Hello and welcome to the group Bouygues Q1 2026 results call. For the first part of the conference call, you will be in listen only mode. During the questions-and-answers session you are able to ask question by dialing pound key five on your telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to Frédérique Delavaud , Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the presentation of Bouygues first quarter 2026 results. This presentation will be led by Stéphane Stoll, Senior Vice President and CFO of Bouygues Group. Stéphane Stoll is accompanied by Christian Lecoq, CFO of Bouygues Telecom. Following their presentation, they will be answering your questions. Stéphane, I now give you the floor.
Thank you, Frédérique. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for attending. Before listing our highlights, I would like to point out that obviously the global macroeconomic and geopolitical environment has remained during this first quarter, very uncertain and very volatile. As always, Q1 results in our group are not indicative of first half of the year and fiscal year results due to usual seasonality, especially at Colas. That being said, I'm pleased to say that Q1 group results were quite solid. Therefore, we are in a position to confirm the group outlook for 2026. Entering details, group sales were down 3.2% year-on-year. Half of the decrease being attributed to negative change effects at constant exchange rates. Group sales were only down 1.7% year-on-year.
Group COPA was very resilient in Q1 2026, slightly up year-on-year, I remind you that group Q1 COPA is not representative of annual results. We also recorded a usual negative net result attributable to the group, nevertheless, strongly improving versus Q1 2025. It was impacted for the second year in a row by the exceptional income tax surcharge for large companies in France. At end March 2026, our net debt significantly improved versus end March 2025, in keeping with the trend observed at the end of 2025. I have two comments on our business segment. COPA and margin from activities continued to improve strongly at Equans, reaching respectively EUR 205 million, up EUR 28 million year-on-year, and achieving 4.8% margin, an improvement of 0.9 percentage points year-on-year.
These increases continue to demonstrate successful execution of the strategic Perform plan. Sales, for their part, had a soft start to the year. In our construction division, the backlog at end of March 2026 was at a high level of EUR 32.2 billion, offering visibility on future activities. Let's now have a look at our key figures on slide five, and let me remind you once again that every year, mainly due to the seasonal nature of Colas activities, Q1 results are not indicative of half-year and full-year results. That said, group sales stood at EUR 12.2 billion, down 3.2% year-on-year.
This decrease was explained, as I've already mentioned, for half of it by negative change effects, weighing for almost EUR 200 million, and for half of it by a decrease in activity at Equans, and at a lesser extent, at TF1 and Bouygues Immobilier level. Organically speaking, sales in the construction division was stable year-on-year and slightly up at Bouygues Telecom, which is good news. Like- for- like and at constant exchange rate, group sales decreased by 1.6% only. In the first quarter of 2026, the group COPA increased by EUR 8 million compared to the first quarter of 2025 and reached EUR 77 million. This increase was mainly led by Equans, while TF1 and Bouygues Telecom were down as expected. The net result attributed to the group was minus EUR 94 million. It improved by EUR 62 million year-on-year.
I recall that for the second year in a row, it was impacted by the exceptional income tax surcharge for large companies in France, weighing for - EUR 25 million during this first quarter. Last, net debt was EUR 5.1 billion, an improvement of more than EUR 2 billion year-on-year. This is a very good performance. Net debt at end of March was higher than at end of December of the previous year, as always, due to the seasonality of our activity. I will provide you with more details about these figures later during this call. Let's now turn to the review of our operations of our construction divisions on slide eight. Let's begin, if you please, with the backlog in the construction division.
As I mentioned during the introduction of this call, the backlog at end of March 2026 remained at a very high level of EUR 32.2 billion, providing visibility on future activities. Overall, the backlog was down 6% year-on-year, but only 3% like- for- like at constant exchange rates. Taking a step back over our five-year period, the backlog level at end of March 2026 was up 16% compared to end of March 2022, with all geographic areas improving over the period. Compared to last year, you see that the backlog was globally stable in France, which is a very good news, and down in Europe and internationally. This is not a surprise. It is important to recall that Bouygues Construction's backlog had reached its record high level at end of March 2025, driven by civil works.
I remind you that we took a more than EUR 2 billion order intake in end of 2024 with due to the project of Torrens to Darlington in Adelaide in Australia, and to a lesser extent by International Building with some very significant contract notably awarded in H2 2024, as I mentioned. Let's look into details on slide nine and start with Colas, whose backlog reached EUR 14.3 billion, down 5% year-on-year, and only 1% like-for-like and at constant exchange rates. In roads, the backlog was down 7% and even a bit more in France, as it is typically the case in an election period, local election period. Like-for-like and at constant exchange rates, the backlog in roads was down 3% only.
In rail, the backlog was almost stable year-on-year and up 2% like-for-like and at constant exchange rate. At Bouygues Construction, the backlog stood at EUR 17.2 billion, down 6% year-on-year and only 3% like-for-like and at constant exchange rate. In building, the French backlog was up 9%, and the international backlog was up 6%. On civil works, as you know, the award of very large contracts mechanically rates volatility in order intake and the backlog. That's normal in our business. As I already mentioned, the basis of comparison with end of March 2025 was very high, due in particular to the Torrens to Darlington contract. We are not worried at all about Bouygues Construction's activity this year as 2026 activity's coverage remains in line with 2025.
