Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It is now our duty to report to you. Okay, along with our senior management, I'm very happy to have this opportunity to present you with our results. All the happier that you will see that broadly speaking, our results are quite good. In 2019, Bouygues reached its annual targets, thanks to robust results supported by all its businesses. To begin with, the group improved its profitability. It improved its current operating profit and its current operating margin year-on-year. This is when restated for the sale of a part of our stake in Axione in 2018. In 2019, we also generated a lot of free cash flow. In fact, free cash flow of EUR 301 million. Reaching our free cash flow target that we set ourselves at EUR 300 million, that was back in 2017.
While free cash flow after working capital requirements, but not including the Alstom dividend, increased twofold to EUR 815 million in 2019. Finally, net debt was down substantially to EUR 2.2 billion, down from EUR 3.6 billion at year-end 2018. In the light of these results, the board of directors has decided to propose to the AGM of April 23rd a dividend of EUR 2.60 per share, of which EUR 0.90 will be on an exceptional basis. Now, the free cash flow trend after working capital requirements has confirmed our confidence in our ability to generate EUR 1 billion in free cash flow in 2020. Let's now look back at what we achieved in 2019. Sales were up 7% for the year to EUR 37.9 billion. On a like-for-like basis, that was a 5% increase, a performance that was driven by all our businesses.
Current operating income was up EUR 112 million and up EUR 278 million if we factor out the impact of the Axione shares. The current operating profit in 2018 included a EUR 106 million capital gain as a result of the sale of part of our stake in Axione. This substantial increase was driven by all three activities. The current operating margin of 4.4% was up 30 basis points. That is not including the impact of the Axione disposal. Net profit attributable for the group was EUR 1.184 billion, down EUR 124 million over the period due to the EUR 133 million decrease in operating profit over the period. This in turn was due to non-operating income of EUR 20 million after a non-operating income of EUR 265 million in the previous year, mainly due to Bouygues Telecom.
As I said by way of introduction, one of the landmark events was the very strong generation of free cash flow. On the right-hand side of this slide, we have a chart showing group's free cash flow after working capital requirement between 2018 and 2020. We have also isolated the dividend from Alstom in 2018 and 2019, which were respectively for EUR 22 million and EUR 341 million. If we factor out the Alstom dividend, free cash flow after working capital requirements more than doubled between 2018 and 2020 to reach EUR 815 million. Several components contributed to that. EUR 330 million increase in free cash flow from the three businesses, the stability of net CapEx, and the improvement in the variation of working capital requirements for operations, which was actually improved by EUR 176 million.
The group is thus well-positioned to achieve its free cash flow after working capital requirement target of EUR 1 billion. That's the EUR 1 billion mark by the end of 2020. Bouygues strengthened its financial structure in 2019. We significantly reduced our net debt from 3.6 to 2.2 billion EUR. Obviously, the positive impact of the Alstom disposal for 1.4 billion EUR. This amount includes the dividend received in July, also the proceeds from the sale of 13% of Alstom's capital, a sale that was carried out last year. As a result, our net gearing declined sharply by 14 point to 19%. We have a very considerable cash. In fact, EUR 11.6 billion in available cash, comprised of EUR 3.6 billion in cash and EUR 8.3 billion in undrawn facilities. The debt maturity schedule is, as you can see, very smooth and very well distributed over the period.
Finally, in October of last year, we redeemed a bond for a total of EUR 1 billion. This strong financial structure means that we have independence and it will also ensure the sustainability of our business model. I'm now going to give the floor to Hervé Le Bouc, who will give you a detailed review of our various operations and activities. Olivier.
Thank you, Martin. Good morning, everyone. We will start with the construction business and, of course, the order book, stable now at a very high level, EUR 33 billion over one year. You can see on the slide, you could see that there are two high marks on the slide, 2018 and 2019. That shows that the solutions that we are in a position to deliver do meet expectations. A high demand or sustained demand because of reorganization brought about by climate change, and the fact that we can actually deliver infrastructure and low carbon solutions. Colas' order book restated for foreign currency effects, and we sold this back last year, is drawn by international business, significant orders in Guiana and the U.K.
As we shall see, in France, as expected, the order book did slow down at the end of the year because of the upcoming municipal elections in March 2020, which is not very conducive to new orders for mayors. Bouygues Construction's order book in France is stable, and down in international. We do have a big contract for a tunnel in Hong Kong, EUR 756 million. There was a lower order book for Bouygues Immobilier, because in 2019, there was less on offer. This was because building permits were delivered late. Of course, there's again, the upcoming elections. By and large, the fundamentals are good. The market is buoyant, the size is significant, and the need for housing is still there. Of course, low interest rates mean that people can still invest.
The order share of Bouygues Construction, Bouygues Construction and Colas internationally stands at 62% compared with 61% last year. Quite a significant amount. A few examples of big contracts in Q4, the Hong Kong tunnel, EUR 756 million on the left-hand side of the slide. There was a disposal. Sorry, the Suez Building in Issy-les-Moulineaux was built in Q4. We have high-level service districts. We have that in French Guiana in Cayenne. That was EUR 180 million. Network Rail in Britain, that's a work on the railway, EUR 553 million. Let's look at the order, the financial aspects. We have, without including Axione, the current operating profit for construction stood at EUR 75 million. Sorry, improved by EUR 75 million, and that is because we have an improvement in Bouygues Energies & Services.
