Ladies and gentlemen, dear guests. On behalf of the board of 1&1 AG, I would like to welcome you very warmly for a presentation on behalf of our investors conference in 2026. Mr. Dommermuth and Mr. D'Avis will present the results of the business fiscal year 2025 and the outlook for 2026 and beyond. As always, after the presentation, we will be available for questions, but of course, only after our parent company has reported as well. I'd like to give you the floor to Mr. Dommermuth.
Yeah.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Oliver Keil, for the welcome to our press conference this year. For this year, Mr. D'Avis and I will share the presentation that I will present the development of the company and tell you where we are with the network, and Mr. D'Avis will provide the financials and the outlook for 2026. Looking at the development of the business, we offer broadband. I'll start with broadband, 3.484 million. That is VDSL, FTTH, which we get from 1&1 Versatel. Versatel has a national transport net with handover points from Telekom or city carrier. The net is 86,000 kilometers long and since 1&1, at the end of last year, acquired from United Internet AG, it is part of the 1&1 as well.
At the bottom, you see the topology of the network. It's a national network with connections to city carriers or telecom, a couple of hundred of these around. With this network, we address business customers directly connected to the fiber optic and our antennas are connected to that network as well. We have a good quality, and in IMTEST, we won the first prize, and the customer satisfaction is very high. The connect customer range gave us first prize for best customer satisfaction in the broadband section. We've always got best customer satisfaction in the mobile range. The network was tested with very good. We had this connect test for the first time, which is done by Umlaut, which is an Accenture subsidiary. It's a global test according to the same criteria.
In the mobile range, we have 12.5 million contracts. We are operating the first Open RAN, fully virtualized network in Europe. We cover a broad market with a main brand, 1&1, the co-branding, GMX, Web.de, and our discount brands, which we have acquired over time. As I said, for the first time, we have participated in the Connect test. You see that from the start, we got a very good mark. You can see clearly Telekom, Vodafone, Telefónica are still ahead of us, but not with much headway. As we have just started, we think that we have delivered a very good result that we can be proud of. In total, 16.23 million customer contracts, 3.2 million contracts, 12.5 mobile internet access, which is a growth of 40,000.
We had good customer migration going on last year from the old reselling contracts to our own network. This is why, we have developed now with the 40,000 customers. The broadband lines, we have lost 110,000 customers. We want to improve there. What is new? We have a bigger footprint. We have got lots of contracts with regional carriers. M-net in the South, wilhelm.tel in the North, OXG, Vodafone, Tele Columbus, Deutsche Glasfaser. The nets of which we can use as well, especially if we look at, optic fiber networks. Deutsche Telekom hasn't got a 100% footprint, but only a partial footprint. This is how we can address more customers now, more and more customers. Now we actually do half of the new business not in the Deutsche Telekom network.
If we talk about fiber to the home, half of the new connections are in alternative networks. We can cover up the gap, which we did. We started very good in the first quarter. We did a campaign. We are investing in advertising for DSL, broadband, glass fiber, which we didn't do last year. More marketing, bigger footprint will result this year in better figures. The revenue has grown by 1.8%. 0.1% is the service revenue. Out of this, EUR 29.8 million from Versatel. 5% other revenues. This is mainly marketing of smartphones. EUR 10.4 million from Versatel. The EBITDA has EUR 537 million. We were better, EUR 590.4 million.
You see our two segments here. The gray segment is the access segment and the blue one is the broadband network, and the difference is Versatel. In the middle, as you see, the mobile network EBITDA, as before, is gonna improve this year because we don't have the migration costs anymore. With our own network, for example, we can provide more than in the year before, or in international roaming, we cooperate more with other networks, and we can negotiate the prices where we had to take the Telefónica prices beforehand. Access segment is 8.1% drop in EBITDA, mainly driven by the roaming contract.
Due to the change from Telefónica to Vodafone, the situation is that all costs are directly in the profit and loss sheet, and it had a net component one before, which was paid for five years, activated and then depreciated over five years. This is why this position is visible in the EBITDA, but it's not affecting the EBIT. We had higher roaming costs than we had planned before, as we had reported last year. We had a contract with Vodafone over the capacities of Vodafone, and when that Vodafone network grows slower than we have assumed in our business case, we have to buy more percentages of the Vodafone network. If it grows faster than we expect, we buy lesser, fewer percentages of the Vodafone networks. You know the Vodafone network figures, and that's published.
