Elisa Oyj (HEL:ELISA)
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Apr 28, 2026, 6:29 PM EET
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Earnings Call: Q1 2025

Apr 17, 2025

Vesa Sahivirta
Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Elisa's first quarter 2025 interim report conference call and analyst meeting. I'm Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, and here we have a very familiar team: CEO, Topi Manner and CFO, Jari Kinnunen, as well as some of my colleagues and audience. We start with the presentation, followed by Q&A, and in Q&A we take first questions from the audience and then from the conference call lines. We are ready to start, so I give the word to Topi. Please go ahead.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Thank you, Vesa, and good day, everybody here in the room, as well as those of you joining remotely. Welcome to Elisa's Q1 earnings call. Lately, the Q&A part of these sessions has been taking quite a bit of time, so we have been shortening the presentations to give space for more Q&A this time around, and that is basically the reason of us taking the number of slides down a bit. With that, let's get right down to business and look at the Q1 highlights. During the quarter, our revenue increased with 4%. That was very much driven by the international software services, especially sedApta now being consolidated to the numbers, and also driven by the increase in mobile service revenue. The comparable EBITDA was up 4.6%, boosted by our continuous improvement measures in terms of efficiency.

As stated, the mobile service revenue was up by 2.6%, and in the international software services, namely in Elisa Industriq, the growth amounted to 57%. The comparable organic growth for that part of the business was 2.1%. The churn on the market decreased to 18.6% from a little bit above 20% in Q4. The number of postpaid subscriptions decreased with some 17,000. Part of that was M2M and IoT subscriptions, roughly 6,000 of those. The majority of the decrease is coming from mobile broadband subscriptions as customers move from mobile broadband to fiber, and that move is visible in the market. That is not something that is only impacting Elisa and our numbers; that is very much visible for all players in the market, as witnessed by the releases of various players on the market in Q4.

With that, the fixed broadband subscription base increased with some 8,000, driven by the fiber connections. In our AGM a couple of weeks back, the dividend for the year was approved to EUR 0.35, and this indeed is the 11th consecutive year of increasing dividend in Elisa. Looking at the numbers a bit more closely, the revenue for the quarter landed at EUR 556 million. As stated, there was a 4% increase in that number. In addition to international software services and domestic digital services, mobile services, also roaming increased a bit. The revenue was weighed down by fixed services, especially copper PSTN revenue being on decrease a bit. EBITDA improved with EUR 9 million and landed at EUR 199 million altogether. The EBITDA margin, when we compare to the same quarter last year, improved with a couple of decimals to 35.8%.

Mobile service revenue, as stated, 2.6%. The mobile service revenue was the increase was coming from the 5G upselling. That 5G upselling remains to be intact. Whenever we upgrade a customer from 4G to 5G, we get this average monthly billing increase of more than EUR 3. Going forward, we expect the mobile service revenue growth to increase. When it comes to the full year, we expect mobile service revenue to increase mid-single digits. We have been doing a number of offering changes, baking in digital security products to our mobile subscriptions, such as Mobile ID and DNS Filter for consumers, or denial of service attack protection for corporates. When we have been doing these offering changes for customers, we are creating new value for customers, and we are pricing the new services accordingly, namely increasing the pricing.

That will be supportive of mobile service revenue going forward. As stated, we have started that rollout already with the first cohort of customers. ARPU increased during the quarter with 5%, and the churn came down a bit to 18.6%. The maturity of the competition we see in the 4G space, and there is still some campaigning going on in that space. As stated, we see some move from mobile broadbands to fiber connections, so that will also be visible in the mobile churn number. This is the first quarter when we are reporting three segments, including the international software services, Elisa Industriq as a segment. This is done in accordance with our strategy to create better understanding for the three businesses and better transparency to the three businesses that we are having.

If we are looking at consumer customers, consumer customers in Finland and in Estonia, the revenue increased with 1.9%, and EBITDA increased with 2.5%. EBITDA margin stayed on the same level as in the comparison quarter in Q1 last year at 41%. It is a very profitable business that we are running with consumers. Related to corporate customers, the revenue increased with 0.3%, and that basically reflects the pretty challenging market that we have in Finland and Estonia for corporate services. If we look at the small companies and the micro companies, the number of bankruptcies in the market has been increasing a bit, and that has been impacting our demand of services at the low end of the corporate customer base.

When we go to the medium-sized companies, when we go to the large companies, these companies have been running cost efficiency measures, scrutinizing their service portfolios. It has been a bit tough market, but on this market, we have been faring well. We are winning customers, we are winning business, we are winning market share, especially in the IT services and in the cybersecurity. The growth of corporate is driven by mobile services, also by interconnection and roaming, including the domestic digital services where we have the IT services included. Fixed services, most notably PSTN, is weighing the revenue down.

