Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Orange's full year 2023 results conference call. The call will be hosted by Christel Heydemann, CEO, and Mr. Laurent Martinez, Chief Financial Officer, with other members of the Orange's Executive Committee for the Q&A session that will start after the presentation. So thank you. Let me hand over the floor to Ms. Christel Heydemann. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to our financial results presentation for the full year 2023. I will start with the key highlights, and then I will leave the floor to Laurent, who will go into more detail. Let's go straight on page 4 with the key highlights of the year. After the first year of our Lead the Future plan, I am delighted to confirm that we are fully on track with the strategy execution. Firstly, as we indicated during our Capital Markets Day, the strong focus on our value strategy has fueled the revenue growth throughout the year. We have also made progress in rationalizing our portfolio with the ongoing process of withdrawal from our banking business in Europe, and we closed the previously announced sale of OCS and Orange Studio in January. Secondly, we continued to drive in-market consolidation within Europe.
We are fully engaged with the competitive authorities regarding our joint venture in Spain, and we reached new milestones in Belgium and Romania in 2023. Finally, we have proven our ability to meet our targets in respect of transformation and efficiencies as well as financial guidance. We delivered an EBITDA growth of +1.3% over the year and even +2% in Q4. We also achieved a remarkable organic cash flow growth of over EUR 600 million, reaching more than EUR 3.6 billion, already two-thirds of our growth target for 2022-2025. Moving to the next. The execution of our ESG strategy is equally on track. On the environment, we are two years ahead of schedule in our objective of reducing Scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions by 30% in 2025 compared to 2015.
We stabilized our energy consumption despite the network rollout, and we have improved the decarbonization of our electricity consumption, thanks to the ramp-up in electricity from renewable sources. We are now focusing on our next objective for 2030, a 45% reduction of CO2 emission for all scopes compared to 2020. On diversity, we improved by 1 percentage point the proportion of women in senior management, as in the group as a whole, thanks to our talent management program. On digital inclusion, we have increased the number of people receiving our free training by more than 40%, notably thanks to our Orange Digital Centers. We continue to collect mobile devices from our customers by responsibility for waste and to fuel reconditioning and recycling.
The continued acceleration in EBITDA throughout the year, illustrated by the +2% growth in the final quarter, was underpinned by an improving second half trend in France, an outstanding MEA performance, a solid delivery in Europe with Spain especially strong, and Orange Business starting to improve. This is a result of our value strategy and tight cost control. EBITDA growth, combined with a sharp improvement in eCAPEX, have led to a strong organic cash flow of more than EUR 3.66 billion, well in line with our guidance of at least EUR 3.5 billion. We achieved this financial performance while closely monitoring our environmental commitments. As I just said, we managed to reduce CO2 emissions in Scope 1 and Scope 2 by 37%, beating our objective. Finally, our balance sheet remains very healthy.
The net debt over EBITDA ratio increased to 2.05x due to the VOO acquisition, in line with our medium-term target of around 2x . As explained during our Capital Markets Day, value creation is one of the pillars of our Lead the Future plan, and it is driving our decisions. To demonstrate this value creation commitment, starting today, we will be reporting three additional financial indicators. Firstly, a comprehensive new cash indicator that we call free cash flow all-in, which includes license payments, subordinated notes, coupons, and main litigation cash outs. In 2023, our free cash flow all-in reached EUR 2.9 billion, a massive step up of EUR 1.1 billion year-over-year, well above our dividends payout. Secondly, ROCE.
This is a key decision-making criteria, and in line with our Lead the Future plan, we want to improve this ratio by 100 to 150 basis points between 2022 and 2025. In 2023, driven by strong execution, ROCE improved by 80 basis points to reach 6.7%, already more than halfway to our 2025 target. Finally, EPS, which at 0.85 EUR, increased by more than 16%. The significant improvement in these indicators underpin the growth in our dividend, as announced in our Lead the Future plan, which reached 0.72 EUR in 2023 and 0.75 EUR in 2024, payable in 2025. Let's now take a look at where we are with the progress of our deal in Spain. The European Commission is finalizing its review and will provide its decision by February the 22nd.
We are confident that we will obtain clearance by then, which will lead to the closing of the deal by the end of the quarter. This will open the way for the combination of Orange Spain and MásMóvil to create a market leader in Spain. We do confirm our run rate synergies, and more globally, we are confident on the overall large value creation for Orange of this flagship strategic move. You will hear from us again on this major project in due course, of course. Our Lead the Future plan deployment is now at full steam. We have already made considerable progress on the four pillars of our plan, in particular, pursuing our value strategy in Europe. Our best-in-class networks and our strong focus on customer satisfaction have made this possible, notably in France, with our leading position in network quality and Net Promoter Score.
As I said earlier, we have also been active with our portfolio rationalization, with the ongoing processes on Orange Bank and OCS and Orange Studio. The transformation of Orange Business is on track with a recovery plan and started to deliver an improvement in the EBITDA trend in 2023. We expect further improvement in 2024 and confirm our objective of an EBITDA recovery in 2025. Middle East and Africa, once again, demonstrated its potential and efficiency, delivering double-digit growth in both revenue and EBITDA. Finally, in parallel, we continue to implement our new enterprise model, driving simplification and efficiency, notably through digital. Our Lead the Future strategy also leverages innovation to accelerate our transformation. AI is used in many internal cases to superpower our employees by providing them with tools to help them become more efficient and effective in their daily tasks.