In October 2018, we had difficulty, the margin was -0.4%, it's a positive 2.1%. Regarding public works and building, we have a satisfactory margin at 3.1%. Operating profit from Colas is up thanks to the good performance of the Routes Métropole, but also Colas Rail breaking even. The operating profit for Colas has gained 0.4%, from 3.2%. There's significant contributions of Immobilier Entreprises. That's Bouygues Immobilier for commercial premises. In Q4 in particular, there was some improvement. The Q4 operating profit was 5.2% versus 2.6% for the first three quarters. Operating profit for the construction business, the margin stood at 3.1%, so a slight improvement compared to 2018. Before moving on to the other businesses, I would like to address an issue that we did discuss during the half-year results, that's the low-carbon approach for all three construction businesses.
We have a wide, broad portfolio of low-carbon solutions on offer. This is an issue we've been working with for quite some time. We started this in 2005, 2006, where we started providing innovative low-carbon solutions to our customers. In 2019, we continued with a strengthened offer and a better leadership position for sustainable building. Every time we give you a few examples of projects or solutions provided by our construction business. Bouygues Immobilier in Strasbourg delivered the highest 100% timber tower residential building. We got the BBCA label for the Enjoy operation, which is the largest office building with a wooden structure. Bouygues Construction started the first building for reversible, the circular economy called Office Switch Home, where namely you can switch from office to home, and that is right up the concept of the circular economy. We have Wattway.
That was a new development we introduced a few years ago. A few months ago, we came up with Wattway Pack. That enables local authorities to have a turnkey system of autonomous plugs and power points. You could plug in your electric car, or you could use that for connected services. At the end of the presentation, Martin Bouygues will give you more details about the group's approach to sustainable development, what we've been doing or what we will be doing in 2020 to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions. Talking about innovative solutions, let me show you this movie about what we've been doing. A solar farm built by Bouygues Energies & Services. It's the largest in Europe. It's in Piolenc in France. Do have a look. Let us move on to TF1.
The results were presented last week by Gilles, so I'll be quick. We find the audience share was high in 2019. For the group as a whole, we had a 32.6% audience share for women below 50 and 29.4% for individuals between the ages of 25 and 49. The comparison basis in 2018 was tough because last year we had the Men's Football Cup, and so that drew in a high audience. Revenue for 2019 was EUR 2.337 billion, up 2% compared to 2018. This is mostly due to external growth. Current operating profits stood at EUR 255 million, up EUR 56 million over the year. Operating margin was up 2.2 percentage points to 10.9%, and so TF1 was able to reach its 2019 target double-digit operating margin. That reflects not just growth in revenue, but also keeping the cost of programs under control.
Programming costs came down from EUR 1.04 billion in 2018 to EUR 985 million in 2019. The good performance enabled TF1 to confirm its target for 2020 and indeed for 2021. 2020, we propose to keep a double-digit operating margin and keeping programming costs under control at EUR 985 million. There's Unify. We want to have at least EUR 250 million and 15% EBITDA. TF1 has its prospect of sustainable growth and wants to become a major player in total video. What is total video? Well, TF1's business is moving from being, it's now a provider of content on all forms of media. It can be broadcast and digital, it can be all forms of consumption. It can be linear replay or video on demand. It can be provided replay, it can be linear. TF1 has decided to adapt its various offers to meet customers' expectations, new users.
Salto will be launched in September 2020. This is a joint project with M6, France Télévisions, and TF1. It's a video on demand by subscription, and it's getting ready for addressable TV, which is what will enable it to enter the segmented advertising business. We also propose to strengthen its production capability with the international development of Newen. 80% of Newen's content was produced internationally. If you take into account all the production for 2019, it means that as much as 50% of all TF1's production will be done internationally. The digital development is continuing. We have now a single advertising agency called Unify Advertising with synergies within Unify, but also with other units of TF1. Moving on to Bouygues Telecom now. Let's start with the growth figures for the mobile and fixed businesses. There was growth in both.
The number of customers, not including machine to machine, includes 11.5 million customers at end 2019, including 653,000 new customers in the year, including 152,000 in Q4 alone. That was mobile. In fixed, the base of customer was up 427,000 new customers for FTTH, including 142,000 in Q4. The penetration rate for FTTH now stands at 25% at end December, whereas it was only 16% a year before. The FTTH base now has 1 million customers with 3.9 million customers for the fixed customer base altogether. If you look at the financial performance, sales was up at Bouygues Telecom. In services, we have an 8% growth in 2019. As you can see on the right-hand side of the slide, this is due to mobile growth, 5.5%, and 14% for fixed service.
The growth in service revenue in 2019, we haven't got the announcements from our competitors, but we have reason to believe that we will have the strongest performance in the market. This is because of the larger customer base, but also because we have an improvement in ABPU, average billing p er user. EUR 27 per customer per month. That's for fixed service, already up in the first three quarters of 2019 compared with 2018. It still is up EUR 1.1 in Q4 compared to Q4 2018. Very good news. For the first time since 2011, mobile ABPU is up compared to last year. It now stands at EUR 19.7, up EUR 0.50 compared with Q4 2018. Looking now at income after sales, we see that total revenue stood at EUR 6.1 billion, up 13% over the year.
Will be 12% on the like basis because Bouygues Telecom acquired two companies at the beginning of 2019, Nerim and Keyyo. EBITDA after lease stood at EUR 1.411 billion, up EUR 147 million over the year. EBITDA margin was up one percentage point to 30.7%. Current operating profits stood at EUR 540 million, up EUR 86 million over the year. Operating profit was down EUR 166 million for two reasons. In 2019, there were fewer disposals, so there were less in terms of capital gains. There was an old dispute we have with the French government that dated back to 2013 and 2014. There was EUR 150 million that was recognized in 2018, and that was about the 1,800 MHz frequencies. We had a litigation with the government for that amount, and so the provision was reversed. As expected, gross investment stood at EUR 940 million, down EUR 303 million.
