Thank you very much operator, and welcome. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the executive board of 1&1 AG, I would like to welcome you to our Q1 conference call. During this conference, our CFO, Markus Hühn, will present to you the results for the first three months of the fiscal year 2023. Followed by the guidance for the year and the status of our 1&1 Mobile Network and our next steps. Following the presentation, of course, we then take your questions as usual. One remark which is different to the calls in the past, we may stop taking the last question the first time at around 11:50 today to accommodate a subsequent call from our parent company, United Internet. Thank you very much. I would now like to hand over to Markus.
Thanks, Oliver. Good morning. This is Markus Hühn speaking. Also warm welcome from my side to our call this morning. Please let us start with the presentation on slide number four, the customer base. We've increased our customer base by 90,000 new contracts in the first quarter, 120,000 mobile contracts and a decrease of -30,000 broadband gross contracts. The growth is in the range that we have expected. Mobile business near on a run rate that we have seen before we had the amendment of the Telecommunications Act. With broadband lines, we are unfortunately still in a situation where we see a slightly decrease in our customer base quarter-over-quarter.
As we've already mentioned in our call in March this year, the situation will change after we have a higher FTTH coverage via our contract with Deutsche Telekom and after the migration of ADSL customers in our customer base. We started in January 2023 with the migration, the plan is to migrate a big share of the ADSL customers into VDSL technology until second half of next year. On the next slide, you see the revenue in the first quarter 2023 with EUR 1,021 million, an increase of +4.6% compared with the year before. You can see service revenue with EUR 788.9 million, which is more or less on the same level as in the year before.
Main reasons for the situations are the lower number of net adds in 2022, caused by the amendment of the Telecommunications Act end of 2021, and the decrease in the customer base of our broadband lines. Broadband contracts have a much higher ARPU than mobile contracts. Therefore, the decrease of broadband lines leads to weaker performance in the service revenue in total in the first quarter 2023. In the second quarter in 2023, we will see this impact as well. But for the second half of the year, we expect a much stronger increase in our service revenue again. Slide 6 shows EBITDA by segment. In the Access segment, we have realized EUR 201.3 million in the first quarter, which is an increase of +3% compared with EUR 195.4 million in 2022.
The minus 19 sorry. The minus 19.2 million EUR EBITDA in the segment 1&1 Mobile Network is reflecting our activities for the rollout of the mobile network. On the next slide, you can see what we have spent for CapEx in the first quarter, 14.2 million EUR in total. 2.7 million EUR spendings in segment Access and 37.5 million EUR driven by rollout of the mobile network. We come to the status of the 1&1 Mobile Network. We've updated the slides that we have presented in our call in March. You see that we have started with our first service, fixed wireless access, end of last year.
We finished two of four core data centers, 19 of 24 decentralized edge data centers, and we have 664 of the approximately 550 regional far edge data centers. These figures are as of end of March. As of end of March, there is no not a big difference to that what we have mentioned in our call. You see 94 antenna sites that we have taken over. 14 of them are in operation. Beside that, we have our ongoing functional testings with Telefónica for national roaming, with Orange for international roaming. The testings for our eMBB launch or the eMBB operation. Beside that, we are preparing tests and applying for certifications from our smartphone vendors.
On the next slide, number 10, you see the key points of our EBIT financial planning. After we've migrated the customers in 2024 and 2025, the costs of network operating operation, excluding the antenna sites, will be financed by savings on voice traffic and international roaming. After the acquisition of low-band frequencies at the beginning of 2026, the operation costs for antenna sites are largely covered by savings on national roaming fully from the end of the second expansion stage, which is 50% household coverage. The wireless spectrum has to be refinanced through new business areas that could be, for example, fixed wireless access, brand reselling or B2B tariffs. Regarding the antenna location, we have still a forecast of approximately 1,200 sites for end of this year.
