Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the PCCW 2025 Annual Results Announcement. Presenting today are Ms. Susanna Hui, Acting Group Managing Director and Group CFO, and Mr. Marco Wong, Head of Investor Relations. Over to Susanna, please.
Thank you. Despite global trade uncertainties and cautious consumer sentiment, the Hong Kong economy recovered steadily throughout 2025. Against this market backdrop, PCCW delivered a resilient performance, supported by disciplined execution on our side and continuous scaling of our core businesses. Reflecting on our key achievements during the year, our regional video streaming platform, Viu, remains the undisputed number one Asian player in the greater Southeast Asian markets, with paid subscribers reaching 16.8 million, and new growth initiatives, including Viu Shorts, gearing the business up for sustainable growth. ViuTV continued to deepen engagement, expanding its reach among younger viewers with a strengthened and expanded talent roster and an exciting lineup of group concerts planned for the coming year.
As for HKT, we announced results yesterday, and we remain committed to offering the best-in-class digital infrastructure to support enterprises and enhance customer experience as they embrace AI-enabled technologies. Looking at the financial highlights for 2025, in terms of revenue, PCCW delivered a 7% increase in terms of top line to over $5.16 billion, with EBITDA increasing 3% year-on-year to $1.704 billion. We have OTT business recording improved performance, with 5% revenue growth, as well as an over 50% increase in EBITDA, benefiting from the expanding economies of scale, improving operating efficiency, and improving content strategy.
Our domestic TV business, ViuTV and MakerVille, performance was also steady, save for the timing differences of the lineup of concerts in 2024 and 2025, which led to a slight reduction in terms of revenue and EBITDA, details of which will be covered later. In terms of the HKT business, we announced results yesterday, and there was a 5% solid growth in terms of revenue, 4% growth in EBITDA, and a 4% growth in terms of AFF and dividend, which translates to a dividend income upstream to PCCW of approximately $415 million.
On the back of this performance, we are pleased to report that the board has declared a final dividend of HKD 0.2848 per share, bringing the total full- year dividend to HKD 0.3825 per share, representing a pass-through ratio of 91.5% of the HKT dividend upstream to PCCW. While PCCW continue to benefit from HKT's solid growth and distribution upstream, PCCW will adopt a very disciplined dividend policy, prioritizing financial strength and sustainable shareholders' return in the long run. The following slide is a slide on our ESG. Basically, on the social responsibility side, we continue to strengthen our community engagement through our media platform, as well as our efforts in terms of supporting a broader range of underprivileged and vulnerable members in the community via various programs, workshop, and services.
In terms of environmental stewardship, we have exceeded our 2025 environmental targets, while also contributing to Hong Kong's ongoing push in terms of sustainable development, including the citywide deployment of Smart Charge EV bays. Our progress in this area has been recognized with an A rating in the MSCI ESG ratings ever since 2019. Let us now turn to the performance of our core business. On the OTT side, we would share with you some more statistics and KPIs. Despite intense competition from the regional and global players in the market, Viu reinforced its leading market position with further growth of 1.3 million subscriber base to 16.8 million paid subs as a result of our deepened telco partnerships, particularly in larger markets like Thailand and Indonesia.
During the year, we were also able to enhance monetization by refining our pricing strategy on our direct-to-consumer premium packages. As a result, subscription revenue grew by 13% year-on-year. Going forward, we will continue to prioritize high-growth markets to capture the benefits of economies of scale. In terms of advertising revenue on our regional platform, despite the tighter ad spending, we were able to expand monetization opportunities as the AVOD penetration on connected TVs continued to rise. We also secure premium advertiser-funded projects, for example, an ad-integrated variety show with Samsung in Indonesia, continues to strengthen our position as a premium ad solutions provider and also allowing us to command higher rates in this area.
