Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Vodafone Qatar Investor Call to discuss our Q4 and Full-Year Financial Results ended 31 December 2025. I am Pauline Abi Saab from the Investor Relations team, and on this session we have Sheikh Hamad Abdulla Jassim Al-Thani, our Chief Executive Officer, and Masroor Anjum, our Chief Financial Officer. We'll start with a presentation from our CEO on the commercial and operational performance highlights, followed by an update from our CFO on the financial performance for the period ended 31 December 2025. After the presentation, we will open the floor for Q&A, where you can ask your questions by raising hands virtually.
Today's investor presentation is available on this webinar and on our website under the Investor Relations section. Please note that this session is being recorded, and also note the usual disclaimer on slide number 2.
To begin, I will now hand over to Sheikh Hamad.
Assalamualaikum everyone, and welcome to our investor call. Before we start, I would like to reflect on our journey over the past few years. As you can see, we have demonstrated a track record on growth across all KPIs. Revenue continued to grow on a year-to-year basis, EBITDA continued to grow and almost doubled, net profit clearly growing with an accelerated momentum, Alhamdulillah. OpEx intensity continued to reduce, driven by our restricted, disciplined, and scientific data-driven approach.
All of this being supported with a big team of data scientists and engineers who support us to crunch approximately 15 billion records a day, giving us better insights using all tools of AI and machine learning to help us to make informed decisions, be it general CapEx expenditure, a new site location, or a new product composition to drive more customer acquisition, a new utilization, reduce cost, and improve ARPU, as you can see in our prepaid. The key message here is that we believe that we have the right talent, machinery, and system in place to continue with the same momentum in the future, Inshallah.
Going back to 2025, slide 4. Despite the economic situation regionally and internationally, we continued our profitable growth. Revenue grew to almost QAR 3.5 billion at 8.1% year-on-year growth, while net profit crossed QAR 700 million for the first time, that is 17% growth on a year-to-year basis. Our net debt-to-equity ratio is almost zero, setting us ready and clean for investment and diversification opportunities. Due to all of this good performance, the Board of Directors is proposing 12% per share cash dividend for the year, subject to shareholder approval in the AGA. Additionally, Vodafone Qatar will be, Inshallah, the first company in Qatar to distribute quarterly dividends starting from 2026, of course subject to all regulatory approval.
On slide 5. From a consumer perspective, we have been leading innovation and customer experience. This is very clear of our NPS leadership for the past few years in a row. We brought to the market innovative solutions, that is, convenient, such as the Multi-SIM or Call+, which, for example, helps make authenticated calls from all over the world while roaming, even when you don't have a cell network available to you. The other important thing that we launched, Vodafone World, in addition to our loyalty program, this is essential to address approximately 17%-18% of the consumer customers in Qatar, as per the study we have done a couple of years ago. If you remember, I believe I have talked about it, which says that 17%-18% of the base is not addressable because they value the value-added services such as OTT apps, in addition to loyalty, and they are not willing to switch unless they have those services.
Because we listen to our customer, we have already launched our loyalty program, as you are already aware, and Vodafone World, which will allow them to subscribe freely or with a discount to many of the OTT products available in both Apple Store and Google Store. From an enterprise perspective, we still have big room to grow. We have expanded our portfolio, delivering end-to-end ICT services, advanced connectivity, managed services, cloud and infrastructure management, critical communication, and cybersecurity. We are happy to announce that we were one of the first to launch private networks with many companies or entities in Qatar during the last 12-24 months. This is in addition to launching our Enterprise Portal, enabling businesses to manage their services, monitor real-time usage, and streamline operations, especially for the big ones.
To be honest, this was a gap that we have been always having, but the good thing we have already bridged it, and we leapfrogged and offered the customers something that gives them control and peace of mind. On our fintech journey, it's on track. We are happy to announce that we have become profitable in the second half of 2025 with an accelerated growth. Actually, sometimes we have to slow down the growth to ensure customer experience is up to the expectation of our customers. We believe that with this achievement, with benchmarking against other operators or telcos in the world who launch a fintech product, actually we broke even or we became profitable much sooner compared to many of them who are still in losses.
