Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Paulina, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Türk Telekom conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the second quarter 2026, and be followed by a question-and-answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. We are here with the management team, and today's speaker is Ömer Karademir, CFO. Before starting, I kindly remind you to review the disclaimer on the earnings presentation. Now I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Ömer Karademir. Sir, you may now proceed.
Thank you, Paulina. Hello, everyone. This is Ömer Karademir, Türk Telekom CFO. Welcome to our 2026 second quarter results conference call. Thank you for joining us today. Let's go to slide number three, financial and operational overview slide. First, I will start with a quick update on the quarter end markets. Overall, as Türk Telekom Group, we successfully closed the period with strong revenue growth and solid profitability despite global geopolitical tensions and macro impacts. Building on this strong first half, we are excited about the second half and full-year growth prospects for our revenue and net profit. You all know, geopolitical tensions continue to impact global markets, resulting in higher energy prices and inflation risks. U.S. Fed left its policy rate unchanged at its April and June meetings. In Türkiye, annual CPI rose to 32.6% in May before easing to 31.8% in July.
Central Bank kept its policy rate unchanged at 37%. Year-end inflation expectations rose to 29.2% in July 2026 market participants survey. In this volatile environment, as Türk Telekom Group, we remain focused on sustaining our strong operational and financial performance through our disciplined and proactive approach. On the mobile business side, following the nationwide launch of 5G in Türkiye on April 1st, we introduced 5G to our subscribers with enriched tariff options. Rational competition continued in the mobile sector in the second quarter. Operators implemented price revisions in April and July. On the fixed internet business side, we introduced new prices in retail segment in June and in the wholesale segment in July. On the group financial results, consolidated revenues increased by 9% to TRY 73 billion. Excluding the IFRIC 12 accounting impact, revenue growth was 6%.
EBITDA grew by 5% to TRY 29.4 billion with 40.4% EBITDA margin. You know, IFRIC 12 revenues are investment driven and have relatively lower margin. In Q2, strong growth in IFRIC 12 revenues impacted EBITDA margin. Excluding IFRIC 12 impact, our EBITDA margin is 43.3%. EBITDA margin percentage expanded by 60 basis points year-on-year in the first half. We recorded TRY 6 billion net profit in the quarter. It declined 7% year-on-year, impacted by our long-term 5G fiber and license investments. CapEx excluding solar investments and license stood at TRY 23 billion. It was higher in year-on-year terms due to 5G rollout and strong progress in fiber investments. Unlevered free cash flow stood at TRY 3.9 billion. This figure indicated a decline from TRY 9.4 billion in second quarter of last year, mostly as a result of higher CapEx.
Net leverage remained flat in quarter-over-quarter basis and stood at 1 x compared to 0.6 x at 2025 year-end. In summary, I want to emphasize that these results once again demonstrate the strength of our diversified business model and disciplined financial management. Let's go to slide number four, our customer information. Our total subscriber base reached almost 58 million with 455,000 net additions quarter-on-quarter. Excluding 125,000 loss in the fixed voice segment, quarterly net additions were 580,000. Fixed broadband subscribers declined by 24,000 quarter-on-quarter to 15.4 million. Retail broadband subscriber base expanded by 28,000 quarter-on-quarter. Thanks to our continuous efforts to improve our analytical skills, our retail churn rate for the second quarter was the lowest recorded in the post-pandemic period. Mobile segment added 539,000 subscribers on net basis, pushing up the total base to 32.7 million.
Activation and churn volumes were lower in year-on-year basis driven by rational competitive environment. Subscriber growth remains robust with 424,000 net additions, excluding 116,000 M2M additions. Let's move to slide number five, our fixed broadband performance. We continued our strong double-digit revenue and ARPU growth in fixed internet. We introduced retail price revisions for new acquisitions in January and June. Subsequently, we introduced the wholesale price revision effective from July 1st. We have seen other ISPs adjusting their prices in June and July. Next wholesale adjustment is to be implemented in January 2027. First half recontracting volume scored higher year-on-year despite last year's high base. ARPU growth remains solid at 15% year-on-year in second quarter. Combination of solid upsell and sustained recontracting performance, along with successful price implementation, enabled us to maintain high growth. We expect strong ARPU trajectory to continue in second half of 2026.