In February, we, our partners indicated some delays. The deliveries of the 1,200 sites are mainly in the third and the fourth quarter this year. Yeah, the outlook, if the ramp up is as planned, then we see approximately 3,000 antenna sites that can be provided annually from 2024 onwards. On slide 12, you see the steps that are planned for the next quarters. Currently in the second quarter, we are working on the connection to the international telecommunication network. We are just in the test phase of national roaming. In the third quarter, the operational start of the third and the fourth core data center is planned. National roaming will also start in the third quarter. Nationwide marketing start of smartphone tariffs is planned from September 2023.
When we've started with marketing of our own 5G network, then of course we have to stop with MVNO sales. In the fourth quarter, we will start with the migration of the existing customers. Now we come to the financials. On slide number 14, the P&Ls. Revenue has already been commanded. The cost of sales grew up from EUR 661.9 million in 2022 to EUR 712.5 million. The increase is including higher spendings in the rollout of our mobile network of EUR 20.8 million. So gross profit thereof dropped from EUR 314 to EUR 308.5 million.
Without the spendings for the mobile network, the gross profit would increase from EUR 319.1 million in 2022 to EUR 334.4 million in 2023, which is a plus of 6.5%. Costs for distribution increased from EUR 120.7 million in 2022 to EUR 126.2 million, which is driven by higher spendings in marketing and further sales activities. Administration costs with EUR 28.2 million are more or less on the same level as the year before. Other operating income is with +EUR 6.1 million above the income in 2022 with EUR 5.6 million. Impairments on receivables and contract assets grew up from -EUR 23.7 million to -EUR 26.8 million.
Profit from operating activities in 2023 with EUR 133.4 million is below the result in 2022, which was EUR 146.8 million, which is also driven by the already mentioned higher spendings for the Mobile Network. In addition, we have higher depreciation of EUR 11.1 million because of bringing the network in service with fixed wireless access end of last year. Without these impacts out of the segment Mobile Network, the profit from operating activities would have been increased from EUR 155.1 million in 2022 to EUR 163.7 million in 2023, which is a plus of 5.5%.
Financial results with EUR 1.4 million is above the result in 2022 with minus EUR 1.6 million because of higher interest income out of the deposit in line with the existing cash pooling agreement with United Internet. We come to a profit before tax of EUR 134.8 million, minus EUR 40.8 million tax expenses and a consolidated result of EUR 94 million for the first quarter in 2023. Next slide, number 15, the balance sheet. Balance sheet in total rose from EUR 7,257.1 million as of end of 2022 to EUR 7,353.5 million as of end of the first quarter 2023.
The increase in short-term assets of EUR 108 million is driven by investments in free cash flow with United Internet with EUR 55 million, increase of contract asset with EUR 28 million and an increase of inventory, of EUR 15 million. Short-term liabilities grew up from EUR 549.7 to EUR 562. Long-term liabilities dropped down from EUR 1,127.6 million to EUR 1,117.3 million. The equity increase is caused by the positive result in the first quarter. On the slide, cash flow, number 16, you see the net inflow from operating activities with EUR 100 million in the first quarter, which is above the result in 2022 with EUR 83.9 million.
The higher spendings in CapEx, 14.2 million, and investments of free cash flow, EUR 55 million, leads to a cash flow from investment activities with -EUR 95.3 million. Cash flow from financing activities are with EUR 4.7 million, more or less on the same level as the year before. We finished the first quarter with a free cash flow of EUR 59.8 million. The next slide, the bridge coming from the EUR 182.1 million EBITDA, to on the right-hand side, the free cash flow of EUR 59.8 million. The bridge you see, the impact from receivables and other assets, is -EUR 5.9 million. The deferred income leads to an increase of EUR 7.3 million.
