Welcome and good morning to you all, to this presentation of our third quarter results that we present today. We do it the traditional way. Johan Dennelind, our CEO and President, will start, followed by Christian Luiga, our CFO, then we open up for Q&A. Johan, take it away.
Thanks, Andreas, and welcome. I will spend about 15 minutes maximum to go through the highlights on the quarter. I label it as another good quarter, for obvious reasons, the highlights on this chart tells a good story. We are on track. We continue to deliver an improved EBITDA for the quarter, about 6% reported, about 2% organically. Well on track there. Cashflow, very much on track on the guidance that we've had above last year's level. Already now SEK 9.4 billion. Comfortably in that guidance that we gave you last quarter. We have to revise up the EBITDA for the year, or remove the downside that we had in the guidance before on in line. Now we are only talking about slightly above last year. That's the better predictability that we have after Q3. Our cost program is delivering.
We are well on track on the SEK 1.1 billion net cost saving for the group. Already SEK 1 billion year to date in the quarter three. Strong focus on the cost agenda across our markets, I'll come back to that. On January 1st, 2019, we go live with a new updated operating model. I'll come back a bit to that later, but it's about scalability and efficiency in the core and the platforms for the group as a whole, also better focus on more speedy go-to-market activities that we're making more clear from Jan 1st. The big news this week was, of course, the closure of the Norwegian acquisition, Get TDC. We are now the owner, proud owners, of a great company, I'll come back a bit to that as well. All in all, another good quarter.
Let's take one level down and talk a bit about the highlights from some of the markets. Norway, first time passing 1 billion NOK in EBITDA for the quarter. It's a milestone. Very strong focus on delivery from the M&A. Of course, I mentioned the closure of TDC and Get, we're all up to speed there on the integration discussions. Also after a year of consolidation of the consumer brands in Norway, we now have a very clear roadmap into 2019, what we aim to do in the Norwegian markets. We feel good about that into 2019. Finland, a very strong delivery as a whole. I'd like to point out the very strong B2B execution. A lot thanks to the acquisitions made last year and into this year on the ICT story.
We are growing both on top line and profitability on the Finnish side of enterprise. We went live with the Liiga, the hockey right in Finland, doing really well, and I'll come back a bit to that. We have early interest on the 5G. We have a couple of key commercial launches with key partners that gives me hope that we have the right strategy for the rollout, also with the new spectrum acquired in Finland. Sweden, a lot of good news in Sweden. We have growth. We are defending market shares across. The mobile service revenue growth in consumers, for instance, is 3%, very strong compared to the reported competitors. We have the most satisfied customers again on both consumer and enterprise, and of course still the best network.
A strong story in Sweden as a whole, but we are still fighting through a change of structural costs in Sweden, and I'll come back to that as well. The Baltics and Denmark, a mixed bag. We have strong execution in the Baltics on mobile. We have double-digit growth, for instance, in Lithuania, and strong convergence portfolio under Telia 1 in Estonia. Denmark is actually doing quite well in challenging times if you remove some one-offs and comparables. A new launch recently on the consumer side is resulting in better NPS. There's a couple of highlights, and we can certainly deep dive into those on the Q&A sessions. A few words on this. You see the service revenue development still negative, around 2%. We have a big component in there of removing basically zero margin carrier traffic.
If you remove that, it's about 0.7%, which then takes us still in negative territory, and that's legacy mainly. Legacy decline that keeps us in the negative space on growth. EBITDA is still growing on the group level around 2%. It is 5 out of 7 markets growing EBITDA, 1 flat and 1 decreasing, which is Sweden. Let's talk about Sweden. Why is EBITDA down in Sweden? What is not according to our plan for Q3? First of all, revenues. Here you have both the legacy decline, but also less OTCs than the Q3 last year. We have the cost program that we talked about, cost 18. It is not delivering according to our expectation. I'll come back to that. We also have some one-off costs in Q3, which is fairly big. It's about SEK 80 million in difference versus Q3 last year, and it's FX.
Thunderstorms. Thunderstorms. We didn't think about the thunderstorms, but we had a bad Q3 in terms of maintenance and repair due to that. That was about SEK 30 million-SEK 40 million higher than last year. That's unexpected and it won't carry through into Q4, hopefully. That's the story on the Sweden cost side. As I mentioned, we are going live with a new operating model. It will enable both Sweden to be more efficient in go-to-market, as well as the group common products and services to be more scalable and efficient as we also plug in other countries into the new platform that serves all the countries. We are moving 500 people from the Swedish operations into this common products and services from January 1st. Sweden will have less employees in that matter, and focus even more in the go-to-market activities.
