Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Jamie, 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 2023 financial and operational results. All participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will 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 telephones. We are here with the management team, and today's speakers are CEO, Ümit Önal, and CFO, Kaan Aktan. 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. Ümit Önal, CEO. Sir, you may proceed.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to our 2023 second quarter results conference call. Thank you for joining us today. Geopolitical news occupied the headlines from time to time, but the central bank's interest rates and inflation dilemma remained in central focus over the second quarter globally. At home, while Türkiye continued feeling the impact of the February earthquakes, albeit at a diminishing capacity, politics largely dominated the domestic agenda. Türkiye has left the critical presidential and parliamentary elections behind towards end of May. Meanwhile, inflation retreated to 38% as of June, revealing the lowest print in 18 months. Yet a 35% jump in FX rates on average within the quarter is expected to call back inflationary pressures. The recent announcement of another 34% increase in minimum wage, effective from July 1st, and several tax hikes are also set to negatively affect the CPI data ahead.
Generally speaking, Türkiye made a lackluster start to the second quarter as the country still transitions out of earthquake recess and Ramadan, usually a slow period in activity through most of April. The finalization of a two-round election process in late May and the closure of school season around mid-June kicked off the holiday period. The Eid break within the week of June 26 paved the way for a nine-day holiday for most. In this backdrop, data consumption depicted usual characteristic of seasonality, where we observed a quarterly pickup in mobile segment, but some decline in fixed segment. In annual comparison, data usage continued its robust advance with 25% and 11% increase in mobile and fixed respectively.
Although the critical elections in Türkiye heavily influenced both the business environment and consumer sentiment, the potency of our targeted actions that we have been implementing manifested itself in our operational and cash flow performance in the second quarter as inflation has retreated and the earthquake impact has gradually faded. Starting with slide number three in our presentation, net subscriber additions. Total number of subscribers declined to 52.4 million with a net loss of 105,000 during the quarter, largely due to the ongoing contraction in fixed voice customer base, but also to tepid total additions in other businesses. Fixed broadband base touched the 15 million mark first time with 144,000 net additions driven by improved performance both in new sales and churn in the aftermath of the February earthquakes. Net acquisitions in fixed internet scored stronger than anticipated in a balanced pricing environment in the reporting period.
Therefore, we now target a positive net add in fixed broadband compared to our earlier expectation of a slight net loss for the full year, despite having introduced price revisions both in wholesale and retail portfolios starting from July 1st. Fiber base expanded to 12.2 million subscribers with 426,000 of quarterly net additions. The share of fiber subscribers in our fixed broadband base increased to 82% from 73.5% a year ago. All mobile operators launched their new prices in April, but the first quarter's intensified competition extended into Q2 through longer-lasting and aggressive promotional activities. Our sector beating ARPU growth in Q1 and quarters of unshaken position in the MNP market might have augmented competitors' need to respond differently. But sticking to our long winning mobile strategy, we have continued prioritizing ARPU growth on our side. As such, mobile portfolio stayed flat at 25.6 million.
We recorded a total of 9,000 net subscriber loss in Q2 driven by 244,000 decline in the prepaid base. On the flip side, postpaid segment secured 235,000 net add, aggregating its total gain to more than 1.2 million subscribers over the last 12 months. Fixed voice base continued its descent with 237,000 of subscriber loss, along with the strategy focusing on naked DSL sales. Slide number four, financial and operational overview. Both operational revenue and EBITDA surpassed our targets in the first half. Consolidated revenues increased more than 67% year-on-year in Q2, while operational revenues expanded 68%. Core businesses, particularly mobile, contributed significantly, but other businesses also fueled growth. Consolidated EBITDA growth picked up Q-on-Q with 37% annual increase to TRY 6 billion mark. 33.6% EBITDA margin moved 230 basis points ahead of last quarter's level.
We recorded TRY 600 million of net loss at the bottom line due to sizable net financial expenses incurred in the period. Net debt to EBITDA stayed almost flat around 1.65x Q-on-Q, thanks to an improved operating performance. Slide number five, fixed broadband performance. We observed continued improvement in fixed internet subscriber dynamics over Q2. Following prior quarters better than expected acquisition performance, new sales remained strong with only slight decline Q-on-Q on seasonality, but significant improvement year-on-year. Churn rate normalized from last quarter's quake-triggered spike, along with moderate competition in the market, which has operated in a balanced pricing environment since early Q1 in lack of new tariff price revisions. ISP's subscriber activity is most centered around differentiation in contract structures and quake region-specific campaigns. Upselling and recontracting performance improved Q-on-Q.
