Welcome to Elisa's fourth quarter 2022 analyst meeting and conference call. I'm Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, here together with me is again very familiar team, CEO Veli-Matti Mattila and CFO Jari Kinnunen. We have also some audience, we start this meeting with a presentation followed by Q&A. First, we take questions from the audience and then from the conference call lines. I think we are ready to start, I give word to Veli-Matti, please.
Thank you, Vesa. Good morning everybody on my behalf as well, and welcome to our interim report Q4 2022 event. Fourth quarter was a good quarter. We had solid performance in all of our business areas at Elisa. Revenue was growing 5.1% as our comparable EBITDA was growing 3.9%. Mobile service revenue continued good growth as well by 5.4 percentage points. In Finland, postpaid churn decreased. Even if the competitive intensity is high in our business, it came down to 16.2% when in the third quarter we had 18.6%. Postpaid subscriptions grew by 23,500 while machine to machine and IoT subscription base was growing even by 35,400.
In the fixed broadband business, subscription base was decreasing 1,500, so that business is relatively stable. The good momentum in 5G continues. We are leading the business here. Also network covering now 86% of the Finnish population in over 200 towns and cities. Our board has made a decision to propose to the AGM a dividend of EUR 2.50, payout ratio being 92%. Overall, we can say that we had a record year with 7% revenue growth, 7% EPS growth, and in 2022, Elisa bypassed the EUR 2 billion mark in the revenues first time in our history.
EBITDA was growing for the full year 4.2% to EUR 735 million. EBITDA percentage being 34.5%, slightly down, mainly due to the dilutive impact from our digital service businesses growing faster than the telecom revenues. Earnings per share went up to EUR 2.34, and CapEx EUR 255 million, 3% growth. CapEx per sales was as guided, 12% of revenues. In the operational KPI side, we saw also great growth in the mobile service revenue, 6.6%. In mobile subscriptions, 3.4% growth. In the fixed broadband side, we saw some decline, -2.5%.
In the postpaid ARPU also, growth of 5%. Churn slightly coming down, and the mobile data consumption is increasing continuously with a 17% growth rate. Looking at the development over the quarters, the revenue growth really coming from all businesses, mobile and fixed services, as well as from digital service businesses and equipment sales. In the mobile service revenues, of course, 5G is contributing more and more to the growth, as well as the upselling of 4G subscriptions, as well as the price increases with product changes that we do every now and then. EBITDA is improved, of course, by the revenue growth as well as our productivity improvement, understanding that the EBITDA percentage has a dilutive impact from the, our international digital service business, strong growth.
The churn now has a bit decreasing trend, and we have also seen that the competition while being keen, the maybe the campaigning and the strongest campaigning has not taken place in 4G that much as we have seen over the past quarters. If we look at the business segments, in the consumer side, revenue growth was 4% as well as the comparable EBITDA growth. The positive drivers from all businesses, we had of course the interconnection price declines that impacted the interconnection revenues. They also impact on interconnection cost.
In that sense, EBITDA neutral, traditional fixed line business as it has been for years and years, decreasing, it also impacted negatively to the revenues as early as well. In the corporate side, the revenue was growing at 7%. All the businesses contributing to the growth, the same negative impact from interconnection prices and traditional fixed line business. We also had the FRINX and Cardinality acquisitions to positively impact to the revenue side. Comparable EBITDA was also 4% for the corporate customer segment. We continue to execute our well-proven strategy, long-term development and long-term result creation.
Our mission is a sustainable future through digitalization, and we have many daily activities and many impacts with our work to a sustainable future, not only in the environmental perspective, but also in other dimensions. We believe that even if we have created already some results with the three focus areas of our strategy, there's a very, very strong potential for further results in all of the three strategic focus areas. In the mobile business, we continue to see the higher speeds taken by the customers. Also, the smartphone base is moving towards 5G. Now 38% of the smartphones are 5G capable, while they were 33% in the third quarter.
83% of the voice subscribers are at 4G or 5G speeds. Our 5G coverage reaches over 277 locations, over 86% of population. Even in Estonia, where we started our commercial operations for 5G, we have over 70% coverage, and that has been built during the second half of 2022. Our upselling is continuing with good results. The average billing increase of 5G upgrades is more than EUR 3 continuing. In Estonia, we also won 700 spectrum, 2x 10 megahertz slice of 700 megahertz frequency spectrum earlier. We also won 130 megahertz spectrum of the auction in 3.5 gigahertz spectrum auction.