Free cash flow was up EUR 109 million to EUR 301 million. That was the objective announced three years ago. We had actually announced EUR 300 million three years ago. This is the consequence of our differentiation strategy that Bouygues Telecom has implemented over the past few years. There are four aspects to that. Number one, we want to make sure that our customers have a simple and fluid experience. We also, of course, want to ensure excellent quality of both the mobile and fixed networks. We also want to provide service to the less densely populated areas and a full array of fixed and mobile solutions for companies to improve Bouygues Telecom's position on the B2B market. With a view to providing a high-quality customer experience, we've been pursuing a cross-cutting strategy. Small steps that may help improve the experience of customers.
Fewer clicks needed to complete an operation online, for instance. Customer satisfaction has improved. We can see this when you go to the ARCEP site in February. That's the number of warnings received per operator, per customer. Bouygues Telecom has generated the fewest number of claims or complaints to ARCEP. If you compare with our competitors, we can see that we have only 13 requests or complaints out of 100,000 customers. With a view to meeting customer expectations, again, you may remember that we launched a new modem for the Bbox fiber box. Customers want the best possible Wi-Fi at home. What we've decided to do, well, Wi-Fi is better relayed when we have a vertical box as opposed to a horizontal box. We've decided to do just that. Up until now, people had boxes flat on the floor.
The upright boxes was something you found in North America rather than in Europe. All of you may have experienced the connection of your PC or mobile to the net. You had to enter a 26-character WEP code. Now we can use a QR code, and that makes things much easier. You can make things easier and more fluid for customers. We also want to improve our image and our identity. We believe that human relations are the key to happiness, and we've started this new identity. The idea is to be present throughout media points. A large advertising campaign has been unfolding, and you can see, if you haven't seen it before, what you have on TV to advertise our brand.
When I go out, yeah, I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you. When I come home, yeah, I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who's coming home to you. When I'm dreaming, well, I know I'm gonna dream, I'm gonna dream about the time when I'm with you. I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles to fall down at your door. When I'm lonely, well, I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who's lonely without you. If I grow old, well, I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who's growing old with you. I would walk 500 miles. I would walk 500 more. Just to be with you. Walk 1,000 miles to fall down at your door.
That's a fine film on friendship. The quality of networks is, of course, mixed, is a differentiating factor. Again, we were distinguished by ARCEP, the telecom authority, as being the best operator, first operator in rural areas, and the second on average over the territory. We now cover 99% of the population with the 4G network. We have a base of 21,000 mobile sites. There will be as many as 28,000 by 2023. In the fixed business, we have 12 million marketed FTTH premises. Now our objective is to have 22 million rather than 20 million marketed premises by 2022. As regards to B2B, we already have a good position in the mobile business, but we want to have a larger market share in the fixed business for B2B. We use several offers for that, new innovative offers by Bouygues Telecom or through partnerships.
We are looking at small and very small companies. The idea is to use the wherewithal of Keyyo and Nerim, but also we are capitalizing on our FTTO infrastructure, and that will bring me to my next subject because our strategy has always been pragmatic. We felt that we could pool resources for towers with other operators, and we felt that it was necessary to have an optic fiber infrastructure to meet the major data requirements that will only increase over the years. The idea is to connect various points of the networks to target those areas that are not receiving services yet, to be able to deliver 5G in the future. We also propose to have a fixed wholesale capacity so that being able to resell it to other operators. Then fiber to the office.
The fiber offer is precisely one of the needs of the corporate sector of the B2B market. We will be in a position to both provide and operate this as part of a joint venture. We'll be the minority shareholder. The whole project will be EUR 1 billion over seven years, and Bouygues Telecom will have a long-term contract with this partner in a joint venture where we would be therefore the minority partner. Regarding FTTH premises, right now, Bouygues Telecom has access to Orange medium populated areas through co-investment or renting a part of the premises. We are looking to partners to start another joint venture. Bouygues Telecom will be the minority partner there. The idea there would be to co-finance the purchase of these 5% tranches of the premises and, of course, offer the services and the operation of these premises.
We will be buying the network that was rolled out by Orange. As the number of customer increases, the business customer increases, we will be acquiring more tranches, 5% tranches of the network. We'll have a long-term service contract with our partner. We will be sharing the premises. We had already purchased some of the premises from Orange. These premises purchased from Orange will be rolled out in the medium populated areas. When we can announce the partner, we will. I'll now give the floor to Philippe Marien, who will get into the details of the financial accounts.
Thank you, Olivier. Good morning to all. Just a few additional words about these accounts closed at December 31st. I'm not going to go back to sales and current operating profit because both have been commented business by business. Other operating income and expenses, as you heard, were down substantially on 2018. It's in fact 2018 that was exceptionally high, particularly at Bouygues Telecom, as Olivier has just explained. The cost of net debt was down slightly on 2018 because of the fact that our average net debt over the period was lower in 2019 than in 2018. Moving on to the remainder of the income statement. An effective tax rate of 32%. This was up on the effective tax rate in 2018, which was 27%. You will remember that last year, the effective rate was lower because of two things.
First of all, the capital gain on the disposal of our stake in Axione, which was below the normative tax rate, and also in 2019, the transformation of the so-called CICE tax credit, which is now set against personnel expenses. It was a tax credit, and of course, lower expenses is lower expenses, and from an accounting point of view, the impact is not the same. If we restate 2018 for these two impacts, Axione and the tax credit, which became a lower level expense, this leaves us with an effective tax rate of 31%. However, the rates were very comparable in 2018 and 2019 for recurring business. The share of net income with joint ventures and associates rose to EUR 48 million. With Alstom, the figure is the same, almost identical for the two years. We explained back in September that these two figures are not comparable.