35 Mb and above packages made 50% of new acquisitions, helping move ARPA 2% higher Q-on-Q. ARPU growth didn't change much from last quarter's levels and stayed around 42% year-on-year. Following a mixed first half with quakes, Ramadan, and elections, we introduced our new prices in both wholesale and retail segments starting from July 1st. We raised wholesale tariffs by 70% and retail tariffs by 50% on average over existing prices. This is the first time we revised wholesale tariffs since June and retail once since October last year in new sales. We have started applying similar pricing actions in our retail portfolio on the recontracting side since early August. These moves will shape both subscriber dynamics and ARPU evolution going forward.
A sector-wide response to our revisions is yet to be seen, but we expect the sector to align regionally given the ongoing inflationary pressures across the board. Hence, we expect a robust acceleration in ARPU growth in the coming quarters. Moving on to mobile performance. Slide number six. Although mobile operators synchronized their latest pricing actions in April, they started launching rather effective offers one after the other to lure consumers and revive the MNP market in May. In this backdrop, we preferred to be selective in our offerings and prioritized ARPU growth, which was ahead of the competitors in the first quarter. Driven by the above dynamics, MNP market, which had contracted in Q1 on quake slowdown, grew by 13% annually and 9% quarterly. A relatively low base due to the ongoing effects of COVID-19 measures in Q2 last year also played a role in annual expansion.
Once again, our top position in net ports remained unchanged for the seventh consecutive quarter, despite fierce competition, thanks to our stronger positioning in the market. New acquisitions in postpaid performed better than we expected and grew both in quarterly and annual basis. Postpaid churn rate was well contained at similar levels in both comparisons, despite the abundance of effective offers in the market. New acquisitions were also better than last quarter in the prepaid segment after the initial shock of the quakes, but the churn rate was also inevitably higher. Shaped under these dynamics, postpaid segment made more than 68% of our total mobile base. Well ahead of inflation, 73% ARPU growth stayed on a robust track with 66% annual rise in postpaid and 88% in prepaid segments. Owing to our winner strategy that targets a fine balance of subscriber base and ARPU growth.
As usual, subscriber ARPU and data consumption growth were the main pillars of the 81% year-on-year surge in mobile revenue. We have recently taken the liberty to lead the next pricing round and revised both our postpaid and prepaid tariffs in early August. Therefore, we expect strong ARPU evolution to continue in the second half. Now, let's take a look at the full year outlook on slide number seven. We have revisited our 2023 guidance after both top line growth and EBITDA exceeded our expectations in the first half. We now foresee 67%-70% operating revenue increase, TRY 25 billion-TRY 27 billion EBITDA, and TRY 19 billion-TRY 21 billion CapEx for this year.
While the change in top line and EBITDA outlook can largely be attributable to expectations of more pricing actions, better operational KPIs, and continued high contribution from non-core businesses, the increment to CapEx reflects the impact of labor cost inflation, as well as recent sizable losses in lira's value. We maintain a cautious view on cost inflation in general. We see a diminishing impact of the earthquakes on subscriber dynamics going forward, although our earlier guidance for quake-related revenue, costs, and CapEx items remained unchanged. We expect inflationary pricing to stay in telco operators' focus, although seasonal or periodic promotional activities will likely continue to affect subscriber and ARPU dynamics at times, particularly in the mobile segment. On the fixed internet side, other ISPs' response to our recent wholesale and retail pricing actions is yet to be seen.
Nevertheless, having been through similar cycles over the last six, seven quarters, we expect to continue pursuing our dynamic pricing strategy, which closely monitors inflation data. Aligning our portfolios teams around holidays, tourism, and back to school to customer needs will be at the center of our activities ahead, along with indispensable focus on upselling and recontracting, of course. Before I give the work to Kaan to discuss our financial performance in detail, allow me to share some worthy remarks. Türkiye has been working relentlessly to overcome the massive disruption caused by the southeastern earthquakes that hit our country early in the year. As Türk Telekom, we have been at the forefront of these efforts. On one hand, we continue to carry out the work on the ground to fully recover the physical damage to our operations and bring connectivity to new habitations such as container and tent sites.
And on the other hand, we have supported the community through subscriber benefits and regional promotional activities, as well as social responsibility projects. Continuous progress in mobile KPIs speak volumes about our competent strategy and growing strength in the market. While the FBB segment is set to enter a momentous path starting from the second half. Therefore, we have confidence in our ability to deliver our revised guidance. Thank you. Kaan, the floor is yours now.