Also Elisa's active investment in optical fiber network continues, and our fast connection is already available to more than a million locations via optical fiber or cable modem. In digital service businesses in the domestic side, our entertainment video service is progressing very well. The new original series continued their success. Summer of Sorrow won 4 Golden Venla Awards. They are the Finnish Oscars in a way. Also the third season of All the Sins became our most viewed series in 2022, and it has been sold to over 60 countries, including also the services of HBO and Showtime, SkyShowtime. The biggest live event, esports event, Elisa Masters Espoo 2022 was also held by Elisa. Thousands of daily visitors and over one million viewers via global broadcasting.
We are also active in this developing new entertainment video service domain. In our IT services, IT business grew with improved profitability, especially due to automation. Customer demand for our cybersecurity services remained high, with special focus on proactive services and improvement of continuity and resilience. In the international business domain, our Elisa Industriq is making great developments forward. We have record order intake for Elisa Industriq in fourth quarter, and we have seen customers to remain active even in the end of the year. Elisa Polystar also had record order intake in fourth quarter and also strengthening the position in North American market with the contract expansions. Elisa Videra business outlook remains strong with deliveries to 52 countries in 2022. We continue to work according to our mission.
It is really giving purpose for all Elisians that we can in the 4 domains, digital, social, environmental, and economic, sustainable future really make impact in the society. In our ESG indicators, the mobile network energy efficiency in Finland has been improved. Change in energy consumption per gigabyte from Q24 level 20 to 2021 was minus 5.7%. According to our target setting, we are moving forward our population coverage to more than 100 megabit per second. Connections in Finland is also progressing. Proportion of female supervisors at Elisa is also getting improved step by step. The patent portfolio is developing well. The size of active patent portfolio now is 337, while the amount of first applications was 12.
We have also piloted a distributed energy storage solution, which utilizes the base station battery capacity to save our energy cost and also offers possibility to provide local electricity transmission system operator with the grid balancing services. This is a really exciting new opportunity which we also have been able to develop utilizing the machine learning AI capabilities, which are needed with this kind of a distributed energy storage. It really has can have impact. If all Elisa's base station batteries are included in this, we can provide 100 megawatt hours per day of capacity. It is a significant add, especially when there would be a peak demand where we can really impact on the prices for all in electricity buyers.
This is very exciting. Of course this is also a solution that we are selling to other telecom operators. As the next step, in our continuous sustainability improvement work, we have also our long-term environmental energy management systems receiving ISO 14001 and ISO 50001 certification. Our climate reporting score improved to A-minus in CDP, the Global Climate Disclosure Project, to which we have been reporting systematically since 2011. Elisa's sustainability report won the climate change category in the Finnish Annual Sustainability Reporting evaluation. We are doing many activities, but in our key focus areas in the sustainability, we also are making a tangible impact to a sustainable future with digitalization. Finally, about our outlook.
The development of general economy includes many uncertainties. And the beginning of this year, even more uncertainties that we normally have. Of course, due to this, the growth of in Finnish economy is expected to stall. In particular, uncertainty relating to Russia's war in Ukraine, such as inflation, energy prices, and global supply chains will continue. Competition remains key. Revenue will be at the same level or slightly higher than in 2022. Comparable EBITDA will be at the same level or slightly higher than in 2022. However, EBITDA growth potentially is more challenging in the first half of the year. CapEx will be maximum 12% of revenue. Now I'll give the word to Jari to continue, please.
Thank you. Q4 continued strong trends, both revenue-wise as well as earnings-wise. The whole financial year 2022 was best ever in terms of revenue and earnings. Q4 revenue growth, 5% or EUR 27 million increase. Inside that increase, negative interconnection impact EUR 2 million. Equipment sales increased EUR 5 million. In both segments, service revenues continued to grow, and corporate segment service revenue increase was EUR 13 million driven by mobile, digital and fixed services, a negative impact from fixed voice. Consumer segment service revenue increase was EUR 11 million. Mobile and digital services increasing, and negative impact from traditional voice. In expenses, materials and services increase was EUR 12 million.