They're very contrasting situations. In 2018, the EUR 230 million was our group share in Alstom's net income for 2018. Its net income was high at the time, in particular, because a certain number of provisions concerning the disposal of Power and Grid, these provisions were reversed. That did not happen again in 2019. For these results, Alstom contributed EUR 66 million to us in 2017. Of course then there's the capital gain on the disposal of part of our stake in 2019 for a total of EUR 172 million, which gives us the EUR 238 million in 2019.
The remainder of the increase in this item was due to the good performance of Tipco, which is our company that refines and distributes bitumen in Asia through Colas, but also to the impact of Bouygues Telecom's two disposals, its stake in the Zagreb Airport, I should say, rather, and motorways in Jamaica. Overall, net profit attributable to the group was EUR 1.184 billion. Moving on to the balance sheet. Non-current assets were down EUR 640 million. Current assets include Bouygues Telecom for EUR 132. The goodwill down EUR 230 million. You have the main components of that goodwill item. Of course, with Alpiq Engineering Services , the goodwill was reallocated in early 2019. Most of it was in late 2018. Keyyo and Nerim were the two Bouygues Telecom acquisitions in the course of 2019. De Mensen and Reel One were the two acquisitions made by TF1 in 2019.
Of course, in this particular item, we also have a Forex impact, which increases this item. This particularly concerned the Canadian dollar in 2019. A substantial decrease in joint ventures and associates, which mainly concerned the accounting impact of the disposal of our 13% stake in Alstom in the course of 2019. So much for the EUR 640 million in non-current assets. Current assets rose EUR 1.147 billion. Current operating assets +EUR 503 because of the increase in the level of business, and cash rose by EUR 646 million due to the sale of our Alstom shares. We have no more assets held for sale because at the end of 2018, this item concerned SMAC, the disposal of SMAC, having been carried out in early 2019. We have no more assets held for sale. Moving on to the liabilities side. Shareholders' equity, to begin, rose by EUR 768 million.
The changes are quite traditional. Net profit of EUR 1.32 billion. Dividends paid out, EUR 710 million. Capital transaction reserves, +EUR 202 million. This concerned stock options exercised in 2019, but more importantly, the capital increase reserved for employees as Bouygues Confiance n°11 carried out in December 2019, this was for a total of EUR 150 million. Of course, Scope, another impact, EUR 44 million. Non-current liabilities were down EUR 636 million. This was mainly a decrease in non-current debt for EUR 800 million. This included EUR 1 billion from the bond we will redeem in July of this year, which is therefore no longer non-current. It becomes current. Of course, in 2019, we increased Bouygues Telecom's debt for approximately some EUR 200 million. Now, liabilities related to held-for-sale operations. That's the reverse entry for SMAC, so there are no other transactions at the end of the year.
Overall, a net debt of EUR 2.2 billion, as Martin Bouygues said in his comments. This was down substantially from the net debt a year beforehand. How did this net debt vary over the year? First of all, we had the impact from the disposal of our 30% stake in Alstom and the EUR 341 million dividend. Total impact on cash of EUR 1.4 billion from Alstom. Acquisitions, net of disposals, totaled EUR 180 million outflow in cash. These are the various transactions we heard about earlier on. Keyyo, Nerim, De Mensen, and Reel One, and the sale of a small activity, Bacula. EUR 182 million is the cash equivalent of various operations that I mentioned, share buybacks, exercise of stock options, the Bouygues Confiance n°11, dividends, EUR 710 million, and of course, operations, which increased by almost EUR 700 million. A sharp increase on operations back in 2018.
The increase is almost EUR 400 million in cash from operations or cash flow from operations. This breakdown of this operations breaks down as follows. Given IFRS 16, we prefer to talk about cash flow including leases. Leases have become amortization, which by construction mechanically increases your net cash flow. We don't feel this is particularly relevant. What we're interested in is the EUR 2.640 billion or EUR 2.680 billion that we generated in 2019, which was up by EUR 263 million on 2018. This is an important matter because it's always good to see the conversion to cash of better results, which is the case in 2019. CapEx, almost identical to the level we had in 2018 and fully in line with the guidance we gave you and the budget.
I suppose the outstanding item here in 2019, particularly in the fourth quarter, was the change in the variation of working capital requirements. EUR 400 million outflow last year. At the end of September, the order of magnitude was still very similar. We felt that it would be difficult to improve in any substantial way our cash flow in the fourth quarter. Well, the various measures taken in all our businesses, in inventory and customer receivables, all of that helped us improve the situation. As a result, the variation in working capital requirements was a much smaller outflow, EUR 173 million. Much smaller than the previous year. Improved net free cash flow and a lesser deterioration of working capital requirement contributed to this EUR 400 million improvement, which was a very good performance for the year. As always, you then have the breakdown of CapEx by business line.
Not much needs to be said. Very little variation between 2018 and 2019. In fact, very much in line with the business plan. That is what I have to say about the accounts at December 31st, 2019. As you know, this is the last time I will be making this presentation, the last time I will be commenting on financial performance. I would like to thank you for everything we have done together over the last 12 years. Over the period, we have talked about the company's business, its strategy, its financial statements over 48 x, which is a lot of times. In all events, it was a great wealth of experience for us because thanks to your careful listening, your comments, your remarks, we have improved. I think we have done better than in the past.
That certainly helped us to take on board a number of issues that you raised over the years in order to try and ensure that, thanks to you, our shareholders are better served. For that, I'd like to thank you all. Pascal Grangé, who has been with me since October last, is now familiar with every aspect of the group. He has always been familiar with construction, but he's now familiar with all our businesses. He will be my successor, and I'm sure he will continue this relationship with you. Thank you for everything.