I, please refer to also the appendix detailing this backlog and the way it is spread over time in the coming years. Finally, at Bouygues Immobilier, the backlog was at EUR 0.7 billion at end of March 2026, down 21% year-on-year, 15% like-for-like, and at constant exchange rate, considering also the disposal of activities in Poland in July 2025. As you know, Bouygues Immobilier's backlog is what we are used to call a secured backlog, meaning it includes only reservation when notarized, which is a bit different from what the market tends to communicate. Cutoff effects in our own accounting may have some impact. That was certainly the case in the first quarter.
The share of backlog at end of March 2026 to be executed by the end of the year remains at a high level, providing visibility on future activity. Next slide, let's talk about order intake. As you know, order intake is subject to significant variances in rail at Colas and in civil works at Bouygues Construction due to timing of large project awards. As such, quarterly comparisons do not really make sense. In Q1 2026, order intake at Colas stood at EUR 2.8 billion. Order intake in roads was down year-on-year in France. This decline was expected given the run-up to the March 2026 local elections. Internationally, the decrease reflects a very strong comparison basis, notably in Morocco and Finland, where Colas recorded last year important contracts.
Let's notice the positive start of the year in the U.S., where Colas was notably awarded beginning of March, a major contract for the construction of additional lanes on the Interstate 10 highway in California, a contract worth approximately EUR 260 million. As planned, there was no significant contract in rail awarded in Q1 2026. I remind you that Q1 2025 was very strong and had benefited from two very large contracts, one in the U.K. and the other in Morocco, representing around EUR 640 million of order intake. At Bouygues Construction, the order intake in Q1 2026 stood at EUR 2.2 billion. This amount was largely driven by the normal course of business, which means for Bouygues Construction, contracts worth less than EUR 100 million.
This part of the business remains stable year-on-year at a high level and accounted for 74% of total order intake for the quarter. Even though the Q1 2025 basis of comparison was high, new major contracts were awarded in Q1. For example, a contract to design and build some canal aqueduct, an iconic structure on the future Seine-Nord Europe Canal, which will link Europe's major river basins worth approximately EUR 260 million. We also recorded a new series of work orders in Sizewell C nuclear power station, representing around EUR 150 million, and also a contract for new urban data center in Australia, representing around EUR 130 million.
You also probably read this morning that the Feronord Consortium, comprising notably with Travaux Publics for 41.5% and Colas Rail for 11.5%, has been selected by the Swedish Transport Administration to carry out a significant contract for the East Link project. This contract covers the construction of approximately 36 km of railway line, including major earthworks and the constructions of 28 bridges and three viaducts, one of which is a major structure spanning 1.4 km. At the end of March, the order for the first phase was placed for early works for EUR 50 million, but the total execution phase, which could get underway early 2025, is estimated to be worth EUR 1.2 billion. This is good news for future activity.
At Bouygues Immobilier, residential reservations in Q1 stood at EUR 0.3 billion, which is a strong level, despite a context of municipal elections. Land bank indicators were also strongly up year-on-year, residential units reservation in France improved year-on-year. Let's now have a look at sales on slide 11. I will start by saying that like every year, due to seasonality, as already mentioned, the construction division recorded results which are not indicative of the first half and the full year results due to Colas. That being said, sales were stable like- for- like and at constant exchange rate, with Bouygues Construction continued dynamic offsetting anticipated soft start at Colas and Bouygues Immobilier. Looking into details, first, sales at Colas were down 3% like- for- like and a constant exchange rate at EUR 2.6 billion.
Q1 negative impact for exchange rate was EUR 50 million. As published, sales was driven by rail, up 3%, while road were down 6%, with France down 4% in relation with local election, and international down 8%, penalized notably by adverse weather conditions in Morocco with very heavy rain in the first quarter, and Central Europe with a very cold winter and some negative exchange rates. Second, Bouygues Construction sales were up 5% like- for- like and a constant exchange rate at EUR 2.6 billion, despite Q1 negative impact from exchange rate at EUR 60 million.
As published, sales were driven by France building activities up 10% and civil works up 16%, while international building was down 19% due to the end of important works, notably in Morocco and Australia. Last, at Bouygues Immobilier, sales had a soft start and were down 6% like- for- like. We do not expect this to be representative of expected annual trend. Next slide. Current operating results from activities of the construction was - EUR 212 million, improving EUR 28 million year-on-year, thanks to lower seasonal loss at Colas and better results at Bouygues Construction. COPA margin at Bouygues Construction reached 3.1%, a record high since Q1 2018. Last, COPA at Bouygues Immobilier was penalized mainly by a low activity in this first quarter.