Three quarters of that relating to equipment sales increase, so equipment purchase cost higher as a result of that. Employee expenses, EUR 8 million increase, impacted by acquisitions, increased number of personnel. 2% collective labor agreement increase beginning of the year, and higher expenses relating to short-term and long-term incentive plans. Other operating expenses remained flat. EBITDA increased 4% or EUR 7 million to EUR 185 million. Depreciations fairly much same level as a year ago. EBIT growing 7% or EUR 8 million to EUR 119 million, and slight improvement in EBIT margin to 21.2%.
Financial expenses, same as previous year, and EPS growth 9% or EUR 0.05 to EUR 0.60. In Estonia, growth trends also continued. Both revenue and EBITDA were growing. Revenue 5%, mobile and fixed services, as well as equipment sales growing. EBITDA growth 9%, margin improved to 31%. Mobile subscription base remained fairly flat, and churn remained at low 10% level. CapEx, reported CapEx for Q4, EUR 97 million, excluding licenses and leases and acquisitions, EUR 88 million. Full year CapEx, excluding licenses, leases, and acquisitions, EUR 255 million, which is in line with the 12% CapEx to sales guidance.
Main CapEx relating to 5G coverage increase and other network and IT investments. Cash flow, solid cash flow in Q4, EUR 86 million, both reported and comparable cash flow. Negative impact through higher CapEx and taxes, and positive impact through higher EBITDA, as well as networking capital change, which was EUR 27 million in Q4, versus EUR 11 million a year ago. Lower inventories and receivables impacting positively. Operating EBITDA operating cash flow conversion 52%, and for the whole financial year 2022, 65%. Also, solid financial position and balance sheet position continuing. Cash and committed credit facilities end of Q4, EUR 385 million. Net debt came down from Q3.
Net debt to EBITDA came down from Q3 from 1.9x to 1.7x , in line with the target range between 1.5 to 2x . Equity ratio also in line with target at 40.6%, target being higher than 35%. Return ratios improved compared to previous year. Return on equity at 30.5% and return on investment 18.4%. Average interest expense for interest-bearing debt 1.3%. Solid financial position and cash flow and balance sheet supports strong distributions. Board of directors' proposal to AGM for dividend is EUR 2.15 per share. Total amount EUR 345 million.
Additionally, there is proposal for EUR 5 million share buyback authorization. This would mean dividend growth 4.9% and dividend yield 4.3% against the share price end of last year. Payout ratio 92% in line with distribution policy, 80%-100% of previous year's result. Will be ninth consecutive year of growing distributions, underlying strong and long-term commitment to competitive shareholder remuneration. Now I will give word to Vesa, please.
Thank you, Jari. Now we move on to Q&A part, we start from the audience, first question comes here. Artem, please.
Yep. Great. Thank you. Artem Beletski from SEB. Two questions from my side. The first one is relating to guidance for this year. As you mentioned, EBITDA growth will be more challenging in first half of the year. Is it fair to say that challenges are more related to basically Q1? If so to say the biggest pressure what you are facing is electricity prices, and in Q2 prices are likely to be lower with some support to be provided by PPA deal which will be in place for you.
Well, we have, as we have said earlier that, we have our 10-year wind power PPA contract to start during Q2. It's not only the Q1 where we have a bit lower kind of level support from our hedging, if you will. It is also somewhat during Q2. That's why we have said that, H1.
Okay. Very clear. Then the second question from my side is really, so to say, MSR growth and what are your thoughts looking at upcoming quarters? There has been some deceleration, but we have seen, so to say, more rational markets on consumer side. 5G uptake has to be still quite good, but macro uncertainties, and so on. Please, could you provide some color as you have done in the past?
Well, we expect the mobile service revenue to grow kind of low or mid-single digits going forward. Strong growth continuing. 5G momentum is strong. We see also the kind of price levels of 5G to kind of be staying well. There is no kind of discounts for 5G that much in the market as we've seen. Also it seems that also the, in the 4G part of the market, we have done price increases to the front book, but also in the smaller kind of segments to the back book pricing, and they seem to be also moving well ahead, so they could will contribute also to the service revenue growth. Of course always when doing price increases, it depends also on the market response and how it will go, move ahead. We are positive that the low to mid-single digit mobile service revenue growth can be sustained.
Okay. Great. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Okay. Next question. Kimmo.
