Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our analyst call today. We just announced our Q1 fiscal 2023 results this morning. Looking forward to your questions. I'll just give you, as usual, before we jump into it, a quick summary of the quarter, and then we'll move on to our customary dialogue in these analyst calls. It's the Q1 of the financial year. Commercially successful. 340 new tenancies. Closing tenancy ratio of 1.44, so it hasn't rounded up to 1.45, but progressing. It's an active quarter with a number of new commercial deals, including some of the adjacencies. I just thought I'd mention them because you often ask us what is there beyond tenancies with operators.
Things like coverage solutions in Germany and Czech Republic. For DASs in new buildings with developers that allow the developer to have a state-of-the-art mobile infrastructure. Some new fiber sales agent agreement, not with Vodafone, but with Lyntia. A PPDR agreement in Greece are some of the commercial signings of this quarter. An ongoing progression on new opportunities. In terms of production, it remains a difficult operational environment. We are still very much working on our transformation program, ongoing effort.
However, 140 new macro sites in the quarter, delivered in spite of, I would say, a number of ongoing constraints on supply chain, resource availability on the ground, that we continue to work on, while working on the resilience of our supply chain and operations. We're expecting these challenges to continue to impact us in this coming year. That's why we're continuing our efforts in improving our operational processes and continue to take measures with our suppliers, with our employees, with our organization. GLBO. We're now at 1,270 signed contracts or firm agreements. That's. You remember the definition, right? Firm agreements is when we've done all the paperwork.
Commitments is when we have the handshake with the landlord, and there's very little drop-off between firm commitments and the finalization. Ongoing progression at pretty much an analogous rhythm to the previous quarters. Good expansion across the geographies. A program that is indeed progressing, and it's an important program for us in the current inflationary environment. If you look at the revenue which we disclose in Q1, excluding pass-through, it increased by 6.6% over Q1 2022 to EUR 261.1 million. Our non-Vodafone revenue grew by 16.1% compared to prior year. Another aspect of our commercialization that is translating into the numbers and the increase of our non-Vodafone revenue.
On the back of this, we reaffirm our guidance for fiscal 2023, keep it unchanged at revenue growth of 3%-5%. EBITDA after leases margin, EUR 550 million-EUR 570 million. Recurring free cash flow, EUR 405 million-EUR 425 million. We reaffirm our medium-term targets, looking at our progression in Q1. That's the real highlight. As I often say, it's a slow. There's not that much change quarter to quarter, but I think the consistency of our actions is what we observe in this quarter. With this, I'd like to turn it over to you for questions.
Reminding you that we'd like to keep it to one question per analyst so that everyone gets a moment to ask questions. Thank you so much. I'll turn over to Sean to walk us through the Q&A.
Thank you very much. Our first question today comes from Robert Grindle from Deutsche Bank. Robert, please go ahead.
Yep. Good morning, Vivek and Thomas. Hope you can hear me. Nice to see you this quarter.
Hi, Robert.
Thank you.
I'd like to ask for your thoughts, please, on the Deutsche Telekom Towers deal. I'm sure you guys like the multiple, but has this changed the way you think about future cooperation? You guys were reported to have been a bidder, but have any doors really closed or indeed opened on your side post the news last week? Thank you.
Yeah. Look, well, first of all, it's not for us to comment on their decision process. I'll be a bit mindful of all that. Remember, we always said since the IPO, we've said M&A was an optionality. Our guidance, our growth, our trajectory is not premised on achieving one or another M&A transaction. We are scaled enough to absorb our fixed costs in a proper way and to compete as much as we require. We've got leadership positions and leads in the geographies where we operate. We've got, I think, another thing that we noted as part of this, that our MSA is very much in market. I think that's. It's working well for us.
I think all those things kind of got confirmed as a byproduct of the process. Indeed, the multiple is nice, and I think what it says is that there is interest in the current context for the kind of assets that we represent. And I, with our split of countries, but also the type of activities that we're involved in. That's all good stuff, as you said. I just in terms of what else could happen for us. I just refer you to the comments made by Vodafone at the previous quarter. Basically, their intention to achieve a co-control position to, I would say, open a positive future for us and for our shareholders.