Thank you, Philippe. That's moving comments, moving times. Somewhat emotional for the group. It's an important passing of the baton because the CFO's position is a very important position in the group. As Philippe said, Pascal Grangé has what it takes.
In fact, in the last six months, he has deepened his knowledge of the group. Philippe will be leaving us at the end of the week, which is not very far away, and all that remains for us to do is to wish him a very happy retirement in the best possible conditions. I'm going to wrap up today's presentation by telling you about the group's ambitions for 2020. In long-term growth markets, our construction businesses will strengthen their portfolio of low-carbon solutions in order to maintain their leadership in sustainable construction. These businesses will also benefit from the various measures taken to improve their profitability. For instance, the current operating margin will continue to increase. We expect it to improve in 2020 by comparison with 2019. As for TF1 will benefit from sustainable growth to position itself as a major player in the video market.
It will maintain the cost of programs at EUR 985 million, thanks to Gilles Pélisson, and will continue to deliver double-digit margin, that's current operating margin, in 2020. Bouygues Telecom will continue to grow by leveraging its differentiation strategy, thanks to the quality of networks and customer experience, as well as the appeal of the brand, as Olivier Roussat explained so vividly. In 2020, the top line growth from services is expected to be around 5%, and free cash flow should exceed EUR 300 million in a broader context of increased CapEx due to the increased 4G capacity and the start of the rollout of 5G. We expect to invest between EUR 1.1 billion and EUR 1.2 billion in gross CapEx, that's excluding 5G frequencies, in 2020. All this leaves Bouygues well-positioned to pursue its sustainable growth, but we have set ourselves two targets for 2020.
First of all, to generate free cash flow after working capital requirements of EUR 1 billion, with contributions from all three sectors' activity. Secondly, to reduce our group's greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. In fact, back 15 years ago, I wanted Bouygues to provide its clients with low-carbon solutions. The group now has acknowledged know-how that leaves it in a leading position in low-carbon solutions. We must not just maintain, but increase our efforts to reduce carbon emissions. We've asked our businesses to define a target that's in keeping with the Paris Agreement. Remember that the Paris Agreement aims at limiting the climate warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius. I've asked this group to draw up a plan of action this year. We will be reporting back to you on this particular point at a later stage.
Once again, I'd like to thank all the group's employees for their commitment, their energy in all various businesses with a view to our development. We are, of course, with my colleagues at your disposal to answer your questions. Thank you.
First question. Nicolas Cote-Colisson from HSBC. I have a question on telecoms. First of all, could you help us anticipate the impact of EBITDA and CapEx, the impact of the two joint ventures? Is this already built into the guidance that you've given us for CapEx on 2020, or is it mostly after 2021? Also, do you have any buyback clauses to become a majority shareholder in these two joint ventures in due course? Another question on telecom. That's the ABPU in fixed telephones, which increased substantially in Q4. Was this mainly because of price increases, or was any of this due to increases in connection costs, for example?
Richard, yeah, will answer that.
Y es. Concerning these two joint ventures, yes, the figures are built into the guidance. Of course, the situation could be changed at a later stage. We could well be other than minority shareholders. Yes, that's a possibility. Thirdly, concerning the ABPU review, it's indeed because of a price increase. First of all, price themselves intrinsically increased, but also our customer mix evolved as well. They're the two components.
Gentleman here. I'm from Oddo Securities. I also have a question on telecoms. Maybe a few words about the excellent performance in mobile and mobile prices. Q4 was calm. Is there a broader context for that, or is this a general market trend? What about Bouygues' trend within the mobile market? My second question concerns what fiber will enable Bouygues Telecom to achieve in the average density regions, where I imagine Bouygues' market share is somewhat lower than its natural or national market share. Have you any intention of gaining market share in these areas in the medium term?
We are clearly the mavericks in the fixed telecommunications business. You're some way short of your target of 4 million. No, that was not our objective. That was our initial objective. We revise our objectives over time. No, Richard will also answer those questions. My understanding is that I need to give you four or five answers, I think by order in which you asked your questions. You talked about the mobile revenue in Q4. There was an exceptional event that we'd had the previous year in Q3, intrinsically, revenue increased for several reasons.
First of all, mobile prices. Remember back in 2017, there was something of a crisis with EUR 5 for life, if you remember. In 2018, we were talking about EUR 10 for life. The end of 2019, I think we're talking about EUR 12 for life. That's the kind of promotions that we hear about. In terms of revenue, consumers are increasing and are upgrading their packs. Of course, there is an increase in ABPU. Has that answered all your questions or was there something I've missed? Okay, thank you. Next question.
Joseph Pouget from Kepler Cheuvreux, I have three questions. You talked a lot about reducing carbon footprint and low carbon solutions. Is this something you intend to develop in-house or have you any target acquisitions, particularly companies that are on the cutting edge in this area, maybe for a transition to energy and services?
Do you see energy and services as a sub-segment that's really benefiting from this energy transition? My second question, will I give it to you now? I'll tell you what. On low carbon solutions, as I mentioned in my presentation. 15 years ago, I decided to strategically orient Bouygues in this area, well before everybody else. Why? Well, I talked with my brother Olivier 15 years ago about buying Château Montrose. I would recommend it's an excellent Bordeaux from Saint-Estèphe. It's a second classified growth, by the way. In making this acquisition, we didn't have any real capacity in wine growing, to be very honest. We were mere consumers. We had no particular skills in wine growing. The domain really deserved being renovated, refurbished.