Average package speed of our total subscriber base increased by 57% year-on-year to 124 Mbps. 69% of our subscribers now use more than 50 Mbps speed packets, compared to 54% a year ago. Moving on to mobile performance. Slide number six. In second quarter, we continued our mobile customer growth. However, our revenue growth impacted by higher inflation. Rational competitive environment visible by the end of 2025 prevailed in first half of 2026. Mobile number portability, MNP, market size declined both quarterly and yearly. Türk Telekom finished second quarter as the leader in the MNP market. On the pricing side, revisions were made in January, April, and July. Postpaid and prepaid segments added 415,000 and 124,000 subscribers respectively. Ratio of postpaid subscribers in total portfolio rose by 3.5 percentage points in year-on-year and reached over 80%.
Mobile ARPU, excluding M2M, declined by 6% year-on-year in the second quarter. We expect our growth momentum, together with pricing actions taken so far, to enable improved real ARPU growth performance in second half of the year. Okay, now we go on to slide number eight for our group summary performance. On the revenue side, consolidated revenues expanded by 9% to TRY 73 billion. Fixed broadband, corporate data, and ICT projects led this strong growth. Driven by the acceleration in fiber investments, IFRIC 12 revenues rose strongly. Excluding IFRIC 12 impact, Q2 revenues exceeded TRY 66 billion, up 6% year-on-year, including increases of 15% in fixed broadband, 12% in TV, 17% in corporate data, and 30% in other segments. Fixed internet and mobile revenues together accounted for 77% of operating revenue. Fixed internet made the largest contribution to growth with TRY 2.9 billion higher revenues in total year-on-year.
Corporate data, ICT solutions, and equipment sales added a further TRY 2.7 billion. While call center and international resource revenues declined by a combined TRY 1.6 billion, mobile revenues were lower by TRY 692 million. ICT solutions recorded significant growth supported by new projects won by our subsidiary, İnnova. Moving on to EBITDA side. Direct costs rose 11% year-on-year. Commercial costs rose 42%, mainly due to one-off cost increases while other costs remained almost flat year-on-year. Increase in commercial cost was driven by one-off spending in sales and corporate communication to support 5G and sales and distribution channel. We can expect this cost to moderate in the second half. Within other costs, network expense increased by 22% year-on-year on higher technology maintenance and repair cost.
5% year-on-year decline in personnel cost can be explained by the reduction in headcount at our call center subsidiary due to project completions in the second half of 2025. The decline in interconnection costs was driven by contracting international voice revenues. EBITDA increases by 5% year-on-year to TRY 29.4 billion. EBITDA margin declined by 170 basis points year-on-year to 40.4%. Excluding the IFRIC 12 accounting impact, the EBITDA margin realized as 43.3%. Coming to our net profit slide. Net financial expense increased year-on-year and quarterly impacted by 5G and concession-related unrealized FX hedge and discount expenses. Hedge expenses were also impacted by increasing average hedge costs impacted by volatility in the global market since the end of February. We booked TRY 423 million net interest expense in the second quarter compared to TRY 705 million net interest income in the first quarter.
We made a payment of $1.1 billion in the first quarter regarding 5G and concession renewal. Monetary gain increased by 8% quarter-on-quarter to TRY 16 billion. Despite the inflation rate being lower compared to the previous quarter, driven by the fact that the concession asset was inflation adjusted for one month in Q1 2026 versus three months in Q2 2026. As a result, we recorded net income of TRY 6 billion for the period. Let's go to slide number nine, to review our CapEx numbers. CapEx spending rose to TRY 23 billion in the second quarter, compared with TRY 17 billion of last year on the back of 5G rollout expenditures and strong progress in fiber investments. Regarding CapEx breakdown, fixed line CapEx, especially fiber access and core network investments, has 51% weight in total.
23% of spending went to mobile, while another 15% went to IT and project investments, and the remaining 11% for other investments. In summary, our CapEx intensity for the first half realized as 29.1%. Moving on to slide number 10, you can see our debt profile. Türk Telekom Group's cash and cash equivalents total TRY 25.6 billion. The FX exposure included U.S. dollar equivalents of $3.2 billion of FX denominated debt, TRY 2.8 billion concession and mobile license liabilities, TRY 3.4 billion of total hedge position, and TRY 99 million of hard currency cash. Net debt over EBITDA increased to 1 x from 0.6 x as of 2025 and on the back of 5G and concessions renewal payments. Net debt EBITDA remains flat on quarter-on-quarter basis.
In January, we paid the first installment of 5G license, $365 million, plus $219 million as VAT, and the VAT amount of concession extension worth of $500 million. By the end of the year, we will pay the second installment of 5G license and the first installment of concession extension. The VAT payments will be net of. I want to highlight that our increased FX liabilities are driven by long-term investments in 5G spectrum and concessions. These future payments are extended over a long-term horizon until 2035, and all settlements will be made in Turkish lira equivalents. Additionally, we actively mitigate our currency risk exposure through targeted hedge. Last but not least, concession and 5G assets are revalued under inflation accounting and hence creates monetary gains, which as a result balance P&L impacts overall.