For example, we use AI to predict the marketing offers most likely to be appealing and relevant to our customers. This approach is driving measurable revenue increases in many of our countries, and we are actively replicating this work in other countries. Our innovation team has also developed a secure and European-based internal generative AI tool. It includes the best AI models available from OpenAI and others that our employees can use in their daily activities. RPA, Robotic Process Automation, has allowed savings of more than 500,000 hours in 2023. This is particularly helpful in areas of the business with many repetitive, process-driven tasks, such as in our customer contact centers. Our second key focus is network. We are on a journey to transform our operating model to make it much more automated, software-driven, powered by AI, and leveraging the disaggregation of hardware and software.
We have already made concrete progress along this journey. For instance, radio configuration is automated in most of our countries with C-SON technology. We are already able to automatically change 20 million parameters per month. Some of these automation use cases leverage AI to reduce energy consumption, and there are many more applications. For example, we are introducing AI to optimize our CapEx decisions and network planning, as well as to implement fast root cause analysis and predictive network maintenance. Last but not least, we are pooling our operations via two network operating centers, one in Middle East and Africa and one in Europe. Let's move to slide 11 to review our efficiency plan. Despite an inflationary context, we delivered EUR 300 million of net savings in the first year of our three-year plan.
The savings were mainly related to headcount reduction and explained primarily by the front-loaded effect of the new senior part-time plan, with 7,600 signatories, and achieved through the new enterprise model transformation. We are fully confident in reaching the EUR 600 million target in 2025 as we accelerate major cost savings programs in the area of sourcing, network, IT, and real estate. With that, I hand over to Laurent.
Thank you, Christel. Let's start on slide 13 with a glimpse on the full year revenues, which is up 1.8% year-on-year, reaching EUR 44 billion this year. This growth was achieved thanks to the retail, driven by price increase, which offset the expected decrease in wholesale by more than two times and supported by the strong equipment sales growth. Looking at revenues by country, MEA was again our main growth drivers, with double-digit revenues uplift. Europe is up for the second year in a row with a solid 2.2%, driven by price increase implemented across our footprints and the strong performance of Poland and Belgium. Orange Business boasted a 0.2% growth with IT and IS activities, offsetting the expected decline of the legacy business.
Finally, France was down 1.4%, with a front-loaded anticipated decline in wholesale, partly offset by 3% growth in retail services, excluding PSTN. This performance is fully in line with our 2%-4% CAGR objective over the period 2020-2025. So moving to EBITDA, growth has been accelerating across the year, toward 2% in the Q4. France improved in the second half as targeted, benefiting from the full effect of the broad-based price increase implemented in the second quarter. MEA delivered an outstanding performance, and Orange Business delivered on its targeted trajectories. Europe also turned into an excellent performance this year, with double-digit growth in Spain and solid result in Poland. All of this resulted into a solid annual growth of 1.3%.
Moving to net income, which is up 10%, reaching, as you see, EUR 2.9 billion, up close to EUR 300 million. And this increase resulted primarily from the favorable base effect of the 2022 Orange Romania goodwill impairment. Partially offsetting this effect, we booked one-off impact on voluntary senior part-time program related to the raised age of retirement in France and also to the costs related to Orange Bank and Orange Business. Moving to eCAPEX, which improved sharply in 2023 by close to EUR 500 million, with a decrease accelerating in Q4 at -8%, with the deployment peak of fiber largely behind us. As a result, eCAPEX represented 15% of sales in 2023, well in line with our target. France was the main contribution to this improvement, with a drop of 10% year-on-year.
This decrease, as you know, is sustainable since we reach 37.4 million FTTH connectable homes, which represent around 80% coverage of the country premises. In accordance with our Lead the Future plan, all main segments, eCAPEX decreased, with the exception of MEA, where we continue to invest to support strong revenue and EBITDA growth. So moving to our organic cash flow, as Christel say, increased by more than EUR 600 million, year-on-year, reaching EUR 3.66 billion, when in line with our guidance of at least EUR 3.5 billion. This, remarkable performance was driven by the decrease in eCAPEX and the uplift in EBITDA.
After deducting license payment, hybrid coupon, and major litigation, our free cash flow all-in reached EUR 2.9 billion, an outstanding increase of EUR 1.1 billion over the year, thanks to our strong organic cash flow growth, but as well, lower license and litigation payment in 2023. In terms of net debt, increase of net debt of nearly EUR 2 billion was related mainly to the VOO acquisition in Belgium, and is well in line with our midterm guidance of around 2x EBITDA. Our free cash flow all-in generation is greater, as you see, than our global dividend payment.
Finally, before turning to our business review, a word on our strong liquidity position, which is a key asset, as well as our low cost of debt and, together with the very high part of fixed rate debt, together with our credit rating, which is among the best in telcos. All of these assets, as you know, are critical in our current macro environment. So let's move to the business reviews, and, of course, starting with France. As you see in France, our value strategy continued to deliver in the last quarters of the year, with all ARPU up, fueling retail growth with retail ex-PSTN of over 3% in line with our global target. We delivered a very good Q4 commercial performance in mobile and fiber, despite overall market slowdown since the start of the year.
We are best in class for churn, which remains moderate, and as well for NPS, which is back to its 2022 level. In terms of operational excellence, we have been ranked the best mobile network in France by ARCEP for the 13th consecutive time, and for the first time, number one on all measured criteria. As expected and indicated in H1, our second half EBITDA in France improved significantly, thanks to the full positive impact of the broad-based price increase implemented during the first half. All in all, as you see with eCAPEX declining by more than 10%, in line with our mid-term expectation, cash flow generation improved all-in with EBITDA less CapEx, increasing by more than 3%. Looking ahead, we are expecting a stable EBITDA trend in 2024, which will continue to benefit from our value strategy.