However, it is noteworthy that the corporate customer segment EBITDA increases with 4%, which is a good number, and that clearly tells the story that we have been streamlining the cost base in this segment, increasing the productivity of the business, and with that, improving the EBITDA quite notably. The EBITDA margin of this segment increased from 32% last year to 33% in this quarter. When we come to the international software services, as stated, the revenue picked up with 57% approximately, driven by acquisitions, especially the consolidation of sedApta. The comparable growth was 2%. We also saw quite a notable increase in recurring revenue. The recurring revenue increased with 20% and basically tells the story that we are gradually taking steps toward a more SaaS-based business model in the software business.

The EBITDA for the quarter in Elisa Industriq was EUR 2 million, so there was a EUR 3 million improvement from last year. This clearly underscores that for this year, we expect to be in positive territory in terms of EBITDA for the full year in this segment. As you would remember, we had our capital markets day at the beginning of March in London. There we communicated our new strategy, fast profitable growth, and communicated also our new midterm targets: more than 4% growth in terms of revenue, more than 4% growth in terms of EBITDA. Now, especially when we zoom in to the EBITDA number, clearly you will see that during Q1 we are delivering according to these ambitions.

The implementation of the strategy has started out well, and we are progressing in accordance with our plans, according to the path that we have been plotting for ourselves. The four spearheads of growth that we have are 5G and fiber, home-related digital services, corporate IT and cyber, and then the mentioned international software services, namely Elisa Industriq. Simplicity and productivity is a significant part of the strategy. The strategy is about fast profitable growth, but it is enabled by simplification and productivity measures. When you look at the Q1 numbers, the continuous improvement in terms of cost efficiency is visible in the numbers, and therefore it is important to underline that this is indeed part of our plan as well. When we look at the 5G and fiber more closely, clearly the 5G upselling continues.

When we look at the penetration of high speeds above 200 megabit speeds, that linear trend continues to be intact. Yet again, whenever we upgrade customers from 4G to 5G, we get the average monthly billing increase of more than EUR 3. As mentioned, we have now started to make changes to our mobile product offering, embedding Mobile ID and DNS Filter for our customers, and that rollout has started with the first cohort of customers with very encouraging results. A notable development during the quarter was that as the first telco in the world, we introduced 5.5G for our customers. As the first telco in the world introducing 5.5G for our customers in limited commercial deployment for consumers, this is yet again a showcase of us being a technology leader in this industry.

We are also differentiating ourselves on the market by offering 5G standalone to our customers, what we call 5G+ to our customers. We now start to have critical mass for the 5G customers. If we look at our total customer base of 5G customers, the 5G+ penetration out of all 5G customers is already above 20% and increasing quite fast because all of our new sales to customers is 5G+. An intriguing data point is that customers are clearly seeing the value in 5G+. They experience the faster speeds, they experience better quality network and more resilient network, they experience better energy consumption, which is visible to customers in the battery life of their phone. With that, the customer satisfaction of 5G+ customers in comparison to non-standalone 5G customers is more than 10 percentage points better, measured with Net Promoter Score.

Net Promoter Score of 5G+ Plus customers is 10 points better than the earlier generation of 5G customers. This is an intriguing data point in terms of the customer value that we are creating. With that, we have now also decided to roll out 5G standalone, namely 5G + to Estonia to have that differentiation for our customers also on the Estonian market. Quite many things are also happening on the fiber space, good steps being taken forward in that category of services. We, for example, introduced 10 giga fiber connections to our customers, and we also announced a regional collaboration with MPY Telecom, a joint venture with which we are accelerating the fiber build in the country. We are expanding our footprint of the fiber market.

We have now announced that we have started to build fiber on 200 regions, micro markets around the country. A lot of activity in the fiber business as of now. Moving into the digital and software services, in the home services, we have introduced a couple of new Elisa entertainment original series. One of them is Ivalo, the fourth season of the series, very well received by the customers. This is the blockbuster of our original series, as stated, the fourth season and the most viewed of our original series, both here in the home market as well as in international export markets. Another new series, another new launch, is a series called Sunset Grove. In the energy services, in energy solutions for homes, now we are talking about Elisa Battery, namely Elisa Kotiakku.

We have been increasing the footprint of that solution being available to customers, to Finnish houses, single dwelling units, and now we can offer that solution for half of the Finnish single dwelling units. This solution is creating quite a bit of traction on the market, very high customer interest, and for those early adopters who have been having the solution for a couple of months, we have very high Net Promoter Scores, so very high customer satisfaction. This is very encouraging for the subsequent steps of penetrating the market further. In corporate and IT, actually quite a bit of customer wins in the large segment, in the medium segment. Clearly, we are competitive with our IT service and cybersecurity solution. Here we have a couple of public references, but we have been winning also other customers whose name we cannot mention for confidentiality reasons.

Good deal pipeline, good hit ratio for our IT services as well as cybersecurity services. When we come to the international software services and Elisa Industriq, the organic comparable growth for the quarter was 2%. There was some move of deals from Q1 to Q2, as would be relatively typical for this software business. Some of these deals were related to deliveries. We have sold to customers already earlier, and now we're delivering the deals, and there was some delay in the deliveries, and therefore we can account for the revenue only in Q2. Move between quarters. Also, some deals that were moved from Q1 to Q2, but already now in Q2, during the first 15 days, we have been signing those deals. That's why we see this move between the quarters.