Page number 6. From a network coverage perspective, as you can see, we have grown about 8% when it comes to mobile network sites. We have slowed down a little bit because we didn't see that we have immediate need at that time, and we focused on cutting deals that would save us almost QAR 60 million-QAR 70 million in the next five years. Now we are starting to roll out again, as what we mentioned earlier, using a data science approach. Fiber footprint, we increased it by 20% year-on-year, and almost 2x since 2021.
From a technology modernization, although we have modernized and upgraded almost all of our technical stack and systems a few years ago, we have managed to cut deals that would save us in CapEx, reduce OpEx for the future, setting us ready for the future both from risk and opportunity perspective, especially when it comes to AI, and of course enhancing and improving customer experience in offering. Approximately, the savings is more than QAR 300 million+ for the course of the contract that we managed to close during the last year. This without mentioning the indirect savings and operational improvement that might come as a result of those deals. As a result of this, you would be seeing some accelerated depreciation.
Yes, it is a cost on us, but we see more savings coming because of those deployments, because we deploy cutting-edge technology at a reduced cost and setting us ready for the future. It has been a very busy year from that perspective. For example, we moved our SOC to a new system, to cope with the latest threats, especially with the introduction of AI cybersecurity threats tools. We moved to a new network operation center. We call it D-NOC, Digital NOC, where AI use cases are being tested and deployed to enhance customer experience and improving our operation efficiency. Again, we'll reduce our cost.
On those two, for example, just those two deals, the OpEx savings, although we spend a little bit of CapEx, is about QAR 55 million over the course of those two projects, in addition, of course, to the about QAR 300 million+ or about the $85 million of CapEx, as I spoke later earlier. Also, we are modernizing our core to ensure that we deploy the 5G standalone core. It's already in action and is being tested. Also, we already signed a deal for enhancing our OSS and BSS stack to be ready for the future. Of course, we don't anticipate any disruption next year, and we are going to do it as smooth as possible, which will help us later to respond to the customer need in a timely manner and reduce our operational cost. The last thing is the 3G sunset.
We have successfully and smoothly switched down our 3G network on January 18th. We started in December. We switched it fully on January 18th in compliance with the CRA decision. The spectrum has been allocated to other technologies. In the last slide, just to mention some JVs that we have done, we have executed. We have been in discussion with one of the leading system integrators companies in Italy called Sirti. They have more than 100+ years' experience, and they are leading system integrators in Italy. We've been working on their regional entity for about 10 years or so in Qatar, and we have cut a deal with them to get into a JV by acquiring 51% of their Sirti MENA.
We believe that this acquisition is going to enhance our operational efficiency, and we are going to do, let's say, joint go-to-market, or basically they will help us to do or improve our managed services portfolio with this JV. It's an extensive one. We will not discuss much about it today. We have kicked it off already, and we believe it's going to reduce our cost and improve our go-to-market speed and quality.
In addition to this, we have signed multiple partnerships with entities such as Microsoft, Google, and other big leading names during the last year to ensure that we are capable of cutting-edge technologies , be it to our technology team or be it also to our operation, or to provide it as a service, as you can see, network as a service, or even call center as a service solutions that we are providing it to our B2B portfolio. I don't want to consume more time and leave more to Masroor to go over the financials and perhaps Q&A later.
So I hand over to you, Masroor. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you, Hamad. And good afternoon, everyone. It's a pleasure to be with you today to discuss the results of what has been a truly amazing year for the company. As we turn to the financial review on slide number 9, the core theme is consistent performance. The positive momentum we have built in recent years transitioned seamlessly into 2025, yielding sustained, profitable growth across all core business segments. Starting with the key financial performance highlights on this slide, total revenue has increased by an impressive 8.1%, driven by positive contributions across all business segments. At the same time, operating cost efficiency continued to improve, with OpEx intensity declining to 22%, down one percentage point year-on-year.
Further, direct cost excluding equipment is largely flat despite growth in revenue as well as subscribers. Our sustained focus on operational efficiency continued to yield significant bottom-line expansion, EBITDA grew 10.5% to QAR 1.5 billion, while net profit rose 16.8%. Notably, our net profit margins surpassed 20% threshold for the first time in 2025. Excluding one-offs, underlying net profit growth stood at 22%. This is a significant leap that underscores our core profitability and establishes a strong new benchmark for the years ahead. Alongside, we have maintained robust free cash flow generation, which reached QAR 779 million, representing a significant increase of 41% year-on-year.
