Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the United Internet quarterly statement Q3 2025 webcast and conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Dominic Großmann. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to our Q3 2025 analyst investor call. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Dominic Großmann. I'm responsible for investor relations at United Internet, and here with me today, I have our CFO, Carsten Theurer. Briefly about today's call, Carsten will first take you through our presentation with the business development in the first nine months and will also give an outlook for the rest of the year. Afterwards, he will be happy to answer your questions. So far, to our agenda, I would now like to hand over to Carsten. Carsten, please go ahead. The floor is yours.
Thank you, Dominic, and also a warm welcome from my side to our webcast on the presentation of our nine-month figures for 2025. First of all, I would like to point out three noteworthy events. Number one, 1&1 has successfully completed the migration of our customers to our own network. I will get back to this later on. Number two, in October, we were able to complete the disposal of our energy business field. Number three, as mentioned during the IONOS call this morning, our group figures have been adjusted due to a change in presentation of the EdTech business in the business application segment, which is carried in accordance with IFRS 5 as discontinued operation as of September 30th, 2025. The prior year was adjusted accordingly. Having said that, let's have a look on the development of our major KPIs.
We are happy to report that our customer contracts increased by 480,000 to 29.5 million in the first nine months of 2025. Our revenue subsequently increased by 1.4% to EUR 4.5 billion. Group EBITDA increased by 1.9% to EUR 966 million, despite EUR 34 million higher mobile network rollout expenses compared to the same period before. Our EBIT declined by 11.3% to around EUR 443 million. The development in EBIT is driven by higher depreciation and amortization expenses attributable to investments in the rollout of the fiber optic network at 1&1 Versatel and the rollout of the 1&1 mobile network. As a result of improved performance from our associated companies and lower tax expenses, our EPS increased by EUR 0.03 to EUR 0.75 per share. Now we will do a deep dive into our segment development, starting with consumer access. Here we go.
As mentioned during this morning's 1&1 call, the migration of our customers to the 1&1 mobile network has been successfully completed. This marks a major milestone for our company. What's particularly remarkable is that, despite the complexity of executing the largest customer migration in the history of the German telco market, we not only retained our customer base but also achieved net customer growth during the transition. This clearly demonstrates the strength and appeal of our 1&1 mobile brands. Overall, the number of fee-based contracts fell by 50,000 to 16.34 million. The decrease is driven by the loss of 90,000 broadband connections to 3.86 million. However, during the same period, we were able to increase our number of mobile internet contracts by 40,000 to 12.48 million.
Despite the biggest migration, we turned a 20,000 Q1 decline into a 20,000 gain in Q2 and doubled momentum with an increase to 40,000 net additions in Q3. I will continue on slide five with the development on segments revenues. Revenue in the consumer access segment is fairly stable and amounts to approximately EUR 3 billion. Both the development of service revenues and hardware sales have remained flat year-over-year and are in line with our expectation. That being said, if we turn our attention to EBITDA on the next slide, we can observe that, in particular, due to the further year-over-year increase in expenses for the rollout of the 1&1 mobile network segment, EBITDA fell to almost EUR 410 million. The network rollout costs amounted to EUR 201 million compared to EUR 167 million in the same period last year, as shown in the breakdown next slide.
The access subsegment EBITDA remains robust at around EUR 611 million. The decline is a result of higher advance payment costs for national roaming due to a lower-than-expected net worth growth at Vodafone and the different accounting treatment of certain network components under the Vodafone national roaming agreement, which are all recognized directly in EBITDA without having an impact on EBIT in comparison to the former Telefónica contract. The EBITDA margin remains fairly stable. Our rollout costs for the 1&1 mobile network amounted to around EUR 200 million and are in line with the business plan. Moving on to the business access segment. We are able to increase sales by 1.1% year-over-year to EUR 435 million. At the same time, segment EBITDA increased by 2.1% to EUR 123.1 million. There was a corresponding improvement in the EBITDA margin from 28.0% in the previous year to 28.3% this year.
In the first nine months of 2025, total startup costs for the new business fields, 5G and expansion of commercial areas, amounted to EUR -16.3 million for EBITDA, declining by almost EUR 6 million year-over-year. Let us now turn to the application side of the business, starting with the consumer application segment. The number of pay accounts rose by 220,000 to 3.26 million. Here we have to point out the year-over-year development in free accounts with a decline of 210,000, which shows you in particular the successful migration to pay accounts where we added 280,000 over the same period. Overall, we are able to grow our consumer accounts by 70,000 in Q3 year-over-year. The growth of pay accounts in particular led to adjusted sales growth of 5.6% from EUR 218 million to EUR 230 million in the first nine months of 2025.