The bottom line of this is that when we look at the full year and the full year revenue estimate, we see the growth continuing in double-digit levels during the full year. This is indeed backed up by strong order intake during Q1. Our Q1 order intake comparable growth on that one was 16%. Also some intriguing product development in this space. We launched a new AI-powered virtual manager for production planning in Elisa Industriq, a virtual manager called Lumi that we will be offering to customers from here onwards. We come to the final page of the presentation, which is the outlook and guidance. Our outlook for the remainder of the year stays intact. No changes in the guidance. With that, I will hand over to Jari.

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Good morning from my side. Let's start from profit and loss and main lines. Good development in all earnings lines and development, although somewhat challenging environment macro-wise and a lot of uncertainties in the marketplace. 4% revenue growth or EUR 21 million. If you go in that EUR 21 million, interconnection and roaming and equipment sales, both growing EUR 1 million. In service revenues, international software services, EUR 14 million increase, acquisitions impacting there, domestic digital services, EUR 1 million growth, corporate IT growing, small decline in consumer digital services. Fixed services, minus EUR 2 million growth in consumer fixed services, very much driven by fixed broadband growing. Fixed broadband subscription base growth was almost 8,000 in the quarter. Negative impact in traditional voice, both in consumer and corporate customers. Mobile service revenue, EUR 6 million growth, both consumer and corporate customers growing.

EBITDA growth was higher than revenue at 4.6%. Service revenue growth contributing to that. Also the continuous productivity improvement and cost efficiency measures, what we did also last year and continued in this quarter, contributed to that. EBIT growth was 3.1% to EUR 125.7 million and EPS growth 2.3% to EUR 0.58. Also in Estonia, positive development and revenue return to growth trend, 4% growth, mobile and fixed service revenue growing, and that also contributes together with productivity improvement measures to EBITDA growth, which was 7%. We did some price increases in Estonia that had some impact in the subscription base. Postpaid was declining to 2,500 and prepaid 3,400. CapEx was reported CapEx EUR 72 million and guided CapEx excluding licenses and IFRS 16 leases was EUR 65 million in line with guidance 12% CapEx to sales. Main investments continue in 5G coverage increase in fixed site fiber investments and IT investments.

Cash flow, comparable cash flow was EUR 82 million, slight decrease, 4% compared to a year ago. Positive impact from higher EBITDA as well as positive networking capital change. Also paid taxes were lower. Negative impact through higher CapEx and higher paid interest. Both of these had some timing impacts. Comparison year CapEx was somewhat lower level than normally and the same with interest expenses. In paid interest, comparison year had some loan interest. The interest foreshortened and normal typical one year time period. These impacts are not repeating going forward. EBITDA operating cash flow conversion continued at high level, 67%. Also capital structure and balance sheet position continues at solid way and in line with our medium term targets, netted to EBITDA 1.8 times and equity ratio 41.6%. The same with return ratios, return on equity 30.3% and return on investments 18.8%.

In terms of interest bearing debt, average interest currently is 2.4%. About dividend, two weeks ago AGM decision was EUR 2.35 per share dividend in two payments. First payment was done last week, EUR 1.18, and the second payment will happen on 24th of October. This represents dividend yield of 5.6% against the share price end of last year, growth 4.4% and 11th consecutive growth year. Underlying a strong commitment to competitive shareholder remuneration. Now Vesa will continue, please.

Vesa Sahivirta
Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj

Thank you, Jari. Now we move on to the Q&A part, and the first question comes from here. Felix, please.

Felix Henriksson
Associate Director, Nordea

Hi, Felix Henriksson, Nordea. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three. First of all, in ISS, organic growth of 2%, pretty solid order intake as you highlighted. Have you seen any sort of hesitancy from your industrial customer space in light of the heightened macro and geopolitical uncertainty against the tariffs and all that stuff?

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

No, we haven't. We cannot, of course, rule out that those wouldn't come later, but as of now, we haven't seen those. For example, the moves from Q1 to Q2 were not macro economy related. They were not tariff related. As stated, there were sort of earlier sales that we were already delivering, and there were delays in that. We will be delivering those now during Q2, and we will be accounting for that revenue during Q2. Some deals simply moved from Q1 to Q2, and as stated, some of them we have already gotten during the first half of April.

Felix Henriksson
Associate Director, Nordea

Got it. You have now mentioned that you have seen some shift from consumers shifting from mobile broadband to fiber. I am just curious on how we should think about your fixed service revenue. Should we expect that line item to return to growth this year against the backdrop of growth in fiber, but then the legacy pressures that you have in that area?

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

What is worthwhile to note is that when a customer moves from mobile broadband to fiber-based internet connection in the SDU segment, revenue-wise, that trade is actually positive to us, a bit positive to us. That will need to be taken into consideration. When it comes to the fixed business more broadly, as stated, it is being weighed down by the PSTN, and that is certainly impacting the measures. We are building fiber, customers are taking more fiber. Over the medium term, that will be supportive of the fiber revenue and the fixed business revenue.

