-only market. It's not coming only from Digi. It's coming also from Telenet and Proximus that are leveraging either their A or B brands to tackle this market. As said by Matthieu, it's a very animated market. We see a lot of promotions across the footprints, discounts on the A brands and of course the B brands. We are leveraging all our tools on the mobile, all brands, depending on the market. Digi is one of, I would say, the peer we are scrutinizing, but of course not only.
The second question is please could you update us on the expected progress from here on the fiber JV with Proximus, including any key milestones, dates going forward?
Thank you, Paul. It's just for the, I would say, the sake of clarity, it's not a JV we're having with Proximus. It's a deal that has been proposed, as I said to the watchdog a few weeks ago. As said to David, we are expecting to get the clearance by the end of the year or at the latest Q1 2027. Of course, it indicates as I said, hand to glove work with the watchdogs, but also with Proximus in the coming months to make sure that we will get the clearance as soon as we can.
A last question from Paul. Over time, does Orange Belgium plan to resell the Flanders fiber of Proximus Telenet?
Yes. Sorry, what is one more?
If you want to resell the fiber from.
If we want to resell?
Yeah.
Yes, sure. We've signed this agreement with Telenet Wyre in the past to get either access to HFC but also to fiber they will build. Of course, as soon as we can, we will develop our commercial offer within the north, within the Wyre Telenet footprint, of course.
There are no further questions. We would like to thank you for your participation, and if you would have any more further follow-up questions, please don't hesitate to contact the IR team. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.