Contract asset increase leads to a minus of EUR 32.3 million, the balance out of other working capital positions with minus EUR 16.9 million. We have taxes with EUR 34.3 million negative, CapEx position with minus EUR 40.2 million. We come to the EUR 59.8 million free cash flow. Now we come to the outlook for this year. We confirm our outlook for 2023. Service revenue with approximately +2%. EBITDA with approximately EUR 655 million. In the segment Access, a plus of approximately 4% with EUR 775 million. The segment 1&1 Mobile Network with approximately EUR 120 million startup costs.
The outlook for new subscribers is approximately 500,000 new contracts. Cash CapEx, the outlook is still approximately EUR 320 million for the year 2023. You. Many thanks for your attention so far. Now I would like to hand over to the operator for the Q&A session.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. We will take our first question, the question comes from the line of Polo Tang from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking the questions. My first question is on service revenues. You did 0% service revenue growth for the second successive quarter, but you're guiding for a +2% for the full year. Can you talk through the building blocks of what's going to drive improving service revenue growth from here? Second question is just about national roaming. Mr. Dommermuth gave an interview in the press recently indicating that 1&1 was seeking a 5G national roaming agreement. Is there any legal basis under which 1&1 can get access to 5G national roaming? Also Telefónica Deutschland, on its results call earlier today, mentioned that you had minimum volume commitments with them on the national roaming agreement that you have with them. Can you comment on this?
Does this limit your options on what you can do with a 5G national roaming agreement? My final question is really just about, you talked about operating costs of antenna sites being covered by your national roaming savings by 2026. Can you quantify what you expect for your operating costs for these antenna sites to be in 2026? In this calculation, are you assuming that you have access to low-band spectrum? Thanks.
Regarding your question to service revenue, we see in the first two quarters a weak service revenue because of the low number of net adds in the last year. The first quarter in last year was the last, let's say, strong quarter. We left much more customers in the third, in the second, third and fourth quarter in last year, which leads to the service revenue situation that we see in the first quarter this year. In comparison, first quarter 2023 to first quarter 2022 is definitely the weakest performance.
The situation in the broadband Access with the higher ARPU has also a negative impact on the service revenue. In this year we see a higher net growth, the 500,000 net adds compared with the 350,000, which are coming in Q2, Q3, and Q4. We are focusing on higher values in our offers to the customers. That are the main reasons why we believe in a stronger service revenue increase in the second half of this year. A higher number of net adds and a higher focus on value of our packages.
Regarding your question to national roaming and the interview of Mr. Dommermuth. National roaming, including all network technologies, has long been standard practice. Our re-request for non-discriminatory national roaming of 5G contains points that were already self-evident in 2001. This can be seen very clearly in the case of Telefónica via VIAG Interkom, which roamed on Deutsche Telekom's network for more than 10 years in parallel with the construction of its own 3G network. There in 2001, at the start of the 3G rollout, the provision of the new 3G technology was agreed as a matter of course, non-discriminatory, identical to Telekom's network services for its own end customers. In 2014, the procedure was following again.
Telefónica committed to providing then new 4G technology without restrictions to a new entrant that wanted to build a 4G network as part of the remedies of the EU merger clearance. Mobile technology has evolved, and in 2019, the fifth generation in mobile communication will be launched in Germany. Today, 5G is a market standard available almost nationwide. This is not something which is, let's say, extraordinary that we are asking for. In our opinion, what we are asking for is something that what we have seen in the last 20 years, which is usual in this market, and between the players in this market. Regarding your question to the antennas, please have understanding that we don't want to give details to the antenna costs so far.
Our calculation is based on that we have low band frequencies in 2026, that we have a good indoor coverage, therefore we need a low band spectrum. Our calculation for this is that after we are in this situation, after we have the approximately 60% traffic coverage, this is our assumption for 2026. As we have mentioned, we believe that a large part of the antenna operation costs are financed by the savings from national roaming.