After the quarter, when we entered, the growth was slow. It used to be 30% and more. After we started with Vodafone roaming in the third quarter 2024, it was only 15%. We do assume that Vodafone will grow faster in the future. As soon as it grows as quick as ours, we don't have to buy capacities from them anymore to supply to our customers. The business plan assumed that this year we grow a little bit more than Vodafone does. We expect this to be turning out correctly. CapEx, EUR 409.2 million, mainly driven by the mobile segment. EUR 366.1 million for new antennas, masts and computers. In the overview, 16.32 million customer contracts, 30,000 , 40,000 less than before.
Revenue, EUR 3.1358 billion. I don't have to read the figures out, all of them. I have explained the key points. I think this is self-explanatory. Versatel with EUR 16 million from December 25 in this EBITDA here. In the EBIT, you do see the drop in the EBITDA, and also the depreciations of the equipment in the mobile network which we bought. The proposal of the dividends is 0.5% per voting share, corresponding to the minimum dividend according to Section 254. We don't see any issues coming up here, including the debt that we need to cover and we want to reduce over the next years. Concerning Versatel, looking at the mobile network, this is the infrastructure.
As you know it, we have four core data centers, 24 decentralized edge data centers around them, 331 regional far edge data centers online now. In the end, it's gonna be a bit over 500 until the next level, 2030. To these data centers, we can access this by our Open RAN and connect different manufacturers. At the end of last year, we supplied over 27% of the German households. 25% was the legal minimum. We did it well there. The second requirement we have to fulfill until the end of 2025, which is the independence, so we can't operate the network and be a reseller at the same time. This is why we migrated all the customers to the end of 2025, so we have fulfilled all requirements of the Federal Network Agency. How do we differentiate?
It's an open system, standardized interfaces. Software, hardware, all different manufacturers can be combined. We collaborate with over 100 partners, 50% from Germany, 40% from the rest of Europe, and about 10% from other countries, overseas, except from China. We are ready for real-time applications. We have gigabit antennas at all locations connected with fiber optics, and we've got enough space in the far edge data centers to put in more servers. The benefit is here that the latency times get shorter if we transport the data because the distance to the antenna is shorter, giving us 0.3 milliseconds, 5G signals. No. 3 milliseconds and 2.5 milliseconds are used by the 5G signal. Our network uses little energy compared to the traditional ones.
That is the operative development and the condition of the mobile network. Now I'd like to ask Mr. D'Avis to present the financial figures. Thank you.
Well, thank you very much, Mr. Dommermuth. Good afternoon to you all from me as well. I will now present the key financial figures for the 2025 financial year and provide an outlook on our expectations for the current financial year. As you know, we acquired 1&1 Versatel on the first of December 2025. Accordingly, our earnings figures and cash flow include 1&1 Versatel's figures for the month of December. Our statement of financial position includes the assets and liabilities of 1&1 Versatel as per thirty-first of December 2025. I will highlight these where appropriate should this be helpful for your assessment. Allow me to begin with the income statement.
Revenue for the 2025 financial year amounted to EUR 4.136 billion, representing an increase of 1.8% on the previous year's figures of EUR 4.064 billion. The sales for the 2025 financial year included some EUR 40.2 million in external revenue from 1&1 Versatel for the month of December. The service revenue for the 2025 financial year stood at EUR 3.336 billion compared with EUR 3.303 billion in 2024. Of this, 29.8 million referred to 1&1 Versatel for the month of December 2025. Other revenue increased to EUR 799.4 million. The comparative figure from 2024 was EUR 761.2 million.