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

Yeah, just continue, of course. The fixed services overall include, especially in the corporate side, a larger service portfolio. Different types of services besides traditional voice or fixed broadband. Corporate networks is one thing which is included there, and currently the macro economy situation has impacted in these services, as Topi mentioned earlier. A number of bankruptcies in the small businesses, for example, has increased, and some impact in that service is visible there. Once this situation improves, of course, the dilutive impact is becoming less.

Felix Henriksson
Associate Director, Nordea

Right. As a final sort of follow-up to that, how have you seen the competitive intensity in the fiber market lately? I mean, we've seen some of your private equity-backed competitors raise new funding lately. Just curious to see how you've seen the developments there, any movement one way or the other.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

It is an active marketplace. As stated, quite a fragmented market in Finland. Altogether, some 140 players out there in the market. Some of them are tiny municipality-based utilities, effectively. There would be more regional companies, more private equity-backed players, and then us. In terms of fiber availability, we have the most comprehensive network in the country. We are market leader in that respect. We are building more fiber than ever. With the joint venture with MPY Telecom, we are increasing our footprint of the market. Clearly, we are one of the players that are making advances on the market.

Felix Henriksson
Associate Director, Nordea

Thanks. That's all from my side.

Kimmo Stenvall
Senior Analyst, OP Markets

Yes, it's Kim mo Stenvall from OP Markets. I guess the regular question on the competition. As you mentioned, the churn came down from Q4 levels, but it's still quite elevated at 18.6%. Do you see any roadmap to go back to like 15% levels, or is the competition still this kind of heated that we should expect the churn to be like near 20% going forward also?

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

The competition situation on the market has been quite tight. Of course, during Q1, we saw a step toward the right direction in terms of churn. That is, of course, a good direction of travel in terms of churn. How it will play out going forward remains to be seen. It's a competitive marketplace out there. The competition is very much related to 4G and the campaigning. When you dive into the churn number, you will need to remember that this phenomenon of mobile broadband being replaced with fiber connections is relatively new in the market. It impacts all players, the whole market, not only Elisa, but it's visible in the churn numbers, mobile churn numbers of all players.

Kimmo Stenvall
Senior Analyst, OP Markets

Okay, thank you.

Matti Riikonen
Senior Analyst, Carnegie

Hi, good afternoon. It's Matti Riikonen, Carnegie. A couple of questions. You had this slowing mobile service revenue growth now, which was clearly lower than what it has been in the past years. You said that you expected to go back to the mid-single digit levels. What are the kind of tasks that you need to achieve in order to get there? Was there something you explained that there was some like this trend shift from mobile broadband to fiber, but if that is still going to continue, and you said just that it's in early stages, what are the measures that you need to do in order to get back to the mid-single digit growth in MSR?

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Yes, we do expect to be in mid-single digits in terms of mobile service revenue growth when we look at the full year. That, of course, would be meaning that the MSR trend would turn going forward, turn upwards. The single biggest lever for the MSR growth going forward will still be the 5G upsells. Continued 5G upsells, now we have more than half of the opportunity still to be captured. Now we are writing new chapters to the 5G upsell story with 5G+ and 5.5G. That is a key part of the story. The mobile value-added services play a big role in terms of MSR growth going forward. As stated, customers have concerns around their digital security on the overall. They are willing to pay for those services.

We have now already changed our offering to consumers, baking in Mobile ID, baking in DNS Filter to our mobile subscriptions. With that, creating effectively a new package, new offering, and pricing that in accordance with the value that we are creating for customers, increasing the price a bit. This will be supportive of our mobile service revenue when we roll that out to new cohorts of customers. We have already started to do so, and the results have been very encouraging. On corporate space, we are doing similar things in terms of changing offering, and we also see some scope of further price increases there.

Matti Riikonen
Senior Analyst, Carnegie

All right, thank you. You have had many years without restructuring costs, but now last year and this year you have had more than usual, and you still want to kind of improve your efficiency, and it seems that it triggers these one-off costs. Do you think that the similar level of one-off cost that you booked in Q1 would be representative for the full year? If not, would you think that you could give an indication of where the one-off cost would be for 2025, for instance?

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

Yeah, one-off cost, they relate to personnel reductions. Last year, there was in Q1 and Q4 one-off costs and 250 reduction, a bit more. Now also in the first quarter, we continued with productivity improvement measures. We are doing constantly productivity improvement measures, and at some point of time, there is also personnel reductions. Going forward, these productivity improvement measures will be there and will continue. It can be that also at some point of time, there will be reductions happening. It is so that we are doing it very much with the focus to improve productivity rather than having a target to reduce employees. It is a bit different approach compared to some other companies.

Matti Riikonen
Senior Analyst, Carnegie

All right, thank you. Finally, you have earlier announced mobile data volume, but you did not announce it this time. Should we assume that the negative trend in the data volume has continued?