At the time, I remember saying that insofar as we are very fortunate to have a magnificent product that sells at a very good price, we mustn't have a negative impact on the environment. I tried to mobilize skill sets within Bouygues and found that we had very few skills in this area. From 2005, 2006 onwards, I fostered a keenness, a strong will in all our business at Colas, Bouygues Energies & Services, Bouygues Telecom, everywhere, not just in construction. Bouygues Immobilier, of course. The upshot of this is that the various business activities started proposing innovative solutions. We recruited people and sent them out across the world and found that we were building up a certain amount of know-how, but we weren't good at transferring it or sharing it. We developed a specific purpose-built tool for the purpose of sharing know-how in this area.
To put this know-how at the disposal of all our employees in all areas revolving around sustainable development. This was very much a priority. Bouygues Construction is selling low carbon solutions throughout the world. We are asked about low carbon solutions in housing, in whole neighborhoods or in cities for that matter. Likewise, Colas is able to submit tenders whilst proposing solutions that really build sustainable development into what they're offering, either by saving on transportation or recycling materials. The circular economy is now one of our development trusts. Will we have the opportunity or will we not specialize ourselves in these areas? Well, if needs be, yes, why not? There are a lot of people who are very much at the cutting edge in the group in these areas. I believe that we're not lagging behind. The momentum is such that we must increase it.
We're far from lagging behind, in fact, but I think we need to continue to develop, continue to expand our know-how. It's much easier to build a positive energy building than to build an aircraft, a positive energy aircraft. There's room in a building that consumes a lot less energy and so on. Ours are businesses where this whole low carbon approach is much easier. If you go to Challenger, I'm sure you're all familiar with this. What you'll find is that we implemented a modernization program a few years ago that has served as a model to teach people how to transform an existing building to a highly modern building that reduces its energy consumption, that actually produces its own energy. This applies to water, among others. We've learned an awful lot. This has taught us a lot.
This experience is something that we show to our clients. We have a training center for our engineers and all our employees. I think there are great opportunities there for groups like ours, because this is a very complex type of knowhow. It's quite recent and isn't really within the grasp of smaller companies that have less access to this type of technology. Remember, it's a costly technology, expensive. Well, energy and services, while the energy and services part of Bouygues Construction is obviously concerned by low carbon solutions, but in the same way as the rest of the group. You saw the floating solar farm, well, that's Bouygues Energies & Services within Bouygues Construction. They built that. We built other facilities in Japan and Australia and here, there, and everywhere.
Yes, this is an area in which we hope to progress, in which we hope to be able to make our contribution. For the other parts of your question, the second part. There was a second question on telecoms. About a fortnight ago, Orange and Free talked about network sharing. Is this something that inspires you, or are you happy with Saint-Malo and Asterix? I love Saint-Malo. I'm very fond of Saint-Malo. Not just the idea of Saint-Malo. Let me be very clear about this. Imagine a fully shared network owned by Orange. I can perfectly well understand that being of great appeal to Orange, but not to us. A few years ago, we pushed for a fourth network. We said that four mobile networks at EUR 10 billion was more complex in a market than three.
Well, I've said, "No, no, it's not." Now there are four. We have done a certain amount of sharing apart our networks with SFR on the medium-low density networks, which entailed a huge investment. We made that investment. We're glad we did, and we're very happy about all that. Now, if Orange and Free want to do something similar, I don't see why not. In fact, I can only encourage them. I'm sure it's in their interest to do that, and why not? However, to my mind, the idea of a single network would be a major strategic mistake, because each of the four players, Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom, or Iliad, each and every one of us has experienced major technical problems, all of us. If we were to have just one network, everybody would be down at the same time.
I don't think that's necessary. On the contrary, I think wisdom would have it that in mobile networks, which by definition are somewhat fragile, I think it would be wiser to, let's say, divide or share out risk. I do not believe in sharing a single network at all. To my mind, from the technological point of view, it would be nonsensical, particularly from the point of view of technological safety. I don't see the point. That's my point of view, but others may think differently. Maybe I should add that when you share networks, what do you share exactly? Well, you share not the transmission of waves, but you share pylons. Bouygues and SFR have shared pylons in a certain number of regions and parts of certain regions, but on the same pylon at Bouygues SFR, you have SFR's equipment and Bouygues Telecom's equipment. Is that clear?
That's what we share. The pylons. If Orange wants to create a monopoly once again, I can understand their point of view, but it doesn't suit us.
The last question, but I see Philippe Marien on the move, so I would have a last question for him. The EUR 1 billion in free cash flow, which is your objective for next year, for 2020. Can you help us with CapEx here? Because right now we have the Telecom CapEx, which will be up. Now, if you look at the CapEx of the group as a whole, if that is on the increase, this means you're pretty confident about the other half of the equation to move from EUR 815 to EUR 1 billion. Joseph, this is already the end of my career, and so that's a question for Pascal Grangé. He's already holding his fishing net. Thank you for this hazing. This is a newcomer's question.
Yes, we were looking at a free cash flow of EUR 1 billion next year, with CapEx anywhere between EUR 1.6 billion-EUR 1.8 billion, as we announced, including on the telecom. Of course, to get the equation right, we expect our profitability to increase in all our businesses. Yes. Hello. Eric Le Berrigaud from Bryan Garnier. I have four questions. Number one, on the construction business in Hong Kong, have you been impacted in January and February by the coronavirus crisis? Question number two, the effect of local elections in France in 2020. Do you expect losses-Revenue to come down in 2020 because of the municipal elections. Question number three, regarding your guidance on operating profit for the construction business, you're looking at improvement in operating margin. Can you break it down by business areas, Colas, Bouygues Construction?
Can you give us an update on the cyber attack in Challenger last month?