Let's now please turn to the review of operation for Equans on slide 14. At end of March 2026, Equans backlog stood at EUR 26.1 billion, a solid level, even if down 1% year-on-year as published, but up 1% year-on-year like- for- like and at constant exchange rate. The order intake of the first three months of 2026 was robust and stood at EUR 5 billion, slightly down year-on-year. We see a gradual and continuous improvement in the order intake margin. To be noted, new contracts were awarded in data centers and giga factories in the U.S. and in Europe in Q1. Some additional contracts are expected in the coming weeks and months. Coming back to the Q1 figures, expect Equans sales were down 6% year-on-year in Q1 due to three factors, essentially.
The continued selective approach to contracts and business strategy. Second, the soft start to the year in some niche markets and geographies. Last, around EUR 80 million of negative impact from exchange rate. In North America, any growth in sales was totally offset by negative exchange rate effects. These Q1 figures do not affect our outlook for the year. Regarding profitability, Equans contribution to the group scope represented EUR 205 million with a 4.8% margin from activity, up 0.9 percentage points year- on- year, highlighting the continued successful execution of the Strategic Plan. Last, Equans secured during this first quarter two bolt-on acquisitions in Italy and in Singapore, both specializing in clean room activities. They represent an annual revenue of around EUR 40 million.
To end with Equans on slide 15, let me just add that Equans continues to roll out its strategic plan and confirm it is targeting for 2026 stable sales versus 2025 at constant exchange rates. A margin from activities of 5%, a year ahead of the target set at the 2023 Capital Market Day. Third, a cash conversion rate before working capital requirement of between 80% and 100%. I now give the floor to Christian Lecoq for a detailed presentation of Bouygues Telecom's Q1 key figures.
Thank you, Stéphane, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide 17, let's start with a few comments on Bouygues Telecom's solid commercial performance in fixed in both volume and value. This performance was driven by our strategy focused on customer loyalty and quality, which delivers lower churn. As you can see from the slide, we had a total of 5.5 million fixed customers at end March 2026. This represents an increase of 47,000 customers in Q1. FTTH continued to experience strong growth with 89,000 new customers during the first quarter. With a total of 4.8 million customers, they represented 87% of our fixed customer base, up from 83% one year ago. This is a result of a wider FTTH footprint, combined with the excellent quality of our network and services.
Fixed ABPU continued to grow EUR 0.3 year-on-year at EUR 33.5 per client per month. Commercial performance in mobile was also robust, as you can see on slide 18. Even in a mature market, we continue to observe a sustained positive impact of build on both convergence and churn reduction. At end March 2026, Bouygues Telecom had [18.7] million mobile plan customers, excluding M2M, thanks to 91,000 new customers in Q1. Mobile ABPU stood at EUR 16.9 per client per month during the first quarter in a market where acquisition prices for new customers remained low, especially in the low-end segment. Let's have a look at the key figures on slide 19, which are in line with our expected annual trajectory.
First, sales billed to customers were stable year-on-year as growth in fixed offset the decline in mobile. Total sales were up 2% year-on-year, driven by 9% growth in other sales. EBITDA after leases was stable year-on-year at EUR 415 million, thanks to tight cost control. The Current Operating Profit from Activities stood at EUR 82 million, down EUR 19 million year-on-year as expected. This reflects the continued increase in D&A related to the high level of CapEx over the last year. Gross CapEx was EUR 332 million in Q1 2026, EUR 62 million lower than in Q1 2025 and in line with our annual expectation. Moving to slide 20, Bouygues Telecom 20 26 targets are confirmed.
First, sales billed to customers and EBITDA after leases close to 2025 levels. These figures will show moderate growth versus 2023, excluding La Poste Telecom. Second, gross capital expenditures close to EUR 1.3 billion, excluding frequencies, confirming a decline after the CapEx peak observed over the last five years. Finally, free cash flow before working capital requirements of around EUR 600 million, excluding the impact of La Poste Telecom and before the impact of the income tax surcharge for large companies in France. Including these elements, it could be around EUR 500 million. Stéphane, I'm giving you back the floor.
Thank you, Christian. Turning to slide 22, let's briefly talk about TF1's results, which were already released and commented on the 30th of April last week. First, the TF1 Group maintained its audience leadership in the first quarter 2026, both among women under 50 who are purchasing decision-makers and among individuals aged 25 to 49, which are their strategic targets. The average monthly streamers on the digital platform, TF1+, continued also to increase at 41 million streamers in Q1 2026 versus 35 million in Q1 2025. Total sales stood at EUR 472 million, down 9% year-on-year and down 5% year-on-year, like-for-like, and at constant exchange rates. The decline of 10% in the media sales was partly attributable to scope effects in relation with divestment of My Little Paris and Play Two completed in 2025.
Like- for- like and at constant exchange rate, media sales were down 6% year-on-year. The remainder was linked to the declining advertising environment, also slightly improved compared to the first quarter of 2025. Studio TF1 revenues was broadly stable year-on-year, COPA amounted to EUR 13 million, down EUR 30 million year-on-year, with a COPA margin at 2.8% in Q1 2026. The programming cost remained in the first quarter of 2026, similar to the level of the first quarter of 2025 at EUR 222 million, with premium programming maintained, notably to support the launch of the new offering, TF1+, and including notably the broadcast of nine games of the Six Nations rugby tournament.