Yes. It's Kimmo Stenvall, OP Markets. Back on the guidance, as you said that, or in your presentation, the corporate revenue is, or the order backlog is quite nice in the international services and mobile service revenues are growing. My question on the EBITDA guidance on that Artem also touched, is the electricity prices the only worry that you have on the first half of the year? Or is there any some other or also cost items that are rising that much that has triggered this comment to you, from you?
Thank you. As we were talking about in the outlook that the uncertain level overall for the business and for not only for H1 and, but also including the whole full year, the uncertainty is higher than we normally have the uncertainty ahead of in the beginning of the year. There are, of course, many things that can impact also negatively going forward. What happens with for the customer demand, there's uncertainty. So far we have not seen that any dramatic changes. Actually, like said, in the international digital services customers, B2B customers have been very active also in the end of the year. There is uncertainty due to Russia's war in Ukraine, especially creating all kinds of challenges in the global markets.
For many of our customers also, even if the electricity prices for consumers in Finland, the outlook is somewhat more positive, still it is a very big thing for our consumer customers having maybe impact on their demand, especially we think then in the entertaining video services side. Also there, so far there has not been any major impact. That is of course overall, which impacts not only H1 but the full year. The main reason for making the statement about the slightly more challenging EBITDA growth opportunity for H1, it is really relating to what we know, and it is the energy price hedging that we have.
We have hedged now approximately 90% for the full year 2023. The hedging for H1 is the level is a bit lower, and also the average price is a bit higher than we had in 2022, especially relating to H1. This 10-year wind power contract is of course something that will give us pricing that we already set in the summer of 2021, helping us from some point in time in Q2 onwards.
Okay. Thank you. On the broadband market, I understand that you have a very high penetration of fiber connections in your network. It seems that the market is fluctuation quite not so big numbers, but overall I think in Elisa's cases, it is usually negative change on the broadband subscription base. What is the behind this kind of trend that we have seen in couple of quarters?
Well, there has been, of course, let's say less good development in the corporate side for broadband, fixed broadband overall. And of course then as well, we have not always been so keen on competing for the very low price part of the fixed broadband market where the big apartment buildings are having really, really low prices. We are looking after the better ARPU fixed broadband customers, even if it comes a bit with the cost of number of customers.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you, Kimmo. Any further questions from the audience at this point of time? No, we don't seem to have. We'll take first question from the conference call lines, please.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Just two questions from me. One on the energy price drag in the first half of the year, just to dig into the detail on that. Secondly, on your some of the repricing you've been doing. Just on the energy price drag, as you say, you've hedged quite a lot, some of which I'm guessing was at a higher price. Presumably, you know broadly or roughly what that drag will be on EBITDA in the first quarter. Could you just give us your sense on what the absolute number is in terms of the energy price drag in Q1 and Q2, just to give us a sense of, you know, how much of a headwind it will be in the first quarter and if possible, second quarters as well?
Second question was on the B2B backbook repricing. Could you give us a sense of the scale and scope of that backbook repricing? How material is it in terms of the size of the repricing? How much of your B2B revenue base does it cover in terms of both fixed and mobile? Just to get a sense of the proportionality. That'd be great. Thank you.
Thank you, Andrew, for great questions. In terms of the e-energy price difference, average price difference in between H1 and H2, we can say that the H1 price is slightly higher than H2. To your second question, repricing the B2B business side in the back book. We certainly cannot do back book repricing that much on the large corporate customer segment because we have kind of annual or two year or three year contracts and they are kind of set. Of course, there is more back book pricing possibilities in the entrepreneur and SME segment.
Of course, now there is quite good understanding that the inflation, especially the energy prices for these valuable digital services, can be visible also in price increase, including also the larger corporate customer segment. Unfortunately, I cannot give you a bit more data on those numbers. We can pull through the back book price increases to some extent and also then of course, the front book pricing.
Thank you. Can I just follow up on the on the on the headwinds from the energy? What exactly does that mean? Are we talking about two percentage, three percentage, four percentage point headwind on the EBITDA growth for the first quarter? Just still struggling a little bit to understand how much of a headwind we should expect to see there from the energy price.
We are not disclosing any numbers, we can say that the average price level is slightly higher in H1 than we will have in H2.