Moving towards co-control, achieving monetization of a part of their stake in Vantage Towers, and achieving deconsolidation of Vantage Towers so that we decouple from their balance sheet in effect for further investments. Does that preclude more cooperation? First of all, we get along well with DFMG as a respected peer in this industry. In our industry coverage, achieving coverage through third-party tenancies, as you saw in our MSA revision last, which we reported last quarter. Also in the sales of locations that we provide to DFMG for them to provide to their customer, Telekom Germany. These are all things that are quite fluid. We have an ongoing dialogue.
I don't see anything that precludes us remaining smart in making sure that capital is deployed in an intelligent way. I think then for the rest, you should never insult the future. I think there are opportunities that may arise at a future point in time, but that's not for us to say today. Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Robert.
Our next question today comes from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. Andrew, please go ahead.
Hi, guys.
Hi, Andrew.
Morning. Can you hear me? Hey, how you doing?
Yeah, very well.
Yeah, as you said, not a lot changes in a well-run telco, course of the quarter. I wanted to just talk about maybe how potential risks could be changing. We had, for example, the Telecom Italia CMD, a couple of weeks ago, and they highlighted an ambition to expand the proportion of active sharing of their network to 20%. I wondered if we could just use that as a point to just clarify how you think about active sharing risk across your business. Maybe an update on what you hear from your customers on their ambitions and whether, you know, that conversation has already happened with Telecom Italia specifically. Thank you.
Yeah. Since Telecom Italia is an Inwit customer and they're listed, I can't go into that depth. Let me say one thing. This goes deep to the beginning of Vantage Towers. Actually, I mean, between friends, this was part of my initial conversation with Nick when we discussed for me to join Vantage Towers. I said, "Well, I'm a firm believer in active sharing, so we should set up Vantage Towers in such a way that we structure it not to see active sharing as a threat." This was important to me because I feel that active sharing is one of the mechanisms by which operators can deploy capital more efficiently. I don't want to be rowing against that current, because I think that current is the right one for operators.
It's a pretty strong belief point for me. That translated very concretely into a number of things in our MSAs. First of all, there were indeed a couple of active sharing operations already decided when we listed, which were the Spanish one and the Portuguese one. Those are. For those, we have a portfolio management fee, which means that for us it's not a headache that they're dismantling sites, that they're aggregating sites for network sharing in rural areas. That's all fine. Moreover, structurally in our MSA, we have an active sharing premium, which means that in effect for us, the economic impact of having active sharing put in place, which is efficient for operators, doesn't harm us too much, and or in many cases, the contrary.
Looking forward, active sharing, if it optimizes the usage of space on towers, today, I do feel that it's actually a relevant approach for our longer term ability to grow tenancies. We really try to take that proactive view that active sharing is usually a favorable thing. Of course, there's the strength of our grid, which means that when you're looking at active sharing that gets enhanced by either consolidation, combinations or singular, stronger shifts in network rollout strategies by operators, we structurally are kind of in a good place because our grid is typically the broader one, has fewer competitors within close distance. In an active sharing scenario with the kind of assets that we have, we tend to be a pretty attractive place to place the grid.
Just to reflect, look at Inwit, look at UK, Cornerstone, look at Greece. At the end, having two operators who actively or passively share, depending on the density of traffic on your grid, gives you very good resilience on the positioning of your sites. Because two operators reshaping their grid at the same time, it's a massive headache. I'd say it increases the stickiness of your grid. We lean into active sharing intellectually because it also strengthens operators and their ability to deploy more capital in more places. That's the way we've kind of set ourselves up. That's the approach.
Sorry. Can I just ask a very quick follow-up? Just how much are you involved? At what point do you get involved in those active sharing decisions and planning that the operators have? And have you seen any step up in that amongst your customer base?
It's first of all a CTO to CTO or chief network officer to chief network officer type of dialogue that initiates it. Of course they have to come to us to discuss what is the impact that it could have. I would say, look, active sharing programs do increase the tenancy ratio overall. That's a healthy conversation to have quite early because then you can start to map the sites, optimize the upgrades, and all those things get done. Typically this is a collaborative process. That's the way it plays out.