Turning to slide 23, I will end on TF1 Group by saying that in a context of limited visibility, TF1 Group's objective for 2026 remain unchanged. A strong double-digit revenue growth in digital, aiming for a growing dividend policy in the coming years. Last, a mid-to-high single-digit margin from activities before capital gains, subject to the evolution of the linear market. I will now turn our attention to the financial statement on slide 25, starting with the P&L. We have already discussed first quarter sales and current operating profit from activities in the first part of this call. There are no significant changes to report this quarter. Let's notice two things. First, other operating income and expenses, which do not reflect operational activity, was slightly lower than last year in relation notably with the lower charges linked to the Equans management incentive plan.
Second, a tax charge was recorded for EUR 10 million, a lower amount than in Q1 2025, despite slightly higher operational results. This amount excludes the EUR 28 million of exceptional income tax surcharge for large companies in France. The lower tax charges compared to Q1 2025 is notably due to the lower profit before tax at Bouygues Telecom and at TF1 in Q1 2026 compared to last year. Let's now turn to slide 26 to describe the net debt evolution between end of December 2025 and end of March 2026. As you see, net debt increased by around EUR 850 million since the end of 2025. Such change is usual and related to the seasonality of our activities.
This increase includes acquisition, net of disposal, totaling - EUR 26 million, including the two small acquisition at Equans I mentioned, and one small acquisition at Colas in Burgundy in France. Capital transaction and other for EUR 25 million include exercise of stock options and the change in liquidity contract. Last, - EUR 854 million from operation that I will comment in the next slide. Regarding acquisition, you probably read Colas' press release dated mid-March, saying it signed a memorandum of understanding to acquire the road construction and recycling activities of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, a family-owned company established in Germany since late 19th century. This transaction, which is Colas' first acquisition in the road sector in Germany, is part of the company's wider growth strategy in Europe's largest market.
We expect the transaction to be finalized by end of the first half of 2026. Regarding our acquisition in the U.S., Suit-Kote, the transaction remains currently reviewed by U.S. competition authorities. Turning to the breakdown of operation for the first quarter of 2026 on slide 27, you can observe that net cash flow, including lease liabilities, stood at EUR 380 million. Net CapEx was EUR 473 million, a lower amount compared to first quarter of 2025, and a decrease notably explained by lower net CapEx at Bouygues Telecom level as anticipated. You can see on the chart that the change in working capital requirements stood at minus EUR 809 million, a usual negative change for Q1 due to seasonality. This level is quite comparable to that of last year.
That was already considered to be a very good level. I will now turn our attention to the group financial structure on slide 28. The group maintained a high level of liquidity at EUR 17.1 billion, much higher than EUR 14.8 billion at end of March 2025. It comprised EUR 5.9 billion in cash and equivalents, and EUR 11.2 billion in undrawn medium and long-term credit facilities. The position in cash and cash equivalents is more than EUR 2 billion higher than at end of March 2025, which is a very good news. Net debt was EUR 5.1 billion at end of March 2026. A strong improvement compared to end of March last year. As a consequence, net gearing was 34% at end of March 2026.
A significant improvement compared to the 50% of last year. You can see from the chart on the right that the debt maturity schedule is very well spread over time. I remind you that our next bond redemption is later this year on October 6. Last, I would say that the group benefits from a particularly strong financial position, and that our financial credit ratings remain strong, which will help us support our strategic developments in the coming months and years. I will now conclude on slide 30. Let me repeat that the Bouygues Group's business segments are driving growth. Their diversity enables the group to grow over the long term and demonstrate sustained resilience. In a highly uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, the group will remain agile to adapt into development in its respective markets.
For 2026, the group confirms it is aiming for stable sales at constant exchange rates. Current operating profit from activities maintained at a record high level after several years of significant improvement. The improvement in Equans' COPA will allow to offset the expected decline in TF1's COPA due to the anticipated tensions in the linear TV advertisement market. In Bouygues Telecom's COPA due to the expected increase in depreciation and amortization. Of course, the group remains very vigilant regarding the indirect consequences related to the duration of the Middle East conflict. Thank you for your attention. Operator, please open the floor for questions.
The next question comes from Mathieu Robilliard from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for the presentation. I had two questions. The first one, I wanted to know if you could comment or want to comment, press reports that the deal closing with SFR could be delayed. Anything interesting would be helpful. Thank you. Second, as you flagged, it's a very volatile and uncertain geo-macro environment. I wanted to have some color in terms of if energy prices stays where they are, what could be the impact, notably on telecoms. Also, when inflation picks up, it can affect Colas' margin. It certainly did in the previous part of inflation. Have you changed a bit the contracts, linked to inflation, to protect yourself against that?
Lastly, are you seeing an impact on demand for some of the long-term Equans projects, notably data centers, because of all of this uncertainty? Thank you.