We are now on slide number 11, where we provide update on our cash flow and FX exposure. We recorded $2.4 billion short FX position compared to $102 million as of year-end duty booking of $2.8 billion 5G and concession renewal liabilities. Excluding those payments, our net FX long position is positive, $331 million. Finally, we generated TRY 4 billion of unlevered free cash flow in Q2 compared to TRY 9 billion in the same period of last year. Annual decline is mostly due to higher CapEx spending for 5G rollouts and fiber investments. Moving on slide number 12, we provide updates on 2026 full-year guidance. In first half year, our operational revenues were realized in line with our expectations in nominal terms. However, real growth impacted by high inflation.
As a result of our actions in pricing and growing business, especially in ICT, we expect the annual operational revenue growth to accelerate in the second half of the year. We expect to finish the year at 8% real revenue growth. Our first half EBITDA margin increased by 0.6 percentage points year-on-year to 41.3%, remaining within our guidance range of 41%-42%. We maintain our guidance on the EBITDA margin. Considering the pace of progress in our fixed line investments as of the first half of the year and macro and inflation impacts, we expect our full-year CapEx intensity to be realized at 34%, at the upper end of our 33%-34% previous guidance range.
In summary, we are confident about our revenue growth, EBITDA margin, and investment intensity outlook, and excited about the second half growth potential. This concludes my presentation. Thank you for listening. We can open up the Q&A session.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on the telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Please use your headset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Madhvendra Singh with HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi. Thanks a lot for taking my question. I have three questions if I can ask. The first question is on the revenue performance in mobile decline of around 2% in the quarter. I was wondering, what is the driver behind that, and is that a trend we should expect in the coming quarter as well? That's the first question. Second question is on the guidance. Given that your first half growth is about 5.6% and full-year guidance of around 8%, you are expecting some significant acceleration in second half. If you could talk about what is driving that optimism. Is it pricing or is it usage? Please, if you could give some color there. On the commercial cost increase, if you could break it down in terms of how much is purely because of 5G, and how long is that going to continue during this year? Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. First, for the revenue performance of mobile, I want to start with your first question. The main reason behind the growth performance is coming from the macro side. This is inflation. The inflation increased higher than our expectation, not just our company's expectation, but also the CBRT and other actors. That is one of the first reasons for the mobile performance. Additionally, you will remember that because of last year's competitiveness in the market impacted prices in mobile market. At the beginning of this year, we have made price revisions. In January, it is 30%. In April, it is 13%. In January, it is 30%. In April, it is 13%. In July, it is 16%. We are expecting to see their effect in the second half of this year, these price revisions.
In our operational results, you see we are the first in the MNP market, and we are now a second operator in the market. We are expecting both the ARPU growth and revenue growth will be positive in the second half compared to the first half. The main reason is coming from the price revisions that we have taken. Since the subscriber base, the spread of these price revisions will take some time in subscriber base. Second half, we will see the concrete results. About your second questions about the revenue growth guidance, you have stated it is 5.6% in the first half, and the revised guidance is 8%, and wondering our acceleration for the second half. Firstly, there is a base effect for the first half of the year. The inflation realization for the first half was higher than our expectation.
As I stated in your mobile revenue performance question, it is same for our revenue growth. The price actions we have taken for mobile, we have also taken for the fixed broadband side. In January, for the retail side, the price revision is 20% for January. For June, it is 30% for the retail side. For the wholesale side, in July 1st, it was effective, it is 38%. We will also see the impact of these price revisions in the second half of the year. I have to emphasize that the first half growths are in line with our budgetary expectation. As I stated for the mobile sector, these pricing actions will impact the subscriber base. It will take some time, as you may expect.
We are expecting these actions offset negative impact of both elevated inflation, and we are confident to reach our revenue growth. In addition to that, for the ICT side, we have new business opportunities for ICT project business line. We expect the additional operational revenue growth from that side. We are confident for our current revenue growth guidance. Your last question concerning the increase in commercial costs. Our year-on-year increase in commercial expenses is TRY 1 billion. The increase specific to Q2, and we are considering is as one-off since the launch of 5G, both commercial activities impacted an increase on this commercial cost to support our trading activity, both mobile and fixed. Additionally, we can say sales and distribution channel support. We are not expecting this to continue in the following quarters, and we expect it return to normal trend. Thank you.