Moving to slide number 10 for the key financial performance metrics for the full year 2025 in comparison to the previous year. Total revenue grew by QAR 257 million, representing a substantial 8.1% growth year-on-year. This growth was predominantly driven by an impressive 5% increase in service revenue, coupled with the impact of higher handsets, equipment, and enterprise project revenue. Despite higher revenue, ongoing network expansion, and increase in subscriber base, management continues to focus on identifying opportunities to optimize costs through a company-wide cost optimization program. Year-over-year increase in direct cost is attributable to volume-driven higher equipment sales and customer acquisition costs.
Looking at the OpEx, increase in OpEx reflects the impact of expanding network footprint. It is notable that OpEx intensity remained one percentage point slower than the last year. Revenue growth with stable costs resulted in double-digit growth in EBITDA. Our EBITDA grew by an impressive 10.5% year-over-year, translating into a margin of 43.7%. This strong operational performance translated into a strong bottom line. We delivered a 16.8% year-over-year increase in net profit, surpassing QAR 700 million for the first time.
Now, taking a closer look at service revenue on slide number 11. As I mentioned earlier, all our service revenue segments continue to show positive growth year-over-year. Talking about postpaid, postpaid revenue continues to grow steadily, recording a further increase of 2.8% year-over-year. We remain focused on enhancing our portfolio with richer features and on continuously improving the overall customer experience. As a result, our postpaid subscriber base expanded by 9.7% year-on-year, serving as the primary driver of postpaid revenue growth.
On the ARPU front, the consumer pricing environment has remained largely stable, supporting the sustained level of consumer postpaid ARPU. Conversely, in the enterprise segment, we continue to operate in a highly competitive pricing landscape, a trend we have highlighted consistently. While we anticipate greater market discipline over time, our near-term focus remains on profitable retention and disciplined bidding. Despite ongoing competitive dynamics in the enterprise mobility segment, overall, postpaid ARPU remains resilient with a modest decline of 0.8% year-on-year on a full-year basis.
Now, moving to the prepaid segment, prepaid revenue has recorded a growth of 9.1% year-on-year. As highlighted before, the prepaid pricing environment has also remained stable, with customers receiving good value but at a reasonable price. As a result, prepaid ARPU has recorded an impressive growth of 9.6% year-on-year on a full-year basis, serving as the primary driver of prepaid revenue growth. Prepaid subscribers closed slightly higher year-on-year, partially assisted by the high level of activities in Q4, including the sporting events that happened in the country. Lastly, managed services, wholesale, and fixed revenues also contributed to the growth of service revenue. Our commitment to diversification and expanding our fiber network is paying off. We are adding new customers nationwide, which has led to a steady increase in year-on-year revenue. Overall, total service revenue increased 5% year-on-year.
Moving to the next slide. As mentioned earlier, this year's financial performance includes a few one-offs. To provide better visibility into the underlying profitability, these items are clearly highlighted on slide number 12. I will quickly walk you through these items now. First, we recognized a one-off reversal in equipment costs during quarter four, amounting to QAR 15 million, driven by favorable project cost efficiencies coming from disciplined delivery and vendor negotiations. Second, operating expenses include a one-off benefit of QAR 4 million booked during Q4. Third, we recognized a long-outstanding lease liability settlement benefit, amounting to QAR 11 million in other income. We also recorded a one-off gain arising from acquisition of 51% stake in an equity-accounted investee.
The other items on the bridge relate to incremental depreciation and amortization charge, arising primarily from regulatory changes, specifically the transition from FDD to TDD. As highlighted by Sheikh Hamad, investments in core network upgrades, technology modernization, and strategic replacement of legacy assets aimed at improving long-term operational efficiency and reducing maintenance OpEx. After adjusting for these one-off items and their associated tax impacts, underlying net profit for the year reached QAR 715 million, representing a 22% year-on-year growth on an underlying basis.