Let's turn to Europe, with revenues and retail services up by more than 2% in Q4, and the result, which was been driven by 3 main factors. The first, very positive momentum in B2B in Poland. Convergence, which is basically reaping the benefits of our price increase and growth on our very high broadband, with now 7 million FTTH and cable customers. Low margin wholesale revenues continues to decrease at a slower pace, reflecting the regulatory's decrease in call termination rates and decline in international traffic. Solid retail momentum, together with action implemented to counter inflation pressure, have led to a very nice step up of Europe EBITDA by almost 6%, driven by Spain at more than 12% and Poland at almost 3%.
For the full year, EBITDA less CapEx is up by a record 33%, reflecting our very positive EBITDA generation and our strong CapEx improvement. Looking forward for 2024, we are expecting Europe to deliver a solid trajectory. Turning to Spain, with Q4 revenue slightly down due to the decrease in low-margin wholesale. On a full-year basis, revenues has been up by 1.1%, driven by retail services growth across all our four quarters. In a highly competitive market, as you know, we continue to generate with our focus on customer value management. Convergent ARPU is up 3.5%, with a churn improvement of 2.3% year-on-year. We also achieved a step-up in all B2B segments. Our customer base increased by 13K in FTTH in Q4 and 7K in mobile, when excluding the disconnection of 57K COVID lines.
Our 5G customer base now is exceeding 3 million customers. Our sales momentum and our ongoing focus on customer optimization translated into a second-half acceleration of our EBITDA growth, leading to a double-digit positive momentum for the year. In terms of EBITDA less CapEx, we are up by EUR 240 million, a very large step-up, driven by our commercial and operational performance. So up to Africa and Middle East, which again demonstrated very strong performance and fully in line with our targets, with revenues up by 11%, a 10-year record. In Q4, our revenue is up by 12%, fueled by our four main growth engines: data, fixed broadband, B2B, and last but not least, Orange Money, which is up 28%.
This excellent performance was driven by a solid 4% growth in our mobile customer base, up to 150 million customers as we speak, and by our average mobile ARPU, up by 6%. We are also extremely proud of the success of our new Max It all-in-one application, which has been launched in November to enhance customer loyalties and already has more than 10 million downloads as of today. As a result, we delivered double-digit EBITDA growth in 2023 for the fourth year in a row, increasing the EBITDA margin by 40 basis points to 38.2%. In terms of EBITDA less CapEx, we improved by 18% versus last year, our cash generation in euros, which is definitely the key focus of MEA management.
This excellent result give us confidence that we can achieve our objective of high single-digit EBITDA growth in 2024. Finally, turning to Orange Business, our top line recorded a slight increase in 2023. This trend was driven by a positive momentum in IT and IS, specifically in cyber defense, and a strong performance as well in digital and data, and as expected, decline in legacy business. Related to the cloud business, we announced in January the launch of the commercial activities of Bleu, our new sovereign cloud platform, with services going live as of end of 2024. As you know, Orange Business EBITDA recovery is very high on our agenda. Our turnaround program is starting to deliver. In H2, EBITDA decreased by 14%, delivering a sequential improvement in comparison with H1 and as well with 2022.
In 2024, considering the positive ramp-up of our recovery plan, we are aiming to approximately halve the rate of decrease, paving the way for EBITDA turnaround in 2025. Back to you, Christel.
Thank you, Laurent. Let's have a look to our guidance. We achieved all our 2023 financial targets, including a 1.3% EBITDA growth, accelerating during the year, and eCAPEX strongly improving in line with our Capital Markets Day commitments. Both led to the significant growth of our organic cash flow, comfortably in line with our at least EUR 3.5 billion guidance. We confirm as well the increase of the dividend to EUR 0.72 for this year. Looking ahead to 2024 and 2025, at current perimeter, we confirm our Lead the Future trajectory with an additional step-up in 2024, in particular, with an organic cash flow objective of at least EUR 3.8 billion, thanks to a projected low single-digit EBITDA growth and eCAPEX to sales remaining at around 15%.
As far as the dividend is concerned, we confirm EUR 0.75 for 2024, payable in 2025, and set the floor for EUR 0.75 for 2025, payable in 2026. Our guidance is always as always, is set on a pro forma basis. In light of the expected closing end of Q1 2024 with of the JV in Spain, we provide you here our updated guidance, taking into account the future deconsolidation of Orange Spain. Overall, we confirm our global trajectory on EBITDA and eCAPEX, post deconsolidation of our Spanish business as of 2024.
Our organic cash flow will continue to increase at the same pace from EUR 3.18 billion, excluding Orange Spain in 2023, with more than EUR 300 million uplift from 2023 to 2025, leading to at least EUR 3.3 billion in 2024 and EUR 3.5 billion cash generation in 2025. Finally, our objectives in respect of leverage and dividend are also not impacted by the deconsolidation. Overall, we are definitely confident in our ability to execute our Lead the Future trajectory focused on value generation. Thanks for your attention, and let's now turn to Q&A.