Many thanks.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Martin Hammerschmidt from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, thank you very much for taking my questions. I have a couple as well, please. The first one is on the fixed business. Earlier the presentation you said, the migration away from ADSL is still going into or will last until next year. At what point can we expect a stable or maybe even a sort of slightly growing fixed customer base? Is that something that you think you can achieve before the migration is completed, or will it only take place after the migration is concluded? The second question I have is on the functional testing you have with Telefónica Deutschland on the national roaming. Could you share your sort of experience here so far at this stage?
Is it already working to your satisfaction, or do you feel there still needs to be improvement before you launch the network? Then maybe, the third question, you talked about higher value of packages to drive or to help drive customer service revenue growth in the second half. Is that a function of you try to upsell customers or customers come in at higher ARPU packages at the moment, or do you consider price increases? What is changing between the higher value packages now and that you envisage in the future? Thank you.
Regarding the first question to fixed broadband business, our expectation is that the year 2025 is the first year where we plan a stabilization again so that we don't lose customers. I think, in 2024, we will see a slightly decrease in the base, lower than that what we see for this year. 2025, after the migration of ADSL customers has completed, we believe that this is the first year where we have a stable situation. Regarding the functional functionality testings, I'm not involved in all details of the tests at the moment. Of course, there are many test cases that we are processing.
my view on that is that what we see is in a range which is manageable, and we are in the planned timeline. We are very positive so that we can finalize all these tests in the second and third quarter so that we can start with national roaming at the end of the third quarter. Regarding the question to the value or tariff packages, at the end of the day, it's a mixture, huh.
The plan is upselling, but we also reduce, for example, price reductions, or subsidizations that we give in hardware bundles, and that's something what we also see in our in the portfolios of our competitors. Let's say reduce the exclusivity of the offer, and that's something what we are also doing. We are orientating on that would on the offers that we see in the competition landscape. Therefore, we see still room to generate packages with a higher value compared with last year, for example.
Understood. Price increases are not necessarily on the table right now?
not directly. It's more changing the bundles, and the included, price reductions, or goodies that we give in the first 24 months.
Perfect. Thanks very much.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Ulrich Rathe from Société Générale. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Oh, thank you. Yeah, a lot of my questions have been asked. Two questions maybe. The first one is on the high device sales this quarter. Does this reflect a new go-to market approach, or is it just a question of handsets, availability? Particularly, could you explain where you are sourcing handsets? Is this coming through Telefónica Deutschland as well? The second question is, you're talking about the certification with the device manufacturers. I know all operators are doing that, but in the context of you launching with Open RAN, could you confirm that the network would work with a broad range of sort of the mainstream devices?
Is it essentially a subset of specific devices that would work on your network, given that's slightly different from, you know, the predominant networks of the other network operators? Thank you very much.
Yeah. To your first question regarding the sales for of devices, there are two reasons. One reason is that the number of sales is much higher because of a higher demand out of the customer base. That's one impact. The other impact is that the prices for smartphones in this year are much higher than in the year before. We have a price impact. And also in addition, a third impact, as I mentioned earlier, that we decided to reduce the subsidization that we give to a customer with a smartphone bundle. It leads, at the end of the day, also to a higher revenue out of smartphones.
The biggest impact is coming from the number of sales and from the price impact because of increasing prices. Regarding your question to the certification of smartphones and the network, the plan is to get a certification of all smartphones. Of course, there are some smartphones, maybe older smartphones, in 2016, where a certification is not necessary. For all new and actual smartphones, we need this certification. This is still our target to get all these certifications for the smartphones in our customer base so that it has no negative impact on the customer experience.
That's helpful. If I can maybe chuck in one other question, and it's maybe a bit left field, so apologies for that. There seems to be some commentary and discussion in the market today about some people potentially being a little bit disappointed that you essentially confirmed your network rollout, if you see what I mean. There's still a story out there that it may not happen after all, right? In that context, of course, you have confirmed that you're going to do it, so that's that. Could you talk about whether you have ever been any talks with Telefónica Deutschland about a plan B, about a potential sort of, I don't know, bigger wholesale offer and that would essentially wrap up the network. Have such talks ever happened? Thank you.
