Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Orange's first half year 2021 results conference call. The call will be hosted by Mr Stéphane Richard, Chairman and CEO, and Mr Ramon Fernandez, Deputy CEO, Finance, Performance and Development, with other members of Orange's executive committee for the Q&A session that will start after the presentation. Thank you, and let me hand over to Mr Stéphane Richard.
Good morning, and welcome to our Q2 and H1 2021 results presentation. Today, we will also talk about our growth engines that associated with our transformational programs will convert our leadership as a top-tier telecom player in our 2023 guidance. Let's start with page four, where you have here the key messages of this semester. Number one is an excellent commercial performance overall, driven by strong equipment sales due to shops reopening and also the launch of 5G. Number two is an acceleration in our revenues, driven by an outstanding performance in Middle East and Africa, but also other European countries and enterprise. Number three is a strong recovery on IT and IS, with close to 11% growth driven by cloud, digital and data, and Cyberd efense.
Number four is key milestones in infrastructure achieved with the recent nomination of the management team of our European TowerCo, TOTEM. On the next page, you will have an overall view of our key achievements for Q2 2021. As a result of our excellent commercial performance this quarter, we now serve close to 11.2 million convergent customers and more than 10 million FTTH customers out of near 52 million connectable homes. We posted strong FTTH net adds, especially in France and Poland. The mobile 5G offers are now available in six countries and near 1 million 5G customers. In Africa and Middle East, the EBITDA H1 2021 grew 17%. This is the highest first semester ever. Fixed broadband, now one of the key engines of growth in MEA, posted a revenue growth in Q2 of 23% year-on-year.
Finally, Orange Bank accelerated its consumer credit development as we just signed a strategic partnership with fintech Younited. Next page, you have here our financial achievements for H1 2021. During this semester, we posted revenues at EUR 20.9 billion, up 1.5% year-on-year, driven by MEA, enterprise, and all the European countries except Spain. The group EBITDA decreased by 0.4% to EUR 5.8 billion, mainly impacted by Spain at -16.2% and by co-financing in France. Group eCAPEX increased by more than 22% to EUR 3.8 billion, in line with our guidance for 2021 between EUR 7.6 billion and EUR 7.7 billion after the slowdown experienced last year due to the pandemic.
Furthermore, our organic cash flow of telecom activities increased year-over-year, reaching EUR 840 million, linked to the normalization in working capital related to last year's solidarity measures. Finally, the net debt ratio reached 1.99x EBITDA, in line with our mid-term guidance. After this quick overview of our achievements, I am going now to hand over the floor to Ramon.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Stéphane. Good morning to all. We are going to start with revenues. In Q2, group revenues have been accelerating by 2.6%. This is compared to +0.5% in Q1. This is thanks to the very solid trend in Africa, Middle East, in Europe, excluding Spain, in enterprise, which was partially offset by the decrease in Spain, a market that remains difficult, and in France explained by the co-financing proceeds. From an activity perspective, this quarter was characterized by a rebound of equipment sales, an acceleration of mobile services fueled by Africa, Middle East. Convergence services back to growth thanks to the good momentum in France, Poland, and Belgium. While wholesale, as expected, decreased this quarter, and fixed-only services declined in France and enterprise.
Turning to EBITDA, we posted a very slight decline in H1 at -0.4%, which will contribute to the achievement of our full year guidance, which is flat minus. Remarkable at +17%, which more than offsets the Spanish decline. Also, all the other European countries posted a slight growth. Enterprise continued its path to recovery at -0.5% after -15% in full year 2020. The decline in France by 2.2% is largely attributable to fewer co-financing proceeds. Spain, where the macro situation is still very tough, posted -16% and suffered from a challenging comparable basis, notably due to a repricing of our customer base last summer. Also worth mentioning that the EBITDA trend for mobile financial services starts improving, thanks notably to +EUR 19 million of net banking income growth.
Our net income at the end of H1 landed at -EUR 2.6 billion, due to the EUR 3.7 billion accounting impairment that we booked on Orange Spain goodwill to reflect the local market environment, which has still not recovered, and uncertainties coming from the continuation of the sanitary crisis, which will delay the economic rebound. Additionally, the impairment includes the foreseen impact on Orange Spain's margin transferred to TOTEM Spain. This impairment has no cash impact, and as you already know, a new management team, a new CEO is in charge of the rigorous execution of our recovery plan, which includes pushing down our costs, rationalizing our brand portfolio, and improving our end-to-end processes, already setting us on the right path. I will give you more details on Spain in a few minutes.
In H1, our organic cash flow reached EUR 840 million and grew by EUR 585 million, thanks to the normalization in working capital, negatively impacted last year by solidarity measures to support our partners. In H1, our net debt to EBITDA ratio is in line with our guidance. The increase of net debt on the semester mainly reflects, besides the usual seasonality of the business, the payment of the remaining 2020 dividend and the buyback of minority shares in Orange Belgium. Last but not least, before turning to our business review, let me highlight the decline of our average cost of debt and our strong liquidity position. Now, turning to France. In the second quarter, we have implemented an effective commercial strategy to attract customers, especially in the shops which have all reopened.
This has fueled a very strong commercial performance with mobile net adds at +142,000, thanks to both Sosh and Orange, and also thanks to a record over the last two years of net adds from our SoHo and SME customers, despite the recent launches from our competitors. In broadband, there has been an ongoing, very solid momentum of fiber with 353,000 net adds, enabling us to reach +68,000 total fixed net adds. Despite intermittent aggressive promotions launched by the same competitor to which we rapidly responded in order to prevent them from repeating, the overall level of price is still better than in the past, allowing us to pursue our value strategy reflected in the acceleration of both our mobile ARPU, growing at 2.6%, and our convergent ARPU, growing by 0.7%.
In addition, after the two successful back book price increases done this year, we just launched a third one in June. These commercial actions will fuel our next semester results. As a result, our continuous strong commercial performance enabled us to accelerate the growth of our retail services at +0.4% this quarter or +2.6% excluding PSTN. It is noteworthy that, excluding co-financing proceeds, our total revenues would have grown this quarter. This also explains the main part of our EBITDA decline at -2.2%. We expect EBITDA trend to improve in the second half of this year, despite even more significant headwinds from co-financing that will be mostly offset by a steady improvement of our retail business and cost efforts.