Thank you very much for the presentation. We will now be moving to the Q&A part of the call. If you have a question, please press star two on your keypad. That is star two on your keypad. Please ensure that the mute function on the telephone is switched off to allow the signal to reach the equipment. And finally, if we don't have any time to take all your questions, please contact the investor relations department for the follow-ups. Our first question comes from Mr. Nicolas Cote-Colisson from HSBC. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
Oh, thank you. Two questions, please. Can you tell us how you deal with FX assumptions when it comes to the organic cash flow guidance in 2024? Because I'm thinking about Egypt, where EBITDA is at risk because devaluation occurs. So where else do you have buffers to make the guidance happen eventually? And my second question is on France, because I can see a pickup in churn. Now, you mentioned that you were best in class in the market, but I was just wondering if it, if it was a kind of a turning point in the market dynamics. And also, if you were seeing any adjustment or downspinning from clients trying to save on their packages. So more generally, what you think about your pricing power in France, but also in Europe in 2024. Thank you.
Yes. Good morning, Nicolas. So I take the first one on, on the FX. So, our OCF guidance is, is all, all included, so to say. So we are, of course, taking the, the, the, the potential evolution on, on, on any currencies, and we have anticipated, talking about the Egyptian pound, some devaluation in 2024 into these numbers.
When it comes to your question on France, I will let Jean-François comment.
Yes. Hello, Jean-François Fallacher. So on France, I mean, indeed, you, you've seen a, a slight churn increase of 1-4 points, year-on-year on France. I mean, there is no pickup in churn. And again, I mean, we are having the best churn of the market. Obviously, this is linked to our price increasing, increases, sorry, at the beginning of the year 2023. Let me remind that our NPS is back on track on where it was end of 2022. So, I mean, there is absolutely, no worries on the churn side. And, just for you to know, the fixed churn is stable versus 2022, so this is, clear.
That linked to the inflation, there is obviously linked to the inflation in price in France, where in the fact that there is pressure on the purchasing power on the French people. There is an appetite, there is more appetite on eventually low-cost offers. We'll talk about that later. Probably, we see, we see some agitation in the low end of the market, but absolutely no downspinning on our side.
Okay, very clear. Thank you very much.
Okay, thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Akhil Dattani from JP Morgan. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
Hi, morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I've got two as well, please, if I can. Firstly, on the new metrics that you've provided us with today, obviously, it's a helpful color to have. I wondered if you could maybe help us a little bit with how we should think about EPS. You obviously highlighted very strong growth in 2023, EBITDA growth this year, based on consensus, and what you're guiding to should be better. So I just wondered if you would help us understand, at least at a high level, how we think about EPS growth into 2024. Can it be as strong or are there other items we should be thinking about? So that's my first question. And then the second question was on Spain.
I'm just trying to understand a little bit better the guidance that you've provided, adjusting for the Spanish transaction. You've provided a half a billion bridge between the in and ex-Spain. I guess I was just looking for a little bit of color on how you've worked out that bridge. The reason I ask is if I look at my numbers or consensus numbers, it seems that we're modeling just under half a billion of operating cash flow for Spain. I would have thought with the EUR 4.2 billion of proceeds, there'll be some sort of interest income. So I would have thought the bridge would be a bit smaller, maybe a EUR 0.4 billion or a bit less.
So I just wondered if there's any other items or considerations you've baked into that, that we should be thinking about. And then I guess more generally, there's a very slight delay in the Spanish timeline. I don't know if you can comment, but any sort of color you can provide on sort of what the process and what's gone would be useful as well. Thanks so much.
Thank you. On EPS, obviously, it's difficult to give any colors given the unpredictability of some items below EBIT. But obviously, our objective is to drive up EBITDA, and that should translate into stronger EPS. So that's I don't know if, Laurent, you want to add more to that?
No, the key drivers, Akhil, is good morning, is definitively the EBITDA step up. And as always, there is always a number of points which are, in a way, difficult to predict, which is some of the elements below the line in terms of hedging and so forth. But globally, the trend is up, driven by EBITDA.
And, your question regarding Spain and the guidance post deconsolidation, so the way we've defined it is obviously consistent with our organic cash flow generation trend. So objective is to generate more than EUR 300 billion additional cash from 2023 to 2025, and we've just looked at the OCF in Spain and removed the EUR 500 million contribution. So this is a mechanical, I would say, consistent with the EBITDA minus eCAPEX, knowing that Spain is a market where we do not pay taxes big thanks to different tax assets.
And maybe I had a point, Akhil, on the proceeds from the EUR 4.2 billion of cash that we are expecting at closing. So that will be a plus in there, indeed, in terms of our interest cash in. Still, as you know, we are expecting a decrease of interest rates in 2024 versus 2023, which will be an offset to this tailwind. An increase, so, yep.
Great, thank you. And then just add any color or comments on the very small delay we've got in the Spanish process. I don't know if that means anything or not?
You mean the moving from 15th of February to 22nd?
Yeah, correct. Exactly.
Because all you're asking compared to our initial plan, which was to close the deal in 18 months. So-
Sure.
No, I mean, for us, first of all, it's, you know, we've resumed from the stop the clock early December, and now the process is ongoing. If the process takes a few more days, it has no impact. So it's really, I mean, no comment to make anyway. We wait for the clearance, but as we said, we are confident on the outcome, and we are confident on the closing in by the end of Q1.
That's clear. Thanks so much.
Okay, thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
Yeah. Good morning, everyone. So, just two questions. Firstly, you're guiding to French, or that you're expecting the French EBITDA will be flat in 2024, which is good to see. Just wondered if you could talk through the puts and the takes that go into that. If you could just talk us through the waterfall from your French EBITDA, EBITDA declines this year into flat for 2024, and what exactly you're anticipating for energy tailwinds, in 2024, that would be helpful. And then just second question, obviously for us, it's very hard to model and really, understand the Orange Business trajectory. You're clearly, still seeing the turnaround plan, in line with expectations.