No, such talks didn't happen to, we didn't talk about a plan B with Telefónica, huh.
That's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Please stand by. Your question comes from the line of Usman Ghazi from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hello. Thank you for the opportunity. I've got two slash three questions, please. The first question was just going back to the broadband business. Obviously, you're very clear that, you know, once the ADSL base has been migrated, you expect the business to be back to stable trends. I mean, do you have a view on, you know, what is the subscriber count you're expecting this business to be at once the ADSL base has been migrated? Then just related to that, I think you mentioned that you were seeing weaker broadband ARPU trends that were impacting the revenue growth.
Again, there, I was just wondering if you could give some color because, obviously, if you're losing lower ARPU ADSL customers and, you know, gaining higher ARPU VDSL, one would expect the ARPU trends to be benefiting. Yes, if you could give any color on that. That's on the broadband business. The second question was just on the, I mean, I apologize if these comments were made on the presentation already, can you give any color on the pace of site build?
Usman, sorry to step in.
Yeah.
The line is pretty bad since you have started with mobile.
Okay.
Can you start, restart, please?
Sure, I'll try again. On the site build, you know, can you give any color on the pace of construction, and, you know, if you're more confident, less confident that the back-end loaded phasing of the build will be done this year or not. Yeah, any kind of color that you could give on that would be helpful. Then my final question was related to the to your comments at the last presentation. This is a Q4 results presentation, where you kind of, you know, where the justification for the network build was made in two respects, right?
First, you said, the first justification was that, look, even if we don't build out even one site, building out the core network will see us recoup, you know, EUR 120 million of 5G startup costs, that you were going to spend, that you were spending in FY 2022, the remaining will be recouped on the national roaming as you build out the sites. Just focusing on the first bit, where, you know, building out the core network gets you savings of, you know, EUR 120 million, which is presumably from voice. Can you talk about, you know, what actions you need to be taking to make sure that the voice cost savings come through, whether it be from VoLTE or something else?
If you can just kind of help us get a bit more comfortable that those savings are in the bag, you know, even if you don't build out one site from here on. Thank you.
Yeah. Regarding your question to the broadband business, I think in the March call, we have mentioned that we had approximately 1.1 million ADSL lines in the customer base. On this technology, we have the highest pressure in terms of that the customer wants another package, another technology, and we have a risk that we, of course, lose customers in that area. Therefore, we have to plan to migrate all these customers which are today on a platform of Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and QSC, and we would like to migrate all these customers until the second half of 2024.
At the end of the day, that leads to a situation where we have a lower pressure on the customer base because these customers then are in the newest technology. Maybe this, that is the story of that what we've planned. Regarding the ARPU, we see in the broadband lines still an increasing ARPU from year to year. And that's something what we also expect for the next years coming from migrating the customers from ADSL into VDSL. So we see there a very stable situation in terms of ARPU and value in this customer base.
That what I mentioned earlier, when I comment the service revenue in this year. Because of the high impact of the Telecommunications Act on the broadband lines, we've lost a high number of contracts last year in the fixed net business. Due to the fact that the RPO in the fixed net business is much higher than in the mobile business, the situation had a big impact on the service revenue situation that we see in the first quarter. That's what I tried to explain further or earlier in the presentation. Coming from the RPU, we have still a stable situation and increasing RPUs.
Mm-hmm.
Regarding your question to the sites that are planned to build in this year. The plan is that we have end of June, 160 sites that we have taken over from our vendors. The plan is then in Q3 to take over 400 sites, and in Q4, 600 sites. That's the plan, that's the forecast that we got from our vendors. That's something where we are focusing on and working on.
Are you just on that point, are you comfortable with those forecasts at the moment? I mean, are there's a reason to be more optimistic, less optimistic? I mean, you know.
