Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us on Bezeq's 2022 second quarter earnings call. I am Tobi Fischbein, Bezeq Group CFO. With us from the Bezeq Group senior management team are Mr. Gil Sharon, Bezeq's chairman, Mr. Ran Guron, Bezeq's newly appointed CEO and Mr. Yohai Benita, CFO of our subsidiaries, Pelephone, Yes and Bezeq International. Before we start, I would like to draw your attention to the safe harbor statement on slide two of our Q2 investor presentation, which also applies to any statement made during this call. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. After presenting our quarterly results, you will have the ability to ask questions by raising your hand virtually. Let me now turn the call over to our chairman, Mr. Gil Sharon, for his opening remarks.
After his introduction, I will then continue the presentation of our group financial highlights, followed by Ran, who will be discussing Bezeq Fixed-Line results and Yohai will conclude with the results of our subsidiaries. Gil?
Thank you, Tobi. Let's start on slides three and four. Our second quarter results continue the growth trend in line with the group's strategic plan. We successfully grew revenues in the group's core activities with revenue growth of 2.7% in Bezeq Fixed-Line and 4% in Pelephone. Bezeq Fixed-Line continued its accelerated deployment of fiber optics to 1.36 million homes, with 180,000 fiber subscribers already connected. Retail broadband internet ARPU once again increased nearly 7% year-over-year to reach ILS 113, an increase of ILS 3 versus previous month. Pelephone showed significant improvement in its financial results, with improved adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net profit and free cash flow. This was the fifth consecutive quarter with a year-over-year increase in service revenues driven by further recovery in roaming revenues, an increase in subscribers and growth in 5G subscriber plans.
The number of subscribers increased by 53,000 in Q2 2022, of which 700,000 are on 5G plans as of today. Our financial strength and strong cash flow generation enables us to reduce our net debt by ILS 1 billion while maintaining a relatively high CapEx level, supporting massive deployment of fiber. Today, we're announcing the board's recommendation for a distribution of a semiannual dividend of ILS 294 million. I am convinced that the continued focus on our growth engines, high-speed fiber optic internet infrastructure and 5G network will further drive us towards continued growth. We will continue to devote ourselves to maximizing our shareholders' returns. Now, let me turn the call back to Tobi to discuss in detail our financial results.
Thank you, Gil. In the next slide, we present the group's financial highlights for the second quarter and first half of the year. Revenues in the second quarter of 2022 amounted to ILS 2.23 billion, up 1.1% year-over-year, mainly driven by the growth in Fixed Line and Pelephone. Adjusted EBITDA slightly decreased in the quarter by 2.1% year-over-year to ILS 924 million but is up 1.1% year-over-year to ILS 1.9 billion in the first half of the year. Adjusted net profit rose 2% year-over-year to ILS 310 million in Q2, mainly driven by improved profitability in Pelephone, totaling ILS 632 million of adjusted net profit for the first half of the year, representing a 4.8% increase year-over-year.
Turning to the next slide, free cash flow for the first half of the year was up significantly year-over-year to ILS 929 million, mainly due to timing differences and improved working capital across the group. Next slide shows the group's key operational metrics for the past five quarters. On the subscriber side, we saw continued increases in TV and cellular subscribers, with stable retail internet subscribers as fiber take-up offset churn from our copper network. On ARPU, retail internet and cellular ARPU increased year-over-year with a moderate decrease in TV ARPU due to the change in subscriber mix. Telephony ARPU was down due to the MOC tariff reduction that was implemented in Q2 of 2022. Moving to the next slide, let me discuss Bezeq's financial strength and success in debt reduction.
By the end of Q2, our net debt decreased by over ILS 1 billion or 15% year-over-year. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio is now 1.7 times, compared to 2.0 times a year ago. Moving on to the next slide. We recently announced an update to our 2022 financial guidance. We have updated our adjusted EBITDA and it is now in the range of ILS 3.65 billion-ILS 3.75 billion, compared to ILS 3.6 billion-ILS 3.7 billion previously. Adjusted net profit is now between ILS 1.1 billion-ILS 1.2 billion, from ILS 1 billion-ILS 1.1 billion announced before and CapEx remains unchanged at a range between ILS 1.7 billion-ILS 1.8 billion. Lastly, we have also raised our expectation for total homes passed for this year to 1.5 million, compared to 1.4 million homes previously set.