Let's now turn to Europe, where we achieved a solid commercial performance, a clear improvement year on year with mobile net adds excluding M2M of +90,000 in Q2. This compares to -129,000 in Q2 2020. Fixed broadband net adds of +39,000, out of which 98,000 in fiber. Total Q2 revenues grew by 1.8%, driven by strong growth of equipment sales and service revenues that grew in all sectors. Close to 6%, 3.4%, 4.4% in Q2 respectively. EBITDA decreased by 5.9% impacted by Spain, but excluding Spain, it grew by 4.7%, driven by a very strong Poland, Belgium, and Central Europe.
Poland margin was boosted by growth of core telecom services in IT and IS, and in Belgium, EBITDA increased by 5.7%, mainly driven by higher retail service revenues and by cost efficiencies. Let's move to Spain, one of the most competitive markets in Europe. In this context, from a commercial point of view, we continue to post positive net adds in convergence, mobile contracts and FTTH. Regarding our financial performance, total revenues in Q2 at -2.7% have improved the trend compared to our previous quarters, supported by equipment revenues increasing by more than 35%. However, EBITDA at -16% in Q1 is impacted both by the repricing of our customer base performed last summer, generating ARPU reduction. Also impacted by a drag from roaming since our Q1 2020 was mostly a pre-COVID quarter.
Finally, by the comparable basis effect linked to savings related to distribution costs during the first lockdown in Q2 last year. Despite a tough situation, we are moving ahead regarding the transformation of our operating model in Spain, and we are implementing our recovery plan. Firstly, we have successfully transferred our customers from República Móvil towards Simyo, consolidating our low-cost brands in order to gain in agility. This is the first move. There will be further steps that we will discuss in Q3. Second, considering the situation, we had to adapt our headcount structure through a voluntary departure plan that has been fully subscribed with 400 employees, representing around 12% of the headquarters staff in Spain.
Third, our focus on customer care pays off through the improvement of the NPS and churn reduction on all segments, enabling us to stabilize our customer base. That being said, we expect EBITDA growth in 2023. Beyond 2023, the updated business plan, which led to the impairment, is in line with the analysts' consensus. Furthermore, the organic cash flow in Spain will grow starting in 2022. Lastly, I would also like to point out that there are some encouraging events on the Spanish market, where we expect the upcoming EU funds to help develop digitalization.
We can see that the government is fully aware and sensitive to the difficulties faced by the sector, as demonstrated by the extension of the recent 5G 700 MHz license from 20 to 40 years, and the project to suppress the so-called TV tax for telcos. Let me now turn to the continued excellent performance of Africa & Middle East, which is characterized this quarter by a further acceleration of growth, with total revenues at +14.4% and EBITDA up by 17% this semester. Regarding revenue growth, retail services grew by 16% this quarter compared to close to 10% in Q1 2021, fueled by voice and all our growth engines.
This quarter is also marked by an acceleration of profitability, thanks to our strict discipline allowing to improve the direct margin rate by 1.5 points. EBITDA is now growing faster than revenues for 6 quarters in a row, and MEA organic cash flow is growing even faster than EBITDA. We will give you many more details on this performance and our perspectives in Africa, Middle East, tomorrow during a dedicated session. Let's now look at the enterprise segment, with revenues up by 2.3% in Q2, following the improving trend from the previous quarters, thanks to double-digit growth of IT and IS up by close to 11% and mobile supported by equipment revenues. Cloud, cybersecurity, digital and data, each growing by double digits in H1, confirm the purpose of our strategy of increasing the IT and IS share in total revenues.
Fixed-only services down by 5.3% are impacted by a decrease in voice revenues linked to a comparable basis effect in Q2 2020, when our customer demand for voice services peaked during the first lockdown, and by a decrease in data revenues. This performance is a big deal at -0.5%, still impacted by roaming with the transformation in our business mix, but significantly improving the trend from last year, which was at -15%. As you know, here also, we will provide you with many more details on our ambitions for the enterprise segment tomorrow morning also with a focus on Cyberd efense. Last but not least, we fully reiterate all the elements of our 2021 guidance as stated on the slide you can see on the screen.
Now I'm handing over the floor back to Stéphane, who will talk about our growth engines.
Thank you, Ramon. Let me record first my guiding thread. Growth is key. Growth releases constraints for innovation, and growth is the bedrock of our business sustainability. That's why my strategy for the group is built on several growth drivers that are now for some of them, well and truly up and running, and are starting paying off, while others will deliver their full benefits in the near future. In addition to the crucial competitive advantages you already know about, namely our network leadership and our quality of service, I would like to highlight other growth and transformation drivers that will create lasting value for the group and which are sometimes overlooked or underestimated. First, Africa. Second, OBS. Third, Cyberdefense. Four, Europe. Five, Orange Bank. And six, our infrastructure.
Firstly, our Africa and Middle East footprints, which we have built over the past 20 years, is now accelerating and bringing a strong contribution to the group performance thanks to a value-oriented asset management policy combined with rigorous operational management. It has immense potential to create value between now 2023 and the following years. Orange Middle East and Africa's remarkable performance, which regularly beats market estimates and GDP growth across our footprint, has its roots in our growth drivers and an efficient operating model that allows us to set ambitious and sustainable objectives, which we will describe in detail tomorrow. Bear in mind that in 2020, against the backdrop of a global pandemic, Orange Middle East and Africa increased revenues by more than 5%, and its EBITDA by near twice that pace to nearly EUR 2 billion.
Ramon just gave you the figures for H1, a clear acceleration. This performance is based on four high- potential drivers, data, fixed broadband, B2B, and Orange Money, where growth is set to bring revenues close to EUR 1 billion by 2025. Note too that the region's performance is well-balanced, with half the countries posting double-digit growth, reflecting the grow or transform or sell strategy. Orange Middle East and Africa is set to deliver a 6% CAGR in the years to 2023, with EBITDA growing at double-digit and OCF faster than EBITDA. Second engine, OBS and Orange Cyberdefense. That will continue the development with a successful transformation into a network-native digital services company with IT and IS now accounting for 41% of total revenues and a continuing tight grip on cost.