Turning to slide number 13. This slide illustrates our efficiency and profitability margin trends. The solid lines represent underlying performance, while the dotted lines reflect reported results. Starting with operational efficiency, despite continued expansion of both our mobile and fixed networks, we have delivered notable efficiency gains, achieving a further reduction of 1.3 percentage points in OpEx intensity year-on-year on an underlying basis. Moving to the right-side graph, which highlights EBITDA margin performance, the combination of service revenue growth and our disciplined cost management continues to drive margin expansion.
EBITDA margin excluding equipment business accelerated by another 2.8 percentage points this year to reach 48.6%. Reported EBITDA margin adjusted for the one-offs discussed earlier stands at 43.2%, representing a 1.4 percentage points year-on-year improvement. This is driven by a strong flow-through impact of the revenue growth we talked about earlier. Now, moving to the next slide and taking a closer look at the CapEx, net profit margin, and return on equity. Our CapEx for the year stands at QAR 535 million, reflecting an intensity of 15.5% in line with our guidance. We continue to apply a disciplined capital allocation framework, investing selectively in projects that meet our stringent return thresholds and are clearly aligned with long-term value creation.
Our sustained focus on growth and profitability continues to deliver strong results. During the year, we expanded our net profit margin by 1.5 percentage points, surpassing the 20% threshold for the first time. On the other hand, return on equity has also increased by 1.6 percentage points compared to the last year. This translates to remarkable growth in returns over the last five-six years.
Now, let's turn to the cash flow bridge on slide number 15. Our free cash flow reflects cash generated after taxes and lease payments. As such, it represents the actual cash available for allocation between debt and equity holders. Our free cash flow has registered a strong growth of 41% year-on-year, reaching QAR 779 million. This performance was underpinned by three factors. First, strong underlying EBITDA growth supported by continued revenue momentum and margin expansion. Second, disciplined operating and capital expenditure, ensuring investments remain closely aligned with returns and strategic priorities. Third, ongoing improvements in working capital efficiency, further strengthening cash conversion.
Operating free cash flow yield, which we view as a key indicator of value creation and capital discipline, delivered a strong year-on-year improvement. Despite the share price appreciation of 33% year on year, the cash flow yield has been above last year's level, highlighting the resilience and quality of our cash generation. Overall, this reinforces our ability to consistently convert earnings into distributable cash, supporting sustainable dividends, balance sheet strength, and continued investment in long-term growth.
Now, coming to slide number 16 and looking at our liquidity profile. As we have emphasized in previous quarters, working capital management remains a key strategic priority. We have already talked about significant growth in our free cash flow year on year. As a result, net debt significantly reduced year-over-year despite an increase in dividend payout this year, and net debt-to-equity ratio improved further, declining from 5.5% to only 0.5%. Together, these results highlight our strong liquidity position, effective capital discipline, and capacity to fund growth while maintaining a healthy balance sheet.
Now, looking at the five-year trend view of our key financial performance indicators on slide number 17. Our top-line growth continues despite the headwinds. Over the last five years, top-line has registered a very impressive CAGR of 7.4% in service revenue and 8.1% in total revenue, underscoring our ability to navigate challenges and sustain robust growth. Importantly, while expenses have increased, they have consistently remained lower than the growth in our top-line. This strategic balance has resulted in substantial profitability growth. EBITDA has seen an impressive CAGR of 10%, while net profit has soared with an extraordinary CAGR of 21%. These results underscore our strategic focus on sustainable growth, operational efficiency, and prudent financial management. As we continue to navigate challenges and capitalize on opportunities, we remain committed to delivering value to our shareholders.
Turning to our performance against the guidance outlined on slide number 18. I'm pleased to report that we have delivered results within the previously communicated guidance range across all key financial performance indicators. We have also reviewed the analyst reports published during the year, and it is encouraging to note that our reported net profit has surpassed the expectations reflected in those forecasts. Lastly, on slide number 19, guidance for the financial year 2026. We anticipate a sustained growth supported by ARPU recovery in mobility segment and ongoing expansion in the fixed and managed services segment.
It is early to quantify, but we expect a growth in the mid-single digits to start with in top-line. We expect to maintain EBITDA margin above 43% for the next year. Lastly, for CapEx intensity, we expect it to range between 14.5%-15.5%. Our CapEx investments will focus on the deployment of new mobility sites, expansion of fixed networks, and technology modernization initiatives. As these are still early days in the new year, we will come up with more firm guidance as we move along the year. That's all from my side. As usual, the Q4 financial KPIs, balance sheet, detailed income statement, subscribers, and ARPU details are available in the appendix.