Could you talk to us just about how you'd anticipate 2024 to bridge the gap between your 15% EBITDA declines in 2023 and obviously stabilization in 2025? Thank you.
Okay. So on the France trajectory as you've repeated, we want, we aim at a flat EBITDA. On the waterfall, obviously, we have some tailwind and some headwinds, so we continue to drive efficiencies. On the wholesale market, as you know, we had a front-loaded trajectory on the 2023 to 2025, and but this continues to impact our EBITDA, though, to a lesser extent in 2024 compared to 2023, thanks in particular to the improved pricing on the unbundling. On energy, tailwind, as you know, in 2023, we had EUR 200 million impact on energy.
For next year, I think we are around EUR 50 million-EUR 80 million on the tailwind that we expect from energy. And there's then many, many, I would say, other smaller items. As you know, we welcome the Olympics in France in 2024, which is somehow a one-time impact for us in the trajectory.
So, there's a lot of different items, but overall, the EBITDA trajectory is driven by a solid retail services growth, according to our guideline from the Capital Markets Day, between 2%-4% growth, continued pressure from wholesale, a bit of tailwind on the energy and efficiency plans, which we continue to drive in France, and we have the benefit from the early retirement program, where many employees signed up for it during the course of 2023. On the Orange Business trajectory, we continue to see an improving trend in 2024, and you've noticed that the H2 2023 was already slightly better than the H1.
For the time being, we want to have the decrease, so moving from the minus 15% from 2023 to around minus 8% in around, I'd say, but halving in 2024. So on continued progress toward our 2025 objective.
Thank you. That's really helpful. Can I just check I understood correctly on the energy tailwind? You said EUR 50 million + EUR 80 million. Is that EUR 130 million in total, or how should I understand that?
I'm not sure I heard the last part of your question-
I'm just trying to understand.
On the energy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You, you-
Go ahead
Were saying, I couldn't quite understand what, like, what exactly the total tailwind from energy was in 2024 in France.
It's in the EUR 50 million range.
Okay, that's clear. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
Oh, great. Morning, everyone. Thank you for the questions. I've got two, please, focus on France. First of all, you just highlighted the 2%-4% ex-PSTN retail revenue growth. I guess we've seen that number come down again this quarter, 3.1%. You guys haven't announced a kind of broad-based price increase for this year. I think you've highlighted more targeted pricing. We've seen your peers increase. I think, Jean-François, you mentioned good NPS numbers, you know, churn being controlled. Now, can you revisit that stance on pricing? And could we see a wider price increase through the year to see that service revenue growth accelerate again, please?
And secondly, on the CapEx guidance, you've highlighted a disciplined eCAPEX, and I guess at your CMD, you gave a group number around 15% eCAPEX to sales. Now, we've seen some of your peers give a bit more color around the domestic trends, and clearly, you know, fiber rollout in France has come down significantly, you know, 19% last year, eCAPEX sales, 17% now. Where can that go in the longer term for French eCAPEX sales? Thank you.
On the market dynamic in France, I will let Jean-François give some more insights.
Yes. Thank you, Christel. Roshan, I mean, good morning. I mean, there is, indeed, if you compare the growth of Q4 versus Q3, there's a slight decrease from 3.4, we think 3 to 3.1% in Q4. Let me explain you why this is. I mean, I remind that we had a very strong price policy and value policy in 2023. We did three things, if you remember. The first one was a price increase over the full base that started in Q1 2023, which obviously is paying off since the half of the Q2 2023. First thing. The second thing we've done is, if you remember well, we have slashed the promotions, which used to be 12 months promotion to 6 months promotion.
So this is going to start paying off in 2024. The first thing we've done is doing some what I call more for more actions on the base that obviously you have not seen. This is because this is rather below the line. We have done that starting Q3 2023 and we're still ongoing with chunks of our customer base doing that, and this is clearly going to pay off in 2024. Why is there a slight decrease in growth in Q4? Is simply because what we see also, and that we have commented already in Q3, is really a slowdown of the French market.
So if we look at the sum of the net adds, and this is published by ARCEP quarter after quarter, we see really the market, the French market, slowing down, probably linked to, as I was saying before, the pressure on the French people linked to inflation and the purchasing power being under pressure. We see the global French market slowing down. So this slight decrease of 3.1% is linked exactly to that, because Q4 2022, we had more volumes than we had in Q4 2023. So this is the explanation of this very slight decrease in growth.
But again, I mean, nothing to be worried about because we are really extremely disciplined in our pricing policy and in our wish to really create value on the French market.
And on your question regarding eCAPEX, and I guess some guidance or trajectory, it's too early, obviously, to speak post-2025, but as you know, we've passed the peak of a fiber rollout. If you look backwards in France, pre-fiber rollout plan, we had a CapEx ratio of around 14%. Now, that being said, when we say we've done the rollout of fiber, we continue to have in our CapEx investments customer fiber connections, and obviously, this is related to converting and monetizing our fiber. So this is something that will continue to be in our CapEx trajectory.
Obviously from 2025, we will work actively on the copper decommissioning until 2030. So I think if we look for a new CapEx to sales normative, we have to look beyond 2030 somehow. So really too early to comment, both post 2025 and post copper decommissioning. But we are very confident in our around 50-15% CapEx to sales ratio on the long run.