Thank you.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you very much, Andrew. Our next question today comes from David Wright from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. David, please go ahead.
Thank you very much.
Morning, David.
Yeah. Hello, how are you?
Sorry, your voice is slightly muted. Let me see if it's speaker side.
Let me try that. How's that? Is that any better?
Yeah.
That's better.
Is that better?
That's better.
Sorry.
Great.
It was a little lower, too, to facilitate coffee drinking, so I apologize for that. Just a question, if you don't mind, just on the M&A process. How difficult is it for you to consider M&A when you have an equity currency that is trading at multiples that are, you know, quite a way below some of the transacted multiples we've seen, whether it be Deutsche Telekom, et cetera. Does that create a little bit of a block that effectively your equity is trading really quite cheap into some of these, you know, private, in some of these transactions where, you know, private buyers are willing to offer much higher numbers. Is that a challenge right now?
I guess the question I'm asking is, you know, was that a bit of a block perhaps when you were talking to Deutsche that your share price was just too low?
Well, in fact, private investors have developed or have constructed tools that allow them to approach these transactions at these multiples, and that's just factual, right? If I just refer to the Deutsche opportunity, it is probably of a different nature, right? I mean, it's because it would have been an option if it had been a combination, in a way it's notional, right? Because the multiple discussion is, you're comparing apples to pears. You're comparing an industrial project with, I would say, a different cycle and a different decision cycle to a cash operation. I think that comparison is of a different nature.
If I look at recent opportunities that we envisaged, or looked at or deals, smaller deals that happened across Europe in the recent months, I would argue that we, if we had wanted to, we had the ability to, and if the prices that were put forward were within reach for us, for instance, on cash transactions and things that we look at. I would say that for an outsized type of operation like this one, obviously then the reasoning is a bit different. For an individual tower sale in a given country, be it on or off footprint, I'd say we still have the firepower and ability to act, I think, on this matter.
Absolutely.
If I might just follow up on Cornerstone, because I think when we did the IPO, there was always a sense that, you know, you have these two, I don't know, let's call them outsized associate holdings within Inwit and Cornerstone, and obviously Inwit has gone its own direction. It always seems strange that over time you were the obvious buyer for Cornerstone, but we've just not seen any progress with that at all, and I'm sure it's an asset you'd love to bring, you know, into the financials, the consolidated financials. Is it just not for sale? Is there any reason that that deal's just not manifesting right now?
Well, can't comment for the seller. I mean, we've been as clear as you've just been. We feel we're a natural buyer. We take very good care of it. We've shown in Greece that we're able to have two anchor tenants who are competitors and treat them equitably and fairly. We believe that consolidating Cornerstone would indeed be a favorable outcome for us. We've been as transparent and public as I am today, both to Telefónica and Liberty on down on this matter. I think it's just not on the top of their. I think-
Because the timing for.
Yeah. It's probably a timing topic.
Yeah.
That said, look, nothing's getting broken.
Yeah. No.
Cornerstone is doing well. They've had a pretty good quarter. Growth in the close to just about 5%. Thomas, right?
Yeah. The commercialization of Cornerstone is working well. They are actually on good track as well from a cost efficiency point of view to leverage obviously the application of the code that we were discussing as well at the time of the IPO. Overall, they're developing absolutely in the right direction, and it's an attractive asset.
Yeah.
We are definitely interested.
The two shareholders are aligned in supporting the operations going forward, so I think we're in a good space. I mean, it's not damaging the asset. This situation is not damaging the asset. The headline is still the same. Interested, ready to consolidate, happy to do so, love the asset, and that's clear. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, David. Our next question today comes from Usman Ghazi from Berenberg. Usman, please go ahead.