Other revenue also includes EUR 10.4 million in revenue from 1&1 Versatel for December 2025. Costs of sales rose from EUR 3.0022 billion in 2024 to EUR 3.202 billion in 2025. Gross profits accordingly fell from EUR 1.042 billion in 2024 to EUR 934.3 million in 2025. A decrease of -10.4%. Gross profit in the access operating segment fell from EUR 1.401 billion in 2024 to EUR 1.378 billion in 2025, representing a decline of -1.7%. This is primarily due to increased wholesale costs for national roaming as well as a reserve. The increased wholesale costs for national roaming stem from the switch from Telefónica to Vodafone.
The change of national roaming provider has a neutral effect on EBIT, but impacts EBITDA. This is because under the national roaming agreement with Telefónica, the capacity used by 1&1 was partially capitalized and depreciated on a straight-line basis, whereas under the agreement with Vodafone, it is recognized in full in the EBITDA. In addition, as reported during the year, there was an unexpected increase in national roaming presale costs due to slower than expected capacity growth on the Vodafone network. The gross profit in the 1&1 mobile network segment stood at -EUR 437.9 million in 2025, compared with -EUR 359 million in 2024 due to rising expenses for construction, operating and depreciation of the 1&1 network.
The depreciation rates primarily to network technology, network software and 5G frequencies. The gross profit of 1&1 Versatel as of December 2025 amounts to EUR -5.8 million. Sales expenses fell from EUR 535.7 million in 2025 to EUR 521.1 million in 2025, representing a decrease of 2.7%. This is primarily attributable to the scheduled completion in August 2025 of the amortization of the Drillisch customer base, which was capitalized under the PPA in 2017 with a positive effect of EUR 28 million in 2025. The inclusion of 1&1 Versatel has the opposite effect, amounting to EUR -12.1 million. Administrative expenses rose from EUR 112.2 million in 2024 to EUR 123 million in 2025.
This increase is primarily due to higher legal and consultancy costs compared with the previous year, as well as the consolidation of 1&1 Versatel. The net balance of other income and expenses stood at EUR 43.4 million in 2025, up from EUR 37 million in 2024. This change is primarily attributable to improved results from the debt recovery and re-collection process. Impairment losses on receivables and contract assets increased from EUR 121.9 million in 2024 to -EUR 125.4 million in 2025. Operating profit stood at EUR 208.2 million in 2025, down from EUR 309.4 million in 2024, attributable to higher costs in national roaming and a higher depreciation amortization resulting from the expanding mobile network.
The financial result for 2025 at EUR -30.2 million was lower than the previous year's figure of EUR -4.2 million. The increase in finance costs resulted primarily from our lease agreements and loan interests. The increase in interest expense from lease systems from the ongoing network expansion and for the month of December from the consolidation of 1&1 Versatel. Interest on loans relates to the EUR 290 million borrowed via United Internet from the Japanese development bank JBIC at the beginning of 2025, as well as interest expenses for the loan totaling EUR 1.65 billion received in connection with the acquisition of 1&1 Versatel. Interest income relates to the short-term investments held by United Internet. The decline is primarily due to lower interest rates.
Profit before tax thus stood at EUR 178 million in 2025, compared with EUR 305.2 million euro in 2024. Tax expenses fell to EUR 12.3 million in 2025, down from EUR 92.4 million in 2024. Approximately half of the decline in tax expenses is attributable to the change in earnings, with the remainder resulting from the tax losses of 1&1 Versatel for the whole of 2025, which were fully utilized by 1&1. Consequently, the consolidated net profit for 2025 amounted to EUR 165.7 million compared to EUR 212.8 million in the previous year. Now let me speak about the balance sheet.
The assets rose from EUR 8.313 billion at the end of 2024 to EUR 11 billion at the end of 2025. The 35.4% increase is mainly attributable to the following factors. Current assets stood at EUR 1.899 billion, thus 3% higher than the previous year's figure of EUR 1.844 billion. The increase is primarily due to the first-time consolidation of 1&1 Versatel. Non-current assets rose by 44.9% from EUR 6.286 billion in 2024 to EUR 9.107 billion in 2025, also due to 1&1 Versatel. EUR 2.622 billion of this increase is attributable to 1&1 Versatel's non-current assets.