Great. That, that's helpful. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. Next question comes from Mr. Mathieu Robilliard from Barclays. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for the presentation. First, I had a question about Spain coming back to your guidance of free cash flow, excluding the Spanish business. I was wondering if you were including in that some sort of dividend paid by the JV to the two shareholders, and how, more generically, would you balance dividend payment against the deleveraging targets that you've set when you announced the deal? Because I think at closing, it's gonna be around 5x, and your goal is to go to something closer to 3.5x. So that's the first question. Then I had a question about towers.
We'd heard from some of the players in the French market that the growth in data in mobile had slowed and was probably a bit slower than what they had anticipated a few years ago, and that that was having an impact in their need to increase the number of sites in or other of your geographies. But generically, your outlook for the need for more towers would be very interesting. Thank you.
Thank you. So on Spain, I mean, we have not included in our OCF guidance any dividend payment from the JV to Orange to 2025. And when it comes, our priority will be to generate the synergies and obviously to make sure that we also deleverage the joint venture. As you know, we have the option to reconsolidate the JV in the future, and that's why we'll be focused on this. So no dividend play out in the guidance in our organic cash flow trajectory. On towers, I won't comment on what others have said, but we continue to invest in densifying our networks.
But, obviously, this is also through software and rollout of 5G and covering rural areas. So at least for us, we have not changed the trajectory of our rollout plan in France. And our focus, if it comes to our Totem TowerCo , continues to be to increase the tenancy ratio, which has increased. And we have a revenue increase of plus. Well, I think you have it. Plus above 0.5% or 1% revenue increase for Totem. You see that we haven't commented directly in the call, but you have the details in the documents. But no, no change in the-
If I can follow up.
In the way we roll out.
Okay. And if I can follow up on that, is that the investment you're making in France, it's essentially for rural coverage as opposed to densification? And what are you seeing in other countries? And if I can come back to Spain, sorry. You have said in the past that the cash you are expected to receive when the deal closes, you would keep it because precisely you want to have the flexibility to reconsolidate Spain eventually one day. And I just wanted to make sure that you keep that cash in your balance sheet to have flexibility. Thank you.
Yes, you're right. When it comes to adding new sites, mobile sites, it's mainly for coverage and rural areas in France, and probably the same as well across Europe. And then your question on Spain and the EUR 4.2 billion cash upstream from the transaction. Indeed, as we've said in the past, we'll take these proceeds on our balance sheet, to keep the flexibility that we need to be able to reconsolidate in the future the JV.
Thank you very much.
Okay, thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Jakob Bluestone from Exane BNP. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks for taking the question. I just had a question about buying fiber assets. I saw there some press reports saying that you passed on TDF's fiber assets in France, and I appreciate you can't comment on that specifically. But just be interested in understanding a little bit more broadly, do you think there is an opportunity for you guys to acquire fiber assets in France? And if so, you know, what, what do you think, you know, would be important for you to, to make those kind of acquisitions? You know, what, what are the criteria that you would be looking at for that to sort of be consistent with your strategy? Thank you.
Thank you. So, I mean, as you know, in France, we already own 60% I mean, 50%, directly on our balance sheet, and then 10% through Orange Concessions, our JV for rural areas. So we already own 60% of the fiber infrastructure, and we continue to roll out fiber, obviously, to densify. So on the TDF transaction, but I would say generally speaking, as always, regarding M&A, we are always actively looking at opportunities, but always with an objective that creates value at group level. And so in the case of TDF, combining, I mean, the existing business and the impact it could have on the group, we decided to stop the discussion.
I believe they are now continuing with other parties on their fiber divestment.
Okay, thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Georgios from Citi. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I just wanted to focus a bit on the OpEx drivers for the next two years. I think you mentioned earlier that you expected a EUR 50 million improvement in energy costs in 2024. I was wondering if you can give us perhaps some early indications of how to think about 2025. And also, as you show in your slide for the efficiency target, you've already made a lot of progress in year 1. If you could perhaps give us a bit of an update of what you are factoring into your guidance for 2024. So if you think there could be potentially some upside to those targets when the 3-year period is complete. And then I just wanted one further clarification about Spain.
You mentioned earlier the fact that, some of the interest benefits you have from the EUR 4+ billion of proceeds, will offset a broader rise in interest costs you would have had anyway. But I still struggle to reconcile why that wouldn't be already reflected in your guidance before the deconsolidation of Spain. So the difference between the two not being lower is something I just wanted to check with you again. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you. So on the OpEx drivers and especially our efficiency plan, as we've said, we've already achieved 50% of our objective with a EUR 300 million, and we are confident, and we reconfirm our objective for 2025, EUR 600 million. Obviously, in an environment that continues to have inflation. So we will continue to work. Obviously, we have the benefit of the early retirement plan in France, but we are also actively driving efficiency through sourcing, through our network, network OpEx, IT, real estate. So everything is looked at, and it's difficult to give you more colors.
But at this stage, we don't, we don't give, I would say, I don't know if there's upside to the EUR 600 million, but we are already working hard on delivering this EUR 600 million. On the EUR 4.2 billion proceeds from Spain and the, I don't think we said there's any upside coming from the interest rates. I think it was a question that Laurent took, so I know, I don't know if you want to reconfirm.
Yeah. Just to confirm, in bold terms, the message is that we are broadly stable in terms of financial interest for 2024 versus 2023. On the upside, we will have indeed the proceeds in terms of interest coming from the EUR 4 billion. But you need to bear in mind as well that the interest rate will decrease from around 4% in terms of what we get when we are placing our liquidity to around 2.8% in 2024. So there will be less positive interest coming from our liquidity placement from 2024 to 2023. So all of that is broadly balancing, and all of that is part of our global guidance in 2024.