Hi, everyone, and thanks for the opportunity. I've got, I mean, the question I wanted to focus on is, you know, you commented the full year results, that, you know, 2023 was gonna, or financial year 2023 was gonna be an investment year. You know, as you had highlighted three strands of the program, which was upgrading sites to enable tenancies, including designs and landlord agreements, rollout of the 1&1 contract, and investing into headcount to drive the 1&1 and BTS acceleration. I just wanted to ask if you could just provide an update on these kind of three strands and how they're going in the context of your comment that you know that there are issues obviously with regards to implementation.
That would be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah. I mean, we have reconfirmed obviously with the Q1 release now our guidance as well for fiscal year 2023, and said as well that we are on good track to achieve our medium-term targets. While this is obviously a quarter where we don't talk about the cost that much. This obviously gives you the insights to that we are on track to achieve fiscal year 2023 guidance. I think that's what you do see on the one hand, obviously with further commercialization of the business that is happening and by obviously looking at the tenancy growth that we have been pointing out in this quarter. On the other hand, I think it's fair as well to say that these investments are going actually on as well, and we continue to accelerate this throughout this fiscal year.
You've seen our BTS growth in the Q1 , coming in, which is part of that acceleration that we have, we have been talking about. On top of that, the other two impacts obviously are related to preparation for 1&1, which we continue to do, achieving according to plan as well. Secondly then ramping up our headcount, where we are putting a lot of effort into growing our teams, and consequently these impacts will actually be there as we actually have been saying at the full year results and as it has been included into our guidance as well.
Just to give a bit of operational color on top, very active on the upgrade programs, both for 5G, for operators across the footprint. I mean, but that's a lot, and indeed, we are consuming those resources, getting the landlord agreements, getting the designs and plans done so that we can add the extra capacity, rooftops and ground base to get the capacity out, both for the new 5G and new spectrum rollouts and for 1&1. That's moving well. The BTS program, we are ramping up people, we're reorganizing, putting in place stronger regional organizations so that hiring process is progressing. Takes time.
Some people need to still come in and get into the headcount, but the hirings are done, and it's more a question of their transitioning into our organization. The operational stretch that we have is more towards the end of the process linked to subcontractors in the construction space or availability on the supply chain of some of the equipment. All this preparation work, landlord planning, et cetera, is moving at good pace. I'd say that's what you know it is a sequential process. You need landlord, you need plan, you need permit, and then you need construction and foundation laying or steel work construction. The stretch we are seeing is more towards the end of the chain at this point.
Some of it on permitting, some of it at the construction phase. We are ready. The part that we control by adding resources is moving up. That's it. Very active period.
I mean, if I add that point as well.
Sorry, go ahead, Usman.
No, I just wanted to follow up on that comment by Vivek. I guess, I mean, we've seen in Germany that the you know there's an infrastructure law that has been put in place now, which has been agreed, which you know eases the permitting issues on fiber and on 5G. So does that incrementally help this year, or will it take time? Just you know related to this question on you know on implementation or execution of the BTS, I guess you know we're seeing Deutsche Telekom, at least their tower company is able to execute at quite a high pace you know relative to the other telcos in Germany.
Are there any kind of lessons or advantage in that implementation? Or is it just it's a more mature company, therefore, you know, they have deeper relationships on permitting, et cetera, that is helping them? Whereas, you know, any color on that would be helpful. Thank you.
No, I think first of all, I mean, they've built up their capacity over the years, and they've been around for a long time as a tower business unit, to put it that way, as of the recent transaction. I think there's a maturity of their processes. We believe that the re-engineering that we're doing of our organization points in the same direction. I mean, there's no magic. Not that we, you know, copy them, but they're doing best practice, and I think these best practices are known in the industry, and that's what we're putting in place. Standardization of our towers, the IT support for our operations to ensure very direct tracking of everything so that things don't get lost in the various multiple steps that lead to the construction.
Our original organization, and there they have a strength, which is that they have a very deep regional anchoring, due to their history and due to the work that they've done to have strong regional organizations liaising very closely with municipalities. The recent evolution of regulation in Germany is indeed favorable. It does stop short of imposing it to the Länder because that remains in their prerogative. The permitting is not a federal. It's more of an impulse that is given. We think it's favorable. I think it sends the right message across the country that, you know, holding back on 5G is not the right thing to do, which I think will strengthen our hand in those conversations we have with local authorities. It will.