Mr. Singh, are you finished with your questions? Okay, thank you. The next question is from the line of Evgeniya Bystrova with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello, good afternoon, and thank you very much for the presentation. I have just two questions. My first question, there were some news, and I think you've published a press release on CAP regarding potential sale of Sukuk debt up to $1 billion abroad. Any color on that on the timing and the size and the use of the proceeds would be very helpful. My second question is related to CapEx on the fixed broadband side.
Maybe I'm just not fully understanding the reasons for the increased CapEx because when I think you announced the concession renewal, the message was that the expected investments in the infrastructure will be more or less in line with the historical investments on the fixed side. Now we're seeing a significant increase, obviously, this year. Do you expect the investments to normalize in the next several years, or is this the new normal level of CapEx that we can expect going forward? Thank you.
Thank you, Evgeniya. For your first question concerning our possible Sukuk transaction. We have a financing program last year as a total of $1.8 billion in order to cover our license payments of 5G and concession license. We have still a limit for both Sukuk and Eurobonds that we have issued last year, but we are not planning to tap the market for the remaining limits that we have the consent of Capital Markets Board. It was 1 billion and for one year validity. As you remember, the transaction was $600 million. The remaining is $400 million available from that. We are not planning to tap the market for this existing Sukuk, and it expires in September. The first intention to renew our consent from Capital Markets Board, and it is still for 1 billion as a limit. We are not expecting to use this whole amount.
The basic motivation for this financing is to cover the next year's license payments since we are covering all the payments of this year and half of the next year's license payments for 5G and concession. The basic motivation for this Sukuk issuance is to cover the next year's payments. For the size, yeah, of course, the size will be determined through the market appetite and the cost. These are important. We are going to look at the pricing and the market appetite, and this will be important for the size. We have other alternatives in addition to Sukuk. We have access to different markets. We tapped the market for Eurobonds last year. We have access to the Gulf region, and we have ECA facilities. In addition to these financing opportunities, we have also access to international financial institutions.
Concretely, we are now negotiating with EBRD and ADB as multilateral funding sources. We have also ability to borrow from the local market. There are different alternatives, and we have to optimize with the cost and the investors' appetite. For your second question on CapEx spending. Last year, our CapEx intensity ratio was 29%, and our historical levels are something on 20%. We are saying that we will reach these historical levels in a period of time.
For this year, the main reasons the increase in CapEx ratio is both 5G and the renewal of concession boosts CapEx spending. We are expecting normalizing in future years. I mean, next year or 2028, we are expecting it to be lower than this year. For this year also, we have 5G rollout. That also increased the CapEx ratio compared to last year. Our fiber also supports mobile network. We are connecting our 5G bands with the fiber. This year is an exceptional year. We have to state that. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Cemal Demirtaş with Ata Invest. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the presentation. My question is related to your investments and the license and concession fees. We see gradual increase in your depreciation expense side. As of maybe second quarter, could we assume that this depreciation expense will continue to increase throughout the quarters as your spending goes? How should we think about that? Should we assume that all the costs are capitalized in second quarter and this will remain stable? I would like to understand that part.
The other question is about the financing side. Again, should we assume that we saw the full impact of the higher debt burden on your financial starting by this quarter? Could we assume similar trends in the following quarters? That's my second question. The first one is about depreciation. The second is financial expense. The third one is, what is the key topic on your side for the following 12 months as the top management of the company? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Cemal . For the depreciation expense, Q2 run rate will continue. We have full impact in Q2, we may expect similar impacts in the following quarters. For your second question concerning the financing side. The impact of the financial expenses increased by the payment of the license fees for 5G and concession. We have paid with the VAT TRY 1.1 billion in 1Q. That's why our both financial expenses and depreciation expenses increased. The key drivers behind financial expenses, we can summarize as a first reason, significant increase in FX and hedging expense on both a year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter basis, as I stated. The second part, the conversion of net interest income into net expense on a quarterly basis following TRY 1.1 billion, as I stated. That's the second reason.
The last, the discounted expenses recorded for the liabilities recognized on the balance sheet. We expect a decline in hedging expenses in the second half of the year in line with decreasing hedging costs. Since we stated that in 1Q investor call, we said that we are expecting an increase in 2Q because of this geopolitical conflict. It's impacted the cost of hedging, we leave the increase of this hedging cost in Q2. For Q3, we are seeing a decline in the hedging costs. We are expecting a lower level of hedging costs in the financial expenses side.
For your last question, the key topics on our mind are data center is important. We are increasing our data center capacity. Right now we have a capacity of 50 MW. Our new data center we'll be planning to build in Ankara. It is 82 MW, almost 1.5x bigger than our existing data center capacity. We are expecting it to be operational in a couple of years. We want to increase our size on this data center business. The artificial intelligence is also important. We are trying to use in our business the solution of artificial intelligence, both the commercial side and investment side. That is important.