Can I ask, is it enough to see negative EBITDA trends in the first quarter or not that large?
We will have same level or slightly higher EBITDA for the full year. We have strong drivers for improving revenue and also our productivity. Like I said, there is more challenge to have a stronger growth for EBITDA during the first half of the year.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Ondrej Cabejsek from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, and thank you for the presentation. I've got two questions, please. One is on the 4G pricing dynamics. If you could talk to us in terms of what the gap today, you know, not just in terms of pricing, but in terms of ARPU in particular, is between 4G and 5G. How has that evolved over the past year? I presume with a lot of the back book repricing and some of the front book pricing changes that you did on 4G specifically, the gap presumably has narrowed quite a bit. That would be a helpful comment.
Second question, just in terms of bigger picture on CapEx, going potentially beyond 2023. First of all, with 5G coverage, reaching a kind of the vast majority of the population this year, and then digital services becoming an ever bigger part of the revenue base. Is there a case to be made that the CapEx to sales ratio over time should potentially trend a bit lower than 12%? Or are there any projects that will require, you know, new investment, maybe more competition in fiber, that would be pushing the level back to 12%, even though implicitly the mobile CapEx is actually going up as a percentage over the past six years? Thank you very much.
Okay. First in regards to the 4G pricing and price increases, as you may remember in during the October, we raised the prices, i.e. the new sales prices, front book prices in 4G. Actually, we have done the same during this week. We can say that the difference between 4G and 5G list prices is somewhat smaller now after these two front book price changes that we did for 4G. What we get more from 5G customers on average is a bit more than EUR 3 per month versus 4G customers. That's maybe for your question number one.
In regards to the CapEx, we are not quite thinking even if we have a longer-term investment kind of programs at Elisa for 5G or any other kind of technologies or larger IT system renewals, multi-year projects. We do not think investments on annual level as projects. We tend to kind of have a good opportunities to invest to the max 12% level. Even if we might or might not, I'm not saying that we will have less investment to 5G this year. Even if we would, we will have probably something else that we still have max 12%.
I wouldn't say that, we will have less than 12% investments, but the guidance is pretty solid, max 12% for CapEx this year.
Thank you very much. If I may have a quick follow-up on the 4G versus 5G kind of ARPU delta that you have. What implications does that really have? Is it maybe easier now to upsell people to 5G because the gap is smaller? Or is it conversely a bit more difficult to pass through further price increases on the back of going 4G because the effective pricing is now so close to 5G? What are the implications of that gap narrowing, please?
Well, certainly, when the price difference for 5G is somewhat smaller than to 4G, 5G becomes maybe a bit more attractive overall for customers to choose. We have still many customers who are buying new 4G subscription. Not everybody is just straight going to 5G. It has really meaning for customers upgrading themselves within 4G domain, for example.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Peter Nielsen from ABG. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Hello, everyone. Just a question on cash flow, please. The cash flow is lower in 2022 than slightly lower than in 2021. Yeah. Could you give us any sort of thoughts and indication on how we should view the outlook for free cash flow in 2023, please? Including, should we assume higher interest cost and on the tech side. Any sort of thoughts on how we should view the cash flow outlook for this year would be very much appreciated. Just a small follow-up on digital services, where growth rates seem to have come down in Q4. You've said all along, Veli-Matti, that there will be fluctuations among quarters, so I guess that was to be expected.
Are we seeing sort of, at least a temporary slower growth in digital services also coming into this year, perhaps macro driven? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Peter. Good. I'll let Jari to respond first, question regarding the cash flow. In terms of the digital service business growth, we can say that there is, yes, fluctuation, especially in the international software businesses that we have in different quarters for the revenues. The fourth quarter was strong for our Elisa Polystar, Elisa Industriq, and also especially for the order intake. There is somewhat more maturity coming to the domestic digital service business is also impacting to the growth rate. Even if you didn't ask, by the way, fourth quarter was the first time when our digital service business' revenue was higher than our fixed service revenues business. Jari, please cover for the cash flow.
Yes. Yeah. 2022 cash flow after investment, that was EUR 300 million, and excluding acquisitions, EUR 321 million, which was 5% or EUR 70 million below year 2021. There was negative change in net working capital in last year, which is the main, main, makes the main difference in comparison to previous year. Now in Q4, there was improvement in networking capital change. In fact, it was EUR 70 million better the change than what it was in 2021. First part of last year, networking capital was contributing negatively. We are not guiding cashflow, but we are not expecting same kind of negative impact as we had in the beginning of last year repeating this year.