Thank you. Well, we will comment in due course on the progress of the negotiation on the telecom transaction. I can only tell you that for now, you know, negotiations are in a quite active mode, so teams meet on a daily basis. We are working hard on this transaction. Let me remind you that we entered into this phase of exclusive negotiation on April 17th only. It's been three weeks. As you can understand, negotiating contractual documentation on a deal of that magnitude is a long and steep road. Nothing to report.
On the volatile environment, for now, we do not see any significant impact on our Q1 result. Of course, we remain very vigilant. On the energy prices for telecom specifically, we benefit from hedging policies. We do not expect in the short, medium term to be impacted by volatility on energy prices. For the rest, as you may understand, we have learned quite a lot from the 2022, 2023 inflation crisis due to post-COVID and Ukrainian conflict. We had been used to working in very stable and low inflation environments for more than a decade. We've learned from that.
In the meantime, we have adjusted our contractual policies to be able to reflect any price increase in our prices to our clients. And in businesses like Colas, we also have put in place in some of our businesses and geographies, hedging policies or long-term supply agreement which help us for now cover any significant risk in the short term. We'll remain very vigilant, of course. And as you rightly mentioned, beyond these direct impacts on our supply costs, we are also very vigilant on what it could spend in terms of demand from our clients.
Having said that, especially when it comes to some specific niche market, like data centers, as you rightly mentioned, or solar farms, for instance, we do not see any impact for now on the CapEx decision of our clients, quite the contrary. As you know, we had in the data center a soft year last year in terms of order intake due to some delays in CapEx decision from our clients. Q1, we registered in Q1 interesting order intakes in data centers in the U.S. and in Europe again, and we expect in the coming weeks more of such order intakes to be registered. Nothing to report for now on this specific business.
Okay. Thank you very much. On the deal, basically, the fact that it may be delayed is I guess the way you frame it is it's complex, these things can happen, and you remain confident, right?
It's the normal course of business of negotiations, in any such deal. Indeed.
Many thanks.
Welcome.
The next question comes from Akhil Dattani from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning. I've got a couple of questions as well, please. Mine are instead on Equans. The Q1 margin at 4.8% is 100 basis points up year-over-year. I just wondered if you could give us some color on in the mix what you're seeing here, given the strong start to the year and sort of how we should think about the full year in that context. Clearly, that's a bigger year-over-year step up than your full year guidance implies. The second thing was just to get a general update on M&A. You closed a number of bolt-on deals at the end of last year. Could you help us understand the pipeline of transactions you're looking at?
Any sort of update you can provide us on where your focus areas are and what the progress is, that'd be great as well. Thanks a lot.
All right. Yes, we were quite satisfied with the level of Q1 margin for Equans at 4.8%. As you rightly mentioned, it's a significant increase comparing to last year. It's very early in the year. We'll see in due course as time goes by and the year develops how this will evolve. This help us being very confident in achieving our 5% margin, which was already a year ahead of our guidance back in 2023. Very satisfied with that. Giving color to the mix, I mean, I can only tell you that this increase is spread across the business. There is no significant one-off.
It's the really the regular course of business which leads to this margin increase. That's good news, and is a reflection that the strategic plan is being implemented successfully as we expected and even a bit ahead of schedule. On the M&A pipeline of transaction, indeed, we secured some seven or eight, I have eight acquisition last year, spending EUR 200 million of revenues on a full year basis.
Bolt-on acquisition, scaling from a few million to some EUR 50 million, our policy remains unchanged, giving the green light to any business unit within a course achieving more than 4% profitability to look for acquisition, bolt-on acquisition. We believe that this will help us have a positive impact on our margin and resilience. Our focus of remains unchanged, especially focusing on Europe with a strong focus. We will have a stronger focus in Germany especially. We will also look at bolt-on acquisition in all our geographies where we believe that there is still room for growth.
This is why we announced also in this Q1 a new acquisition in Italy in the clean room business. The other area of focus is North America. That's the two major area of focus. Growing M&A activities is not a very short-term move. It's a medium to long-term move. Acquiring companies is easy. You just need to write a big check. What is difficult is to ensure that you are able to do it profitably and make money out of it. That needs teams to be prepared to do that, to be trained to do that.
That will take time, but we are very confident to be able to grow this M&A strategy step by step in the coming months and years.
Great. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Eric Ravary from CIC CIB. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. First question on Bouygues Telecom on the ABPU trend on mobile. We saw that it was still declining in Q1 year-over-year and also sequentially. Could we have a comment on the current competition situation in France on prices? Shall we expect an improvement of the ABPU trend over the rest of the year? That's for Bouygues Telecom. For Equans, two questions. First one on the soft revenues in Q1. Could you be more specific on the geographies and niche markets that were affected?
Are you expecting an improvement over the rest of the year, the year as you are confirming your guidance of stable revenues for Equans over 2026? Second question on Equans is about the EBITDA trend in Q1. I saw that the EBITDA was down EUR 14 million , while the COPA was up EUR 28 million . Is there anything specific there that you could explain there? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. I will let Christian answer the first question.