Overall, we are delivering on the cost program. As I said, it is about SEK 1 billion year to date. We have SEK 1.1 net for the year, so we are very comfortable on the full program. Sweden was expected to deliver about half of that, and will not meet half of that, but the other countries, as you see, and group functions are compensating. That is the good news. Sweden cost, of course, is very much in focus for Q4 and leading into 2019. It is by no means something that will carry through as a trend or anything. We have comfort in the plans for Sweden going into 2019 and onwards. A few words on the mobile revenues. We are still in growth for mobile. It is an important part of our business.
It is about almost 1% on the service revenue for the group, and it is built up mainly through ARPU increases across the board. You see Sweden is about 2% overall. I think it is a 6% ARPU increase in the consumer side. Norway also increasing, I think it is 1% on consumer. Finland very strong ARPU development overall. As I mentioned into the Baltics, you have a very good momentum in the pricing up and also bringing customers into the larger buckets. Fairly good story across the board on the mobile side. Finland. A lot of investments in new bets, and they are paying off. We are seeing a good interest and a good start to our ownership of the rights on the Liiga. We have about 70,000 customers so far, very much on the standalone offerings.
Half of them approximately are new customers, i.e., not Telia customers. That is really good news. More than half are coming in on the higher side of the Liiga passes, which includes then a lot more hockey. We have no reason to believe that we would have to change our ambition or appetite for this right. On the contrary, we are very encouraged by the early signs. Very encouraged by the M&A that we have executed on. The point I am making here is that all the acquisitions that we have made on the B2B space, we are delivering above our M&A case, i.e., our requirements that we have committed to, and the synergies that we have laid out. We are well ahead of those plans. That is strong execution in Finland.
I will close with a couple of comments on the acquisitions that we have made recently, and the one we closed this week. The TDC and the Get company are now in our hands. It was approved without remedies. We are very happy about the process, obviously. Quick, efficient, and fair in our opinion, and we will make sure that we live up to the commitments in the consumer and the enterprise space as pointed out. Very clear integration roadmap established with the two companies. We are now going to get to know Get and TDC. It is a bit early to talk about any changes or any numbers, but let me give you a few highlights on the preliminary Q3 numbers that we have just taken part of. Basically, revenues are flat as we see it, TV unchanged, and broadband growing slightly.
Those are the highlights that we can give you at this point in time. We have obviously no reason at this point to change any of our predictions. We are now getting in to know the company and the people, then we will come back to you Q4 or maybe in the CMD that we're planning for Q1 with any updates to the synergy estimates that we have laid out, which you know is SEK 700 million, SEK 600 million EBITDA, SEK 100 million on cash flow or CapEx. SEK 700 million in total. Very comfortable on those synergy estimates to be kicking in full run rate latest by end of 2021.
We mentioned the previous acquisitions just to show you that the track record that we have on the acquisition is strong, and we have no reason to change our confidence around the teams in Norway and here at Group. The last slide, a quick update on the Bonnier deal. Really no news, to be honest. We have filed with the EU Commission, and we are now in that process, which we still expect to be closing next year, half next year, or even second half of next year. It's a tedious process that we will have to go through and respect and look forward to educate our stakeholders about this deal.
Repeating the logic of the deal, obviously, that we have been spending a lot of time on over the last few months since we announced this deal is that it's both an offensive deal, bringing new revenue streams, new business logics into the Swedish and Finnish markets, as well as a defensive deal, ensuring that we can protect our core and also protect our TV business into the future. I think we're getting fairly good feedback now from the stakeholders and investors we're meeting that this deal will deliver, and we're more confident than ever that we will deliver on the synergies laid out. Repeating them, SEK 600 million full run rate EBITDA effect. You should plug in 2020 already SEK 500 million of operational free cash flow from the combination of synergies and standalone business, then we'll give you any further updates as we go along.
With that, I'll see you back at Q&A, and Christian, please take the stage.
Thank you, Johan, and good morning, and welcome to Stockholm and Solna. We have a solid quarter delivering according to our expectations. I will go through the numbers, as Johan said. As you've seen this morning also, we have the share price impacted by the dividend. That is traded ex the dividend today of SEK 115. Service revenue, if we start with that, we had a flattish service revenue development, whereby the equipment sales is high. The equipment sales is partly driven by a new handset recycling program in Norway, which is a new product and an important product of making sure we have a solid offering. Otherwise, the service revenue is down, and if you look at the right-hand side, you can see that the carrier is down quite a lot. Carrier is primarily a low margin and no margin business that is declining on voice.