Overall, OBS will return to sustainable top-line growth with a CAGR of around 2% in 2022 and 2023, and return to EBITDA growth. We plan to continue our repositioning, which is an integral part of the group strategy. The OBS strategy is built on three main pillars. First, transform the telco business by promoting value-added services such as 5G, fiber, cloud connectivity, etc. Second, expand into strategic digital areas such as cloud, digital and data, IoT, and cybersecurity. Three, adapt our operating model to become the leading network-native digital services company. In addition, Orange Cyberdefense, our rising star in a fast-growing market where competitors trade on multiples of more than 20, is unanimously acknowledged benchmarking its market, having established itself as one of the European leaders in cybersecurity.
Thanks to the carve-out we are now implementing, we will have the firepower to seize new external growth opportunities as they arise. We are aiming for market-beating double-digit top-line growth and a medium-term margin aligned with that of the market and about twice today's. Number three, Europe. Despite the temporary setback, set for strong growth. Other European countries or Europe excluding Spain, will remain a strong growth driver, thanks to the success of convergent offers and the rollout of very high-speed fixed broadband, with a revenue CAGR of over 2% expected between 2020 and 2023. We are looking for steady growth in the convergent base with a CAGR of more than 9.5% that will take us to 31% above 2020 levels by 2023.
Today, our subsidiaries all sell convergent offers, and we are stepping up our efforts to develop our own fiber networks in Poland through our fiber co and Slovakia, for example. We are exploiting the potential of convergence in Belgium as well as in Poland, where we are consolidating our leadership, targeting a convergent-based CAGR of 6% and a growth by 20% in 2023 versus 2020. Lastly, in Romania, we are finalizing the acquisition of Telekom Romania. This deal, which will accelerate our route to convergence with strong top- line and EBITDA growth. Regarding Spain, as already mentioned, the new management has a very clear roadmap, and all of the EBITDA will grow in 2023, and the organic cash flow will grow starting in 2022.
To sum up, our objective is to increase EBITDA by around EUR 150 million over the 2020-2023 period across all European countries, including Spain, meaning an EBITDA CAGR of roughly 2%. For the other European countries, we are aiming at an EBITDA CAGR in the mid-single digits. Number four, Orange Bank has demonstrated our ability to diversify our activities, and we continue to build up this ambitious entrepreneurial project launched in 2017. We have already won the volume challenge with a customer base in Europe and Africa now topping 2 million B2C and B2B customers, despite a year of crisis that slowed customer acquisitions.
We are now focusing on the value challenge, with paid offers accounting for over 90% of new customers in France and loans granted to more than 60% of customers in Africa, which sets us apart from most purely freemium neobank models. In practical terms, 2020 was a pivotal year as Orange Bank's EBITDA is bottoming out. The improvement will continue going forward, allowing the bank to help drive the group's growth around end 2024 when it should reach breakeven. Let's look now at our infrastructure. We have built first-class networks in Europe, both mobile and fiber. An achievement we are proud of, which will support B2C, B2B, and wholesale revenues alike. Our infrastructure assets, first and foremost, fixed, are unrivaled in terms of both the coverage and the value they deliver.
Our decision to pioneer investment in fiber was the right one and is now paying off. Our competitors have decided to follow our tracks, by the way, but Orange has built up a huge lead over all European competitors with more FTTH connectable homes than Telefónica, British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, and Vodafone combined by the end of Q1 2021. Please note that some of our peers have based their fixed offers on other technologies, such as xDSL and cable, where performance falls well short of fiber. This leadership position is built on massive investments in Europe, with nearly EUR 13 billion in gross FTTH CapEx over the last 10 years, and a clear reduction in our fiber eCAPEX on the horizon from 2022.
In addition, the investments in FTTH also enable us to position ourselves ahead of the rollout of the mobile network for the future, namely 5G. Notably, we are targeting more than two-thirds of the population covered in midterm in Spain, Poland, Slovakia, and Moldova. This strategy positions us as a pioneer in Europe for the next network revolution, with softwarization making us more efficient and agile. We are the first European player to launch a fully automated and cloud-native 5G network, which we call the zero- touch network, and which will also serve to develop the use of artificial intelligence to secure, optimize, and anticipate the behaviour of this network of the future.
All of these functionalities on which we are working with a set of partners in Open RAN architecture, will be operational as of this year in Lannion, in our big R&D center, before the experimental network is extended from 2022. Our efforts in mobile and fixed have also made us the leader in convergence with more than 11 million customers. Let me now hand over to Ramon, who will explain how we are doing in monetizing fiber in retail and wholesale revenues.
Thank you, Stéphane. In France, we have succeeded in extracting value from our infrastructure with a monetization rate which is set to rise by 10 points in 2025 from 62% in 2020, fueling a retail revenue CAGR of 2%-4% excluding PSTN between 2020 and 2025, and allowing wholesale revenues to remain close to stable between 2024 and 2025. In the retail segment, our solid foundations make us France's benchmark fiber operator, allowing us to increase ARPU with a near +5 EUR pricing differential and associated multi-service sales. This will be a source of growth in the retail market. As promised, we will also today provide some color one quarter sooner than originally promised, for our wholesale business in France.
Firstly, the fixed wholesale market has been evolving over the last two years as we observe a switch from copper to fiber accelerating with the health crisis. Second, the catch-up by our competitors with our infrastructure through co-financing. The broadband market is currently split around 50/50 in copper and fiber accesses, but proportions are set to tend towards around three-quarters in fiber accesses in the medium term. Secondly, concerning Orange, this transition to fiber impacts our wholesale revenues trajectory with temporary and permanent streams of revenues. The temporary revenues, such as PIN areas construction revenues with limited EBITDA impact, are set to finish around end of 2025. As for co-financing, that is a source of monetization.
Our peers have purchased a total of around EUR 3 billion at the end of H1, which is approximately 60% of the target we expect. All the temporary revenues of EUR hundreds of millions in co-financing are still expected beyond 2025. While the permanent streams of revenues are linked to fiber, of which local loop enterprise and infrastructure markets that I will develop later, those revenues will partially offset the inevitable decline in copper revenues. This transition to fiber leaves us with two questions. How does the fixed wholesale revenue slope ahead of us look like? And second, what are the growth drivers that will help us to offset this decline?