It's not a one shot, you know, everybody needs to give by default approval yet.
Right.
I think there's still some more maturing to be done, you know. I guess these regulatory changes need to reach each and every individual functionary who then gives permits to imbibe it and then shift their behaviors and approach. Right.
Great. Thank you. That's really helpful, Vivek. Thanks.
Thanks.
Thank you very much, Usman. Our next question today comes from Jerry Dellis from Jefferies. Jerry, please go ahead.
Hi, Jerry.
Hi. Yeah. Yes, good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question. I have a question on Germany, please. We understand that 1&1's current intention is to deploy a sort of a fixed wireless access solution without handoff across maybe 1,000 sites by the end of the year in order to fulfill regulatory coverage requirements. Just wonder what the implications of this is from your side. Does that soak up sort of a lot of resource that could be deployed more lucratively in other areas if 1&1 is not exactly incentivized to be pushing the fixed wireless access solution commercially very hard? Does that have implications for the monetization that you'll see from 1&1 during 2022? Thank you.
No. I mean, we're one of their suppliers, and we have orders that link to the contract that we have with them. I mean, they've signed for 3,800 sites over a certain calendar of delivery, which I don't think we've given. I mean, it's not for us to give it. Their rollout.
Yeah.
Yeah, we are not really supposed to give breakdowns on that.
What we said is actually that there's a ramp up over the first two years, like even achieving run rate at the other later stage.
Yeah.
Pretty similar to our own BTS program, albeit obviously with a bit of a delay.
Yeah.
I mean, that is basically continuing to be the case, right?
Yeah.
We have the 3,800 guaranteed.
Up to 5000.
Up to 5,000 as an optionality of the speed, co-location with 1&1.
I mean, the point that you're making hasn't changed our conversation with them. We're executing on the program that we have with them.
It's ultimately potentially an indication of how they are intending to use the collaboration actually that we have with them and the orders that we have with them, but, it doesn't affect us.
The exact technical solution that they deploy in 2022 doesn't affect, for example, the macro site revenue that you'd be booking.
No, they pay per site.
Our deal is, well, it's very clear on the per site basis and
Thank you. Could I maybe just follow up on the macro site revenue that you reported across the group today was about sort of 3%. Is that the sort of level that you believe you can hold through the full year, or should we anticipate that scaling up?
What we have said is on the overall revenue is obviously the guidance being between 3%-5%. You've seen us actually in the in this quarter, Q1, achieving actually a growth rate of 6.6% year-on-year. But you do need to keep in mind on that this is on the baseline of a relatively slow growth quarter one in fiscal year 2022. Don't take the same growth rate actually into account on a linear fashion throughout the year because obviously we have accelerated our growth within fiscal year 2022 from quarter to quarter as well. You'll have that lapping effect therefore.
Yeah.
Obviously this fiscal year. I mean, if I step back then still, I mean, there was as well some one-off in the Q1 . Actually, it's a catch up more than a one-off where we have energy revenue charged to other customers that we have in this quarter. Even if you correct for that, you actually get to a growth rate of 5.4%. Still showing really good progress towards our, actually, this year's guidance as well as obviously coming towards the medium term ambition. But having said that, as I said, actually don't take this in a linear way. Nevertheless, really good progress to achieve our guide.
With all the patience it takes, the main thing to, I mean.
Which is.
With the results of Q1, we're comfortable with reconfirming our guidance of 3%-5% for the year and that's where we stand.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Jerry. Our next question today comes from Sam McHugh from Exane. Sam, please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Nice to see you both. Just following up from that last question, actually. The energy and other revenues doubled in one Q, excluding that one-off you mentioned. When you look at those revenues for the rest of this year, should we expect them to now be at a kind of this is the new normal level, at EUR 12-13 million a quarter? As energy hedges and other stuff roll off through the year, do you expect the energy and other revenues to start ramping up? I guess how is that different or is that the same as you anticipated in the guidance at the beginning of the year? I don't know if there's much movement in that stuff. Is it right to think about all of these revenues as pretty much zero margin? Thanks very much.