Now, Ran will share with you updates on Fixed Line operations. Ran?
Thank you, Tobi. We finished another strong quarter with 2.7% year-over-year increase in overall revenues, reflecting a resilient revenue base as the MOC telephony tariff reduction was implemented in the second quarter of 2022. Revenue growth was driven by an increase in broadband internet and business services. Fiber connections and robust sales of equipment led to a 6.6% increase year-over-year in retail broadband ARPU to ILS 113. Moving on to the next slide, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net profit were down moderately year-over-year. The next slide shows significant increase in free cash flow in the first half of 2022, driven by timing differences and improved working capital. The following slide shows our achievements in broadband internet that reached revenues of ILS 443 million for the quarter, representing a 9.9% increase year-over-year.
Fiber subscriber take-up offset copper churn and increased average broadband speed by 87% year-over-year, reaching 164 megabits. Moving on to fiber optic on the next slide, we continue to sweep the nation with our advanced network. Our fiber network has now reached over 1.36 million Israeli homes , with 180,000 fiber customers connected as of today. The Wi-Fi broadband home internet strategy has also greatly benefited the on-premises equipment business as well, with 708,000 customers with the Be Router and 386,000 customers with Be Spot and Be Mesh by the end of second quarter of 2022. As shown in the next slide, the business sector continued to have healthy growth with 4% year-over-year revenue growth in transmission and data, as well as 9.2% year-over-year growth in cloud and digital services.
Other revenues grew 18.2% year-over-year to ILS 65 million due to the Blue-Raman submarine cable project with Google, among others. Moving forward to the next slide, we detailed our expenses and show a salary increase due to employee recruitment relating to the fiber project. Depreciation was up 7.4% in the quarter due to CapEx increase. Higher operating expenses were due to higher subcontractors and equipment expenses also related to the fiber projects. In summary, the accelerated fiber deployment, combined with increased focus on take-up, reflected potential for continued growth and strengthening of our position in the residential broadband internet market. With that, I will now turn the call to Yohai to talk about Bezeq subsidiaries.
Thank you, Ran. As you can see, it has been an excellent quarter for Pelephone, with service revenue growth for the fifth consecutive quarter and improved profitability metrics. The next slide shows adjusted EBITDA increased 18.4% year-over-year to ILS 187 million and adjusted net profit grew 130% year-over-year to ILS 45 million due to a recovery in roaming revenues, an increase in the numbers of subscribers and growth in 5G subscribers plan. Moving to the next slide, free cash flow in the first half of 2022 was ILS 276 million compared to negative free cash flow in the corresponding period due to improved profitability as well as timing differences and improved working capital. The graph displayed on the next slide shows the continued turnaround in service revenues over the last five quarters.
The following slide shows the key operational metrics. Pelephone's ARPU rose 5.6% year-over-year in Q2 2022, while total subscribers increasing by 4.6% year-over-year to reach nearly 2.6 million, of which 53,000 were added during the quarter. Moving to Yes on the next slide. The number of Yes subscribers grew further with 291,000 now watching TV through IP broadcasting, out of which 97,000 are STING TV customers. In Q2 2022, we launched the agreement for the distribution of the Disney+ streaming services in Israel and we continue to lead in original production in Israel with professional and high-quality local content. Looking at the key financial metrics for Yes in the next slide, we see that revenues were stable despite the decrease in ARPU due to an increase in STING TV subscribers.
Adjusted EBITDA decreased 13.7% year-over-year to ILS 63 million due to an increase in content and original production expenses. The next slide shows free cash flow in the first half of 2022 was positive ILS 40 million and was impacted by timing differences in payments for content. On the next slide, you can see Yes key operational metrics. The number of net subscribers grew again for the seventh consecutive quarter by 1.3% year-over-year to 567,000. Mainly due to the growth of 27% year-over-year in STINGTV subscribers. ARPU decreased slightly to ILS 184 due to the change in the mix of subscribers. Moving on to the next slide, Bezeq International is focusing on expanding its ICT activities for the business market and growing cloud solution and service contracts.