Thank you very much. Yeah, and Veli-Matti. Thank you.
The next question comes from Sami Sarkamies from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Okay. Hi, thanks. I have two questions. First going back to the MSR growth topic. It cooled down from 7% level to 5% in the fourth quarter, even though you've been making a material price increases. Can you elaborate on the negative drivers like Estonia? Then think about the outlook for this year. What's your expectation that you will be able to maintain current level or should be assumed return to sort of more typical 3%-5% range? Then I have a second question on cost inflation.
If we start from the MSR, let's say that the comparables of course also bear the results. We are making quite steady development on upselling on absolute terms, but of course the comparables influence a bit the price increases that we did. They were very much to the front book, so they didn't have that much impact yet during the fourth quarter for MSR. Estonia, we have made some price kind of increases there as well.
Not making impact yet to maybe to the fourth quarter that much, but later on. It's not that Estonia or any other things directly kind of impacted negatively. It's just that we make comparable, t he comparable is quite strong what we had earlier, and we make a steady development moving forward with 5G and upselling. The level of MSR, as said earlier, is low to mid-single digit. That's what our estimation is for the year.
Okay, thanks. That's very clear. On cost inflation, I think we have covered power price, could you please elaborate on your expectations regarding salary increases? When would those be kicking in, what is sort of the level relative to last year? Maybe finally, what can you do this year to sort of mitigate cost inflation from power price and salary inflation?
Okay. It's very difficult now as we know everybody in Finland that there's negotiations going on in regards to the salary price increase level, where it will be landing. It will be something, but I wouldn't take now publicly comment on that because there is there's the unions and negotiating there as we speak, basically. We have certain assumptions in our thinking, and we however believe that we will be well covered with our plans for the situations without taking a kind of position on which number there will be for the inflation in salary. What was your other part of your question in the inflation?
It was regarding mitigating actions. What measures can you take to offset the cost inflation?
Of course, when thinking about electricity cost or price increase, there's also element of electricity consumption that is increasing because we are selling more digital services. The consumption of digital services is increasing. Of course we continuously do energy efficiency development based on automation, but also in many other ways, that's one way to mitigate. Of course, what we as, we have a long-term thinking with our business, we are kind of earning from the decisions and developments that have been done for the hedging of the prices. Even if we are not totally immune to the energy price increases, we have, I would say a very competitive level of, kind of mitigation through hedging.
Okay, thank you. I don't have any further questions.
The next question comes from Nick Lyall from Societe Generale. Please go ahead.
Hello, guys. Just a couple of questions, please. It was a quick one first to go back to digital services. As Peter said, it did look quite a bit slower this quarter. Can you just tell us the M&A contribution from the acquisitions, obviously this, in Q4. Also on domestic digital services, is that slowdown possibly going to be a bit more permanent now given sort of the cyclicality potentially of some of those businesses? Secondly, would it be possible to outline what happened? I mean, you mentioned in the domestic market, in the domestic mobile market that activity was well known. Could you just describe whether it was one or all players? Did that mean your marketing budget was really sharply down this quarter, given I think the gross ads were down about 20%. Thanks very much.
In terms of the digital service businesses, Jari will give you a bit understanding of the M&A impact, which was not that large anyhow. In terms of the domestic businesses contributing to the growth a bit less, I'm not sure if it's a more permanent level exactly what we had in the fourth quarter, but certainly, we are getting a bit more mature in, especially in the with entertaining video business in the market. There's very, let's say, fierce competition, especially in the streaming services. On the other hand, if we think about IT business, we are very differentiated with our approach, with utilizing automation in IT, also getting kind of high respect. The cybersecurity services, they are on growing demand.
In the IT side, there is also very good potential to increase the growth there. This was the situation for the fourth quarter. In the domestic mobile market, we may have had a little bit less marketing cost or sales cost due to low, slower churn level in Q4. I wouldn't say that it was particularly meaningful, but somewhat lower level cost there.
Just in terms of EBITDA boost on the EBITDA, sorry. You don't think it's a substantial boost from lower marketing budgets in the fourth quarter? There's nothing too material to worry about coming back in first or second quarter then?