Yes, regarding Hong Kong first. Our company has almost no presence in mainland China. However, we have always had a strong presence in Hong Kong. Now in Hong Kong, we made the decision to suspend our business two weeks ago completely. We resumed this morning. Why did we decide to suspend all activities in Hong Kong? Well, because one of our employee was found to be virus positive. We made this decision, which was well accepted by all our customers, to stop everything for two weeks because one of our employees was contaminated and we want to control risk as much as possible. Now business has resumed, and we hear that our employee is on the mend, this is reassuring.
Nonetheless, the crisis is somewhat worrying, we shall take no unnecessary risk and will not expose our employees. If I may move on to the question, the issue of this cyber attack at Bouygues Construction. On this issue, Bouygues has always had a very cautious policy. Well, you might tell me we were not as cautious as we should have been, that's a cop and thief situation where the thief is always one leg ahead of the cop. In our group, there are two very sensitive, two critical businesses, that's Bouygues Telecom. Needless to say, sensitivity to cyber attacks to the network is very high indeed, there are legal obligations. We work with ANSSI, which conducts very stringent supervision, we've been working there very carefully. Likewise, with TF1.
We don't want someone from the outside, some sort of hacker, to take over our broadcasting system, and there are all sorts of systems in place to protect us from that happening. Nonetheless, we've had the situation that you are aware of. I would like to pay tribute to all our employees in all our businesses who decided to join forces and help the teams at Bouygues Construction. There's a huge problem here. We have 3,000 servers around the world, and each and every one of them has to be reset, as it were. That's a huge task. ANSSI were good enough to send very high-level people to help us at Bouygues Construction, and they've been helping us find a solution. Nonetheless, this is, at the end of the day, something for the police.
The French police, also the Canadian police, because it all started in Canada, other countries are affected. We don't even quite know where it all started, this is a new kind of virus. This is something that was unknown up until now. We're still adapting. Well, we were fortunate in our misfortune because in the construction business, we use, of course, a lot of information technology, that will not stop a plant from running. Even though the network may have collapsed temporarily, at least we were able to continue business. This is something we could have done without. Obviously, we've learned from that. This will prompt us, after the crisis, to try and analyze the situation, see how to be better prepared for this kind of event. In other words, how best to protect ourselves and to prevent this form of attack happening.
Should an attack occur again, how to respond even more effectively. Regarding operating margin and the effect of local elections, maybe I'll let Mr. Gardès address this. Frédéric, yes. Well, regarding municipal elections, upcoming elections, historically, we have found indeed that in election years, the markets tend to shrink. There's less of it this year because of these markets go through sort of an intercity project. Individual mayors are not affected, but for the road network, there will be an effect because there's a decline in orders for roadwork. On the operating margin, yes. You gave a guidance for the construction business, but can you give us a breakdown between Colas, Immobilier, and Construction? Well, no, we don't give a breakdown for the guidance. I don't know where Pascal got that from, but it sounds like something I've heard before.
Yes, sir. Hello. Thomas from Bryan Garnier. A question about telecom. This guidance, you're looking at upwards of EUR 300 million in free cash flow, even though there's significant increase in CapEx in 2020. How can you compensate for this increase in CapEx, and still have this good free cash flow? Should one distinguish between gross and net CapEx in 2020? The guidance again on CapEx and free cash flow? Bouygues Telecom?
There's talk of Huawei, and should there be a negative decision, what would be the effects for Bouygues Telecom network if ANSSI and the government decided that some of the Huawei equipment should be replaced on Bouygues Telecom's network? Would you still be able to stick to your guidance? Finally, on the Astérix project, you talked about premises shared with Orange, but SFR is also present. Why aren't there SFR FTTH premises, and how many premises are we talking about when the Parc Astérix project begins?
Well, let me start with Huawei. Right now, we're completely in the dark. We've applied for the license. We're still waiting. The effect in 2020, no matter what, will be limited because as applications are processed, that will take some time, and whatever CapEx is involved in this will not start till 2021, or the end of 2020, but probably 2021. Regarding Huawei, Bouygues Telecom's position is, and Bouygues' position as a whole, is that no matter what the decision is, whatever decision should not bring about any distortion of competition with competitors that do not have the equipment. We happened to choose Huawei as an equipment supplier.
At the time we chose them, all the guarantees were met in view of French and European requirements in terms of certificates and whatnot, so as to be able to purchase Huawei equipment and roll it out. Should the French government or European authorities change their minds, well, that's fine. After all, it's the sovereign decisions of states. I'm not making a political statement here. Should such sovereign decisions be made, and you had the case in the U.S. when Donald Trump decided to put an end to Huawei equipment in the U.S., and indeed, well, telco operators that had Huawei equipment had to be compensated, and indeed, there's a $1 billion fund to do just that. Should there be any discrimination, well, that will only apply to two areas.
There would be excess cost in terms of CapEx, and of course, this would take a lot of time. You can't just change equipment overnight. If you have Huawei equipment and you want to have 5G from Ericsson or Nokia, it means that first you have to dismantle your Huawei equipment and reassemble it to adapt to whatever new equipment comes about. That's not a small matter. When Bouygues Telecom and SFR got together, it took five years to get their combined network put together. There's, of course, administrative work. There's the technical work to produce the equipment. You have to integrate the equipment in what is a highly complex network. That takes time. It took five years. There is where we stand on Huawei. We haven't got the answers yet. More generally, there's a pretty obvious question, isn't there?
What is Europe's industrial policy? Does Europe have an industrial policy? I'm afraid the answer is there is no industrial policy for Europe. Maybe one day we should start thinking about this. Clearly, the Chinese have a clear industrial strategy, and we might have reason to believe that, well, the fact that they had a strategy makes a difference. There used to be an industrial strategy in Europe. There was the Commissariat au Plan in France, and there were clear strategies. There was the nuclear industry, the railway industry and whatnot. You may have your disagreement, but at the end of the day, the strategy bore fruit. That has completely disappeared over the years. Of course, this has had a significant effect on the state of industry in Europe, and indeed in the U.S. The U.S. are facing the self-same situation. We are citizens.