Without that, we have a decline in 0.7% instead of 1.9% in the quarter. I'll come back to Sweden and Denmark a little bit more, but on Denmark primarily, we had a one-off last year in the service revenue that impact both EBITDA and service revenue. Without that, the decline in Denmark should have been half of what we see on this page. In Sweden, we do have the fixed and the OTC. I'll tell you a little bit more about that in a moment. If we look at the EBITDA, the EBITDA is here 1.8% and 6.4% with the currency. Currency is euro, Norwegian and Danish krona that drives it, primarily the euro. There is a solid development in five out of seven markets. Here again, Denmark is a tiny red, should have been a green if it wasn't for the one-time effects last year.
The decline in Sweden, Johan has gone through that, and it is the Swedish revenue decline on fixed, SEK 110 million in fixed service revenue down in the quarter. OTC is also down. The cost development is not in the same level as it has been the previous quarters. Marketing is somewhat higher than last year, and also the previous quarters, which we'll also see an effect of, which I'll come back to. The cost-saving program is less in this quarter, primarily on resources. Year-on-year, the comparison is different this quarter, and we talked about that the full first half year that we have a better comparison. We're not increasing our cost, but we have a less comparison with last year quarter three, when we started to take out both consultants and primarily in quarter four, also employee numbers in Sweden.
The other impact was the one-timers on thunderstorms and the FX effects on equipment sales that we do in Sweden Enterprise primarily. We then go into Sweden, there is a lot of positives from this as well. If I first start before going into the numbers and talk a little bit about fiber, which I usually do, SEK 34 million down in the quarter year-on-year, which puts us on a 77% compared to last year, 74% year to date. I guided 60%-90% level for the year. Being at 74% already now means that we will be in the mid-range of that 60%-90%. It will not be 60%, and it will not be 90%. It will be somewhere in between. The Enterprise segment continues to be negative, but it is better than last quarter.
We had a bigger one-timer on the large segment in the last quarter. I said that, now it's back to the 2.7-ish, where we typically trade on the B2B side, where large is the big decline and where SoHo/SME is around zero in development. On the SoHo/SME, it is still mobile growing and that the fixed is in decline. When we look at the B2C and mobile, as Johan said, we had a good development on our ARPU. We also have a good development on our customer intake. Customer intake has been positive, 11,000 on the consumer side, 15,000 in total. The consumer revenue grew with 3% on mobile. The ARPU uplift comes both from that the new customers coming in are coming in on a higher bucket or higher price level. We have some upsell. We have some price increases.
It's a combination of many activities. There's not one single thing that drives the price ARPU up in this quarter. I also want to mention, which is fairly new, but not new. We have been awarded the best TV services for many years in Sweden. We have started with our OTT and Play services, and that Play services is developing well. We are growing 21,000 customers. We are also growing the active Play users with 38%. The number of minutes that people use this service is also increasing. Why this is important? Well, if we're going to be able to monetize this in the future, we don't only want more customers, we want the customers to use it more. This proves that both of those things are happening right now.
That's the important message with this. This fits very well into our other ambition to bring even the best TV services in the future with the Bonnier Broadcasting deal that we have done. If we go to Finland, service revenue is up 0.8%. This is driven primarily by mobile. I would categorize all Nordic and Baltic markets, maybe except for Denmark, as very stable and positive markets right now. Finland is no exception. The mobile growth is strong. We grow 3.6% on mobile consumer billed revenue. We grow number of customers, 15,000 here as well, like we do in Sweden. Both B2B and B2C is contributing. Actually, B2B is contributing more in Finland than B2C to the growth level.
That is also very good to see because that was the main purpose with the acquisitions, to strengthen our position in B2B and make sure we continue to have a good development there. We get the bang for the buck, you could say, in our offering on the B2B side. As said, B2C is also growing, and it's a solid development. This, together with cost reduction, brings a 6.1% increase in EBITDA, which is very positive. We feel nothing but very comfortable and happy about Finland development right now. The only thing in Finland that you would mention is that there is still some activity in the market.
I know that question will come, but we don't see it so much in our numbers, and we try to do our stuff in Finland and do our price increases, our offerings, and our changes to the market where we want to be a solid reference for our customers. In Norway, we have a decline in revenue, as you can see, 0.9%, but we also have still the special numbers that are taken out from a regulatory point of view. If you take that out, the 30 million NOK, it is actually a slight growth in Norway. That growth is coming from a flattish consumer development with the wholesale that is still growing slightly. If you look at the EBITDA, that brings us, with all the synergies from the Phonero deal, a 15% EBITDA growth.