Well, first, the downward slope will be less pronounced beyond 2023 than originally expected, because the high ambitions we have for our growth drivers will allow us to generate new revenues with a near stabilization of fixed wholesale revenues from 2024 onwards. Concerning our growth drivers, the slide above illustrates on the green parts our new growth relays. We have adjusted our projections of the decline in fixed wholesale revenues over the 2021/2025 period to reflect a more limited downturn, combining a significant fall in copper revenues, a slower pace of co-financing after the catch-up in 2020, and a big increase in recurring fiber revenues, almost doubling between 2021 and 2025.
There will be double-digit growth in enterprise fiber revenues with the launch of FTTE and aggregation offers, as well as FTTH-enabled SoHo offers, and in infrastructure and carrier-to-carrier revenues, which include recurring civil engineering revenues, as well as hosting and collection revenues in the PIN area, including where Orange is not the local loop network operator. This dovetails with our mid-network operator strategy. Concerning mobile, another key element of our wholesale business, we will manage to replace natural roaming decline, thanks to new mobile offers on 5G and IoT, and potential new mobile wholesale contracts. To conclude, Orange will be able to near stabilize mobile and fixed wholesale revenues after 2024 by leveraging its various growth drivers, including business offers and services and civil engineering, targeting SoHo and SME customers.
Most importantly, when it comes to the financial equation, we expect a decline of wholesale revenues from 2021 to 2025. Two-thirds of this net revenue loss will have a very limited EBITDA impact, notably PIN construction revenue and interconnection. Therefore, we expect a limited decrease in EBITDA of less than EUR 500 million from 2021 to 2025. That said, this decrease will be mostly offset by the increase in retail services revenues. Strategy to get the most out of our first-class infrastructure is a comprehensive review, fine-tuned to match local circumstances. I would say that the common thread here is really a tactical, opportunistic, value creative strategy applied country by country.
Orange Concessions, that in France, becomes a benchmark in Europe, embodying a new approach by selling our rights of use in the PIN area to several partners, making it possible to reveal the value of non-proprietary assets where each line was valued around EUR 600. In Poland, the partnership in a 50/50 joint venture with APG, which has valued our assets around EUR 600 million, will enable us to extend our FTTH leadership with a convergent customer base set to grow by over 20%. In Spain, we chose a different approach. For a 3 million lines fiber rollout, we adopted an agile leasing approach, reducing CapEx impact while keeping ownership of the assets. Of course, looking at the mobile infrastructure with our TowerCo TOTEM, we will be fully operational by the end of the year as planned.
TOTEM is designed as a highly agile tool for industrial growth that targets multiple opportunities, generating an accelerated. Lastly, to accelerate these growth drivers, all the growth drivers that were described by Stéphane, and in order to seek strategic opportunities, the group, on top of its ability to raise additional debt benefiting from a healthy balance sheet, will be flexible regarding the capital of the entities concerned, arbitrating between a balance sheet financing and third-party equity funding. This could include bringing in new investors, for instance, to TOTEM, to Orange Cyberdefense, or to Orange Middle East and Africa, as we've done with our fiber cos. This can be done also through IPOs or other ones. I now conclude by presenting two wrap-up slides.
First, you can see here that these growth drivers will enable the group to step up the pace of revenue and EBITDA growth in a sustained manner. Contributing to a total near EUR 2 billion in top line growth and around EUR 1 billion in EBITDA growth between 2020 and 2023. The incremental EBITDA is expected to comprise, for instance, over EUR 700 million coming from MEA, but also from Europe, from OBS, OCD, from Orange Bank. Second, we will, and this is the last slide, combine our growth ambitions with the benefits of the Scale Up cost efficiency program and, as already said, the planned reduction in eCAPEX from 2022.
In fact, with most FTTH roll-outs completed in our three main markets, France, Spain, Poland, we confirm that we aim to achieve an eCAPEX to consolidated revenue ratio of roughly 15% by the end of 2023. Using all these levers, we are therefore confident of reaching our organic cash flow target of between EUR 3.5 billion and EUR 4 billion in 2023. To wrap it up, before turning to your questions, our equity story is not only about transformation and cost discipline, which is evidently key, but it is also about our strong, solid, and sustainable growth engines. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We're now available for your questions. In order to give time to everyone, please limit yourself to only one or two questions. To ask for the floor, please press the star or asterisk key followed by the digit one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure that the mute function on your telephone is switched off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. If we do not have time to take your question, then please contact our investor relations team after the call. If you find that your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. Again, please press star one to ask a question and please use the handset and not the phone speaker. Our first question today comes from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, everyone. I had two questions. The main one, though, is on wholesale visibility and thanks for providing us with those slides. I think that they're really helpful. It's great to get clarity on what your base case is and to kind of see how you think through the revenue EBITDA impact. I guess the key question from us is, yeah, how much risk is there to that base case? Like, I wonder if you could talk through the risk factors that could swing the outcome differently to how you've laid out. Then the second question was just on the French competitive environment.
We've had a lot of competition in mobile promotions over the last couple of quarters, but it actually looks like the key incremental change or pressure in France is on customer spin- down and fixed.
Just wondered if you could comment on the overall competitive intensity in the market, and with a focus on the fixed line side of things. Thank you.
Thank you, Andrew. On your first question, about the risk analysis, let's say the wholesale trajectories, I'd ask Jérôme Barré, who's in charge of the wholesale business. On the second question, the French competitive market, of course, I will ask Fabienne.
Hello. Good morning, everybody. No, it's not our best case, that first thing I would like to say. It's a trend we are very confident in. Yes, because you see, as said by Ramon, concerning our ambition on the recurring revenues, of course, we have to offset the decline, the inevitable decline of copper. On fiber, we are very ambitious levels to see one of the local loop for civil engineering and hosting in the 40% where Orange is not the operator. In the mid-network, you see, we are very confident in our capability to sell connection traffic connection and backhauling.
Last but not least, we have a strong ambition, but again, very confident in this ambition concerning the enterprise market. The consequence of that is that we consider we can double the recurring revenues of fiber recurring revenues between 2021 and 2025, you see, with a double- digit growth on these new segments, civil engineering, infrastructure, enterprise and so on. When we consider the consequence in the EBITDA, as I said, it's not a best case. It's the we are very confident in the capability to reach this EUR 500 million decrease ambition. If I may take an example, look at the interconnection activities.