These comprise, in particular, EUR 1.9413 billion in property, plant and equipment, EUR 398.3 million in goodwill and EUR 222.3 million in intangible assets. The property, plant and equipment at 1&1 Versatel relate in particular to telecommunications equipment and rights of use arising from leases. In addition, we invested more in our mobile network in 2025, particularly in property, plant and equipment. Deferred expenses have fallen to EUR 697.3 million. In previous years, we made advance payments to Deutsche Telekom for broadband quotas, which are now being written off over the years. Current liabilities rose from EUR 730.6 million in 2024 to EUR 1.206 billion in 2025, an increase of EUR 475 million.
The increase is primarily attributable to the consolidation of 1&1 Versatel. In particular, this has caused trade payables to rise by EUR 194.4 million to EUR 543.9 million. Also, other financial liabilities have increased by EUR 182 million to EUR 291.3 million. This is primarily due to the rise in lease liabilities resulting from the inclusion of 1&1 Versatel and the further expansion of antenna sites and the concomitant leasing liabilities. What's more, the first installment of EUR 67 million for our frequencies in the 2 GHz band was due at the beginning of January 2026, which is why we now report this portion of the frequency liability under current liabilities.
Non-current liabilities rose from EUR 1.305 billion to EUR 3.805 billion in 2025, an increase of EUR 2.5 billion. EUR 1.94 billion of this increase relates to long-term liabilities to United Internet. These consist of the loans of EUR 290 million taken out at the start of the year. The loan of EUR 650 million used to settle the purchase price for 1&1 Versatel and EUR 1 billion in loan liabilities of 1&1 Versatel. The increase of EUR 475.2 million in other long-term financial liabilities is primarily attributable to the inclusion of long-term lease liabilities of 1&1 Versatel, as well as to increased lease liabilities resulting from the continued expansion of our mobile network.
Equity fell from EUR 6.094 billion in 2024 to EUR 5.995 billion in 2025. The decline is primarily due to the first-time consolidation of 1&1 Versatel. Now let me continue with the cash flow development. Net cash inflows from operating activities amounted to EUR 604.3 million in 2025, compared with EUR 311.4 million in the previous year. These consist of EUR 499.2 million in cash flow from operating activities, EUR 34.1 million from changes in receivables and other assets.
This change is due to the reporting date and settlement-related factors, + EUR 25 million from the change in inventories due to the further reduction in stock levels, + EUR 51 million from the change in deferred expenses due to advanced payments for broadband quotas to Deutsche Telekom in previous years. These are now being utilized and are decreasing annually. - EUR 45.8 million from the change in receivables and payables from related parties and + EUR 27.7 million from the change in other liabilities and + EUR 12.0 million from the change in other working capital. Cash flow from investing activities amounted to - EUR 798.8 million in 2025, compared with - EUR 180.8 million in 2024.
This comprises the following. Cash CapEx in 2025 amounting to -EUR 409.2 million are primarily comprising investments in the 1&1 mobile network, -EUR 4 million in connection with the acquisition of A 1 Marketing, Kommunikation und neue Medien GmbH, -EUR 399.5 million from the investment of surplus cash and cash equivalents with United Internet during the year, +EUR 14.0 million from interest received, in particular from the investment with United Internet. The cash flow from financing activities amounted to EUR 198.1 million in 2025 compared with -EUR 129.7 million in the previous year.
This comprises the following: -EUR 29.9 million from the repayment of lease liabilities in connection with the account, accounting treatment of the leases for antenna sites, under IFRS 16 accounting, -EUR 8.8 million from dividend payments, -EUR 0.58 million in other interest-like payments, -EUR 61.3 million in repayments of liabilities relating to the 5G radio spectrum, +EUR 340 million from the raising of loans, -EUR 36.1 million from interest payments, in particular from leases and in addition, interest payments on the loans. We therefore generated a free cash flow of EUR 195.1 million in 2025, following EUR 20.8 million in 2024. Now, allow me to discuss the bridge from EBITDA to free cash flow.
We start with an EBITDA of EUR 557.5 million. Inventories amounting to EUR 25.8 million. Deferred expenses of EUR 51.3 million. Receivables and payables from related parties of -EUR 45.8 million. Receivables and other assets of EUR 34.1 million. Other liabilities of EUR 27.7 million. Other working capital of EUR 21.5 million. Taxes of -EUR 47.8 million, and CapEx of -EUR 409.2 million. This brings us to a free cash flow of EUR 195.1 million, which is a significant improvement over the prior year. Now let's take a look at the outlook for 2026 and subsequent years. From 2026 onwards, we will report on the following two segments.