If you take out the synergies from the Phonero deal, the EBITDA growth would have been 4%. That based on a flattish revenue shows that we are also taking out cost in a good level in Norway. The LED countries, Lithuania, Estonia, and Denmark. Let me start with Denmark. Denmark had a one-time effect last year when we closed down the prepaid in Denmark, and we got a one-time revenue one-off. Without that, the service revenue should have been -4%, and the EBITDA would actually have been a positive, and quite a good positive development. That is based on a really good cost effort in Denmark. They've taken down cost, and they worked as much as they can to develop that business in a difficult environment. The ATL pricing in Denmark is stabilized. The BTL pricing is still a little bit shaky.
Estonia continues to deliver high profitability. It comes from all areas. We have mobile growth on B2B and B2C. We have fixed growth on B2B and B2C, and we have cost cutting. It's a really good development. The service revenue in total doesn't look that much, but it is a good balanced platform in Estonia. In Lithuania, we have mobile service revenue growth, which is very strong, 14%. The service revenue growth in total of 4% is actually then hampered by the fixed decline. Same as we have in Sweden, all legacy fixed decline. In total, together, it actually brings the development of EBITDA also, the total service revenue growth in Lithuania. Positive momentum, and I would actually put Denmark on the positive momentum as well here based on that one-off in Q3 in 2017. CapEx. CapEx develops has flattened out a little bit this year.
My main messages on CapEx is that CapEx for Q4 is expected to be below last year. The line will decline somewhat in Q4, ending a little bit lower than it is on this page. The other message is for next year, fiber CapEx will go down, and we have said up to 2019, all CapEx should go down, and from 2019, fiber should continue to go down. We will come back on more guidance on CapEx when we get to year-end and see how we see on this. 5G, though, will not impact the next year in any material way, and over time, we see it will be replacing the 4G investments. Should be noted, there is a 700 auction coming up in December. It is official. The 4th of December, the auction starts. Payment terms on that auction is 30 days net.
Cash flow trend is positive. We have a SEK 10.2 rolling 12-month cash flow. We have said that the cash flow for this year should be above last year's SEK 9.7 billion and should continue to grow in the years to come. That we feel good about, and it's a comfortable statement. We are driving the EBITDA, CapEx, and working capital together as our main activity in this company, and that's what we said in the beginning of this year. That's where we should see the upside, and that's what we are delivering on. Exactly what we expected and how we should also see the future of Telia. Net debt to EBITDA. We have now paid the Get TDC acquisition on Monday this week. It was a big check, of course. Another check going out is next Thursday, when you get the dividend from Telia, the second tranche of SEK 1.15.
As we can see on this page also, we have continued to buy back shares. Total SEK 2.7 billion so far since we started, which is pretty much half the program of SEK 5 billion. We have also the remaining part of the Uzbek settlement, which is expected to happen latest in quarter one 2019. All in all, this keeps us within the leverage target of 2.0 ±0.5, a very important target for us to make sure we have a solid, strong balance sheet, even though we have done very important and good acquisitions. The EBITDA and EBITDA minus CapEx effect from Get and TDC and Bonnier Broadcasting, I just want to remind us that now Get will be reported from the 15th of October into our numbers. We are of course reviewing and making sure we get the reporting up and running as we speak.
We see that the main effect then from last year was SEK 1.8 billion on EBITDA and SEK 1 billion in cash flow and Bonnier Broadcasting coming in most likely then in the second half next year. The main takeaways from this is the timing and that remind you about the integration cost and the synergies going forward. The integration cost in the TDC case will be then equally over 2019 and 2020, with about SEK 200 million each year. Finally, the outlook, SEK 9.7 billion in free cash flow last year. We will come in above this year, driven by the EBITDA, CapEx, and net working capital. The EBITDA is upgraded to slightly above, and that is of course on the back of a 4% growth in EBITDA year to date and would make it close to impossible not to reach a slight increase in EBITDA for the year.
That's all. I welcome Johan, Andreas.
Yes. Before we move into the Q&A, could I please ask anyone that isn't asking a question to mute their phone so we don't have the same trouble as we had last quarter? Then we move into Q&A. I invite Johan up and also a special guest star, being our Head of Sweden, Anders Olsson, also to join us. Johan, please. We start with questions from the floor. Ladies first, Johanna.
Johanna Ahlqvist from SEB. Three questions, if I may. The first one relates to Sweden. I don't know if it's directed to you, Anders, why do you expect the visible impact from the cost cutting to be in 2020 and not 2019? Should we basically expect no change in the cost-cutting structure in Sweden 2019 versus 2018? That is my first question. My second question relates to working capital. It was negative in the quarter, I'm just wondering how we should look upon that in 2019. Last question, Eurasia. You have some bits and pieces left. How is that process on divestment developing? Thank you very much.