The interconnection activities will be impacted around EUR 400 million by the decrease due to regulations, the decrease of termination rates. These EUR 400 million of decrease of revenues has absolutely no impact on EBITDA because it's fully symmetric. The decrease of our cost will be just about at the same level as the decrease to our revenues. If I take this one example, it shows that we are confident in our ambition to limit the decrease by EUR 500 million on the EBITDA.
Thanks.
Thank you, Jérôme.
Yeah, sorry. I was just gonna ask how much of those elements that you took you went through in terms of local loop and hosting in the 40% where Orange doesn't have fiber have you actually signed up and have kind of your hands on today? Or is it that this isn't a highly confident ambition versus what you've actually signed up?
If I may also answer again to your question. In the, you see a doubling of our revenues in fiber, we consider that there is 50/50. 50/50, which is still mechanical. You see the recurring annual accesses, and there is absolutely no risk about that. Our ambition is about the other 50% on the infrastructure and enterprise market. We consider that there is big potential on that market, and we are confident in our way to reach our ambition.
Thank you.
If I may just add one word before handing over to Fabienne on your second question. When you look at the French market today, there is at least one thing that is indisputable, and clear and absolutely obvious for now and for the future is that France is going to be a fiber optic country. Everyone in France, customers, enterprises of any size and of course all the sector will switch to fiber quickly. Probably, France will be the most advanced country in Europe for FTTH.
For the operator that will run and manage more or less 60% of the fiber network in the whole country, dense, mid-dense and rural areas, it will clearly open huge opportunities for us to monetize both in retail but also wholesale market, this very rapid switch of the country towards fiber. This is basically the reason why we are very confident on our prospects on the wholesale part, because in fact, for our competitors, there is no alternative but to switch quickly to fiber. For our customers, there is a momentum today in the French market that will accelerate this migration towards fiber. Fabienne.
Good morning. In line with the previous quarter, we still observe an improvement of the French market. The four players keep playing the game of a kind of market repair, and they contribute to create a more constructive competition environment. Their decision, I don't know if you've seen that, but yesterday to raise their price on the mobile and on the broadband is a really good news because we are waiting for that, and this is going in the right direction. Despite some recurring aggressive promotion, both on mobile and fiber, around EUR 10, launched all the time by the same competitors, the overall level of price is still better and they are well oriented and in a better way than in the past.
From my point of view, the market is more peaceful, and this is a context very significant because that sustains the support of our new strategy. We were able to launch three back book repricing in the beginning of the year, and it's exactly what you can observe and not in our commercial and financial performance, both on mobile and fiber. Despite more competition in fiber, we are still the leader, and we are able to win market share in all areas.
Thank you.
Thank you. We now move on to our next question from Nicolas Cote-Colisson from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. Two quick questions, please. The first one is on Spain. It seems the turnaround is taking more time than expected. You have a 16% drop in EBITDA in H1. Are you comfortable with the 10% decrease in the full year as in the consensus? And what kind of restructuring costs should we assume eventually? My second question is on the regulatory environment in France. Clearly, there is a lot of pressure on you to invest in fiber and copper, but also to open the B2B market to more competition. Can you tell us what are the key milestones to come regarding regulation in the B2B market? And also, how do you manage your copper maintenance CapEx, given the government pressure at present? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for those two excellent questions. Let me turn first to Jean-François Fallacher with us on the call to answer the first one. I'll try to take the second one. Jean-François.
Yes. Hello, everyone. Concerning Spain, that the current situation is clearly linked to the decision we took last year to realign some of our prices to the market. These are the consequences on our financial accounts that you see today. What we're announcing clearly today is a return to growth and a turnaround that will happen in 2023. There will be a change of trend obviously, next year. We are really, as you have seen taking a number of actions and executing on a strategy that we have designed in the second semester of last year.
Amongst which, I would like to stress a few elements that we have been already executing, that were reminded by Ramon in introduction. Simplification of our processes and brands. We have already suppressed one of our local brands. The reason why we are doing that is obviously to be able to focus more and to be more attractive and more pushy towards the market in this part of the market in the low cost. You have seen that we have negotiated with the union a plan to have the departure of more than 12% of our staff. That plan has been fully subscribed during the month of July. Clearly, the transformation is underway.
You have seen that for the fourth quarter in a row, our net adds on mobiles are positive. Our fiber net adds are very positive. As Ramon already stated as well, the churn in the second quarter has been the lowest for many years. We see some of the key KPIs starting to move in the right direction in Spain. What I want to stress as well is that our entire B2B division, including large accounts, SoHo, and SME, is back to growth revenue-wise. Obviously, we are very strict and very cautious in delivering the Scale Up plan of the group at the pace of the target set by the group.
I'm confident that we will deliver on this turnaround. We just need to be very patient. What we are doing already is going to deliver for sure.
Okay. Thank you, Jean-François. Maybe we will come back later on the Spanish situation. Regarding our regulatory environment in France, and to try to summarize the situation, I would say that we have a regulatory agenda, which is dense with important steps in front of us.
Three major topics with the regulator. The first one is around fiber roll-out, and I would say the last step of the fiber roll-out in France. Just to give you our view on that point, we are very much confident in our capacity to complete and to fulfill our commitments in terms of fiber roll-out, even though the sanitary crisis, of course, has had an impact on the calendar. We're very confident in our capacity to reach an agreement, a deal with the regulator regarding the conditions of the end of the fiber roll-out plan in France. I would say no big risk around this point. The second is about copper.
With the quality of service, of course, a topic, but also more generally speaking about the decommissioning plan and prospect that we have now to prepare and to submit to the regulator and to public authorities for the next decade, in fact. Regarding maintenance cost on the copper network, as you probably know, we spend in the range of EUR 500 million every year for the maintenance of the copper network. This amount is stable. In fact, in the recent weeks, we have announced some actions to try to restore in some very specific areas that have been more impacted by weather conditions or punctual events. We have announced some actions, but it's mainly about recruiting a few additional people, technicians.