Yeah. I mean, if I start first of all with what should you expect actually for the future quarters to come in this line? I mean, let us remind ourselves as well that it's not only energy revenue. Actually, the bite that we have seen, for instance, in the Q4 r last year was actually these reverse services, the reverse LTAs as well, for instance, back to Vodafone that we have in this line as well. So that's a relatively large chunk actually of the revenue in this line too. Let's keep that in mind, that it's not only related to energy. Now, having said that, obviously, while we had this catch-up in the last year in the Q4 numbers, assume that this is not going to be as lumpy going forward.
We are actually now obviously recognizing this much more actually on a quarterly basis. Indeed, as you are pointing out, Sam, this is a bit more stable revenue that we actually should be expecting in that space. If we then point at the overall energy situation, you know that this is actually a pass-through for us. If you think about how this is actually going to develop going forward, there might be some increase, but I don't think actually that we will actually see them in our numbers as a huge impact actually over the next quarters.
The 3 million.
In the end.
One last one.
Sorry. Just to answer your question, Sam, actually on margins, since they are pass-through, broadly on the energy side and lower margins on the reverse services, indeed, actually the margin of these revenues is lower than our other margins.
Can I just?
They're good for the business. They're good for us for our relationship with the operators. It just increases our relevance to them, so it's still a good thing to do. I mean, even if it's not the core business of renting towers, right? Yeah.
Yeah. The EUR 3 million catch-up, would it be right to assume that that also had a EUR 3 million associated OpEx in Q1 as well?
I'm.
We don't do EBITDA in Q1.
We don't do EBITDA in Q1. I mean, obviously, I mean, what I can tell you is that the margin on this revenue is relatively lower, albeit this might not be actually completely no margin.
It's, I mean, the EUR 3 million cost is definitely too high for a EUR 3 million revenue. It's just lower margin revenue than
The core business.
Than the core business.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Sam. Our next question today comes from Georgios Ierodiaconou from Citigroup. Georgios, please go ahead.
Hi, Georgios.
Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my question. It's a follow-up on M&A and also your process of finding a partner. I'm just curious if you could give us an indication of the timing of any agreement that you're envisaging. There's already been over a year since the IPO. Is there a period on which you want to find this opportunity, get it consolidated, and then have the capacity to deploy your balance sheet and everything else that comes with that? Linked to that, I just wanted to hear your views about, obviously one of your major shareholders is involved in the Deutsche Telekom tower deal. How should we be thinking about that?
Do you think there is still the possibility to engage with Deutsche Telekom at a later stage, and still pursue some of your objectives there? Thank you.
Okay. To your first question, honestly, it's more a question to be directed to Vodafone, but I think they've been super consistent quarter on quarter to say they wanted to achieve co-control, monetization, and deconsolidation. I think the intent is there. But they're disclosing their results early next week, Monday. I would say that question on calendar and all that is probably more dead. I mean, they're in the driving seat on that, right? Because it's their shares that they're working with. But I think the direction of travel has been made abundantly clear by Nick and agreed on this matter, that this is indeed their intent to achieve these three items.
I did note a comment by Timotheus Höttges in his call on the DT transaction that was, I would say, reasonably complimentary of us and the fact that indeed there is some industrial logic. I don't think. I mean, you can't. Right now, this transaction has just happened, so maybe it's a bit early to try to speculate about anything further. If you ask me, is there anything that precludes further consolidation or deeper partnerships on an industrial basis with Deutsche Telekom? I don't see anything that precludes it if the shareholders of all parties are interested in doing so. There's no news on this. Does it make it impossible? No. Is it certain? No. Is it possible? Yes.
I think that's where we stand at this point. I think that's as much as I can say to you, Georgios, on this, I guess, because it's all pretty forward-looking. Yeah.
Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, Georgios. Our next question today comes from Luigi Minerva from HSBC. Luigi, please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, guys. Thanks for the opportunity. I just wanted to ask you about the revenue growth in this quarter, 'cause if I look if I compare it on a quarter-by-quarter basis, it's actually a negative 1%. I presume this is down to the sites being decommissioned in this quarter. I was wondering if you can please give more color on that. Thank you.