These efforts, together with prudent content investment and also improving operating efficiency, led to a substantial increase of 56% in terms of EBITDA, and a margin improvement of 8 percentage point from 16% to 24%. Our content diversity, including Korean, Chinese, and local productions, powered by our advanced viewer analytics, continue to drive viewer engagement. During the year, over 200 new titles were added, with a blockbuster Taxi Driver Season 3 winning over 30 million views and ranking number one by video minutes across six of our Southeast Asian markets. These high-impact releases have generated healthy subscription acquisition, as well as viewer engagement, enable us to maintain clear differentiation and lead across key operating metrics in terms of monthly active users and streaming minutes, both ranking only second to Netflix.
Looking ahead to 2026, we have exciting new growth engines in place. Firstly, it's basically our first-of-its-kind Viu and HBO Max streaming bundle, which combine premium Asian and Hollywood content, which is now available in five of our Southeast Asian markets, and we expect that this will be able to help expand our market penetration going forward. In January this year, we also launched Viu Shorts to tap into the very fast-growing micro drama format, which represents a very cost-efficient content, but we're able to unlock new advertising opportunities. Initial results of these Viu Shorts are extremely encouraging, with viewership penetration of our base exceeding 11% within the first three weeks. Now, let us turn to our domestic free TV, ViuTV. We continue to be committed to delivering high quality and locally relevant content.
We have developed a very strong digital engagement with our viewers, evidenced by our 3.6% growth in terms of digital membership to an impressive 3.4 million, and a close to 7% surge in terms of weekday primetime viewing. The digital viewing is important in expanding our digital advertising inventory for advertisers versus the traditional linear TV. Compared to our competitors, we have greater share of the highly engaged younger audience, with 38% of our viewers under the age of 44. And this, together with our integrated capabilities in content production, artist representation, and events management and organization, offer strong appeal to advertisers in terms of end-to-end solutions, particularly in areas such as finance, F&B, beauty, and fitness.
As a result, advertising revenue for our free TV reported a growth of 2% amidst the persistently weak retail environment and tightened advertising budget in Hong Kong. Looking ahead into 2026, we have put in place a very strong content slate, from captivating new dramas produced by reputable production houses, new IP launches, to the return of fan-favorite reality shows and drama shows. This strong lineup will extend our momentum, strengthen our advertiser appeal, and drive sponsorship and advertising revenue in the coming 2026.
Taking a look at our talent management business by MakerVille, we have made great strides in terms of elevating the international profile of our established artists, featuring Marf, which is a member of our COLLAR girls group, in the Coldplay concert this year, and Edan Lui, one of the member in our MIRROR boy group, in the popular Korean drama, Taxi Driver Season 3. At the same time, we continue to strengthen our talent pipeline, and we recently debuted ZPOT, a dynamic new group of seven very young and handsome emerging artists, discovered through our talent show, King Maker Season VI. In terms of live concerts and events, in 2025, we organized 28 shows across 11 concert series. We have strategically focused on promoting solo as well as subgroup, mini-group performances in order to showcase individual artists and amplify their appeal.
For 2026, a stronger comeback of our group concerts has been planned, and this strong lineup of events and a stronger expanded talent roster will continue to drive revenue and boost opportunity in the coming year. On this note, I will pass to Marco to discuss our financial section. Marco?
Thanks, Susanna. Let me take you through a review of the financials for 2025. As was announced yesterday, HKT's total revenue grew by 5% to $4.69 billion, with the key drivers being accelerated demand from enterprises for our Digital Transformation solutions, which contributed to a significant 8% growth in Enterprise revenue, as well as 3% growth in Broadband revenue, driven by sustained demand for our high bandwidth, low latency fiber services. There was also a strong 5% growth in Mobile Services revenue, underpinned by continued growth in roaming, expansion of the postpaid customer base and 5G upgrade, as well as growing demand for enterprise solutions, including 5G deployment. There was also finally a 30% growth in Mobile Handsets, primarily from new flagship handsets launched in the second half.