We are comfortable so far. What we've expected for the second quarter, there we see that the vendors are all in line with the forecast. As you see on the numbers that I've mentioned earlier, it's a strong hockey stick that our vendors are planning for the third and fourth quarter. For the moment, we have a positive view on the situation, so that we believe that we will get the 160 sites until end of June. The 400 and 600 site are very ambitious target of our vendors.
Mm-hmm.
That's still the situation now. Yeah.
Yes.
Oliver, could you assist me? What was the third question?
In the Q4 presentation.
Yeah. Okay. Your question was, what do we have to do to generate the savings out of the M-VoLTE or voice situation?
Mm-hmm.
At the end of the day, the most important thing is that in our customer base, the customer have M-VoLTE smartphones. We did a analyze on it, there are still smartphones in our customer base that are not able to use M-VoLTE, but we know these. We know the number of smartphones and customers in that area. At the end of the day, we do not see a big risk that there that we will be the situation where we can't generate the savings out of M-VoLTE because we do not need antennas for it.
It's just the way how the that we will change from an invoicing via minutes to an invoicing via data. There are no showstoppers in our opinion so far.
Right. Just a clarification. You haven't, I mean, you haven't been able to realize these savings under the MVNO because you're not allowed to? As in this only comes in because you moved to national roaming or?
Usman, we understood only, that only comes in if you use national roaming. We didn't understand the beginning of your sentence.
Yes. Sorry. Just saying, just trying to understand why you haven't been able to, realize these Voice over LTE savings, you know, before. Why is this a focus now? Is it because you're moving to national roaming and that allows you to do so?
Maybe I take this question, Usman. The VoLTE opportunity was an opportunity once, in the MBA MVNO, we would have decided for a full MVNO, so become a network operator without a core network, and then we could have, launched VoLTE. We do it now as we become an operator, but, that is the reason behind, yeah.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Joshua Mills from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. The first one is just on an update around the fine, which you're reportedly being asked to pay by the BNetzA for missing your rollout targets. Could you give us a timeline on when we should hear about that? Whether you've taken any provisions or have an estimate of how much that will cost you to pay as well would be very helpful. Secondly, on the request for 5G roaming, not just on Telekom Deutschland, but also Telefónica Deutschland Vodafone. Why are you doing that now? Is there anything specifically that gives you the confidence that appeal will be successful? Maybe this isn't related to that, a clarification. I think that the appeal is being made directly to the Bundesnetzagentur without any EC involvement. Is that the case?
Are there any other price reviews that you're requesting from the EC as well? Thanks very much.
Joshua, could you please repeat your question regarding the rollout?
Yeah.
What do you want to know, the number of sites or?
No, no, sorry. I mean, it's been reported that the Bundesnetzagentur is fining you for missing the rollout target last year. Is there any update on when you know, on when you'll have to pay that fine or how much it could be? Was the first question.
Okay. Now I understand. As we mentioned already, we got a letter from the Bundesnetzagentur where they are explaining and argumenting that they have to give us a fine. We have now a deadline until end of August, where we have the chance to explain our point of view, and after that, Bundesnetzagentur will make a decision on that. We can or we will get a decision on that earliest in September, October this year. That's the status so far. Regarding 5G Telefónica on the question why do we come now with this question?
Bundesnetzagentur, that due to the fact that we have a new Telecommunications Act since end of 2021, where they have the chance to decide things that are important for customer protection, for competition. That's something what they are using. They are using it, for example, for the fine that we just discussed. In our opinion, if they use the Telecommunications Act for talking about fines, then of course, we would like to remember Bundesnetzagentur that they are also responsible to take care for a fair competition situation. That's the reason why we came up with this issue right now.
Great. The final part of that question was, have you applied to the EC for any more price reviews on the national roaming deal with Telefónica Deutschland? Are there any price reviews outstanding at the moment or planning to launch one?
No, this is not a plan.