Let me start with the Eurasia one then to make sure we cover that. We have three remaining assets, Moldova, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. We have had a quite lengthy and tedious, complex process of finding the right path forward for divesting. We're in a good shape to fulfill our ambition to divest these assets in the near term. We have good interest. We have the right interest now, which has been important for us, we are aligned with Turkcell on how these assets should be divested, the two ones under Fintur. No reason to really change our expectations and hope that we will be divesting these assets in the near term.
I'll take the working capital, then I will hand over to you on the cost for Sweden, Anders. The working capital, we said that we feel very comfortable that we can take out SEK 5 billion last year. So far on that program, we have taken out half up to date. Exactly the timing is difficult to evaluate because we have very good programs, we are not stressing or paying too much. We want to do this fundamentally from the base and at low price. Therefore I can't give you the exact timing of it, at least there's another SEK two and a half billion to take out in working capital. That's my message.
When it comes to the transformation, we are in the middle of a big IT transformation, or transformation to change the way of working. Big part of that is the whole change in how we're dealing with our customers, both billing-wise, the CRM, provisioning. That program we have said before, that will be finalized 2019. We have said now that that is delayed until 2020, and that will have some significant savings when we're done with that whole initiative. That obviously doesn't mean that we're looking for other cost savings during 2019, but that big initiative has a delay, and that delay will cause those savings generated from that initiative will come 2020.
We have Stefan.
Yes, hello. Stefan Gauffin, DNB. Three questions. First, Sweden. I think you took out 650 resources in Sweden last year. Why don't we see a bigger impact? I know it's a tougher quarter in Q3, but still. Why aren't we seeing more effect from this? Secondly, just checking, Finland was a great quarter. Just checking so that there's not lower marketing spend this quarter that explains the solid EBITDA. Thirdly, Norway. You're losing some mobile market share, and you're benefiting on wholesale revenue. It's a mix effect there, but can you give your view on the competition in the Norwegian market at the moment? Thank you.
We do the same flow then. I start, Christian take Finland, and Anders, Sweden. Norway, as you know, we have had since we acquired Tele2, since we had a new entrant with Ice, that has been our message that we will not grow market share. We will probably have to allow or the natural effect of competition is that you lose customers, and that you have seen. I'd also like to say that we have rationalized the brands on the consumer side, closed down Chess, moved migration to Telia. That has also resulted in some effects. Now, as I mentioned in my intro, we feel good about the consumer roadmap into 2019.
We feel that both the propositions that we have, the brand platform established on the remaining brands is very strong, which means that I expect us to be more resistant and more resilient on the competition into 2019 and onwards. That makes sense also timing-wise, as you have seen the dynamics in the market playing out.
The quick answer on Finland is no material impact on the quarter year-on-year on the marketing like we have in Sweden, for example, or the opposite.
When it comes to the cost in Sweden, the employee cost is one part of the cost structure, there we took out some people last year, we also have, for instance, a big capitalization ratio on the consultant side in last year, which we don't have the same effect of this year. In terms of the people that was taken out, it was not the most expensive part of the resource structure. That means also that some part of that is moved out elsewhere of the resources that has been taken out.
Good. Stefan.
Stefan Billing at Kepler Cheuvreux. I have a question on Swedish fixed broadband. Your customer base has stayed unchanged in the last few quarters. You probably have around half a million DSL customers left, most of which probably outside your own fiber territory. How many of these do you think realistically could be fiberized by your or competitor infrastructure in the midterm perspective, and how do you view the risk of the declining fixed broadband customer base in Sweden?
You're right that we have a fairly big amount of DSL customers still in our base. I will not give you the exact number. What has to be remembered in these customers is that fairly many of them are in rural areas where it will be more difficult to fiberize those customers. Exactly how we will do the migration from copper-based broadband customers to fiber is a work that we're doing to make sure that we're taking as many of them as possible to fiber. Over time, there might be other possibilities as well to provide them with mobile services. Part of that base is obviously not in the major cities. They're sitting outside in the other parts of the country.
Let me just add that in the quarter, we had a net, we maybe saw positive fiber. Actually, broadband customers are growing faster than the decline in xDSL, we have a slight ARPU uplift as well. We keep a positive development of that business case still in this quarter, which is a little bit better than it was in the first half year.
Maybe also mentioning the initiative that you have to get on the open city networks and the other networks which we haven't been on before as a service provider and a comm op. That's a strong drive in the Swedish organization to do that, investing to get on top of that, which increases our reach. Yes, simple as that. There's a possibility to grow even more on the wholesale side, since our market share is very low there still compared to what we have market share elsewhere. I also add something for once.
Really?
It's less than half a million on xDSL. Can we have some question on the conference call, please?
