Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining. I am Kristiina Tamberg, and I welcome you all to today's Tallinna Vesi's webinar. This webinar will be hosted by Aleksandr Timofejev, Chief Executive Officer, and Taavi Gröön, Chief Financial Officer. Firstly, Aleksandr and Taavi will introduce the highlights of the first quarter of 2026. The presenters will also speak about Tallinna Vesi's operational and financial results of the quarter. Aleksandr will give an overview about some of the investments made in the first quarter of 2026. Right after the presentation, you will have the opportunity to ask questions, and it is also possible to type in your question during the presentation, but this will be answered in the end part of the webinar. To submit your question, please use the question box on the right side of the screen.
Now, I will hand over to Aleksandr and Taavi. Here you go.
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to webinar for the first quarter. As you see, we have a fresh wallpapers, that's related to the new CVI and the new customer experience that we offer starting from 20th of April. New colors and new opportunities for our customers will improve our service and will improve also speed, how we share the information with the customers.
Starting from 20th of April, we started to use a new CRM system in the company Salesforce. Of course, our customers can also use the new website that consists a lot of information about water and sewage production and treatment. There are a lot of beneficial information for consumers about water quality, about location of water taps in the city, and so on. We update our website all the time. If you follow, then you will get a lot of information from there. There is also online map from where it's possible to see what kind of emergencies we have in the city. A customer can get a lot of information about water interruptions, times, and so on.
If we speak also about the improvement of the customer service, then starting from 20th of April, we use also new self-service. From the self-service, it's possible to see the all information that's connected to the customer. The consumption, bills, and so on. The new self-service gives much more different opportunities and independency for the customer and in the future would like to develop it even more. If we speak about the first quarter, then the results were really good, the financial results and also the operational ones. Taavi will cover the financial results in details in some minutes. If we speak in general, then the net profit was EUR 4.3 million.
The sales were almost EUR 80 million, and we also invested during first three months of the year, EUR 7.86 million. The quality of the product was very good. If we speak about the tap water, then all samples we took from the customer taps were according to the legislation. If we speak about the wastewater treatment, then it was also on the top level. Customers get a day-on-day smart meters. By today, already over 85% of our customers are equipped with the smart meter, and by the end of this year, all customers will have the smart meter. That is more comfortable.
It sends information to the water company about water consumption in time, and also if there should be any emergencies, then in the future, we will get this information and will also inform the customer, so customer can react quickly on that. At the wastewater treatment plant, we produced during the first quarter 2.3 GWh energy, electrical energy, and we had no working accidents during the first quarter in the company as well. As I said, the results are quite good, and if we move on to the investments, then investments are moving also in the right direction and according to the plan. During first quarter, we built approximately five kilometers of pipes already, and by the end of the year, our plan is to build approximately 40 km of pipes.
At the moment, the projects are ongoing, and the biggest sites are in Laikmaa and also in the Ülemiste road. We completed the development in Mustamäe. If we speak about treatment plants, then a lot of attention was paid to the wastewater treatment plant during last three years. Step by step, we are moving now to the Ülemiste water treatment plant, and this year, we will start with the ozonation process reconstruction at Ülemiste. At the moment, the preparation is ongoing for the borehole construction to the Loksa area to improve the vital services continuity. At the wastewater treatment plant, there are some works in the main pumping station with the suction tank, and also we should speak about the biological treatment. The secondary sedimentation tanks are in progress.
By the end of next year, all secondary sedimentation tanks or 12 pieces will be fully reconstructed. The full amount of this investment is over EUR 9 million. During this year, our plan is to invest EUR 60 million into our assets. Approximately half of that is going to the underground or to the pipes and the rest for the treatment plants and some administrative investments. If we speak about investments, it is really important that we do investments into the areas that bring some benefit to the customer. When I mean about the benefit, I do not mean only about the quality, I mean also about investments that positively impact the price.
A couple of years ago, our investment was related to the CHP engines that today produce energy. For example, if we speak about wastewater treatment plants, then approximately 60% of the electrical energy and 100% of the heating power we produce with CHPs. It covers the wastewater treatment plant needs. At the moment, we started also with the second big project that should impact the tariffs positively. It's the optimization of the wastewater treatment plant process. Due to this optimization, due to AI technologies, it would be more accurate to dose chemicals and also to use electrical power by producing the air for the biological treatment. If we go to the operational update and we speak about the main scores, then the leakage rate is on top.
Despite the fact that the winter was really cold and during two months the temperature was below zero, our leakage rate is still very low for the first quarter of 2026. As I mentioned before, the quality of the product, so the drinking water quality and the treated wastewater quality is according to all standards, and it is 100%. It is important also to mention that we plan our works as good as possible and the length of the interruptions year on year going down. This year, our first quarter result was 2.5 hours. That is quite good. If we speak about the customer satisfaction, then during the first quarter, the score was 4.1 out of 5.
One more time, I think that the results are very strong. I think the teams are doing a very good work, I believe that we will do everything to outperform also operational and financial results in the future. I will give over to Taavi, who will cover now financial results in details. If you have any questions that during the presentation, you can raise them. Thank you.