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

No, no, you should not assume that.

Matti Riikonen
Senior Analyst, Carnegie

All right, thank you. That's all from me.

Vesa Sahivirta
Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj

Any further questions from audience? Not at this point of time. We will ask the first question from Conference Call Lines, please.

Operator

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Andrew Lee
Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

Hi everyone, good afternoon. I had three questions, which are hopefully fairly quick. First one was just there on the competition in the Finnish mobile market. An MVNO entrant has been registered in Finland this year. Just wondered if you have any updates on or updated thoughts on the likely impact or the progress of that MVNO launch. Second question just on ISS. Just wondered on your visibility now for full year 2025, given I think you normally have high visibility on a six to nine-month basis for this business. Just confirming that this growth, the double-digit growth, and what you've said at the CMD for the broader group, 4% EBITDA growth guide, that those are organic numbers that you're talking about. Finally, just on restructuring, just following up from the question preceding this one, could you just comment on the upside to margin and EBITDA growth?

i.e., does your midterm EBITDA growth guide of 4% include those restructuring costs in it? Just clarifying on that one too. Thank you.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Yeah, if you're ready, take the last one. I can at least start with the first two ones. Related to your question, Andrew, related to MVNO, do we have any updates? No, not really any further updates on that one. I mean, generally speaking, Finnish market is not an easy one for an MVNO to enter because of the unlimited data offering that we have in the market. It has been tried before and not that successfully. That is probably the sort of general perspective on that one. Related to your next second question that was about ISS and the visibility and the organic growth being embedded into our midterm targets. Yes, the midterm targets, revenue growth of 4% and EBITDA growth of more than 4%, they are organic targets.

When we look at the Q1 results, when we zoom in to EBITDA, the organic EBITDA growth was above 4%, clearly. In that sense, we have started to implement our strategy, and we are progressing in accordance with our plans. When it comes to ISS, we do have visibility to the order book. The sales cycle is typically six to nine months, to your point. The order intake during Q1 was a good one, 16% increase in order intake. That, of course, is an important data point backing our view that during the year, we will be seeing double-digit organic growth in the Elisa Industriq business. That is something that we are indeed going for. We also expect that ISS will be EBITDA-wise profitable for the full calendar year of 2025.

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

I continue to the last one. Medium-term targets, EBITDA growth more than 4%, it's comparable EBITDA, so excluding one-off charges.

Andrew Lee
Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

Okay, thank you both.

Operator

The next question comes from Fredrik Lithell from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

Fredrik Lithell
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Thank you. Thank you for taking my questions as well. I'm curious to hear if you could describe a little bit more on the Mobile ID and DNS Filter, how you sort of price that in. Is that sort of more for more thinking? You add it and you increase the prices, or is it some type of optionality in that? Secondly, a little bit discussion maybe on the potential for further 5G upselling, if you think you will be able to keep the three-year-old positive effects, or if it's a more difficult upsell that you're standing in front of the sort of second half of it all. Thank you.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Okay, related to the offering changes that we are making with the Mobile ID and the DNS Filter, embedding them to mobile subscription, I guess it would be the more for more thinking that you are saying. We are embedding those into the subscriptions. Customers are getting more services, more value, and with that, we are increasing the price a bit. As stated, this rollout of the new offering has started. When we sort of subsegment our customer base, we have different kinds of mobile subscriptions. Some of them would be continuous, some of them would be fixed term, and therefore, just based on the terms and conditions, there would be varying degrees of possibility to rollout the offering to customers. We have started with the first cohort. Things are moving forward in terms of the rollout, and the reception from the customers has been positive.

Fredrik Lithell
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

The second question was that, will the second half of 5G upsells be somehow different than the first half, if I understood it correctly?

Fredrik Lithell
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yeah.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

We do not see any significant difference in that sense. Clearly, the 5G upsells continue as a trend, and the value that we are creating for customers is very visible in our customer satisfaction numbers. If we compare non-standalone 5G customers versus 4G customers, the non-standalone 5G customers are more satisfied than the 4G customers. There is a marked difference. The 5G+ customers, namely the 5G standalone customers, are more satisfied, 10 points more satisfied than the 5G non-standalone customers. Clearly, we are generating value for customers in terms of this offering. That generation of customer value is at the heart of the upsells. Therefore, these NPS data points are so important for the continued upsell story. The introduction of new technologies with 5G+ and 5.5G are equally important for the continued 5G upsell story.

Fredrik Lithell
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Can I have just a follow-up on that? It sounds good and promising. How do you stand to your competition in this sense? I mean, I guess the other ones are trying to follow you a little bit, but is the distance quite steep for them to catch up on, or?

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

We are differentiating ourselves with 5G offering from our competitors. We are the one who is offering 5G+, and we are clearly the player who has the critical mass in Europe in terms of 5G+ in our customer base. Therefore, we are probably the first one who can show these kinds of data points to the market. As stated with the 5.5G, we were the first one in the world with that deployment.

Fredrik Lithell
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay, thank you very much.