Thank you, Stéphane. Regarding Bouygues Telecom's mobile ABPU, you're right. In Q1 2026, our mobile ABPU stands at EUR 16.9, down by EUR 0.6 year- on- year, and down EUR 0.4 versus Q4 2025. It is explained mainly by two things. First, we still have low acquisition prices, especially on the low-end market. As I said during the presentation, the competition is still quite intense, even if it's less intense than compared to middle of last year. However, acquisition prices remain very low compared to historical levels. Second point, regarding the comparison with Q4 2025, we have some seasonal effects, especially coming from roaming.
The -EUR 0.4 growth versus Q4 2025, you can split the EUR 0.4 by two. -EUR 0.2 due to low acquisition prices and -EUR 0.2 due to roaming impact. I remind you also that last year, we were able to have a stable ABPU in Q3 and Q4 compared to Q2 2025. We benefited from a roaming in Q3 2025 and from some more formal operations we did on our B&YOU offers in Q4. We have been able to increase our ABPU in Q4 due to these more formal operations in Q4 2025. We didn't do that in Q1 of this year.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Christian. Reverting to your questions on Equans. One on the Q1 to give you a bit more color on, there is no one single geography or market where we have seen a significant decrease. It's more, I would say broad-based, and in multiple that we've seen some smaller some impact. Just to give you a few examples maybe which will help you understand. We've seen, for instance, in the U.K., a very soft start in revenues on solar farms.
We, our revenues in the U.K. in 2024, 2025, including a significant portion of solar farm projects, which were delivered successfully for the best part of them. Our clients have difficulties to connect those solar farms to the grid due to grid congestion. Our clients delay the start of new projects, so we are waiting for new projects to come. We have a strong pipeline, of course, our clients won't invest until they get their delivered projects onto the grid. Second example is in Belgium. Belgium, we have a historical, very strong business in industrial maintenance, especially in the oil and gas business around the Antwerp port.
In the current context, refineries in Antwerp run day and night to benefit from the higher fuel prices. Our clients have decided to report any maintenance work to maximize production. We are waiting for maintenance work to come, because they can't be eternally postponed, but that's another example. A third example maybe is, we had a very strong business of solar farms in Australia over the past year. We successfully delivered two very large projects end of last year, early this year, and we had a small delay in securing new orders, which will come now in the Q2.
That's typical examples why we say, okay, it's for now a soft start. It's still early in the year, and this is why we believe that there is still a way to get to what we had planned. This is why we didn't change our guidance.
On the EBITDA question, I would just like to stress that we never report on EBITDA in construction, energies and services, infrastructure business, simply because we do not believe it's a very appropriate KPI due to one single, due to one specific element, is that in this construction contract kind of business, you have a lot of move below the line of EBITDA affecting COPA margin when it comes to provision and provision reversals on construction contracts. That's typically the case in Q1 for Equans this month.
As you may see in the appendices and in the, we have registered provision reversals in the in this Q1, provision reversal which were utilized. Of course, EBITDA is lower because the expenses and the losses on the contract which had been provisioned are now crystallizing and, this is crystallizing below the line of EBITDA, hence why the COPA is improving. Nothing specific, it's normal course of business.
Okay. Thank you very much. Very clear.
The next question comes from Rohit Modi from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions, all on telecoms. Firstly, looking at the net addition trend in the fixed FTTH side, first quarter has been slightly lower than what the trends we have seen in past couple of quarters. Just trying to understand, did you see higher churn? I believe you did some pricing reserve on some of the packages. Is that because of the higher churn or is that particularly market activity where you're seeing the market as, you know, kind of saturation that you're seeing on the fixed side? Second, if you can comment on the competitive intensity in the market that you're seeing now.
If, you know, I believe, you know, there's been comments from other operators that, you know, there's been lesser intensity, but how do you see it in the second quarter, particularly so far? Third question is basically on the deal, apologies if you can't comment on it, I understand that. SFR release last week mentioned about earn-out, which was not mentioned in the consortium's release. Just trying to get your view on this. Is it a kind of deal breaker or what do you think about the earn-out position here? Thank you.
Your first question was about fixed market. We are very happy with our performance in the fixed business, either in new clients acquisition and also in churn. We have a very low level of churn thanks to the offer we launched in October 2024, convergence offer. We are able to take new clients. We are increasing our market share in each area in France, every area in France, especially in the non-dense areas where we are not present in the past with DSL, because we are not covering these very rural areas. Now our market share there is more than 10%, which is a very good performance.
Regarding the competitive intensity, as I said before, it is still very intense in mobile market and especially on digital offers like B&You for us. This is why we have quite low prices, less than EUR 10 for new clients. We estimate that the normal level should be around EUR 15, which was the case a few years before. This is where we have some more, I would say, difficulties due to competition. In the market with handsets or like for our big offers, the situation is quite better. Regarding the fixed business, the intensity, the competitive intensity is normal.