No, I mean, it's. I mean, first of all, looking quarter-on-quarter in our business is probably not the way to look at it because it's actually a number of puts and takes for one-offs. Small amounts, maybe. Put on your glasses, Thomas, your brand-new glasses, and walk us through the minus and the plus for last quarter and this one, maybe, just to put it at ease. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. Pointing a bit in the direction that we had before, obviously, in terms of looking at the Q4 and what actually we did do in the Q4 . There was the overall situation that we had a very strong Q4 , and there were two effects that were making it even stronger. One being actually the reverse LTAs that we had actually the catch-up and the strong charging in the Q4 . That's the services backlog to Vodafone as an example at relatively low margins. Secondly, obviously, there was as well really a billing heads-up. We were looking into the incremental revenue that we hadn't billed earlier in the year. That's why the Q4 was a particularly strong quarter actually from a growth point of view.
If you take that out look at the underlying quarter-on-quarter revenue growth, so from the -1.1, you're actually getting north of 2% quarter on quarter. 2.6% actually would be the underlying figure there. That's much more representative of our quarter-on-quarter growth and the continuous acceleration of our revenue growth that we have been seeing as well over the course of the last year. Take that into account, and I think that's are the main effects that you are seeing in that space.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Luigi. Our next question today comes from James Ratzer from New Street Research. James, please go ahead.
Hello. Yes. Thank you for that, and Thomas, good morning. Question, if possible, just to come back to the trends you're seeing in Germany, and you've had some separate questions about the BTS program and what 1&1 Netz are doing. I was wondering if I could kind of try to put it all together. I mean, in Q1, you reported 340 tenancy additions across the group. It looks like, I mean, given the kind of rounding issues that around 130 of those are in Germany. Firstly, does that seem to be the correct number for the adds in Germany in Q1? Can you give us some help on how that could phase through the rest of this year?
I mean, it sounds like you're increasingly kind of conservative or cautious on just how the BTS build will pan out this fiscal year because of supply chain issues. Could it be that 130 tenancy adds in Germany kind of remain stable at that level for the next few quarters? Should we expect a more imminent acceleration when putting together BTS and 1&1 Netz? Thank you.
No, 1&1, I mean, 1&1 Netz is yet to come, right? In terms of the tenancies.
The tenancies.
The full thing is ahead. BTS, we're working very hard to strengthen our delivery. It's fair to say this year is tense indeed, we were driving towards achieving our run rate by the end of this year. That's where that's what we're targeting. You could expect, I mean, the second part of the year has those two effects, the improvement of the BTS delivery and the 1&1 Netz tenancies coming in to look forward to. I think that would be the summary.
Exactly. What we've said is obviously that this acceleration is a year of investment indeed, as well, where we are investing into the further acceleration of the BTS program and the 1&1 preparation and rollout. These effects you will see continuously, obviously, adding to the acceleration throughout the year.
And that's.
In terms of.
Do you think that'll be a linear acceleration through the year, or is this really something that's kind of very back-end loaded towards Q4?
We expect obviously this not to be entirely back-end loaded towards Q4, but then.
Not linear.
At the same time, it won't be linear either.
Okay. Clear. Thank you.
Thank you very much, James. We have time for one more question today, which comes from Emmet Kelly from Morgan Stanley. Emmet, please go ahead.
Hi, yes. Yeah, good morning, Vivek. Good morning, Thomas. Good to see everybody this morning. I have a question please on Germany, like everybody else it seems. My question is on converting the rooftops to kind of multi-tenant sites. I asked this question to Thorsten Langheim of Deutsche Telekom last week, and he indicated that maybe they can add some tenants around the edge of their rooftops. Can you maybe just give us a little bit of anecdotal support about what you're doing to convert these rooftops and how easy it is, how it's working out with the permits, and if there's much incremental cost on converting these rooftops to multi-tenancy? Thank you.