As a last, we are also prioritizing our costs optimization. Since we have commitments for the 5G and concession part, we try to make the costs optimization. I want to make an addition for your second question also. Our total debt didn't change between Q1 and Q2. It is flat. That means our cash-generating business helps us to hold this level of debt. After these license payments, we are also expecting a decline in our both leverage and net debt. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Yasin Sarihan with Yapı Kredi Yatırım. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the presentation. I have one question on mobile ARPU growth. ARPU growth slowed in the first quarter and also continued at a similar pace at this quarter, second quarter of this year. I'm trying to understand the 5G contribution. What will second quarter mobile ARPU growth, having excluded 5G, if there is a contribution from the 5G, how many points do you add to the mobile ARPU growth in this quarter? Because at this point it is not an apple-to-apple comparison because in the second quarter of last year, there were no 5G, that's why I ask this question to understand the contribution of the 5G. Thank you.
Thank you, Yasin. The negative ARPU growth in first quarter and second quarter, yes. We were expecting that because of the last year's price actions. Excluding 5G, we are expecting it to recover at the end of this year. We are expecting positive ARPU at the end of this year. For the 5G, yes, we have launched the 5G in 1st of April. It is still new and in the 5G compatible device, it is 1/3 of our total subscriber has this 5G compatible device. It will take some time to see the effects of the 5G technology in the commercial side. We are expecting in upsells with the 5G technology, this will contribute to our upsell potential. We are also witnessing that an enhanced usage of data.
According to my view, we can expect these concrete results at the beginning of last year, we can say. Next year, in 2027, we can expect. It is still new. The adaptation of the devices are still lower. We can expect these concrete results with the also 5G technologies. The penetration with our investment in 5G, it is intense in this year for Türk Telekom. We are intensely investing in 5G C-band. Again, at the beginning of the next year, we are expecting higher penetration ratios. This will also affect and will contribute to both our ARPU and revenue growth in mobile sites. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr. Ömer.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from the line of Amir Chomaev with Bulls Yatırım. Please go ahead.
Hello, thank you for your presentation. I have three questions. First of all, it relates to the balance sheet. We can see lots of fixed assets in your balance sheet. I wanted to ask, do you consider to change the valuation way of this asset to their market valuation and any possible sales in order to get more cash? The second question is to your TTNET. Do you consider the IPO or any similar process in the TTNET side? The third question is, recently we see that lots of Türk Telekom funds have share buybacks. We wanted to ask, if you are so cheap related to peers and so on, do you consider any buyback programs and so on? Thank you.
Thank you, Amir. Concerning the fixed asset in our balance sheet, there is no change. Maybe the assets coming from this 5G and concession license makes a huge difference compared to last year. That could be the main difference for this year and last year. Since we have recorded both 5G license and concession in first quarter, it may be a difference in our balance sheet. For your second question, can you repeat it again?
Do you consider the IPO of TTNET? Initial public offering of TTNET.
We don't have that plan. We are not intending any kind of IPO for TTNET. For your last question, it was about buyback, as I remember. We have an option always to make buybacks. We have always option. We think that our price is lower compared to, and our leverage is also lower compared to our peers, both in country, both global. We haven't published any plan for this buyback. We have always the option to that. In the past, we did, by the way. It was, let's say, in 2023. I don't remember exactly, but it will be 2023. In the past, we did. At the moment, we are not planning, but we can do that anytime. Thank you.
Okay. Related to the first question, you're expecting your asset and your balance sheet to increase after your 5G investment. Do you consider any revaluation of the current assets? Because maybe there is some additional advantages from this side or no? That's my last question.
We are not doing any revaluation the assets other than the license.
It's normal inflation?
It is normal inflation indexation.
Okay. Thank you.
We have a follow-up question from Evgeniya Bystrova with Barclays. Please go ahead. Ms. Bystrova, can you hear us?
Yes. Sorry, I was on mute. Thank you for the opportunity to ask a follow-up. Just a quick question on the taxes. I noticed in the cash flow statement that the income taxes increased in the first half of the year compared to last year. Just wanted to better understand what could be the driver of that. Thank you.
The main reason is the profit. When we generate profits, the tax expenses also increase. There is no revision in tax level, tax rates in the government side. That's mainly because of the increase in our revenues and profits. Thank you.
Thanks.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Türk Telekom management for any closing comments. Thank you.
Thank you for joining us today. Have a good evening.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a good afternoon.