The previous segment Access will be renamed Consumer and Small Business, while Enterprise Networks will combine the former 1&1 mobile network segment with the figures from 1&1 Versatel. Service revenue is expected to remain at the previous year's level in 2026 at approximately EUR 3.66 billion. EBITDA is expected to rise to approximately EUR 800 million in 2026. The investment volume, i.e. cash CapEx, is expected to amount to between EUR 500 million and EUR 550 million in 2026. We also expect annual operating EBITDA growth of approximately EUR 100 million for the financial years 2027 and 2028 each. The investment volume cash CapEx is expected to remain at the 2026 level in 2027 and 2028. Thank you very much for your attention, and this will now take us to the answering of your questions.
Thank you very much.
Okay, I'd like to ask the colleague at the front row from UBS, please go ahead. Mr. Tung first. Mr. Polo, just wait for the microphone.
you for the presentation. I have two questions. The first question is really just some clarification around CapEx. You've given midterm guidance, but can I clarify if the guidance assumes a build to 50% population coverage? Also, if you look at your envelope of EUR 500 million-EUR 550 million per annum through to 2028, how much does Versatel account for that envelope? And can you clarify in terms of the mobile network build, what are the main elements that are still yet to be done? Is it mainly just building out cell sites and the RAN, or are there other elements in terms of the mobile CapEx? Second question is really just about low-band spectrum.
The Bundesnetzagentur is proposing the MNOs pay you EUR 6 million per annum for the next five years to compensate for the absence of low-band spectrum. If you cannot get access to low-band spectrum, does it still make sense to continue the network build to 50%? Can you clarify if you actually still have coverage obligations to build to 50% by 2030, given that my understanding is the 2019 spectrum auction outcome was actually annulled by the Cologne court? Thank you.
Let me start with the second question. As you said, quite rightly, the agency proposed that we have the EUR 6 million for five years from Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica as compensation for not getting the frequencies. This is a hearing now. We have made our statement yesterday, and we will have to wait for the outcome. It doesn't have any effect on our network building because we build our network. We are building low-band antennas as well. We are fighting to get the low band in order to be able to use these antennas. Well, that is where we are today. I think we're still after getting the frequencies, and if the agency decides in the wrong way, we'll try to change it.
If we can't change it, we'll have to put up with it, but it's not gonna have an effect on our building plans. If I understood the second question right, we have an obligation. Yes, we have to connect 50% of the households in 2030. By the end of 2025, we have reached 27%, and until the end of this year, we plan to reach the 35% mark. That's end of 2026. We do think that 50% by 2030 is well doable and that is still without the low band. With the low band, we'll automatically get a bigger range. We'll automatically get not 35%, but 40% household coverage. From this point, we are optimistic that we will be able to do it quite well.
We have 300 new sites per quarter in the last year, which is a rate that we see going on for the near future as well. We, as far as deployment is concerned, we are well underway. Thank you.
Uh,
Concerning your CapEx question, this guidance is set up on the set up of the 50% build-up, and respectively, the CapEx in the years is scaled for the years to come to cover this. The point is here, looking forward, is mainly costs for the new antennas and also by Versatel, the connection of these antennas to fiber optic cables. These are the main components of this CapEx budget, and what we have behind us is the expansion of the CBCs. The CBCs extension coverage, that has been concluded, and that gave us high CapEx last year. We had a peak last year. We can say that clearly. Now, we focus on the quick development of the antenna sites as quickly as possible. In the CapEx, we will have the focus at this point as well.
If we look at the 1&1 Versatel CapEx and the guidance and the 1&1 mobile network and the access business, which are a small part if we're going to split it up, I would say 1&1 Versatel CapEx is about EUR 20 million, and the rest mainly is on the extension of the 1&1 Mobilfunk network with the limited companies respectively, and a smaller part is for the access business. Well, that is a minor part, really.