It's in the range of 10 million additional expenditure. Let's bear in mind that this cost of EUR 500 million will be more or less stable now this year and probably in the next two or three years. There is no, I would say, specific financial pressure to fear regarding what we are doing in terms of copper maintenance.
It's more about an organization and priorities, maybe of our technical teams, and this has been done because it is very important for Orange also to show our customers in rural areas if we want to be successful in the migration towards fiber also, but also in front of local authorities that we do not abandon the copper network. Now, as I said to you, this is more one element in a larger issue, topic, challenge, which is the decommissioning of the copper network that will take a decade and that will have of course to be very closely monitored technically, but also financially. We have started to exchange with the regulator, but also with public authorities.
One of the financial parameters that will play a key role in the management of the decommissioning plan will be the unbundling tariff. This is clearly a lever in the hands of the regulator. Arcep, they have made public that they are reviewing the unbundling tariff. We have submitted to the regulator our views on the evolution of this unbundling tariff. As you know, it's a tariff which is set every year. I think we'll have the first event regarding unbundling prices in next January.
That will also give a clue on the way the regulator is going to accompany this decommissioning plan, which will be one of the big challenge for us in the next decade. To summarize, I would say no specific pressure coming from the regulator or public authorities on maintenance costs on copper. Our plan has been accepted by authorities and in a discussion that will take place in the next weeks regarding unbundling. The third big topic is about the B2B market. On the B2B market, everything that the regulator has asked Orange to do has been done. This is a very important point to stress.
We have today no conflict with the regulator regarding commercial practices, regarding wholesale market in the B2B market. We have played the game that was expected from us. We have respected the rules of the game. Now this is a market where, as a matter of fact, we have a strong position because the enterprises, and especially the small and medium enterprises, that we provide a quality of service and a reliability of our services, which is considerably higher than those of any competitors. This is a fact. A t the end of the game, of course, the regulator has an important role to play, but the customers decide to choose an operator or another one.
So far, they have been choosing constantly, well, for a large part of them, Orange. Of course, we are working very hard to maintain this level of quality of service and the quality of this commercial relationship with our B2B customers. To summarize, in terms of regulation, there is no specific threat or action from the regulator on the B2B market. There is no sanction or things like that that we could have, because we have been good citizens, I would say, and we have respected what was asked us on the B2B market.
Clearly, what we want to do is to keep our customers and to provide the best possible quality of service, which is recognized by the way, by the net promoter score in the B2B market, which is at the highest ever.
Thank you.
Thank you. We now move on to a question from Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Oh, great. Morning. Thank you for the questions. Two from me, please. Again, going back to wholesale, thanks for the detail. Very useful. I guess my question is regarding the PIN areas and how we should think about the lines outside of concessions. I think previously you've said there are three models which you could follow, which is Orange builds the lines, concessions could do it, or there could be a third-party vehicle. My question is, how should we think about that impacting your CapEx? Should there be any slight trend up in the CapEx, or will we still see this overall trending down from any potential co-investment?
Secondly, again sticking with wholesale, but in Spain, in your kind of guidance of returning to EBITDA growth in FY 2023 now, what assumptions have you made around the wholesale contribution, given the developments in MASMOVIL and Euskaltel? Is there any detail you could provide us there? Because I think there are some potential break clauses in there. Thank you.
Thanks for your question. We'll start with Spain, if you agree. I turn to Jean-François.
Yes. Concerning the wholesale contribution and into our P&L, I remind that this is close to 18%. More than 8% of the business of the company is obviously retail- driven. Clearly, we're expecting following up the potential merger that should happen within the at the back-to-school between MASMOVIL and Euskaltel, some movements on this contract. There isn't much we can say now. These contracts are long-term contracts, all of them. There are penalties attached. Obviously, I cannot reveal more of the details of this contract, which are linked by confidentiality agreement with these competitors and partners.
Clearly, we've been preparing ourselves, and we're going to see what's going to happen in the third quarter of this year around these contracts.
Okay. Thank you, Jean-François. For the second question, which is a large and important question, I will ask Ramon, maybe to provide you the framework and then maybe a word from Fabienne and from Jo.
Yes, thank you, Roshan. How we access to third-party networks in the PIN area. Here you have. Well, first, it's fully included, of course, in our guidance in terms of reducing CapEx starting in 2022. This is fully embarked. I would say that here, we have started to mobilize some, let's say, financing schemes in order to lower the cost of renting, accessing third-party networks. We have set up a vehicle with a major bank, with a lease contract, which helps to lower the cost of renting. But I'm afraid we don't disclose all these details. These are our little secrets.
We have started to optimize the cost to access to one part of the network, which has been built by one of these operators, one of constructing operators, which are active in the PIN area. We may extend this to a larger scope in order to continue to lower the cost of renting. This is basically what we can do. We can either co-finance, we can rent on a, let's say, traditional basis, or we can do schemes which help to lower the cost of access. We are mobilizing all these different schemes, and there will be some further steps, in fact, in the near future.
We will, you know, I'm not sure we will be disclosing all our little secrets from time to time. It's good to keep some element of mystery, but it's really optimized. This is what I can say.
Yes.
Go ahead.
Maybe I can just highlight the internet access provider policy, and specifically in the PIN area, where we are not the builder. We make the choice to use a line rental and through SCOREFIT. SCOREFIT is an SPV created by a bank, and that allow Orange to lease at a very advantageous rate. This is the best solution for Orange to deliver to be time to market in a very significant area. We have a very strong market share in PIN area, you know that. It's the solution we have to deliver a strong commercial performance. It's exactly what you can observe in the figure we deliver today. And to take into account the financial equation.
This strategy is very clear and the leading and the strategic leading were embedded in our strategic plan and it had been taken into account in our guidance. That doesn't change our trajectory. Despite if there is an acceleration, it's embedded, so it's really clear.
For Orange Concessions or the part of the PIN area where Orange is the operator of the network. In a few words, I must say that all lights are green. First, we got the agreement of all local authorities, which means that the 24 Orange PINs will merge to Orange Concessions. It's a sort of grand slam. We also note a great addition of our employees with 90% of them who decided to join the new entity. Last but not least, the antitrust process is in progress without any warning at that stage. It means the consequence of that means that we maintain our ambition objective of closing in the beginning of Q4 2020. Everything is okay for Orange Concessions.