There was also further growth in key earnings figures such as EBITDA, with EBITDA increasing by 5.1% to EUR 82.9 million. The EBITDA margin remains stable at above 36%. In the application segment, we increased our number of customer contracts by 310,000 to almost reaching 10 million customers in our portfolio for the first time. This increase is driven both domestically and abroad, with our operations abroad performing even stronger. Revenues in this segment increased by 6.2% to EUR 980 million from EUR 923 million a year ago. The increase in revenue was driven by the strong customer growth and increased up and cross-selling. EBITDA in the business application segment increased by 21.5% compared to previous year's number of EUR 290 million to EUR 45 million. The operating EBITDA margin rose accordingly from 31.5% to above 36% as well. So much for the segments.
Here we have summarized the most important KPIs for the group once again and added a few more. Our CapEx amounted to EUR 488 million after EUR 442 million in the previous year, reflecting our continued investments in our fiber optic network at 1&1 Versatel and the rollout of the 1&1 mobile network. Please note that we are expecting a very significant proportion of our annual CapEx in Q4. I will provide a detailed breakdown of free cash flow on the next slide. However, the significant improvement in free cash flow is already worth highlighting. Our net bank liabilities increased by 20% to over EUR 3.2 billion, which relates to a leverage of 2.4x EBITDA.
In addition to our substantial investments, we paid out EUR 328 million in dividend payments and EUR 246 million as part of our voluntary public partial public tender offer for 1&1 shares and additional purchases to increase our stake to 86.5% overall. Our equity ratio amounted to 43.5%. This slide shows you a bridge of our EBITDA to free cash flow. The largest items here is our net CapEx of approximately EUR 485 million as a result of investments in the continued rollout of mobile network and expansion of our fiber optic infrastructure. Furthermore, we had phasing effects from Q4 2024 of around EUR 110 million. After accounting for taxes and changes in working capital, our free cash flow before leasing stands at EUR 259 million, respectively EUR 146 million after leasing. Finally, a brief word on the outlook.
We are confirming our revenue and EBITDA forecast and are specifying our cash CapEx forecast with accounting for EdTech as discontinued operation. We are now expecting full year revenues for fiscal year 2025 to amount to EUR 6.05 billion. Operating EBITDA is expected to amount to approximately EUR 1.3 billion, which includes approximately EUR 20 million in cost associated with the transition from the Telefónica National Roaming Agreement to the Vodafone National Roaming Agreement. Under the Telefónica National Roaming Agreement, certain network components are activated and depreciated, whereas under the Vodafone National Roaming Agreement, these costs are recognized directly in EBITDA. This change has no impact on the EBITDA. Capital expenditures are expected to total approximately EUR 750 million, primarily driven by the continued rollout of our mobile network and the expansion of the fiber optic infrastructure.
While this implies a slight spillover of investments in the following year, 2025 is still anticipated to represent the CapEx peak at United Internet. So much from our side. We are now available for any questions you may have.
Carsten, many thanks for your explanations. Now we would like to start our Q&A session. The first question, please.
Thank you. 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. We will now take the first question. Your first question today comes from the line of Polo Tang from UBS. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I have three different ones. First of all, apologies. I missed the 1&1 call earlier. Can you comment on where you are in terms of getting access to low band spectrum? How do you think about your network build if you're not able to get access to low band spectrum? Second question is just really about CapEx profiles. You mentioned for United Internet as a group that you expect 2025 to be the peak. Can you clarify whether 1&1 CapEx has been scaled back? My third question is really just about the perimeter of the group and corporate structure. What are your latest thoughts on IONOS and whether you should or should not spin out IONOS? What's your latest thoughts on owning 100% of 1&1? Thanks.
Thank you for your questions. Let's start with the low band spectrum. As explained in the months before, we are still waiting for a decision for the low band spectrum. There are some offers on the table, but they are not negotiable on our side, so we are still waiting to become true offers, which we can deal with. Therefore, what we are anticipating is that the BNetzA will step in the process, and then we are quite sure that we will get access to low band spectrum. There is not worth to talk about what will happen if we do not get any access to low band spectrum. We are quite sure that that will come not at the end of this year as expected before, but in Q1, Q2 next year, we are quite sure that we have access to the spectrum.
Second question, CapEx profile. The call on 1&1 gave the answer that the expected CapEx next year will be on the same level as in 2025, but we stay to our CapEx expectation on the group level, which will be the top or the peak level CapEx in this year, 2025, despite the spillover on the 1&1 side. The discussion on the IONOS spinoff, we have had that in the years before, but there is no way for any spinoff without any tax issues. Therefore, there is no plan for a spinoff on the IONOS side.
Your thoughts on owning 100% of 1&1?