For New Street
I had the second question on the left-hand side.
Hi. Thank you very much. It's Ben Rickett from New Street Research. I had two questions, please. First question, on the low-band spectrum again. In the past, you've spoken about needing to keep leverage down ahead of a potential low-band spectrum auction.
I think your leverage now is nearer sort of 3x. How would you finance an auction if there is an auction in 2030 or before then? Second question, just on consolidation. I'd be interested to hear your latest thoughts on consolidation in Germany. Is it sustainable to have four mobile operators in this market or does there need to be consolidation? Would you be prepared to sell into a transaction or you would want to retain control? Thank you.
Well, as far as the debt is concerned, we are at a factor of 2.5x the EBITDA at the moment. Up to the auction, possible next auction, which is gonna be in 2028, 2029, this factor is gonna reduce. We are at the peak on the debt at the moment, which is from the Versatel takeover. Without that, we wouldn't have any debt at all. We bought Versatel and some integrated debts as well. This is where this comes from. I think it's EUR 2.1 billion, that which we're planning, which is 2.5 x the EBITDA, but it'll drop below after that. At least that's the planning. We do think that we have enough to in United Internet as well, in order to take part in the auctions.
Is it sustainable to have four operators? Well, there are other countries where four work well. I think, of course I understand that three are more efficient than four, two are more efficient than three, and one is the most efficient. You asked whether we are prepared, at least, I understood it that way, to sell the business. We are not preparing for that. There's no discussion on this either, I have to say very clearly. We read this once a week, what Telefónica thinks in the Spanish news. I don't know how they know it. Germany's papers seem to copy it, but we have no dialogue with them at all. There is no discussion in that direction.
Um,
Well, my question is on the midterm outlook in 2028 that you plan to add EUR 100 million worth of EBIT per year. Can you give us some more detail on what will be the core driver for this expansion, please? Thank you.
Yes. The EBITDA growth of about EUR 100 million each year is to be fed from both segments. The operative access business, that's our target, it's supposed to grow. We want to have valuable growth there again. Accordingly, the EBITDA is to grow there. In the segment enterprises and networks, we want to grow. On the one hand, this will be possible due to increased production, own production in the 1&1 mobile network. We swap external roaming costs or we can reduce them. There are to be positive contributions from 1&1 Versatel. This growth expectation rests on broad shoulders, I'd say. We're quite optimistic that we'll achieve this.
The next question by Mr. Kalivoda here on the right, and then the Mr. Oblinger of DZ Bank.
Yeah. Well, thank you very much. It's a follow-up question concerning competition and network expansion, which is costly, of course. Your operative business can capture this. How could you scale this maybe? The service business is quite strong, after all. Will competitors pull level? Or, if there are any gaps in coverage, do you have an edge over the competition? Can you give us some details on how you would like to differentiate against the competition, technologically speaking? Can you actually maintain prices or even increase them compared to competitors?
Well, that's an excellent point. Mr. D'Avis said we are planning to grow on different, well in all levels in 1&1 Versatel. The business customer business, the mobile network utilization also in our access business, in our end customer business. Growth in end customer business only will work out if we generate more customers that are profitable. Over the last year and a half, we had very tough price competition in Germany. From our point of view, that was triggered by Telefónica, be that as it may, who moved first. Now we have the feeling that this is kind of calming down a bit. We are at a low level indeed, but it's not going even further down.
We were able to adjust our prices to an extent for fiber optics, and we're also planning to increase prices in DSL and mobile phone networks. We will see whether the markets allow for this. Those are only moderate adjustments. It's not like we can just double our prices. We believe that here or there, we have a bit of wiggle room for price adjustments, and that must succeed so that we are working in a reasonable enough market environment. We're not banking only on price increases. I would like to underscore this. We're talking of moderate price increases. If prices started tanking and going down tomorrow again, then we couldn't do that any better than our competitors.