Nothing significant, no.
The acquisition impact or first consolidation impact in revenue change in Q4, that was EUR 2 million.
Perfect. That's great. Thank you very much.
Welcome.
The next question comes from Francesca Schildt from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead. The next question comes from Siyi He from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first one is just a follow-up on Nick's question early on. It sounds like you also suggest that you the digital services is now getting mature. I think in the previous quarters, you quoted that there'll be some investment you need to make to drive the digital service growth. My question is, considering that this part of the business is getting mature, do you think that some of the sunk OpEx that you invested in the past will not repeat in the going forward? My second question is on the 4G and 5G split. I understand you're saying the presentation that 4G, overall 4G proportion is declining because of 5G growth.
I'm wondering when do you think that you will be providing some visibility of the split of the 5G customers? Thank you.
All right. The growth of digital service businesses, we have to look at it from the angle that we have domestic services that are in their kind of life cycle and development much more further than the international ones. We see some maturity and slowing in the domestic side, especially in the video entertaining services. In the IT side, as I said, there is also a lot of potential. In the digital service businesses internationally, there is no slow growth. As I was telling, the order backlog was really strong for an order intake in Q4 for both of the software businesses we have internationally, also including Elisa Video Communications. There's no real slowdown.
In terms of the additional OpEx that you were referring to, especially in the international software businesses, we are growing those businesses and of course, investing, let's say, more than maybe the kind of normal situation in the businesses in relative terms. It's in Elisa numbers, they are not that huge investments to the growth of our software businesses. For those particular services, we are, of course, increasing sales forces and also marketing and so forth, to some extent, so that we can really spread the great solutions that we have in these both businesses. 4G, 5G split, unfortunately, we are not disclosing for the time being the numbers of subscribers.
One indication I can give that approximately half of the MSR growth is coming from 5G customers at the moment. They are contributing very strongly. The growth rate of 5G customers is quite steady for us going forward, which what it has been and how we see it moving forward. There is a kind of good potential left to move customers not only to higher speeds in within 4G, but also of course to 5G and further to the higher speeds in 5G.
More important thing we believe to the market is that we can do more than EUR 3, more on average per month from moving customers to 4G to 5G rather than the number of exact number of customers in 5G. I cannot kind of give the date when we will finally tell about the number of 5G customers at the moment. We focus more on the additional revenue.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Stefan Gauffin from DNB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello. I have a couple of questions. Finland has been much more of a mobile-only market. I think I noticed a little bit more positive comment around fixed or fiber broadband in the CEO letter. Can you just comment if there is a real change in the market relating to fiber broadband? What, if that's the case, what is driving this change? Secondly, you're closing down the 3G network in 2023. What kind of cost savings will we see from this change? Will that just be deployed into 5G networks? Thank you.
All right. Thank you for the questions. The reason, as you know, for more mobile-driven broadband market for residential customers in Finland, of course, relates to the unlimited business model which we have, which is also a reason that customers are happy to move to 5G because the Wi-Fi is not really an option in Finnish market because there has not been the need to develop Wi-Fi networks that much because customers are happy to use mobile network. We have seen, as you said, in the fiber market a bit more activity, a bit more maybe customer demand also. In addition to the mobile broadband demand, we have seen more demand for fiber solutions.
We continue, as we have earlier, been doing to gradually build the fiber offering, fiber coverage that we have. There's no kind of major change what we do in fiber. It is something that we see a positive demand, which is, of course, complementing. It comes probably from the more extensive remote working that people are doing that they, in addition to the mobile connections, they appreciate the also a stronger and stronger fixed broadband connectivity if it is possible to kind of be achieved with decent initial investments by the customer.
Regarding 3G shutdown, the savings of that, they are partly coming step by step, so it's not one time change. We are reducing step by step already during the year. Savings relate to different items like electricity usage or network maintenance. Partly during the year and the rest impacting 2024. We are not giving any single number for that. It comes together with the guidance outlook for this year included and for 2024 outlook as well.
Okay. Thank you.
Please state your name and company. Please go ahead.
Hello. I had a question on depreciation because it's important for EPS outlook, please. Because of your sales growth, 2022 CapEx is up EUR 19 million over 2020, but in the same time depreciation's down EUR 7 million. I was wondering if you could talk about the changes in what you're investing in, how that's impacted asset lifetime. Because I can't see much changing from your commentary over the years in the statements. Thank you.