Not really, because as mentioned before, we stay at the moment at 86.5%, and we are fine with that. There is no need to get 100% at the moment, and therefore, there are no further plans to get 100%.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. We will now go to the next question. The next question comes from the line of Mollie Witcombe from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, guys. Just wanted to dig in a little bit more on the CapEx peak. Obviously, a large portion of that is Versatel. Is there any risk that at some point in the midterm you might look to expand into new areas, and we could see an uptick again in CapEx driven by that segment? My second question is, sorry if I've missed this, just on the EUR 110 million in phasing effects on the free cash flow from Q4 2024, could you just run through quickly what that's made up of? Thank you.
Thank you for your questions. For the peak CapEx, we can't see there any risk at the moment that the CapEx will increase in the next year because we have our rollout pace, as mentioned before, 200-300 sites each quarter, and that remains very stable. Therefore, we don't see any peaks despite what we already have told you that the peak CapEx will be this year. The second question was about—sorry, what was the second question?
There's a EUR 110 million phasing effect from Q4 2024. I was just wanting a little bit more color.
Okay. There are some invoices which had a spillover from last year, which will be paid in this year. That means the phasing effect, which we can see in the EUR 110 million.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. We will now take your next question. Your next question comes from the line of Ben Rickett from New Street Research. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I had two questions, please. Firstly, I might have missed this this morning, but IONOS, the AdTech EBITDA seems to have collapsed as a result of the ASOC transition. Are you expecting that EBITDA to recover? Is this just a phasing issue, or what is the outlook for that AdTech EBITDA line? The second question, I was wondering, can you say anything about whether you have made revenue commitments to Rakuten? Specifically, I was interested, if you were to stop the mobile network build, are you then liable to continue to make payments to Rakuten? Thank you.
Starting with the first question because I did not get the second one, but I will come back on that. On the first one, EBITDA drop on the AdTech segment. As expected, due to that effect that the old one, the old product from Google, the AFD is replaced with the new one with ASOC. We can see a slight decrease on the RFD tool and only a small increase on the ASOC side. Therefore, figures were getting better. That is what we can see month over month at the moment. It is not in a dramatic dynamic at the moment, to be honest. Therefore, we will have to see where we will end up at a year. The second question about Rakuten, what was the exact question?
I just want to understand, is there any commitments that you've made to Rakuten for the 1&1 mobile network build? If the mobile network build was to stop, is there a liability there to Rakuten?
I don't know about any obligations or any payments we have to do if we stop building out our network, but there is no reason to talk about that because we are on the way to build out our network. As mentioned before, we have migrated now all over our 12.4 million customers on our own mobile network.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now go to the next question. The next question comes from the line of Simon Stippig from Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jim. Thank you very much for the opportunity to ask a question. Firstly, I would be interested in your expectation about when the Federal Capital Office will disclose its position about the Vantage Towers dispute. Secondly, are there any discussions with your peers about consolidations such as merging or selling the 1&1 mobile network as is? Thank you.
Starting with the Vantage question, we already expected this summer any statement from the Capital Office, but we are still waiting for it. Therefore, we can't tell you an exact date when a decision will come, but we are also waiting for that decision. On the consolidation, what can we say? There is not really something to tell. No one showed up here in Montabaur. If someone will come, we are open to have a conversation, as always. We look more after our own activities, and we are working with very good success on our own network. As already said, we are happy to have all of our customers on our own network.
Okay. Great. Thank you. Maybe follow-up. Did anyone show up in Madrid from United Internet or 1&1 from the group?
Not as I know.
Great. Thank you.
There are always some calls, but not on the discussion of consolidation. We are always in touch with each other for cases like low band and things like that, but not for consolidation questions. As I know, no one showed up here from Madrid.
Okay. Much appreciated. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. The next question comes from the line of Nizla Nazir from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I just have one question, please. Your net debt to EBITDA being at 2.4x , is that a position you're comfortable with? Would you consider sort of streamlining your portfolio to free up some cash to lower that net debt if you're not? For example, would you consider selling a stake in IONOS or the consumer applications business? How are you sort of looking at your financial position and the portfolio that you've built? Thank you.
Yeah. Leverage at 2.4x. We are feeling comfortable. As already mentioned before, we feel comfortable in a range still from 2.5x-3x, but our aim is to get more and closer to 2x in the next years. Maybe today is not the right day to talk about selling some shares of IONOS if you have had a look at the stock price at the moment. Therefore, it's not the right day for this discussion.
Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back to Dominic.
Thank you, Operator. Thank you, everyone, for attending our call today. Please feel free to contact us for any follow-up questions. We wish you a nice day. Stay safe and goodbye.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.