The churn is very good. We decided to stop to market our DSL offers one year ago, I think. We are very happy to have done that because now we have less and less DSL clients. We are able to migrate them to FTTH, and we will be able to dismount our DSL equipment in probably a few years. That will save of course some costs when it will happen.
On the deal, as you know, we've entered into exclusive negotiation on April 17th. We are three weeks into these negotiations. The aim of this negotiation is to negotiate and finalize the contractual documentation of for this transaction. These negotiations include a number of parameters, including earn-out parameters, but significant other parameters which we'll report on to in due course when this is finalized.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Mollie Witcombe from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Two questions from me, please. Firstly, just to come back a little bit on French competition. I'm wondering if you were seeing any impact from the change in Iliad portfolio that took place during the quarter. Second question just on Bouygues Construction. Obviously, there's the civil works drag, which I believe was a project in Australia. When does that roll off? Just a bit more color in terms of what you're seeing in trends in building, particularly in France, but also which markets you're seeing growth in in international and what you're seeing in terms of competitive environment, et cetera. Thank you.
Okay. Regarding Iliad's new offer, no, we didn't see any impact due to this offer. Know that they launched a new offer with a quite a roaming data allowance. It's targeting mainly frequent international travelers and very heavy data users. We, our current plans already meet the data needs of customers and the need of travelers in Europe and worldwide. We are not observing any impact on ourselves for the moment.
On the construction side, we see very positive outlooks for our construction business. As you may have seen, we are on a growing trend and continued growth for Bouygues Construction, in particular over the past semester and years now. You may have seen that our backlog increased significantly over time. This has to do with the fact that Bouygues Construction is really positioned on, I would say, markets or niche markets which offer very interesting perspectives. We are less present in part of the business where we see difficult environments such as residential buildings in France or over in other parts of the world.
We are really focusing on more on niche market where the demand is strong. It's true for civil works, with a number of transportation infrastructure, but also one market where we are very present and very active is nuclear power plant construction. As you know, we are finishing the construction of the civil works part of Hinkley Point. We have started Sizewell. We have been selected as a potential partner for EDF for their EPR2 projects, and we hope to have good news on this in the coming year. Overall, the infrastructure business is strong for everything, also supporting climate transition.
In the building sector, we are also focusing on a number of niche market where the demand is strong. Data centers, whether some and in many instances in joint venture with Equans is a typical example. We also see, for instance, another part of is health infrastructure, so building hospitals. Education is another part where we see in many parts of the world, significant investment. Despite a very selective approach to projects, we see a very strong pipeline, and we are very, you know, very confident in the way Bouygues Construction will continue to develop, and we are hopeful to secure significant new orders in the coming months to come.
Can I just come back slightly on that? In terms of public sector projects and contracts, a lot of the things you mentioned are public sector. I'm just wondering, are you seeing any difference in trends, given the macro situation, any kind of rotation towards defense that's meaning that you're missing out on this side?
For now, this has no significant impact on Bouygues Construction. We, it may be worth mentioning that we don't talk so much about that because in many instances we have no right to talk about defense contracts, but we are also present in this business. We have been present for decades in this business. We are present in many of our businesses. We are present in Bouygues Construction. We are present with Colas. We recently secured significant orders to, for instance, renew tracks and taxiways for military airports. We have secured works in Finland with Destia on reinforcing the border with Russia.
Equans is also active in this business on communication solutions, but also on M&E businesses in ship construction business. For instance, in the U.K., this does not really translate into our numbers, but Equans is a member of a 50/50 joint venture called Vivo, which represents more than EUR 1 billion worth of revenues every year in the facility management and maintenance of a great number of military facilities throughout England. Really, it's not a concern to us to see investment moving into the defense business.
I think we have we see there also great opportunities.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Welcome.
The next question comes from Sven Edelfelt from ODDO. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, gentlemen, and thank you for taking my question. You mentioned on one of your slide on Equans, additional significant data center contract expected shortly. I think this might refer to the Cloud and AI Development Act, to be released in May to triple the EU data center capacity in the next five to seven years. How much do you think you can improve the revenue on this data center? I might try, do you believe you can get to something like EUR 800 million new order on the data center, which is a significant uptick compared to where you were, if I recall correctly. The second question would be on cash, on order book. The order book is a bit light.
You mentioned you are likely to sign significant contract shortly or in the course of a year. Can you confirm it won't affect the cash contribution from advanced payment for the full year at the group level? In other word, it shouldn't affect the working capital on the negative in 2026? Thank you.
Okay. On the data center, we indeed, we foresee interesting opportunities with everything that is announced. Having said that, you know, we are looking at shorter opportunities because what is announced today on the AI Act will only translate in concrete projects not before long, if I may, and certainly not this year, simply because of administrative delays and the time to get this up and running. What we see today is however, our historical clients in Europe coming back and launching and kicking off projects. We will report on Q2.