Well, thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. We are now on slide nine with the financial growth. Top-line growth continues its strong momentum and moves higher for the sixth consecutive quarter to 67% annually from 61% of last quarter. This is thanks to our dynamic actions designed around a volatile macro and consumer backdrop. Following a sensitively managed earthquake period, we resumed normalcy in our marketing and customer care activities in the second quarter. That, combined with customers also returning to their routines gradually, helped activation and churn dynamics to move out of the earthquake impact in general. With similar reasons, recontracting and upselling also regained their strong footing in the second quarter, altogether supporting an improved revenue performance quarter-over-quarter in our core businesses.
45% fixed broadband revenue growth paused its ascent for the first time in five quarters, but we'll be reclaiming it back as early as next quarter thanks to the stronger-than-expected subscriber dynamics expanding into the second half, as well as the recently implemented sizable price revisions in the wholesale and retail portfolios. 81% mobile revenue growth once again surprised to the upside, which supports several strong KPIs, confirming the virtue of our strategy that has been reinforcing our positioning in the market. Postpaid net additions and churn were extremely resilient to increased competition. Net losses in the prepaid segment on the other hand, was a result of increased preference towards postpaid tariffs of locals and roaming or other alternatives of foreign tourists, we think, in addition to competitive pressures.
Although data package sales and top-ups were boosted by the earthquake-induced need for communication last quarter, we have seen a similarly strong performance in these categories, thanks not only to seasonality, but also to our targeted and tailored way of addressing customer needs. The number of additional data packages sold grew by 19% year-over-year, while average top-up amount per prepaid subscriber more than doubled. Corporate data revenue growth was 62% with a similar performance to last quarter's growth in other revenues, with other rents surged to 134%, thanks to robust progress in equipment, ICT project, and call center revenues. Advanced performance in equipment sales was largely driven by project revenues generated by Türk Telekom and Innova. Finally, international revenue growth accelerated significantly from last quarter to 88%, along with weaker lira. Now moving on to EBITDA. An accelerated 37% growth moves consolidated EBITDA to TRY 6 billion.
This is up by 230 basis points quarter-over-quarter. EBITDA margin increased now to 33.6%, while revenue increase in excess of OpEx increase supported the quarterly margin improvements. Higher growth in our non-core revenues worked in the opposite direction. We continued feeling the impact of the quakes on our EBITDA. If adjusted for those items, second quarter EBITDA and EBITDA margin would move up to TRY 6.2 billion and 34.3% respectively. Increase in operating expenses slowed to 88% year-over-year from 96% of the last quarter. Excluding IFRIC 12 cost, growth in operating expenses was 92%. Annualizing network and personnel expenses was seen in quarterly comparison, thanks to some decline in unit energy costs and the one-off cost recorded last quarter due to the retention scheme enforced by the government.
As we mentioned in our guidance, we maintain a cautious view on cost inflation, given the reversal of downward trend in inflation with July CPI surging back to 48% from 38% in June. In its latest inflation report, central bank increased its year-end inflation forecast to 58%. The salary adjustments we made following government's 34% hike in minimum wage effective from the second half will be reflected on our financials starting from the third quarter. Coming to the bottom line, dollar to euro and euro to the lira rates both increased by 35% on average quarter-over-quarter. Interest rates also went up significantly and remained elevated throughout the quarter amidst extreme volatility in financial markets driven by the election uncertainties. As a result, we incurred significantly higher FX losses quarter-over-quarter on currency weakness.
Hedging costs also went up sizably due to higher FX and interest rates, as we continued utilizing short-term instruments for hedging purposes. That said, it will be fair to mention that extreme volatility and change in macro assumptions has caused some of the mark-to-market gains on certain hedging instruments to be incurred in the first quarter, leading to a net FX hedging loss of TRY 6 billion versus TRY 4.2 billion in the second quarter. On the flip side, TRY 1.2 billion of net tax income driven by the revaluation of assets and R&D and investment incentives supported the bottom line. As a result, we recorded TRY 600 million net loss for the period. Again, if adjusted for the quake-related items, net loss would be TRY 485 million. Finally, CapEx was at TRY 3.7 billion in the second quarter, of which TRY 260 million was earthquake-related spending.
Moving on to the next slide 10, with debt profile. Thanks to progressive operating performance, net debt to EBITDA ratio was contained at around 1.65x multiple in the reporting period, despite a massive 35% increase in FX rate. Cash and cash equivalents add up to TRY 9 billion, of which around 38% is FX based. This excludes the $320 million equivalent of FX-protected time deposit that we book under financial investment. The share of local currency borrowings within the total debt portfolio declined to 22% from 27% a quarter ago. The FX exposure included U.S. dollar equivalent of $2 billion of FX-denominated debt, $ 2.6 billion of total hedge position, and $ 130 million of hard currency cash. The hedged amount included a $320 million equivalent of FX-protected time deposit, which is unchanged from the first quarter. We are now on slide 11.