Thank you. And on energy, the color on 25?
I don't think we have any detail. As you know, we have a secured policy on energy, where we cap or we how do you say that?
We hedge.
We hedge, sorry. We hedge the pricing for energy in advance. So I think as of today, we've probably hedged already more than 50% of our energy consumption for 2025, but we continue, obviously, to look at the market dynamics. And just to give you some colors, we actually have more than 75% that have already been directly hedged for 2025. And we see, obviously, a price that we expect to continue, I mean, that the peak was 2023. 2024, we are reducing, and we commented the EUR 50 million tailwind impact for France.
2025, we have a lower price as well, so that, that will benefit and fuel our trajectory as well.
Thank you. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Stéphane Béyazian from Oddo. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
Yes, thank you. Two questions, if I may. The first one is regarding Africa. The trends are pretty strong, very strong, actually. Is there anything you could say about 2024? Do you believe that there might be a little bit of a softening, obviously, you know, looking at where we are, we are coming from? Any update on, you know, some anti-French sentiment that we have seen in a couple of countries or any factor that we need to take into account when we model 2024 from Africa? And my second question is regarding France on the internet access.
You're still losing some customers since you raised some prices, and we've seen one competitor launching an interesting box with a lot of content included in their product. So I was wondering, you know, are you satisfied with the trends that you're currently seeing on your French internet access? Do you actually see the market perhaps becoming a little more competitive? Can you cut your prices or should we expect that now it's gonna be more difficult, you know, looking at your commercial trends and some of the products in the market? Thank you.
Thank you, Stéphane. So on Africa, and I'll let Jérôme comment on the environment and especially regarding French-France sentiment. But we reconfirm a strong performance, and you've seen the results in 2023 from Middle East and Africa. And for 2024, we aim at the high single-digit trajectory for Middle East and Africa. So we absolutely continue to perform with this business unit. Jérôme, on the environment.
Yes. Thank you, Christel. Thank you for your question. Well, you know, our business is very resilient towards the geopolitical situation in general in Africa and the Middle East and everywhere else. There is no direct correlation between what you call the French bashing in some countries and the operational results that we have in the West African countries. On the contrary, we see a very great performance, higher than the average in those countries for the time being.
And when it comes to France, I mean, we still—yes, indeed, we have a slight decrease of net adds for broadband, but if—I mean, that's very small compared to our total broadband base. And we monitor, obviously, what the competition is doing, and I will let Jean-François comment further. But the first thing we have to notice from the last Free announcement was an increase of their broadband prices as well. Jean-François?
Yes, to add on what Christel was just saying, I mean, on the minus 30k that you are probably referring to in terms of Q4 evolution of our broadband base, let me remind that we have added 264,000 new fiber customers, so net adds. So this is quite massive. And these numbers indeed are to be compared to a base of 12.3 million broadband customers in France. So we are pretty confident. And the reason of that is what I was saying before, is we really see a slowdown on the French market, both on mobile and fixed. So as the ones having the bigger base, this is explaining this slight decrease in Q4.
As concerns the launch of the new box of our new competitor, we see it actually rather as a good value signal, because you have probably noticed that they are introducing a price point at EUR 60 per month, so which we see as positive. Well, obviously, we will monitor closely the situation. And in terms of content for us, there is no news because we are offering for years all this content. I mean, what we've just seen is a kind of all you can eat approach from them, whether we do have an à la carte approach again, for many years. So here as well, we are pretty confident and we are watching out the development in the upcoming months.
Regarding pricing, you know, any indication on what you could be doing in 2024?
Same strategy, value strategy. We will be extremely, extremely cautious on our pricing strategy, not trying to, but achieving like we did last year, an increase of value of our customer base. We'll be very disciplined.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Javier Borrachero from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. May I come back to your guidance, please, to 2024, 2025? Now, if I look at your EBITDA guidance, this low single digit, if I take consensus expectations of around, say, 2% growth, that is a delta of, say, EUR 300 ex-Spain, maybe EUR 400 with Spain. Now, how should I reconcile this with the delta in the organic cash flow, which is growth below EUR 200? I mean, you mentioned relatively stable financial charges, maybe a little more of taxes, but, but I mean, in terms of CapEx, shall we then think about an increase in absolute CapEx in 2024 and 2025? Thank you.
So the CapEx remains unchanged. The guidance with or without Spain remains unchanged. And as we said, we are very committed and comfortable with our around 15% CapEx to sales ratio. So this is true pre or post deconsolidation of Orange Spain. And then on the cash flow organic cash flow guidance, as we said, we've taken a mechanical approach and reconfirm our cash flow improvement with or without Orange Spain. I don't know if Laurent, you want to-
No, I think that's our OCF is up, will be up, basically in line with EBITDA. CapEx will be roughly flat in 2024. And then there is always some very limited plus and minus in terms of BFR, working capital or tax. But globally, the main drivers, will be, in terms of OCF, will be EBITDA.
Okay, thank you very much.
Okay, thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Titus Krahn from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks very much for taking my questions and for the presentation. You had just two small questions from my side. First of all, on your new metric, all-in Free Cash Flow, really appreciated the focus on that one. Just could you give any color on those items below organic Cash Flow? Is it safe to assume they could be largely stable in 2024 compared to 2023 when we look at that number? And the second question, just a small follow-up on your remaining fiber rollout on balance sheet left in France. Could you just remind us how many households are still to be covered in the next two years for you? Thank you.