Yeah. Look, this has all been, for some time, a quasi-theological debate on Germany. Can rooftops be shared? Is the nature of rooftops to be shared or not shared? That's kind of the argument. First of all, across Europe, we have countries with 1.3, 1.4 tenancy ratios on rooftops. It doesn't look like it's a physical impossibility. Second thing, in Germany on rooftops, you do have a number of rooftops which have multiple tenants, albeit on separate contracts, so they're counted as separate tenancies as separate build-outs or separate rooftops, when in fact they're two sides of the same roof. I'd say we need to puncture the theological debate. Can you put more than the equipment of one operator on a roof in Germany? Yes, like anywhere else in the world.
I think we should start with that. I think Thorsten Langheim in his statements did mention that which I thought was interesting was a slight evolution of the tack in that one that indeed when you're starting to do multipole it makes things easier. Basically that's the kind of stuff we do. Now I don't wanna give you anecdotal evidence but I can give you really the approach that we are taking from an industrial point of view which is you take a rooftop. If you need just to add a bit of equipment for one operator you can fit it within the setup in many cases. That's what's been done over the years. That was done by operators in countries other than Germany quite correctly.
Okay, I need one more antenna." "Yeah, I can fit you in. You can go on the pole in the second position or the top position or whatever it is." If you wanna do more, the right approach is indeed to move towards multipoles. Instead of having one pole which has two operators, for instance, you put three poles with three sectors and two operators on each, for one sector of each operator on each one of the poles. That's the redesign that you try to achieve, which is one example of an efficient design that is also future-proof. Since it's future-proof, the CapEx that goes into it, which anyways is significantly less than on a ground-based, but it's a bit of, I would say, cement and metal work on the rooftop.
It is something that delivers very good returns. I mean, it's a good CapEx to incur. We stand by our position that there are designs that are efficient for this. That you still have to take into account the EMF, a very cramped rooftop remains a constraint. When I look around, there are a number of rooftops which have more than enough space, that they're the width of the building, right? They're not that small. You can definitely fit three antennas, three poles that provide coverage. I would say it's not as easy as on a group or a ground-based tower. Not all sites are conducive to it, but there is definitely potential to increase rooftop tenancies. We see nothing that disproves that at this point here.
If I may add as well, Emmet, actually, we had the cost impact already in the last fiscal year as well to prepare and obviously to understand what is the potential actually for the 1&1 situation, for the 1&1 deal that we actually have gone through. At that point in time, we did as well communicate, and then this is what we indeed done in order to be prepared. We obviously did do technical feasibility studies. We didn't spend money actually on that. We did spend money on EMF and.
Analysis.
Feasibility analysis as well. We did actually have discussions with landlords about our ability to actually host a second tenant then as well. All of that led us to a large-scale program to understand these feasibilities, actually to be able to commit to the 3,800 sites. That is then the preparation that has led us into this year of investment, where the EUR 10-15 million of incremental OpEx that we were talking about at the full-year results as well, up to 15 basis points EBITDAaL margin, is now transferred into getting the EMF certificate. Doing this final step of actually finalizing that work, getting the technical drawings, and concluding the contracts.
This is a continuation of the work that we actually have been starting in the last year already in preparation for the 1&1 rollout, and this acceleration is gonna happen. The vibe of it, obviously because of the rollout pattern, is gonna be rooftop.
Super. Alles klar. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Sean, are there any further questions, or?
We are out of time for questions, so I'll hand back to you for any closing remarks.
Well, yeah. No, thank you very much, everyone for your attention and your questions. Once again, a steady quarter with commercial activity, a lot of work on the production side. Some good commercial deals coming in with new opportunities. Very much in line with what we'd like to achieve, reconfirming our guidance for the year. As you can see from the revenue trends with all the points that Thomas made, the ability to reconfirm our 3%-5% guidance for this year and indeed reaffirming the EBITDA and free cash flow both for this year and for the medium term. I would say that's pretty much the summary before you probably take some well-deserved summer holidays for some of you.
Wishing you a good summer period and see you again for our first half, which will be in the early October, right?
Yeah.
Thank you very much.