It's too early to report, but we have won some new contracts in April. We are hopeful to secure new contracts in May and June, and we will report in Q2 on a number of new data center contracts beyond the one we've secured in Q1. Hard to say what this will spell in terms of revenues. We do not report into such a level of detail for Equans. On the construction order book, we do not have the same view on the order intake, and we do not consider that we have some form of soft order book in construction. Quite the contrary.
If you refer to the appendix on the backlog for Bouygues Construction, for instance, I think it's on slide 35. You will see, for instance, that the 6% decrease year-on-year focuses on contracts to be executed starting 2028 and beyond. On the contrary, you see that for execution in this year and in the year to come, backlog is stable or even slightly growing, including negative exchange rates. We are quite confident that our revenues will be strong. We consider that our backlog on the Bouyges Construction business is quite robust.
We see indeed a slight drop in the backlog at Colas, but that was anticipated due to the local election, as I mentioned. As you know, we never report on, give any guidance on working capital in construction because it's just simply impossible to really anticipate. We are hopeful that we will secure, as I mentioned earlier in the answer to the Goldman Sachs question, that we will [uncertain], we will report and register in the coming months significant new orders for construction. For now, we are really not concerned about that.
That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Abhilash Mohapatra from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to come back to Equans, please. Thank you for sharing all the color around how you expect sort of new contract wins to help this business going forward. I just wanted to ask in terms of the cadence of the quarters, obviously revenue's down 5% like-for-like in Q1, and you're guiding flat for the full year. How should we think about the shape of the recovery from here on? Is it going sort of more back-end weighted, or should we already anticipate a sort of revenue recovery in the second quarter?
Just sort of related to that, you've previously said that over time you expect Equans' top line trends to improve and catch up with some of your best-in-class peers. Is that something that you still feel comfortable with when you think about Equans' top line trends going forward? Second question just around telecoms and consolidation. Appreciate obviously you're in negotiations right now, so you may not want to comment, but to the extent you can, and any thoughts around how you see synergies from this deal, you know, which are the major areas where you could see cost savings? That would be helpful. Thank you.
Okay. On the Q1 revenues, as I mentioned, we are still hopeful to recover what we, this soft start. Hence why we confirm our guidance for this year with what we hope to be a stable revenues, excluding exchange rate. This will be a step-by-step recovery, so we'll see what happen in Q2. I think this recovery will spread over the year. That's our expectation.
Let me simply point out the fact that exchange rate impacts have significantly crystallized in Q1 because contrary to others, we are very strong in the U.S., in, at Equans. You may remember that last year, the exchange rate effect mostly crystallized in the second half of the year and for the best part of it in Q4. This is true possibly also what we expected. We expect this to be true for this year because we have a strong basis of comparison for the exchange rate of the U.S. versus Euro, comparing Q1 2025 to 2026. So that's where we are.
For now, we confirm our outlook for this year, and we hope that and we believe, expect this recovery to take gradually place throughout the year. On the top line, on the longer-term trend, we do not see any reason why in the midterm, we should not be able to catch up with the growth which peers do. This, maybe in relation with the question or my answer to JPMorgan earlier in the call. This will also go with a step-by-step acceleration of our M&A activities.
We want this to be done step by step because we need the people to be trained, to be capable of integrating these companies. We've started the journey last year. We'll continue this year, and this will also help us step by step get close to the growth level that our peers secure. On the telecom consolidation, in terms of synergies, what I can tell you is that where we foresee our cost synergies is essentially in networks. Because of course, today in France, you have four telecom networks implemented throughout the territory.
Looking forward, we will not need the best part of the network of SFR. This also explains why we believe that the horizon of such synergies will be a midterm because it will first start by some dismantling costs. Networks, and I am turning to Christian, is the essential part where we foresee the major synergies.
Yes. As Stéphane said, the main synergies are on the network on IT. Of course, we will keep the around 50% of SFR mobile network because we are sharing, you know, the mobile network with them in a non-dense area. We'll be able to dismount mobile network in very dense, to dismount FTTH equipment, and also to not use in medium term the transport network. It is also the case for IT. We'll be able to migrate SFR clients to our IT system. As Stéphane said, we'll need two, I will say three periods.
First one, we'll need some time to migrate mobile and fixed clients of SFR to our IT system and to our networks. It will last between two to three years. After that, we'll be able to dismount the equipment we will not use anymore. It will be another probably one to two years period before to be in a, we say, a new situation with clearly only three networks [in France]. Thank you.
If I may just clarify your comment. Just, I didn't quite catch it fully. You mentioned something about keeping the large parts of the shared network in the rural areas. Could you just please elaborate on that please? Will you be keeping the entire network in the rural areas or you made a reference to the 50%? Just wanted to clarify that for me please. Thank you.
Sorry. Yeah. No, no. In France, we will keep the 100% of the network we are sharing with SFR. We will dismount the network in very dense area.
Understood. Thank you. Thanks a lot.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for your question and your interest into our business. We will be announcing half year 2026 results on July 30th, 2026. Should you have any more questions, please contact our investor relations team. Their contact information is on the press release and on our website. Have a nice day, speak to you soon. Bye-bye.