As you see on the right-hand side of the chart, EBITDA also grew, with mobile registering a 5% EBITDA growth, and TSS EBITDA also reporting a 2% growth, benefiting from enhanced operating efficiency across the group. This resulted in an overall 4% EBITDA growth, leading to EBITDA of $1.83 billion, with the service EBITDA margin improving slightly to 43.1%. Adjusted funds flow registered 4% growth correspondingly, reaching $795 million. The board approved a full year total distribution of HKD 0.8177 per SSU. Turning to our core businesses.
On the OTT side, we saw Viu subscription revenue growing significantly by 13% on the back of expanding subscribers, as well as refined pricing strategy, which was moderated by softer advertising revenue amidst restrained ad spend. As a result, OTT revenue achieved 5% year-on-year growth to $331 million. On the EBITDA side, you'll see that OTT surged by 56%, benefiting from diversified content offerings, alongside growing economies of scale in high growth markets. This led to an EBITDA margin improvement of 8 percentage points to 24%. On the free TV and related business side, while advertising revenue reported a 2% growth, total revenue, including events, recorded a slight drop of 2% to $133 million from $136 million last year.
This reflected fewer concerts in 2025 against the previous year, as well as a strategic focus on subgroup and solo artist performance to help amplify individual performance profile. We expect upcoming group concerts and an expanded talent roster to fuel revenue growth this year. On the EBITDA side, this softened to $20 million, as mentioned, due to the fewer and smaller scale concerts in 2025. We expect the profitability to rebound in 2026 with the strong event and content lineup. On the OpEx side, total OpEx decreased by 3% to $696 million, driven by cost optimization across the group. With the OpEx to revenue ratio improving from 14.9% to 13.5%.
This was helped by OTT enhanced operating efficiency, as well as marketing effectiveness by integrating advanced analytic tools. On the HKT side, they also achieved 4% OpEx savings, driven in large part by AI adoption to improve workflow, as well as the group's continued effort in streamlining business structures, network, as well as IT platform rationalization. Looking at the CapEx side, total CapEx dropped by 6% to $282 million, with the revenue ratio further improving from 6.2% to 5.5%. On the mobile CapEx side, this fell by 4%, reflecting the efficiency gains from capacity upgrades and network maintenance following the completion of the territory-wide 5G coverage rollout.
On the TSS side, TSS side, CapEx also fell by 2%, reflecting the already extensive fiber coverage to support growing demand for FMC solutions from both public as well as private enterprises, as well as investments in subsea cables. On the media side, CapEx spending decreased year-on-year to $11 million, following the completion of the initial phase of its new production studio facilities. If we look at the capital structure, starting with debt maturity, you'll see the top chart shows HKT. As mentioned in yesterday's results announcement, we have strong liquidity totaling $2.8 billion, comprising of cash of $300 million, as well as $2.5 billion in bank lines.
In terms of refinancing the bond that's coming from maturity in July 2026, this gives us more flexibility in terms of when to tap the fixed income market. As you can see at the bottom of the chart, you'll see PCCW's debt profile. There is no significant debt coming due in 2026. Across the group, we continue to maintain a balanced mix of short term as well as longer maturity borrowings and bonds. The ratio of fixed to floating rate debt is approximately 53%-47%. The effective interest rate was approximately 3.9%, and average debt maturity is around three years.
Overall, the group's liquidity is strong, and we are well supported by banks at around $3.9 billion, which comprises undrawn facilities of $2.5 billion for HKT and approximately $1 billion for PCCW as at year-end, as well as overall cash of almost $400 million on a group basis. If you look at actual consolidated net debt as at December year-end, this increased by $150 million, primarily to fund large-scale long-term enterprise projects. But if you assume, as we announced yesterday, the use of proceeds for the further sale of 9% in our FiberC o business by HKT, the pro forma net debt to EBITDA ratio would improve to 4.1x . And with that, that's the end of my presentation. Thank you.
This takes us to the end of the analyst briefing. Thank you everyone for joining us today.