We're here to serve the country, serve our citizens. We're not engaging in politics, but it's not for us to pay for others' mistakes.
As for your question on the Parc Astérix program, just for the record, as far as we're concerned, this concerns the medium dense region with Orange, where Orange has about 80% of the opportunities in this zone. As for the other approaches with SFR or the so-called priority network areas, we'll see. Your question concerning cash flow or some of the contributions concerning EBITDA. Our CapEx, we feel will be between EUR 1.1 billion and EUR 1.2 billion, gross that is. We must also include the fact that there will be disposals within the Parc Astérix program, and that these disposals should generate some EUR 200 million in proceeds. I think that answers your question.
Thank you. We have another question.
I'm from Finance Connect. Concerning joint ventures in telecommunications, do you include them in your CapEx figures? If so, could you give us some order of magnitude?
No, joint ventures are not included in CapEx.
Could they entail significant financial investments, or are they small?
We're talking about a few tens of millions of EUR over a five-year period, so it's only a very notional amount.
More generally, I've known the group for a very long time. You've a free cash flow of EUR 1 billion. With a bit of luck, you may dispose of the remainder of your stake in Alstom sometime, which means that the net gearing is going to drop to a very low level. Do you have an opinion on that level of gearing in a world where people tend to be borrowing billions at 0%? Does that beg any questions? Of course, you have an exceptional dividend. You have carried out OPRA transactions in the past, or share buybacks, if you prefer.
I feel that my responsibility as chairman of the group is to ensure the group's future, its sustainability. It's my responsibility to our employees, but also to our shareholders. The group's sustainability depends on the strategic choices made in the various business activities, has also a very close connection with our financial stability. It hinges on our financial stability. It so happens that I've known the Bombardier family for some 40 years, and we're good friends. I think our friends at Bombardier have suffered. They made choices. They were their own choices, but ultimately, they were, let's say, painful choices. My responsibility is to ensure that the group can continue to grow, continue to expand, while incurring a reasonable level of risk. As for our indebtedness, the idea of having EUR 10 billion or EUR 20 billion in debt is something that doesn't frighten certain groups.
Just like you, I don't know what the future of indebtedness is. I find it easier to conceptualize what I know, or what I know well, so much easier than things I don't know. The fact is that we live in a complicated world. Since the start of this year, look at this Asian virus, which is really disrupting the global economy. Look at Donald Trump's trade balances with the rest of the world. This too has been disrupting the global economy in a non-insignificant way. We're living in a complicated and fearsome world. I would not really advocate a very high level of debt. There's always a balance to be struck between the dividend and a higher level of debt. Not to overlook the group's rating. It's important to have a reasonable rating in order to fund our needs at attractive prices.
We have always been particularly keen to be able to repay our lenders. That's part of what we do. For the moment, we've distinguished in the dividend we're proposing to the AGM between the exceptional component, which is EUR 0.90, with what we call the ordinary dividend of EUR 1.70, with which you're already familiar, so far as you've known the group for quite some time. As for the future, we'll see what it holds in store. We see how things develop. In these early months of 2020, I think we're well-positioned, we're confident about our future. Remember that with Alstom, nothing is done yet. There's a very complex administrative process going on with the EU. I can't say we did particularly well in the previous administrative process. I hope things go better this time round, but there's a lot of unforeseeables in all this.
Remember, in these administrative processes, the European Union is a combination of very generous people who will ask the whole world, say, "Well, here you are. We propose to combine Alstom and Bombardier. Would that bother you? Would that put you out in any way, or what could we do to make it easier to swallow?" We will ask that to the Chinese, but when the Chinese had world number one and world number two and decided to combine them to make a world super heavyweight, they didn't ask anybody what they thought. That's how things went. We're different. We proceed differently. We are somewhat, not to say very naive, but we have to live with that. Does that answer your question?
Just on the technical aspect between an exceptional dividend and OPRA as the share buybacks, we've decided on EUR 0.90 per share, which is approximately EUR 360 or EUR 370 million to be paid for this exceptional component. The share buyback was for EUR 1.4. This is a longer, complex transaction, but for EUR 360 million, there was no point in buying back shares. Let's say the trade-off between the two has a lot to do with the total amount involved. I think exceptional dividends are quite fashionable at the moment. No. Now, there is no need to buy back shares. I think it would not be appropriate. It was a case of a choice between an exceptional dividend at EUR 0.90, which is approximately 1/3 of the proceeds from the Alstom share disposal.
I think that's very consistent with what we said we would do when talking about using the proceeds from that EUR 1 billion, or that disposal. One final question here?
Thank you. My question will be brief. Concerning construction. Outside of the Greater Paris region, what about business elsewhere in France? Concerning the Greater Paris, is this a design model that could be costly in the longer term? I'm just wondering, would this have any impact on margins in the medium term?
Philippe Bonnave will answer that one enthusiastically.
Yes, the Greater Paris has decided to organize its future calls for tenders on very large lots for values in the region of several billion EUR. I'm not sure that's going to increase margins. We'll tell you afterwards. In all events, the cost of the various studies are extremely high. Your other question concerned outside of the Greater Paris region.
I think that's equivalent of EUR 400 million in revenue out of a total of EUR 5.4 billion in France. It's not negligible, but it's 7%-8% of the total, to give you, again, just an order of magnitude. Okay. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. The meeting's adjourned.