Thank you, and now back to Pauline .
Thank you, Hamad and Masroor. We will now move to the Q&A session. Please raise your hand virtually to ask a question, and I will open the microphone for you. We have the first question from Lee. Lee, I will open the microphone for you. Please proceed. Lee, you have to unmute yourself, please, so we cannot hear you. Lee, hello? Can you hear me?
Hello.
[crosstalk] Yes, we can hear you now. Yes, yes, we can hear you now. Yes. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Sorry. Thanks for the presentation. Congratulations on the results. Just a question on dividends. Why did you cut the payout ratio?
I'm going to take this one. Well, this is a decision of the Board of Directors, which will be taken to the shareholder for discussion and approval. This is what I can comment at this point.
Okay. Sorry, I just have to pick you up on that because a lot of category companies hide behind the Board of Directors as a reason for that. The boards take the decision from the management, or at least I hope they do because they're management are the ones who know about the company. So it must be a recommendation. Otherwise, the board are not really acting with any information at all. So I presume it's been guided by management in some way. So what is the reason for the cut in the payout ratio?
First of all, I can assure you that we are not hiding behind any reasons, and as you can see, we are as transparent as possible. Whenever there is something that we cannot answer for whatever reason, we mention it very clearly, such as the continuous question we continue to receive about what is our subscriber base when it comes to fixed. We cannot mention it because of competitive reasons. I assure you this is what we do. The way we do it in Qatar, mostly on this, we provide all the insights, and then later it's being discussed in the Board of Directors. If you have seen earlier, if you go back since 2019 or 2018 even, we used to pay even more than the net profit that we used to do.
We believe that, as I mentioned earlier, that we are in a much better situation now for the company to explore opportunities both for investment and diversification. This is what I can comment, to be honest, with you. Our business, our situation is great, as you can see. We still see that we have a momentum. I see, from the management view, let's say, business board, we believe this is the time for our opportunities of diversification and investments.
Okay. That's great to hear. So does that mean capital expenditure is we should expect capital expenditure to increase from here? Because presumably, you need the cash because at the moment, your balance sheet is pretty much net cash. So you obviously don't.
As I mentioned to the CapEx that you can see, we are expecting between 14.5%-15.5% maximum, let's say, CapEx intensity. So I don't anticipate anything more than this.
Okay. So you just continue to accumulate cash on the balance sheet then?
As I mentioned to you earlier, this is a decision of the Board of Directors. But as I mentioned also, that we are looking at opportunities to diversify. This is what I can comment at this point in time. And I agree with you. Collecting cash for no reason is waste of money. I understand that. But I assure you, and from our record, that you see that we are very cautious in investment. We are very cautious how to improve profitability. And I assure you, whatever reason, whatever way we are going to use this cash for or the investment is going to be toward accelerating profitability of this company and take it to the second level.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Okay. We have another question from Wicho. Wicho, we opened the microphone for you. Please unmute yourself. Wicho, can you hear us? Hello? We cannot hear you.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you now. Please go ahead.
Okay. Great. Yeah. So thank you for the presentation. So just a question on the fourth quarter results. We see that there is a spike in the net margins. Could you let us understand what contributed to that and how sustainable the margins are going forward?
Yes. So during the presentation, I actually highlighted the impact of a few one-offs in OpEx. So EBITDA margin for Q4 specifically is reported to be around 47%. If you take off the impact of those one-off benefits, it's still 45.2%, I believe. Yes. And the reason is the consistent growth in revenue as well as the impact of all the cost optimization initiatives that the company has been taking over the last few years. We have also highlighted in our guidance for next year that the EBITDA margin that we have achieved during this year, we expect that to continue to be better than that.
If I may add also to Masroor, if I may just one point to Masroor because it has been always even highlighted into other discussions with other investors. We actually take a very conservative approach in recognizing revenue and even when applying bad debt. So this is very conservative. I know we are very conservative when it comes to this part. So sometimes at the end of the year, we evaluate maybe it's not as big and there, but we evaluate each deal and deliverable that we have done, especially when it comes to the enterprise customers, and we take the decision based on that. But usually, it's more toward in the middle, let's say modest, but more toward being conservative. For example, you have a deal for QAR 10 million-QAR 20 million for a managed service or something being delivered for a B2B.