Thank you. For the participants over the phone, if you have any questions, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. The first question, it's from the line of Peter Nielsen. You may ask your question, your line is now open.
Thank you very much. If I can just ask a question to Sweden, Johan, and also Anders. I guess it is the second time now within the last few years that a major transformation program in Sweden has been delayed, or the effects have been delayed for another year. Why should we feel confident this time that this time it will work, and we will actually see the positive impact in 2020? Perhaps Anders can, now that he's in charge, give us some update here. Secondly, yesterday, one of your local competitors told us that they were enjoying good momentum on the B2B market in Sweden and are targeting the number one market position. Do you have anything to comment on that? How you feel that you are doing and responding, and how resilient you are on B2B in Sweden?
Just thirdly, if I can squeeze in, Johan, you talked to us about the latest trends at Get in Norway. We obviously don't have the very latest numbers, but certainly preceding quarter, TV revenues have entered sort of a decline. Is that something that concerns you, and have you discussed with local management sort of methods to try to stop that decline? Thank you.
Thanks, Peter. Let me again start on the last one. Yeah, we of course noted the results earlier. As I updated you now, it's a fairly flat development, increasing on broadband and flat on TV. Of course, we'll get into this now and more details and knowledge on the existing operations. As I also mentioned, there's no reason to change any of our predictions and estimates so far. This is a very well-positioned company, which has a good and clear strategy on how to migrate customers upwards, how to price up, and also how to mitigate the decline that has come on some legacy stuff. We're very confident that we have good answers to your questions as we move along from here.
Let me also cover part of the first question, which is then relating to prior to Anders entering the CEO, which is the program we laid out in 2014, the Invest to Save program that we have delivered on. I just want to mention that, yes, there was some slight delays on that, but we delivered on it. The ongoing transformation now is a big piece of change. I also said that in Q2, when you're in big programs like this, you will have effects between quarters that we have to deal with, because it's impossible to predict the exact progress when you start programs like this. The only thing we really know is that we have to go through it, because it's inevitable. The change is needed. The taking out the old, putting in the new is needed. This is not a dramatic change.
I have to just emphasize that. This is a move from late 2019 into early 2020 effects. This is changing the mid- and long-term potential of the Swedish operation. As Anders pointed out, short-term, there are other cost means to compensate.
In terms of comfort about not being further delay, in practice, what we're doing in the big transformation when it comes to the iterated part is that we're migrating the customer over to a common system. That is happening here now practically. There's a lot of preparation work that needs to be done to make sure we can do that. That journey has actually been initiated, and step by step, that will continue out down to 2020, which means that we're already doing this migration here and now. We feel much more comfort that we will not be coming back with any further delays. When it comes to the B2B market, it is a challenging market, we feel very comfortable that we will maintain being the clear market leader there. We are having somewhat price pressure on the large segment.
We're defending well on the small and midsize segment. The positioning that we're having, the product portfolio that we're having, and the absolutely best network coverage that we're having, will mean that will be more important components going forward. We feel very secure that we will be able to defend ourselves in the B2B segment going forward.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, PK. Can we have next question, please?
Thank you. The next question, it's from the line of Roman Arbuzov. You may ask your question.
Thank you very much for taking the questions. I have two, please. Going back to Sweden costs. It's clear that you're rolling out this new operating model, then the transformational cost-related savings will only be coming in 2020. On the other hand, you guys are talking about some of the other measures which are available for 2019. Johan, I think, also sounded reasonably confident about plans going into 2019 as well. With those two opposing forces, what do you think are the chances for Sweden savings or cost cutting to be high year-over-year in 2019 versus 2018? Do you think that's possible, given, I think, the tone of your commentary? That's one.
Just as a kind of a side question to this one, in terms of the transformational related cost savings in other countries outside of Sweden, do we now expect these to basically come through in early 2020s? Because I guess you were running your New Generation Telco program 2014 to 2018, then there was already some expectation that some of the benefits will start to materialize from 2019 onwards. Now that Sweden is delayed to 2020, and it sounds like you're making it, basically everything else will sort of follow Sweden. Does that mean that transformation-related savings will only be coming in early 2020s? Just a final quick one on free cash flow guidance. Can I just ask, is there any particular reason why you chose not to upgrade the free cash flow guidance given how strongly it's been running throughout the year?
For example, do you expect any funnies, any abnormalities in Q4 in working capital, for example? Thank you.
Let me start from the end then say that our guidance on operational free cash flow doesn't have a ceiling, that's why we don't upgrade it. We have said above SEK 9.7, it's still going to be above SEK 9.7. We don't see any strange things in working capital for quarter four. When it comes to the cost programs, let me go back take one step back before we go into 2019. We decided to go with a quite tough challenge for 2018, that was a net cost program. I've said that before. It's very few companies that have done a net cost program. Our gross cost activities are much bigger than the net cost saving, of course, in the group.