So on the all-in free cash flow, I mean, as we've said, between organic cash flow and all-in free cash flow, there's spectrum license payments, there's a litigation, which is highly unpredictable, I would say, and the coupon payments. So on spectrum, that's why we don't give a guidance on free cash flow all-in, and we are very committed to organic cash flow guidance, because license payments, we had the Poland in 2023. We have a few 5G licenses coming in Middle East and Africa.
We had some as well in 2023, but it's difficult to predict the pace, and we don't want to and obviously, this is an investment for the future. So we don't give any guidance, but we want to our message is obviously that we are very focused on this KPI. When it comes to fiber rollout in France, we continue to roll out fiber and all the commitments that we have with the, whether in the mid-dense areas, where we have commitments that have been reconfirmed with the government recently and the regulator or in the rural areas, which are done through Orange Concessions. All of this is included in our eCAPEX guidance.
Today, in France, there's 88% homes connectable to fiber, so that's only a 12% left. Then, depending on dense areas, rural areas, or mid-dense areas, the objective will be to increase, but, but again, this is all included in our CapEx guidance.
Okay. Thank you very much. Yes, on the, on the free cash flow, just helpful to see there's nothing specific to flag. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much. Just a reminder, star two for any additional questions. That's star two. Our next question comes from Mr. Nick Lyall from Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Morning, everybody. A couple of questions on France, if that's okay. You, you seem very confident about the, the ERP, and obviously, the staff costs were down about EUR 150 million year-on-year. So could you just maybe give us a bit of an update on the timing of any salary rises, please? And, you seem reasonably confident on the wage settlement. Is that a fair assumption, given, your comments about the ERP overall? And then, secondly, on wholesale. Apologies if this was answered earlier. I missed the very start of the call, but, -11% on wholesale in France in the fourth quarter seemed a bit tough, especially given the comments on things expected to improve with the price rises into 2024. Could you just explain why wholesale was so weak?
Are you still confident about a rebound overall on the revenue trends, please, into next year? Thanks very much.
So on the salary rise, the negotiations with our workers' unions are ongoing in France, but it will pick up. It's April 1, the salary rise increase, but it's something that every year it's the same. So it's, there's no peak, and we do anticipate a lower salary rise in 2024 than what we had in 2023. And it's anticipated to be lower than the rate of inflation. On the wholesale dynamic, first, I mean, the increase in unbundling prices will only kick off as of Q2 2024, so it's not in our Q4 numbers for France.
So that's why you've seen this, I mean, as we said, wholesale impact continues to be negative overall in France, but to a lesser extent in 2024 compared to 2023.
I'm sorry, that dip off in the fourth quarter, Christel, in the wholesale numbers, I think you went from sort of -7 or so, -8 to around -11. There's nothing, there's nothing in there we should be concerned about in terms of, volume trends or anything else that's hitting? Because wholesale has been quite a drag for quite a while now.
Oops, no, I don't, there's no, no, nothing that would be. So there's maybe a one-time, and maybe it's on some rural areas or I don't know, but there's nothing that would set a tougher line for 2024 compared to 2023. Overall, the year 2023 was at -8.5% on wholesale. And you see, and we are confident that, obviously, it will continue to decrease, as I said, in 2024, but we have the benefit from the new unbundling and civil engineering tariffs.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Thank you very much. Our final question today comes from Mr. Fernando Cordero from Banco Santander. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello. Thank you for taking my two questions, and both questions are coming from what about Spain? The first one is related with your two key priorities. First, on materializing the synergies that you have announced to the market. In that sense, I just would like to understand what kind of OpEx and CapEx costs are you expecting in order to materialize these EUR 450 million synergies run, right? And the second question is, you have already announced an agreement with the challenger regarding the potential remedies on this deal, and just to understand a little bit, how is the mechanics of the roaming agreement that you have already agreed with DG, if it is possible? Many thanks.
Thank you. So on the synergies, we are indeed reconfirming the EUR 450 million annual synergies after year four. And it's mainly on OpEx. And then when it comes to CapEx, obviously, the benefit of the JV will be to have a larger customer base, and we will continue to make investment. Too early to comment on what the CapEx would be, but there's obviously a lot of network synergies because, as you know, MásMóvil is massively using our mobile networks, but there's also some overlaps. So these are synergies that we will tap into.
We have obviously, as usual, sales and marketing synergies, and then there's many other synergies on the management position. But the teams are very confident, and as we said, we reconfirm the focus on those synergies. When it comes to the roaming agreement and potential remedies, it's too early to comment, but indeed, there is this, I would say, so-called optional roaming agreement, possibly for the JV with DG, but we will not make any further comments. The only thing I would say is that it's a market price roaming agreement.
As you know, today, DG is using Telefónica for its roaming with a roaming agreement.
Okay, fair enough. Thanks.
Okay, thank you very much. It looks we have no further questions. I'll pass the line back to Miss Christel for her concluding remarks.
Thank you. So to wrap up this session, let me reconfirm to you our very strong confidence to keep on improving profitability in France and turning around our Orange Business. Confidence as well to maintain a very strict management of costs and OpEx, and secure the very strong ramp-up in our cash flow aggregates and the value creation KPIs. Thank you all, and I look forward to seeing you on the road.
Thank you very much. This concludes today's conference call. We'll now be closing all the lines. Thank you and goodbye.