Operator

The next question comes from Terence Tsui from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Terence Tsui
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Thank you very much. I've got several questions, please. The first one being a financial question around the EPS growth in Q1, which was less than the EBITDA growth and appears to be dragged by depreciation and financial expenses being a bit higher this quarter. At the Capital Markets Day, I thought these were meant to be tailwinds going forward. Maybe you can just make a few comments around why they were a bit higher in Q1 versus this time last year. The second question I had was around the customer experience on 5G+. You mentioned improved battery life, improved latency. I just wondered if you can quantify that. How much better was the battery life? How much lower is the latency? That would be helpful.

If I can just sneak in a very quick final question on the follow-up on the migration from mobile broadband to fiber. Can you say a few words around retention? Those customers that are migrating away from your mobile broadband, how many of those are going to your competitors versus being retained by your fiber services? Thank you very much.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

If you start with the first.

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

I start with the EPS. Indeed, as we said in the Capital Markets Day, there will be, in relative terms, a positive impact to cash flow regarding CapEx and future depreciation as we changed or went back to 12% CapEx to sales for this year from 13% last year. That will be more visible in year-on-year comparison in coming quarters. Depreciations, so that is for the depreciation. For the financial expenses, it is a bit similar thing that was regarding cash flow that there is some timing impact now in this quarter that is not repeating similarly in coming quarters. In comparison year, there was refinancing, which makes the difference in year-on-year comparison in interest expenses, also in profit and loss. Going forward, it is more sort of stable, and the differences in coming quarters year-on-year basis is smaller.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Terrence, related to your second question related to 5G+, the latency, lower latency, and the battery life and that data, we are not disclosing. We are not disclosing that data as of now. Clearly, the difference is big enough for customers to experience it. A 10-point difference in terms of Net Promoter Score is a quite significant difference. Therefore, it all boils down to the customer experience, the perceived value by customers. Clearly, we are generating that with 5G+. Your third question related to mobile broadband and the move to fiber. The majority of the mobile broadband customers who sort of terminate the subscription are going into fiber. When we look at that transfer, what needs to be remembered is that the revenue per subscription in fiber is higher than for mobile broadband.

The fiber connection per se is, of course, very, very sticky business. The churn in fiber is clearly lower than in mobile broadband on the overall. That is where we are. This is a phenomenon for the entire market, and that needs to be kept in mind when we talk about this.

Terence Tsui
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Thank you, Topi. Thank you, Jari. Have a good Easter.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Thank you. Likewise.

Operator

The next question comes from Ondrej Cabejsek from UBS. Please go ahead.

Ondrej Cabejsek
Analyst, UBS

Hi, good morning, everyone. Thank you for the presentation. I had two questions, please, and I'll ask them one by one. The first question just on churn levels. Obviously, we've seen them increase over the past year at least. Just taking a step back, it seems like we've had an extraordinarily low period of churn over 2022 and 2023 as a product of just the commercial looks that everyone in the country seemed to be on in terms of just continued price rises of very similar nature. Is this basically just going back to, in your view, levels that we saw prior to 2022 when it comes to churn?

If so, I guess you touched upon this, Topi, a bit, but is this a phenomenon that you think the whole market is seeing and therefore maybe very little impact on, for example, subscriber acquisition or retention costs? Or is this something that you seem to be doing a bit more poorly in the market today? Is something therefore that could limit the growth and profitability going forward? That's the first question, please.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

If I start on our performance on the market, when we look at our performance on the market, as stated, we are in mobile subscriptions, we are differentiating with our product, with the 5G+, especially. When we look at our customer satisfaction measured by Net Promoter Score for consumers and corporates alike, we were at all-time high levels at the end of the year. Our customer service is working. Customers are happy with it. Our brand stands strong on the market. It is very much related to campaigning, the churn number. To your point, I mean, if we take the long history of churn on the Finnish market, it has been fluctuating between, say, 15% at the low end to a bit more than 20% at the high end.

I think that the highest number on quarterly churn during the past 10 years is something like 22%. We are within that bracket. We are within that bracket. Going forward, it remains to be seen how competition will develop. Clearly, in Q1, we took a step toward the right direction in terms of the churn being lowered.

Ondrej Cabejsek
Analyst, UBS

If I just maybe ask a different way, the churn levels that you're seeing today, they obviously are accounted for in the guidance in terms of EBITDA, and you don't expect any kind of material impact on your profitability from, say, higher churn today than we saw over 2022 and 2023.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

No, I mean, exactly. I mean, our guidance for the full year stays intact. When it comes to mobile service revenue, we reiterate our soft guidance that we expect to see mid-single digit MSR growth for the full year. We have these activities backing that number that will be supporting that number going forward. Also, our midterm targets stay intact. As stated, in terms of EBITDA, we are delivering in terms of those midterm targets during Q1.