When we talk about the SEK 1.1 billion for this year, of course, the activities to reach that with salary increases, with increases on rent or whatever you have in inflation is much higher. What we do now in our planning, and we have already started both the cost effects that we have not done this year that we get to flow into 2019, but also the new activities, is to be a little bit more sensible on the service revenue growth drivers on cost and contra the cost savings we will do. In Finland, for example, if we buy a business that drives cost by default by service revenue, then of course you need to grow that cost base if you want to expect higher profit. That will be a slight difference next year from this year.
That does not mean that the gross saving activities and the pressure on improving EBITDA, improving the CapEx efficiency, improving the working capital will be any different. The program will be set up differently. Going back to the different countries, the biggest transformation and the E2E mass market change that we are doing in Sweden is the biggest program in the group. We are doing transformation activities in the other countries, they all are different, both in timing and size. We have never said that all transformation in all countries will be done 2019. Some of them have already given an impact. For example, both when we did these synergies in Estonia and also started to take out the copper much earlier in Estonia, those activities have already given fruit in that operation. There's no 2019 deadline for the old transformations in the group.
Some will come later and some will come earlier. That is depending on how we can handle that from a market point of view and also growing EBITDA point of view. That was a very overall message. I don't know if you want to say something specifically on Sweden, Anders, on the cost for next year.
We of course have some big structural transformational costs that we already talked about that have a more long-term horizon that will give some significant savings. We have some other structural, more midterm structural initiatives. Obviously, we're working how we can increase the digitalization, automation in the operations, and by that getting out cost. We will obviously look at all other parts of our cost base to see how we can address that also in short term. We're dividing them in different areas. Some of them have more long-term effects, and some of them have more short-term effects, and we are addressing all of them.
no guidance at this stage whether you think you'll be above or below on cost in Sweden for next year versus this year.
No.
Okay. Thank you. Christian, can I just ask.
I think, Roman Arbuzov, we have a lot of questions in the.
Okay. All right.
queue. We have to cut you there.
All right.
Short and sweet is the keyword for everybody else.
Thank you.
Next question, please.
Thank you. The next one, it's from Lena Ahrberg. Please ask your question.
Yes, please. Maybe I could ask this cost-cutting question in a different way. Do you think you can keep EBITDA Sweden flat year-over-year in 2019, as this has been your target before? You said already at the Q2 report that you were looking for other efficiency measures. I assume you started already in Q2 to look at other things which could help you take down costs in Sweden. Also you recently downgraded your credit rating. I was wondering if you could maybe say if you expect any significant impact on your cost of debt and net interest into next year from that. Also on the PPA of Get. Now that we need to put Get into our numbers, how much should we expect in depreciation to add, and how much in amortization of brands and customer relations, please?
Okay, Lena. I'll take the first. We'll come back to guidance for 2019 and onwards in Q4, and we have a planned CMD also in Q1. We'll come back to that. Just repeating the messages that I've given on Sweden before, that short term, there is a negative pressure that we are fighting, both for this year and into next year. Of course, our ambition is to do as well as possible, the overall guidance we'll come back to. You have negative forces in Sweden that we're talking about now, but we're compensating with cost savings short term.
On the amortization and the PPA for Get, that is a work ongoing now. We just took over the company on Monday, and now we go through how that will be worked into a purchase price allocation. We'll have to come back on that, Lena. When it comes to the rating, I think you relate to Fitch that came out earlier this week. We do deal with Standard & Poor's and with Moody's. We don't have actually a relationship with Fitch, and they do this on their own. I am more eager to see if Moody's or Standard & Poor's changes their view, and I think our bondholders is doing the same, and Moody's actually reiterated the Baa1 stable the other day also.
Good. Thank you, Lena. Next question, please.
Thank you. The next person is Andrew Lee. May I ask you a question?
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. Unfortunately, another question on cost-cutting. I'm just trying to run Sweden just for the group as a whole and your ability to compensate for the slight delay in the time of the transformational program. I think, Christian, what you're saying is that we shouldn't necessarily expect a similar SEK 1.1 billion net cost reduction in 2019 like you did in 2018. Is that correct? Is there a reason why you shouldn't see similar EBITDA growth in 2019 versus 2018, all else being equal on the top line? Maybe another way of putting it, is there a reason why we shouldn't see a similar boost to growth from cost-cutting in 2019 versus 2018? If there's a way you can kind of couch your answer with that backdrop, that would be helpful.
just secondly, I guess one thing that investors are concerned about in digitalization and big cost-cutting in general is the cost to transformation offsetting the benefits in the near term. Are there any incremental costs for transformation we should be taking into account for next year? Thank you.