Great. That's super helpful. Just to conclude, and without going into so much of the secret, it's basically a third-party vehicle which Orange is leasing the lines on in the PIN areas. That's what you're doing?
Yes. Yes.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. We now move on to a question from Stephane Beyazian from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. The first one, can you update on the preparation and the phasing of the cost plan over 2022-2023? I'm trying to understand whether it can be visible as an impact in 2022 or very much back-end loaded to 2023. A second question on the outlook is the EBITDA target, the new one, the EUR 1 billion increase, actually higher than when you initially set the free cash flow guidance? I think the EBITDA guidance is above consensus expectations, and I'm just wondering whether you're seeing extra flexibility on your free cash flow guidance. Perhaps you've also found some incremental headwinds elsewhere in the cash flows or in CapEx. Just a quick one, if that's possible on the towers.
I think you mentioned some appetite for pan-European tower consolidation. I'm just wondering whether you've seen any similar appetite in discussion with possible partners. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. Ramon is going to take the first two questions, and I will try to provide elements on the third question. Ramon.
Thank you, Stéphane. Thank you both, Stéphane. On the cost plan, yeah. You have many ComEx members around this table who are mobilized on the Scale Up program, the EUR 1 billion cost-cutting program. We have decreased and delivered EUR 150 million out of EUR 1 billion, of which a bit more than EUR 40 million in H1, in an environment with some adverse conditions. It's well on track.
All the objectives have been confirmed, including the details we gave on what is expected from labor costs, which is half of the EUR 1 billion real estate. We have been changing a number of metrics in the real estate programs, accelerating restructuring, et cetera. I guess what we can do in Q3 is come back with additional details on this. The trend that we have been expecting, which is looking at EUR 200 million-EUR 250 million cost reduction impact in 2021 and then EUR 300 million-EUR 350 million in 2022, is still what we are looking at. There is nothing really more to say on this. Everybody is mobilized.
We have people leading real estate, energy, et cetera, to deliver what has been disclosed in our objectives.
In your second question on the outlook for EBITDA, we've been giving you a number of elements on specific engines, especially Africa, the bank, OBS, OCD. Tomorrow, for those interested, it's just to make some additional teasing because we would love to see you tomorrow morning. You will have many more information on these two big segments for the group. At this stage, I think what's best to say is that we are absolutely confident on the organic cash flow target for 2023. This is, I guess, the most important point at the end of the day to make sure that we will be there at least at EUR 3.5 billion, with this target of EUR 3.5 billion-EUR 4 billion.
What we have been delivering up to now and what we are looking forward to is exactly matching the target of organic cash. We will be there on time.
Thank you. Regarding European consolidation on the TowerCo area, I'd like to tell you that I am very convinced that we will see some form of consolidation in the TowerCo market in Europe. Let me try to explain why I think so. In fact, as you know, most big European players have created TowerCos, or they have sold their assets. They have done so basically for three targets.
The first is improving the technical and financial management of those assets, especially by creating dedicated teams in charge of those assets, and also, of course, looking for more revenues on those assets. The second target is value extraction, I would say, or revealing the value of those assets that are today not reflected in the value of operators, especially in the stock price of operators. The third goal is monetization. The easiest solution for monetization is to sell to pure players like Cellnex or other companies.
For the operators that have decided not to sell those assets because they are considering those assets as strategic for their future development, and also as maybe an element on which a brick on which they could build a new business with growth and with value creation. For those players, the monetization means maybe consolidation, means bringing new partners, equity partners, maybe IPO, but certainly not selling assets. In that parts of the sector, you will find, as you know, Deutsche Telekom, you will find Vodafone, and you will find Orange. Yes, I am very much convinced that we will see some form of consolidation because there is a common interest to create to reach a critical size in the market.
There are a common interest to accelerate in improving the management, the quality of the management of those assets. Last point, which is very important, there are less regulatory and antitrust obstacles in the way, in the path to consolidation than of course when it comes to full operators. I think that the path is relatively clear and that there is a high probability that we will see deals. Maybe last point to say that, besides the large players, like those that I mentioned, you have the second-tier players or local big players that don't want to sell purely their assets to TowerCos.
That on the contrary will be very interested in joining an operators'-controlled model in the tower business. There are plenty of them. That is the reason why in this TowerCo segment I would say in my view in the near future you will see pure players like Cellnex and maybe other ones. You will see also players you have today like Vantage for instance but you will see larger and players on an alternative model which is an operators'-controlled model.
That's why it was so important for us to create TOTEM and to be one of the, I would say, prominent players in the game that is going to take place now.
Thank you.
Thank you. We now move on to a question from Jakob Bluestone from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. There's obviously quite a lot of detail that you've provided, which is very helpful in terms of the various moving parts, in terms of things that are going up and things that are going down. I just had a point of clarification around how much of your free cash flow is currently coming from co-financing. Ramon, I think you said that you'd received EUR 3 billion cumulatively from co-financing receipts so far. In your Q3 presentation, you said that number was EUR 2.4 billion. So that would suggest that you received about EUR 600 million over the last nine months, or sort of a run-rate about something like EUR 800 million of co-financing receipts, which is almost half your group equity free cash flow.
Can you just confirm that? Is that a correct understanding of how big the co-financing receipts currently are within your overall free cash flow mix? Or is there something we're missing there? Thank you.
Hello, Jacob. No, it's correct. It's absolutely correct, nothing to change.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We now move on to a question from Mathieu Robilliard from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Good morning, thank you. I had a question in terms of the competitive environment, again in France, just trying to get a little bit more color. Obviously, we've had a few initiatives on the B2B side since the beginning of the year. I think at the previous results, you highlighted that it hadn't made any big difference. I wanted to know if that was still the case. Also, if maybe you could share your thoughts on one of your competitors moving into the handsets market, if you're seeing already some impact from that. That was the first question on competition in France. Then, in terms of cost- cutting, clearly, you're making big efforts in terms of cutting the indirect costs.