Ondrej Cabejsek
Analyst, UBS

Thank you, Topi. A follow-up on what you mentioned, just the mobile service revenue growth. You reported 2.6% this quarter. Obviously, that's a bit of a step down from the underlying, say, 4%-ish last year. The 2.6% is basically now, if I'm not mistaken, entirely just driven by upsell. There is basically no pricing impact whatsoever this quarter. If you can confirm that, and if that is true, then the 2.6% number does seem to be actually a bit better as an underlying kind of upsell driver than in the past. If that is true, if you can maybe break down a bit, obviously, we know the kind of premium that people pay for the 4G to 5G upsell, but there seems to be already some kind of migration to higher tariffs already on the 5G side.

Is that the correct way to think about this?

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Yeah, yeah I would say broadly yes. For all practical purposes, the Q1 MSR growth was driven by the 5G upsells. There was a bit of tail impact from earlier price changes. For all practical purposes, it was very much driven by the upsells during Q1.

Ondrej Cabejsek
Analyst, UBS

Just one follow-up. Obviously, there is upsell from 4G to 5G, but are you already seeing an upsell within the 5G bucket?

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Yes, yes. Generally, we are seeing, I mean, not only within the 5G bucket, but also within the 4G bucket, we see upsells from lower speeds to higher speeds. That is taking place.

Ondrej Cabejsek
Analyst, UBS

Awesome. Thank you very much.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Ajay Soni from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Ajay Soni
Equity Analyst, JPMorgan

Hi there. Thanks for taking my question. I've just got a couple. The first is around your mobile service revenue. Can you just remind us the RPU upside you get from selling the Mobile ID and DNS Filter? What was the penetration of these amongst your customer base from the beginning of the year versus now, just so we can get an idea of what the uptake is? Second question is around the ISS. You said the recurring revenue increased by 20% year over year. I just want to know what portion of the ISS revenue you consider recurring. Thank you.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

When it comes to the offering changes related to Mobile ID and DNS Filter, now I'm sort of averaging things out a bit. We are talking about something like EUR 2 per subscription. That's the first one. Could you please remind me of your second point?

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

Regarding revenue.

I can take it. Regarding revenue, it includes licenses in SaaS, SaaS form, and services relating to licenses as well as maintenance fees.

Ajay Soni
Equity Analyst, JPMorgan

Thanks. Just on both of those, for the Mobile ID, could you give us an idea of what the penetration was at the beginning of the year versus now? Then simply on the recurring revenue, what portion of the ISS revenue do you consider recurring? Thank you.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

On the first one, I mean, the Mobile ID penetration at the start of the year is something that we are basically not disclosing. So we will need to observe the revenue development on that one.

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

Regarding revenue share is approximately 60%.

Ajay Soni
Equity Analyst, JPMorgan

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question comes from Ulrich Rathe from Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Ulrich Rathe
Senior Analyst, Bernstein

Thanks very much. I have more sort of clean-up questions, I suppose. The first one would be on the fixed-line customer additions you highlighted, the strength is driven by fiber. Could you maybe add a bit of color in what respect, if any, the result in the first quarter was unusual because of particular campaigning or particular acceleration effects? Maybe that would be temporary on the shift from mobile broadband. What I'm trying to get at here is, do we expect significantly accelerating fixed-line intake in 2025, or was the first quarter a bit of an outlier because of the timing of campaigns and other things? In this respect, also, could you just clarify one comment you made in the prepared remarks, which was these 200 micro-markets? What's the size of the micro-market? What defines a micro-market for you?

My second question would be on the ISS comments that you made about the late deliveries moving into the second quarter and also some projects delayed into the second quarter. Could you give that, so quantify that in very rough terms? Did you miss a percentage point or two percentage points roughly in the first quarter because of this, or was it a much larger or indeed a smaller effect? Also within ISS, I was interested whether you would be, I mean, really following on Andrew's question, would you say your confidence in that positive EBITDA contribution has increased since the capital markets day? I think at the capital markets day, you used the qualifier minor EBITDA. Would you drop that qualifier today because you have more visibility and you're more confident on that, or would you still say it's going to be minor? Thank you so much.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Good. Yeah, yeah. Good, very specific questions. When it comes to the ISS EBITDA, our soft guidance is and continues to be that we expect to see EBITDA on positive territory for the full year of 2025. In terms of the move from Q1 to Q2, we are not quantifying that. Let's say that it is noteworthy enough for us to give a verbal comment about it. That is probably what we have to say about that part of your question. Moving to your first point about the mobile broadband and the move to fiber, what you will need to remember in terms of mobile broadband is that there's some seasonality in that one. In our market, typically during the summer period, customers are taking more mobile broadbands because they are more on the move.

They also spend quite a bit of time at their summer houses where they do not have fiber. They need the mobile broadband more. There is this kind of seasonality pattern in the mobile broadband. That is something that is good to note when you do your modeling.

Ulrich Rathe
Senior Analyst, Bernstein

Very helpful. On these micro-markets, what makes a micro-market?

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Yeah, I think that we are, generally speaking, I mean, we are not specifying that or we are not disclosing these sort of exact criteria of that one. We are talking about certain areas of cities. We are talking about smaller towns and so forth.