Well, there are, Yeah, sometimes, of course, some old technologies they come end of the lifetime and the end of the depreciation. That varies from year to year, so that has some impact. Also, some acquisition-related depreciations like customer base depreciation or software asset-related depreciations, they are typically let's say three to five years depreciations, and there has been some of those coming to end last year. Generally, for this year, depreciation's approximately same level as 2022.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Clara Cheong from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Yeah, I just had one question. You mentioned more about frontbook price increases, but how about back book? Like, can you share to what extent they have been done in 2022 if they have?
Okay. Yes, we certainly have done back book price increases. They are a bit different. We are doing them, let's say on a cohort by cohort basis more. They are, let's say, more and there will be more or there has been more of those but with smaller customer groups, depending a bit how the customers who have some point in time bought the price the subscription with certain price plans, how they relate to the current price levels and so forth. We do those actively, yes, but I cannot single out and detail more. They are, t he back book, price increases, they are for smaller customer groups, but they are more of those, what we've done last year.
In general, what are the terms in consumer contracts? Like, are you allowed to increase prices mid-contract, or are you not allowed? Like, what are the terms?
In the consumer side, after certain period of notice, we are allowed to increase prices in most of the cases. In B2B side, there are a bit different kind of contracts, and in some contracts it's quite difficult. In the consumer side, it is quite common.
Okay. Thank you.
Welcome.
The next question comes from Luis Lecaros from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi. I have two questions please. The first one is on the outlook for 2023. I have here your challenges for H1 2023, which are basically skewed towards Q1 and around energy headwinds. But I would like to understand what are your mitigants to offset those headwinds in terms of cost savings. I hear you talking about the 3G shutdown. Are there any other potential cost savings that you can use to achieve stable to grow in EBITDA into the full year? Or putting it differently, how comfortable are you feeling about the 3% growth on EBITDA that consensus is expecting for 2023? The second one is around mobile in Finland. I mean, we are one month already into Q1.
How are you seeing competitive dynamics evolving into the first quarter of the year, especially considering that, well, Q3 and Q4 have seen a more rational environment with your two closest peers lifting up pricing on 4G? Thank you.
All right. Thank you. For the first question, we of course continuously do productivity improvements of various kinds with continuous improvement, also utilization of automation, which we of course continuously have bringing results in terms of cost reductions and then impacting positively to the EBITDA. We of course have those. The main kind of mitigation has been of course the utilization of hedging for energy price costs and that's kind of the main thing. Of course we always, in addition to the continuous improvement, certainly we take a look on additional possibilities to mitigate the some cost increases that may come, for example, due to the energy price increases.
I want to underline that Elisa is running the business quite some differently from many organization and enterprises. We are really for the long term. We develop our productivity and cost base more from quality development in mind, that we always improve the customer experience and quality and having then waste and unnecessary kind of, you know, use of time and things like that to kind of be taken out from the system. That is the continuous improvement, how we are running continuously the productivity up. We try to avoid abrupt cost reductions like slashing some 100 peoples here or there because short-term they bring nice results, but they are very often disturbing and bringing actually negative impact to the EBITDA development in way or another.
Of course, we can shut down certain kind of smaller service levels. Now we are shutting down the 3G network, which is, of course, bringing benefits like Jari said. Asking about our midterm guidance, about the 3% EBITDA growth, we are comfortable with that target for the full year, even if we have the kind of more uncertain future ahead of us versus normal years. The mobile, for first quarter we have only one month, almost one month behind us, but what we have seen is that certainly we are not the only operator in Finland who has negative impacts from higher energy prices.
If that's the comment I give you, that's I think, is it.
Very helpful. Thanks. On mobile, market environment, sorry.
Well, like I said, in the mobile environment it's too early to comment what the first quarter from the competitive intensity point of view would look like. We will report that due time in April. It is clear that the higher energy prices are kind of impacting not only Elisa but also other telcos.
Great. Thank you very much.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
All right. Thank you very much for the questions, and let's check if there is any further question from audience. No, it's not seems to be. We thank you for your participation and questions, and wish you a lovely rest of the week and weekend. Bye now.