To be detailed, Joshua, there is no price review and all the price reviews of the past has been closed. Price review is not an issue.
Just finally to wrap up on this one then. Do you have the option under the national roaming deal to ask for price reviews? I thought you had, but maybe I was wrong on that.
Today we are not talking about other options in the national roaming area.
Understood.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Ben Rickett from New Street Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi there. Thank you for the question. Firstly, just on working capital, you had another working capital outflow in Q1. Do you expect that to reverse in the remainder of the year? Or should we expect a negative working capital for the full year? Second question, just an update on Tele Columbus. Have you started retailing Tele Columbus lines yet? Any update on how that's going? Your thoughts on how big an opportunity that is, how many subscribers you ultimately expect to add on Tele Columbus's network? Thank you.
I start with the second question, Tele Columbus. We are in discussion at the moment with Tele Columbus. Yeah, at the moment, it's not our highest focus. We see a much bigger potential in other agreements that we have at the moment, or that we are negotiating at the moment. Tele Columbus, or we are in discussion with Tele Columbus, but we didn't make a decision right now. Regarding the working capital, Regarding the first quarter, Oliver Keil give the answer. Regarding the next quarter or the next quarters, do we have a bigger negative impact on working capital?
Yes, in the second quarter, because we have to pay for the VDSL contingents that we bought via Deutsche Telekom, and we need them to migrate the ADSL customers. In the second quarter, we have a payment to Deutsche Telekom, which is in the range that we've seen also in last year. Regarding the first quarter.
We.
Oliver.
That's right.
We have to come back to you to your question regarding the first quarter. I do not have.
Is this the final?
Sorry? Mm-hmm.
Is this the final payment for the contingent? What should we expect future, are there more payments to come like this in future years? The working capital outcome.
Zoe, could you please repeat the last question?
You're saying in Q2 you're expecting a further payment for the contingent model as you have in previous years. Should we expect more payments in future years, or this is the last payment?
No. We see payments in that range this year and next year. Then we have the base or the contingent that we need for the next years. So in the future years, after 2025, sorry, after 2024, the payments will be much lower than in the years before.
That's great. Thank you.
Now I have also the answer for the working capital in the first quarter. We have an increase in the contract assets. This is coming out of the hardware packages that we sold in our customer base and the increase of inventories. Both together are approximately EUR 45 million. Huh.
Understood. Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you. We will take our final question. The final question comes from the line of Adam Fox-Rumley from HSBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. I just wanted to ask, you've spoken about the ramp up of the site build through the course of the year. You said you're gonna have 600 sites to be delivered in Q4. I think you're gonna start marketing the network in September this year. I wondered if you could reflect on the risks of that plan starting too early, effectively. Thank you.
Yeah. As we have mentioned, in also in our last call, calls, there is definitely a risk that we maybe not will get the 600 sites in the fourth quarter, huh. Therefore, we explain the situation that we are also generating savings to the fact that we have done VoLTE . That means, also in the case, when we have a lower number of antennas, we are generating savings that will refinance the core network, the architecture and the organization that we need. Therefore, it makes sense to start with national roaming in September because of generating these savings.
I guess I was thinking whether or not there's also, whether you might not necessarily then run the marketing that's associated with that. I understand the financial savings may come, but is there a kind of reputational risk if the network is not sufficiently large to be able to start that?
You mean the marketing for the, for the smartphone tariffs in Q3, Adam, yeah?
Yes. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah. That we want to be a bit more, become a bit more detailed in our H1 call, which is scheduled for August. I don't want to be too impolite, but we are a little bit over time, and I want to grant the necessary time to our colleagues of the mother company, United Internet. Therefore, thank you very much for your attention so far. As usual, we will be available, so just drop a mail with me. I may now return to the operator. After a very short break, wishing you an interesting meeting with the call with our parent company. Wish you all the best. See you soon, perhaps in person. Thank you. Goodbye.