Thank you, Aleksandr . Welcome everyone, listening online or later to the recording. I will start my overview with volumes. The water and wastewater volumes for the first quarter are stable, reflecting over the nature of our business. Slight increase in private customer volumes, 0.8%. A little bit higher increase in business customer water and wastewater volumes, 3.6%. This reflects consumption in industrial and construction sectors. We expect that as part of it is time related and that it doesn't necessarily expand into next quarters, but it's a positive result in the first quarter. We see that the volume development throughout the year and year by year is stable.
Year to date volumes in outside service area where we provide water and wastewater services to neighboring municipalities and work companies decreased 4.9%. It should be remarked that since Tallinn systems and partially Tallinn system and partially also neighboring municipality systems are combined sewer systems, these volumes are impacted by stormwater. The first quarter stormwater volumes impacted also the lower volumes in the outside service area sales volumes. Next slide describes our revenue performance compared to last year. We see in private customer segment there is a significant uptick in sales revenues. This is primarily driven by price harmonization. It's a process that has most intensively taken place in the last two years, in 2024, 2025.
Water price harmonization between business and private customers has been taking place, and it will be finalized during this year. This year will be the last step towards price harmonization. This increases the private customer revenues, and it decreases the business customer revenues. It's driven by the regulation to harmonize private and business customer pricing. Future pricing for the water for all customers will be same, the differentiation will be between pollution loads, so that higher pollution loads will be charged a higher price for wastewater. As already briefly mentioned, business customer segment for that reason is slightly lower than compared to last year's first quarter. Sales to customers outside the main service area is pretty much on the same level compared to last year.
The price adjustments also very much reflect, and the profitability, that we're looking later on reflects our investment activities. As our assets and regulated asset base increases, it also requires that we have a higher return to maintain and repay the capital that we have invested. On the next slide, before we get to profit figures, let's look at cost side. The total cost of goods sold increased compared to compared to first quarter last year, primarily to it increased by EUR 1 million. Primarily, it is connected to construction service costs. We have a total direct production cost group that we're highlighting here, where we have a slight decrease. It's very minimal changes, but it's a positive indicator.
It reflects that, for example, our own electricity production has a positive impact, that the pollution charges, water abstraction charges, and also chemical use are well under control. Chemical use also, of course, is impacted by the pricing and, for example, methanol pricing for this cost group has been favorable compared to last year. Some smaller changes, up to 5.3% compared to last quarter in staff costs, reflecting very much the changes in base salary conditions of our team. Depreciation changes reflecting the investments that we are doing year by year. Financial cost, sorry, financial cost not being reflected yet here. Construction cost, coming to this topic once more, increased by EUR 0.6 million. It's related to project timing.
It correlates specifically with the revenues also received from construction services. On the next slide, we can look at how the service revenue changed. We see that the net profit impact comes very much from revenue increases, total 12.4%. It's driven by 2 major items. First off, our main activity from revenue from water services. Secondly, construction services that were significantly higher compared to first quarter last year. It must be stated that this is very much related to project timing. Also the marketing and administration cost changes are reflected here, related to services, outsource services and also staff costs. Here we can also see the slight increase in net financial expenses.
We come to a net profit of EUR 4.3 million, which is around EUR 0.8 million higher than last year. Again, to state that this is very much related to maintaining our assets and investments, and to the regulated profitability that we are receiving from the investments that we're making. Next, a quick look at our cash position and cash flows. In the first quarter, we continued our investment activities. The investments that we made on the balance sheet totaled EUR 7.86 million. Primarily, the cash flow for our investing activities was received from operating cash flow, and the net investing cash flows totaled a negative EUR 3.1 in cash outflows and of EUR 3.1 million.
We ended up with a higher cash position towards the end of the quarter, totaling around EUR 15 million. In next this slide, we see our investment expectations for this year. We invested closer to EUR 56 million last year. Our expectation for this year is EUR 60 million. As I mentioned, EUR 7.86 million was invested during first quarter. The main activities in investment activities are in second, third, and fourth quarter as the construction projects proceed.
From the total investments, an estimated 86% will have an impact on our regulated asset base and other investments that we're making are within our regulated asset base because, for example, customer connections and stormwater network investments related to new stormwater infrastructure are financed by different sources, customer connection fees, and city financed is financing the stormwater connections. 86%, as mentioned, 86% of the investments is estimated to have an impact also on the future regulated asset base. The regulated asset base is reviewed during the price application process and approved by the Competition Authority. This is not something that changes automatically as we perform the investments. Also, coming up this month is our dividend payment that was approved by the general meeting in April, on the 23rd of April.
The general meeting approved a dividend of EUR 0.57 per share. It reflects 80% payout ratio from 2025 earnings. The payment to shareholders will be made on 20th of May. Important date to keep in mind is 11th of May, which is the ex-date for the dividend payment. It's these figures are all in line with our stated dividend policy, where we aim to distribute 50%-80% of our annual profit. We have evaluated our capability to perform the dividend payment, also the need for taking into consideration the need for investment and our sustainable financial performance. With this, I will conclude my overview. Thank you very much. Back to Kristiina now.
Yeah, thank you both for the presentations. Now we will proceed with questions. You will have a few minutes to submit your question. Please feel free to type in any question you might have. It seems that we don't have any questions right now, but recording of the presentation will be available in the Tallinna Vesi's YouTube channel webinar playlist shortly. Presentation materials and reports can be found on Tallinna Vesi's webpage. Taavi and Aleksandr, thank you once again for the overview, and thank you all for joining. Have a good day.