Our long FX position was TRY 690 million by the end of the quarter, excluding the ineffective portion of the hedge portfolio, namely the participating cross-currency contracts. Foreign currency exposure was $140 million short FX position, which compares to $370 million short position a quarter ago. Similar to previous quarters, in continued lack of long-term derivative transaction in the FX hedging market, we kept utilizing short-term instruments while the net FX exposure contracted continuously over the last six quarters as a result of ongoing effort to narrow down the position. The FX sensitivity analysis we report regularly in our quarterly financial projects, assuming all as constant, a 10% increase in FX rates would have around TRY -370 million impact on our pre-tax income. On the flip side, the sensitivity analysis produces around TRY +270 million impact in case of a similar depreciation in lira.
Leaving behind the low seasonality and the earthquake pressures, unlevered free cash flow turned to a TRY +2.3 billion from a TRY - 2 billion a quarter ago, along with an improved EBITDA performance. It also compares favorably to TRY 1.5 billion generated in the same quarter of last year. This will conclude my presentation. We can now open the Q&A session.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. I would like to inform you that Türk Telekom will have translation during the Q&A session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their telephones. If you wish to remove yourselves from the question queue, you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for a better quality. Once again, anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question today comes from Evgenii Annenkov from Bank of America. Please go ahead with your question.
Thank you. Hi, good evening. Thank you for the presentation, and congratulations with the solid quarter operationally. I have two questions, please. First one on competition in fixed broadband segment. I understand the price response by ISPs is yet to be seen. But if we talk about maturities, do you see any major changes in contract structure in the market, in particular, no commitment or three plus nine months contracts? Do they gain more traction or customers still prefer to go for longer contracts in the high inflation environment? And second, on cash generation. You have delivered a solid TRY 2.3 billion free cash flow in the quarter. I see this partly was held by major inflow from payables. Can you please give more color on working capital and which tools do you have to mitigate cost pressure and protect cash flows? Thank you.
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Thank you very much for your question. Just like we have said, we have made our price revision. As of now, we haven't seen a full participation from all other ISPs. We expect them to follow suit.
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We will be planning our price increases in line with the balancing of the parities for customers to get used to the new price levels and the course of inflation, of course.
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Of course, with that, we have the forecast that we will have a strong back to school period after the post-earthquake subscriber dynamics develop better than our expectations and the consumer gets used to the new price levels. We think that the subscriber movement, which we previously expected to be slightly negative, will be positive in the fixed broadband business line.
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In terms of the contract structures, we have our 12 + 12 contract structure that we have started implementing. From time to time, we see that our competitors are implementing 3 + 9 or 6 + 6 kind ofcontract structures, but they are not so widespread. And we know that non-contracted customer base is also not so widespread. They are just periodical, based on needs kind of implementation.
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By the way, I would like to highlight that point as well. After a long period, we have increased our wholesale and retail prices. We have this inflationary environment, and it is important for us to increase the wholesale prices. But, independent of the regulatory authorities approvals for limit increases or not at all, we believe that we will be able to turn this scheme into an automatize within this inflationary environment, which will put the price increases of all ISPs into a more predictable and healthy manner.
Yes. For the second part of the question, which was around the cash flow performance. When you look at the cash flow, it is very obvious that it is being impacted by the seasonality in the way we spent money for CapEx, because the CapEx of a quarter mostly falls into the accounts payable as a result of the payment terms. When you look at the second quarter, we see a higher CapEx. There is also earthquake-related spendings that also improved coming from the end of first quarter that has also impacted the accounts payable. I should also remind one factor here. This is something we started, especially last year. We deliberately went down on the payment term, days payable, for CapEx item, which were priced in hard currency. This was the result of our effort to minimize the FX exposure.
It gave us a bit burden on the cash flow. We know that. We saw the impact last year as well. But it's also saving us from a higher FX exposure, meaning we had to now hedge less to overcome the FX risk. I think that strategy will stay a bit longer, until when we have more visibility on the FX rate trends, and continue putting a bit pressure on the cash flow performance. And then the other factors, the payable is also impacted by everything that comes as a result of the inflation. I mean, all type of payable items are also inflated by the pricing impact, and this is something also giving a bit positive results for the cash flow.