If we don't receive all the confirmations of acceptance, full 100% acceptance, we tend to go over the more cautious, more toward be conservative toward recognizing the revenue. Usually, every six, if the customer pays us, this is an immediate confirmation that they already are happy and they are accepting it. This is basically what sometimes leads to some of the spike that you see at the end of each year. Sorry, I'll be open and honest. I was in the enterprise. I know how salespeople think. At the end of each year, they would like to even get their commission. They try to close things and make sure that the customer accepted. Usually, tend at each quarter, end of year, you will find a slight spike because enterprise guys manage to get the acceptance from the customer.
This is just nature of the business.
Thank you very much.
Another question from Ziad Itani. Ziad, please unmute your phone. I opened the microphone for you. Ziad, we cannot hear you. Please, can you unmute yourself?
Yes. Am I audible now?
Yes, I can hear you. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you, Pauline, and congratulations on the results. Just a question following up on potential diversification opportunities. Are we talking here in terms of within the same broader TMT space, within technology, perhaps? Or do you mean mainly by going into new markets? And when it comes also to the M&A strategy, would the Levant region, for example, be a target that you would consider? And also in case--
Would you repeat the last part?
Sure. So when it comes to diversification, growth opportunities, would going into new geographies, markets like the Levant region, for example, be something that you would consider or you would prefer to remain focused within Qatar or the GCC region specifically? In case you don't see any M&A opportunity, would that mean that the dividend would be increased for 2026?
First of all, before answering the M&A part, we believe that we are still having opportunity to grow in Qatar, not only in the telecom part, but also in the ICT in general. So this is also considered as a diversification. The part of the JVs we do, some of the JVs that we had to announce, such as the acquisition JV with the Sirti, with the system integrators, or others, which we do a partnership and not everything because of the size or the time, we haven't announced it. So we can penetrate into the ICT business into either a niche or to try to bridge a gap or fill a gap in the market. As you know, in the last few years, a lot of companies regionally, and I believe internationally, especially in the ICT, they have not been doing well.
Their cost structure is high, and many of them are gone out of business. Qatar is not an exception. We believe there are a niche of areas where we can penetrate. To be honest, we started seeing early good signs where we can specialize in certain areas, and we can expand and diversify our services within the country, within the technology sector. Which this might include M&A within the country, I don't know. There is nothing, to be honest, as of now that I can mention to you. When you speak about something geographic, I mean, internationally or regionally, definitely, we welcome all opportunities after taking it to the Board of Directors and shareholders. It depends on the size.
However, our discussion within the executive management usually is that as a telecom, to go within the telecom sector regionally or even internationally, it might not be the right time. A good example of how the things are going is in Europe. As you can see, the regulatory environment is not in a good shape. The investments there wouldn't yield results for years and years if they even become profitable. The same thing goes for certain regions, which they have the opportunity, good opportunity, but on the other side, they have big risks from geopolitical situation and stability of the countries. So what we are thinking now is diversifying within the country, within the portfolio, adjacent revenue, adjacent verticals to the telecom. We keep an eye on opportunities. We don't roll out any opportunities.
But digital, we see digital and digital transformation opportunity in the country and the region is actually shining very well. The cost is less. The regulatory is not requiring many regulatory. The regulatory environment is not demanding compared to telecom and others. So this is where we are looking at and exploring. Yeah. Fintech and something other than the Fintech is also an area of interest for us, especially that Qatar, in addition to the entire region, I'm talking Arab region, is actually behind. We are underindexed when it comes to financial services. So this is actually a good opportunity also to look at either in Qatar or regionally. But as of now, what we can confirm to you officially, we are looking at our local market.
That's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you.
I would like to remind you that if you have any questions, you have to raise your hand virtually, please. I don't see any further questions. Since there are no further questions, I would like to thank you all for joining today's call. We'll keep you updated on all our upcoming investor calls. Please feel free to contact the investor relations team, and if you need any further information. Thank you.