Let me take both of them. The net cost for the transformation next year will not be higher than this year in any way. That's the first one. I think the other one question is a very good question and brings me back to the profiling. Absolutely, cost will be on the agenda for 2019 as much as it's been for 2018. This year we have had a very different kind of program with a net program, including COGS on services that actually are volume driven. When Finland has been growing in Nebula and they are growing their COGS, they have been needed to take out another cost. We will continue to take out cost in the same pace and the same level next year as this year level on the things that are within the cost program.
We will also be sensitive to make sure that the service revenue can grow, and if that means that a certain particular COGS needs to increase, we will let that happen. Based on that, it will drive future and next year EBITDA growth.
That's really helpful. The way we should think about it is if we strip out COGS from other OpEx, your other OpEx line, your fixed cost line should come down by a similar net basis. Your COGS may go up dependent on your top-line trajectory, but you should become as much more efficient in 2019 as you did in 2018. If we think about your free cash flow creation and conversion.
Exactly. The good and the complicated thing is that there are certain things in COGS, like the network and IT side, that are more fixed base, and they will of course attack.
Yes. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Andrew. Next question please.
Thank you. The next one is from Ulrich Rathe. You may ask your question.
I have two please. Thank you. The first one is on the way you are prioritizing this Swedish cost situation in your communication. You're really brutally upfront about it and really putting it out there that there is a delay. I'm just wondering between the different reasons why you have decided to do this. Is this maybe because you really want to create a sense of urgency also in the organization? You feel that maybe that urgency needs to be emphasized also internally, and that's the reason why you're making this quite upfront. Or is it maybe that you look at market expectations and you think there's a real need here to update the market so that we can all try to go back on our numbers and models and see how much we have to cut? I'm just wondering where the motivation really comes from.
Is it more really that you feel there is really an impact on the numbers that we don't know otherwise? Or is it the sense of urgency in an organization or other reasons? My second question is, there's a very significant EBITDA uptick in other, in I think group cost, where the cost savings are not allocated to the individual operations. Could you comment a bit about how sustainable that is, whether that's just a funny quarter or that's nice and that will sort of continue? Also how much of that big uptick in EBITDA, i.e. cost savings in that non-allocated bit, how much of that naturally would belong to Sweden if that group thing would be allocated as usual? Thank you.
Thanks, Ulrich. You should read my comments as more on that we want to be transparent with you, and we want to make sure that you know that we're talking about two different things. We're talking about the cost program 18, and there we said to you before that we wanted Sweden to be half of the SEK 1.1. Now we're saying that's not really going to be the case, but we're compensating with other units which has overperformed on our cost 18 program. Then we're also talking about the one-off effects of cost in Sweden that is not carrying through into the coming quarters, but we are still behind on the cost 18 program. When it comes to the other part of the Sweden cost comments that we're giving is the transformation effects. They were not supposed to come now.
They were supposed to come in 2019 second half. They're not coming with the big structural effects that we were expecting in 2019. They're moving into 2020. We just want to be clear on that. Read the comment as transparency and, of course, trying to be as open as possible externally and internally. That's just the way it is.
On the other very good question, again, two-thirds of that comes from our common technology services on group, which Anders was running up to this summer. We allocate the cost based on a plan. If it performs better, that will come into next year's development. Two-thirds of that comes from that part. The rest comes from Telia Finance, which is doing well on the financing business, but also from carrier that despite the service revenue decline, is actually also doing better. That's the packaging of that other portfolio in short.
Thank you so much, Ulrich. Time flies when you have fun time. One more question is what we have time for. Please, operator.
Thank you. The next one, it's from Terence. You may ask your question.
Thank you. Morning, everyone. I'll keep it short. I just had a question around the Finnish ice hockey. Just wondering what KPIs you think we should be looking at to judge whether this venture is successful. I was a bit surprised that the mobile net adds didn't really budge quarter-on-quarter, despite all of the extra marketing around the ice hockey. Thank you.
Thanks, Terence. You should be looking at two things. One, we showed you today is the standalone intake on the proposition. Around 70,000 customers, half of them non-Telia customers. That's important to keep an eye on, but more importantly into 2019, the effects of the Liiga into our core services that you are not seeing yet correctly, as pointed out by you, that we will talk about and show you in 2019.
Okay, thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much. I know that there is more questions. Please reach out to investor relations. We are available all day. Thank you for contributing. We look forward to the season finale on the 25th of January, 2019 when we report Q4.