Ulrich Rathe
Senior Analyst, Bernstein

Thank you very much.

Vesa Sahivirta
Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Sami Sarkamies from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Sami Sarkamies
Head of TMT, Danske Bank

Hi. I'd like to still revisit two topics that have been discussed. The first one is the MSR growth outlook for this year. Are you confident that the planned portfolio changes and upselling on the back of price increases on the back of security features, is that going to be enough to bring MSR growth back to the 4-6% range, or are you planning additional measures in the second half of the year? The second question would be on the fixed service revenue outlook. I understand that there are multiple factors playing in, but if we just focus on copper and fiber trends, are you already at the point where copper revenues are offsetting for declining in copper revenues?

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Okay. Yeah, if you take the second one, I can take the first. In terms of the mobile service revenue, yes, we are reiterating the soft guidance of mid-single digit revenue growth for MSR during the course of this year. We have made these offering changes that we have discussed. We have started the rollout, and the results are encouraging. Of course, we are also managing our business on an ongoing basis, from one month to another, from one quarter to another. That, of course, is embedded in our soft guidance. We are ready to take these measures as needed during the course of the year.

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

Yeah, the fiber and copper revenues. There has been a long-term declining trend in copper revenues, and it is approaching the end of the life cycle. At the same time, now we've been investing into fiber. There is more customer demand also in fiber, and we see growth in fiber connection fixed broadband subscriptions continuing, and that impacting obviously to fixed service revenue. Currently, these are net offsetting the copper decline.

Sami Sarkamies
Head of TMT, Danske Bank

I guess you would anticipate growing fixed revenues going into next year as the weight of fiber revenues continues to grow?

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

Planning to extend fiber and connect more customers and increase the revenue. Like discussed earlier, the question regarding fixed services, at the same time, it includes also, especially in the corporate side, many other services. We see that medium-term fixed services are developing positively.

Sami Sarkamies
Head of TMT, Danske Bank

Okay. Thanks.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Siyi He from Citi. Please go ahead.

Siyi He
Analyst, Citi

Thank you for the presentation. I just have one question and just one clarification, please. The first question is on the rent. I understand that you put out this EUR 200 million budget back in 2023. If you could update us how much has been spent and maybe some information on the budgets that you expect to spend with the JV MPY. If you could, what would be the ultimate coverage target for you on fiber in Finland? The question is a clarification. I just want to check that the rollout of the value-added services, they are only applied to your front book rather than all of your back book as well. Thank you.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Yeah, if I start with this EUR 200 million. We communicated that two years ago, summer 2023, that as we saw an increase in customer demand for fiber, we are investing in coming years. We said EUR 200 million in coming years. It means several years without specifying exactly how many years. This JV that we announced a couple of weeks ago is part of that investment plan. We are now sort of accelerating the amount to a bit shorter period of time with this structure. Then.

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

Yeah, related to the offering changes that we are doing on the mobile subscription side, it will partially include backbook changes to customers. That is something that you will need to understand that is actually quite a granular approach because the terms and conditions of customers are allowing different types of changes to the offering. Therefore, we will be moving forward in terms of the rollout of the offering in batches. It will not only be front book. It will be including a subset of backbook changes.

Siyi He
Analyst, Citi

Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question comes from Adam Fox-Rumley from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Adam Fox-Rumley
Senior Equity Analyst, HSBC

Thanks for having me on. Just had a bit of a follow-up to Sia's question, please. On the economics of the joint venture you announced a few weeks ago, MPY Telecom, I mean, I don't think you're going to tell us how much you're investing explicitly, but can you talk to us about how we're going to see that through your financial statements? Is it going to be in your CapEx line? Does it end up being a contribution to a JV? Operationally, will the customers be Elisa customers? Do you have options to reconsolidate the joint venture in time? Hopefully, some fairly standard questions about how these things work. Thank you very much.

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

All right. This JV is visible in it's an associated company, so we are not fully consolidating it. The results will be in associated share of associated company results. The revenues and the customer side is so that customers are Elisa customers. We are showing the revenues like we are showing today. Regarding the connection to JV, there is a lease agreement, which is IFRS 16 lease agreement and visible in IFRS 16 leases. IFRS 16 leases are going through profit and loss in depreciation and financial expenses line. In the balance sheet, we have equity share of the JV in the associated company in the assets. There is no impact into CapEx.

Adam Fox-Rumley
Senior Equity Analyst, HSBC

Do you have an option to consolidate the JV in time? I suppose another related question is, is this infrastructure-like vehicle where you would expect significant leverage to sit within the InfraCo to help with the financing?

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

Yes, there are certain arrangements that enable us to consolidate at a certain point of time.

Adam Fox-Rumley
Senior Equity Analyst, HSBC

Thank you.

Operator

There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Topi Manner
CEO, Elisa Oyj

Okay, thank you for the questions. Just to check if there are any questions from the audience. No, there seems to be no questions. Thank you for participating, and we wish you a nice Eastern break.

Jari Kinnunen
CFO, Elisa Oyj

Thank you very much. Thank you.

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