We try not to go along with this nonsense and this cyber hype that we had, where you could get 100 GB for EUR 9.99. We didn't go along with that, but we can't completely ignore it either. This is why we have the idea that we will have a certain amount of growth, and we will adjust prices for our new customers here or there, just very slightly. That's the approach, really. I have two questions that are to do with the 1&1 Versatel acquisition. One being, you mentioned tax aspects in the context of the acquisition. Could you quantify them, please? Then another question of clarification concerning net indebtedness. It was a bit difficult sometimes to understand after the press release came, the last press release came.
I didn't quite understand how net indebtedness developed in the context of this loan, and then this aspect of the spectrum obligation, so that we have an idea of the overall indebtedness of 1&1. Could you please help me out with that? Well, concerning the tax benefits, due to the acquisition of 1&1 Versatel, we could use their deferred debts against tax, as I said earlier. In my presentation of figures concerning net indebtedness, it's composed as follows. We acquired a debt of EUR 950 million with the acquisition of Versatel, so we just took on this debt that Versatel had vis-à-vis United Internet.
We got a credit of EUR 650 million from United Internet and added EUR 150 million over the last couple of years, and this is how our debt is composed. Basically, it's all loans that we got from United Internet, a total of EUR 1.94 billion. We will increase this one more time, one final time, this year. That's our plan, to a maximum of EUR 2.1 billion. In subsequent years, in 2027, it's supposed to be to remain stable. Beginning 2028, we will start reducing our debt. We have to add, of course, the fact that in this period, we will have an increasing EBITDA, as Mr. Dommermuth said. This multiple will, of course, improve significantly.
Well, I'd say, one more question by Mr. Rothaug on the left-hand side. If there aren't any further follow-up questions, we really covered everything that had been mentioned in the context of the consensus discussions. We'd wrap it up. Well, one more short question on the capacity mechanism with Vodafone. If I understand this right, you pay your share in the network costs, in line with, your share of capacity utilized by you. You said, Mr. Dommermuth, that the overall capacity of the, network has increased less than expected. Can you tell us what that is due to? Is Vodafone doing a poor job at expanding their network or what? Yeah, I'll try to explain that. We purchase percentages of the Vodafone network. Let's say we buy a 10% share, and 10% produce 10 GB.
Now, if Vodafone produces 30% more next year than our 10%, no longer 10%, but 13 gigabytes. We made certain assumption for our growth in terms of existing and new customers, and we assumed that Vodafone's stock of customers will grow correspondingly. If you look back into the history in August 2024, that was the first time we cooperated with Vodafone in this way. Vodafone's growth was always a little bit around about 30%, and since then it has decreased to around about 15%. We had expected initially that it will remain at 30%.
With a 30% increase, 10% of the network would increase at 30% to 13 GB, but we only got an increase of 15%, so 11.5 GB. We had to buy another percent on top or some share. It doesn't have to be a percentage point now, exactly. If we grow as fast as Vodafone, then for the legacy customers, we have to purchase the same percentage. I'm not talking about new customers now. If we grow faster, then we use up a larger percentage of the Vodafone network. If we grow slower, we have to take up a smaller percentage. The benefit is that we don't have to negotiate the price of a gigabyte. That was the problem we always had with Telefónica.
Of course, we have opposing interests here. One party wants to pay as little as possible, the other party wants to get as much as possible. Here we have different mechanism. We get a percentage, whatever this means. That's the way our contract operates. I think it's a very fair and equitable one. Now, at the beginning, of course, it's stupid to say that it's a great contract if you pay more than you expected to start with. We do believe that we'll level out over here. We believe that Vodafone will start growing again. We don't think that they're too dumb to grow. It's always their business decision as to which market segments they want to grow and et cetera.
It has nothing to do with the expansion of the network. As soon as they do that, as soon as they expand their network, we participate in by simply grabbing our percentage of that growth in the network. Okay, I'll have another look around if there's any more questions. We'd be happy to take it. Okay, maybe a closing remark. Ben?
Quick question on your lease expense. It's really helpful that you've given guidance for 2027 and 2028. Can you say anything about what the lease expense will be for 2026, and then how you expect that to evolve over the next two years?
The leasing liability is about EUR 200 million, and they are gonna increase slightly over the year. Okay. I would, and we would like to thank you for the interesting discussion and questions, and we wish you a good break shortly before you can follow the invitation of our parent company. Thank you.