Thank you for the very detailed answers. That's very helpful. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one using your telephones. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one. Our next question comes from Ulle Adamson from T. Rowe Price. Please go ahead with your question.
Yes. Hi, thank you very much. Just wondering how you're thinking about refinancing your 2024 and 2025 upcoming bonds. Thank you very much.
Well, thank you. Well, if you look at not only to the refinancing of 2024, when you look overall refinancing of the debt portfolio, because that bonds only give us 20% of the debt that will have a maturity in the next 12 months. Obviously, we are now using a sizable financing from local markets. These are lira commercial loans. More than 20% of the debt portfolio was in lira loans by market conditions. Gives us maturities less than a year. Everything that you see as lira borrowing falls below 12 months. There is a remaining roughly 12% of the debt portfolio, which consists of not only bonds, but other hard currency long-term loans that will expire within the next 12 months. In return, we currently have around 220 million committed ECA facilities.
Again, the plan for the lira side is to roll over the debt once the maturities come. For the other long-term loans repayments, we secured almost a similar committed ECA line. At the same time, we carry around $700 million equivalent of cash in total. This consists of $320 million of currency protected deposits, another close to $350 million of cash kept both in lira and dollars and euros. So, we have a sizable cash in hand. There is one thing which seems to be a bit hidden within our numbers. We also have around $350 million equivalent mark to market coming from the whole derivative portfolio. Obviously, these are mostly linked to the repayment of the financial debt, and that will give us certain benefits when the maturity comes.
So, all in all, we have a sizable cash of potential reduction from the debt in the form of mark to market of the derivatives. We try to base our worst case scenario, this is really the extreme case, as not having a major refinancing for 2024. But, still, we are now looking at all sorts of opportunities in the market because we kind of seeing that there is a better market for bonds issues. And the sovereign is in a way opening the way, and we saw strong demand in the recent issues. So we are also trying to analyze what will be the outcome from a potential bonds issue until we have the 2024. So, again, this wasn't our base case scenario, but I think the market conditions are now changing.
And once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one. Our next question comes from Cemal Demirtas from Ata Invest. Please go ahead with your question.
Thank you for the presentation. My question is about earthquake donations amount and get around TRY 2 billion. Should we expect a full of that amount cash outflow in the second half of the year? The other one is a rather strategic question about the licensing of Türk Telekom going forward. In the past, we were just discussing 5G issues and the other regulatory issues. How do you see that process will be going on as the election is already done and completed? Should we in the future, in the next 6- 12 months, should we expect some changes in the sector or some clarification about licensing or 5G issues? Thank you.
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Thank you very much for your question. As you know, this donation decision has to be approved by the General Assembly, recently we have completed our General Assembly and fulfilled this requirement.
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Of course, since the donation decision, we have made many spendings and expenditures that can be considered as donations under AFAD Disaster and Emergency Management Authority , considering the earthquake priorities and regional needs.
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I can tell that considering all the expenditures so far, depending on the size of the remaining amount, we would prefer to pay it in periods rather than all at once.
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I believe we will be able to share more clear information related to how much of the benefits and expenses will be deducted from the donation around Q3 financials.
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Related to your second question, as you know, we recently had our General Assembly, and we have appointed our new board of directors. You know, I am CEO, but also I am also a member of the board. Just after the General Assembly, we have made our first board of directors meeting. And the first item on the agenda was the renewal of the concession, which will clear the uncertainty ahead of our company.
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You have asked also what to expect in the coming 6-12 month period. I mean, personally, as a CEO and a board member of this company, my will is to solve this concession issue as soon as possible. And I see that this is the will of the new board of directors as well. This is our primary agenda item. So, I believe it is not going to take so long. I'm more motivated to clear this issue not even up to one year. But this is not a binding comment, of course.
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Related to 5G, there is nothing much that I can add to before what we have shared previously. There is nothing to speed it up so far. The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure shared some of his views related to 5G transition before. We had the earthquake and the economic conditions in our country. For that reason, we don't expect a 5G auction in the short period. But with that, all our investments are compatible to 5G. We are the most ready operator to 5G with all the investments that we have made in the infrastructure and networks. We have all the use cases and the scenarios are going on as well. But again, we don't expect a 5G auction in the short period.
Thank you very much. Önal Bey . As a final reminder, to register a question, please press star and one. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Türk Telekom management for any closing comments. Thank you.
Well, thank you everyone for joining us today. We really appreciate your participation, we look forward to having you next time. Thank you, enjoy your day. Bye bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephones. Thank you for calling, and have a good afternoon.