You've just highlighted that you're on track with your targets. I guess I wanted to take a step back and look at all the cost base, because if my math is correct, it seems that overall the cost base is growing, even if you exclude Africa and the enterprise business. I was wondering if that was a reflection of the fact that, despite a reduction in indirect costs, you had to spend more, maybe to get clients, and that was commercial costs, or it was more to do with the change in the revenue mix, which maybe will be offset by also lower EBITDA. Maybe if you could give us a broader picture on the cost trajectory, that would be very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. Maybe Fabienne for the first question, and Ramon for the second.
Okay. Thank you. We have been monitoring very closely all the move and change in the B2B market during this first semester, but we don't observe any impact despite the arrival of new competitors as Iliad, but not only one, no impact. I have to say that the opposite is more true. In Q2, we observe a particularly very good trend in our commercial activities, and especially in the mobile segment and on the fiber. The figure we disclose shows a very strong performance in the SoHo and SME segment, both mobile and fiber.
Due to the relationship we have with our customer, the ability we have to be in proximity, as explained by Stéphane a few minutes ago, no impact. We remain cautious because I don't think the battle is finished. We will pursue cautious strategy and our anticipation for the future. Sorry, you have a second question about handset market. After a very difficult year in 2020, 2021 is well oriented for the handset. We record a very strong growth of equipment revenue in Q2, driven by the reopening of our shop, first of all, but also by the 5G launch context. If you remember, at the beginning of the year, 40% of handset sales were 5G compatible. In Q2, it's 50%.
Appetite for 5G month after month is growing and supports a good commercial momentum on the handset sales. We don't observe any impact from discussion you can see in the newspaper about subsidies. We are really confident that the equipment for 2021 is well oriented with the end of the lockdown period we lived in the past.
Thank you for that. Maybe if I could add in terms of the handset market, I was also looking for maybe a comment already from you with regards to the moves by some of your competitors that are being a bit more aggressive or probably present in the bundle subsidized or not subsidized, but handset plus service revenues. Obviously I'm referring to Iliad here. Maybe it's too early days.
Yeah. I'm not worried because the part of Orange in handset market made by the operators are so huge. It's not a question, it's not an issue.
On the cost question, there is first a big impact. We were talking about handsets and equipment. When you look at a bit more than EUR 200 million direct cost increase in H1, you have close to EUR 300 million costs increased due to equipment. These are of course generating revenues, but they are generating costs. If I may say so, these are good costs because they are very much coming with the take up in the 5G handset sales. This is preparing, the ground for the increase in the 5G customer base.
We now have close to 1 million 5G customers, but obviously, we have much more 5G handsets which are now being sold. More than one out of two handset smartphone sold today in France is a 5G smartphone. It's the same in many of our European countries. If you take Poland, for instance, it's taking off extremely rapidly. There is one element of the direct cost increase which is coming from equipment. There is another one, which is connectivity costs, which is not at all of the same magnitude, of course, but which comes with the evolution of the model and one point we discussed previously, which is accessing third- party networks.
The other important element is, of course, that part of this time indirect or direct costs come also with the fast- growing engines, such as, OMEA, with the performance you can see in terms of, profitability, which is growing extremely rapidly. You will continue to see this very strong focus on cost discipline. I'm not going to go down through every line. We can if you want to come back to this on a separate call. It's also true, when you look at the indirect costs where we are really putting this under extremely close watch in order to secure the EBITDA performance of the group.
Thank you very much.
I think we have time for one last question, and then I will make a quick conclusion.
Okay, thank you. Our last question today comes from Abhilash Mohapatra from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning everyone, and thanks for taking my questions. Hopefully, two quick clarifications just around the EUR 500 million EBITDA impact figure that you gave us for wholesale. Just wanted to understand what does that mean in revenue terms, please? Looks like consensus has wholesale revenues coming down by EUR 600 million over 2021 to 2025. We thought it could be more like sort of north of EUR 1 billion. Just be interested to hear what it looks like in revenue terms. Then secondly, just a clarification on what this means for French EBITDA overall. Am I right in thinking that you said earlier on that you're think that growth in retail services and cost cutting can just about offset this impact?
Does this mean you now expect French EBITDA to be flat, to be declining over 2021-2025? Thank you very much.
Ramon, for the question, the answer.
Thank you, Abhilash. I think your math is right. If you look at the wholesale slide, we say that roughly two- thirds of the revenue decline are very low EBITDA contributive. If you take the slightly less than EUR 500 million impact in terms of EBITDA, your 1 billion something must be right, because it's a mathematical conclusion. This is really the important outcome of what we say today, which is that there is a revenue impact on one side, but I think Jérôme was very clear, for instance, on his termination rate example of EUR 400 million, which is close to zero EBITDA. Yeah, I mean
Take the wholesale, retail, cost control, etcetera. Let's say you are around flat, okay? Then we will see what is year-on-year in the next years.
Okay. Got it.
Thanks.
Thank you. If I may, and before saying goodbye, I would like to just very quickly wrap up what are the key messages from us on this call. The number one is about Spain. What we want to tell you is that Spain is today under in-depth transformation. Spain is, it's on the way of a commercial recovery, and Spain is from an accounting point of view, now totally cleaned up. Spain is on the good way. Clearly, the situation in Spain is challenging, but I think we have the right team, we have the right plan, we have the right strategy.
It'll take a little more time than maybe we thought one year ago, but I am very confident in our still capacity to recover in Spain. Number two is about wholesale. This is very simple, and this has been recalled by Ramon Fernandez just a minute ago. Of course, we will have an impact in the wholesale revenues due to this historical migration from copper to fiber. But this impact will be limited in terms of EBITDA below EUR 500 million by 2025. This is a very important, I think, point that everyone should now work on and keep in mind. Number three, the retail market in France is well-oriented, I would say even strongly oriented.
We are quite confident that the second part of this year will show accelerated trends with strong net adds attracting growth in retail revenues. Number four, and this might be the most important for you, we are today confirming clearly and confidently all our guidances, especially the, of course, the 2021 guidances. They are unchanged, they are confirmed, and it's more importantly, the 2023 guidance, especially regarding the organic cash flow production by the company. We will reach between 3.5 and 4 billion EUR of organic free cash flow by 2023. I wanted to still repeat this, and the degree of confidence that we have in our capacity to reach this target.
Thanks for being with us, and I wish you with the whole team a good day and a good summer.
Thank you. That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.