In Q2 2022, there was a reduction in ISP consumer activity due to the regulatory removal of the internet infrastructure and ISP separation as of April 2022. The next slide shows Q2 2022 financial highlights, with a moderate decrease in revenues due to the reduced ISP activity, partly offset by an increase in business services. Adjusted net profit improved mainly due to the lower depreciation and amortization expenses. Moving to the next slide, free cash flow in the first half of 2022 totaled ILS 78 million, a significant increase year-over-year, mainly due to timing differences in working capital relating to customer debt collection. Let me now turn the call back to Tobi for concluding remarks.
Thank you, Yohai. Turning now to our last slide. Bezeq's Q2 results show the progress made thus far, showing record results and growth in numerous metrics. Moving forward, we are devoted to continuing our momentum in implementing the growth strategy by advancing our fiber optics deployment, focusing on fiber takeup, promoting additional subscriber growth in Pelephone and Yes and generating higher ARPU with the transition to 5G plans. With that, I will open the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand virtually using the Raise Hand button in the Participants tab. In the mobile app, you can raise your hand by tapping the Raise Hand option in the More tab. As you hear your name, please be sure to unmute your microphone and ask your question.
For the benefit of the people in the room, please introduce yourself and share the name of the company you represent. We will address questions as we see the hands raised. If you later change your mind about raising your hand, you can lower it by clicking Lower Hand. I will now pause to poll for questions. Let us take the first question from Ondrej.
Hi, everyone. Thank you for the presentation. Ondrej here from UBS. I want to clarify basically your guidance mostly. You obviously raised the EBITDA guidance. You keep the CapEx guidance flat despite increasing the target of homes passed to 1.5 million at the end of the year from 1.4. I just wanna understand, 'cause obviously you're capitalizing some costs or rather expensing some costs in terms of personnel that you were previously capitalizing. The free cash flow guidance is upgraded but so is the number of homes. Is the home pass cheaper than previously expected or is this just a function of moving costs from one place to another and your EBITDA guidance was initially very conservative? Thank you.
I thank you, Ondrej. I will address your question. In fact, you know, when we originally came out with our yearly guidance, there were a couple of major changes ahead of us, some of which took place or started in Q2, such as the Pelephone tariff reduction reform and the ISP reform, the removal of the separation between infrastructure and ISP service. We didn't know in advance how this will roll out. That's among other things. We gave a range of guidance and we didn't necessarily say that, you know, we are guiding for the middle of the range. Now, after you know, six months of actual results, we are in a position to update that guidance. As you know, the update is not parallel or proportionate between, you know, the different metrics.
That's how we came up with a 10% increase in the net profit metric, a little bit less on adjusted EBITDA and we remain our CapEx unchanged because we find out as we go along that, you know, part of what we are doing, we are doing with the existing CapEx capacity.
Thank you. Can I just clarify in terms of the homes or in terms of the cost for the fiber rollout, clearly that is now slightly below per home than you were expecting before. Can I just clarify that? Will that be the case going forward as well?
I wouldn't necessarily derive, you know, from the specific amounts done in a certain period, you know, about the cost per home. As you know, we are moving, you know, in the first phase from buildings to more residential areas and homes. As a result of that, you know, there is a change in the cost of doing that. You know, given the work of our own technicians plus the subcontractors that we are using, we are able to keep a very good pace and, you know, part of our plan is actually trying to bring forward part of the deployment instead of delaying it to later years.
Thank you. I'll get back in the queue. Thank you.
Hi, Jerry. Next question, Jerry Dellis from Jefferies.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got two questions, please. The first one is, the status of plans for Bezeq Fixed-Line to offer TV services. Is that still an active discussion with the MOC? And if so, is there a timeline attached? To a decision there, please. Then the second question is: ahead of the legislative elections in November, what are the leading parties saying about their industrial policy objectives in telecoms? Specifically, has there been any discussion about possible interventions to support consumers through the cost of living crisis? Thank you.
I will address your questions. In terms of basic bundling with TV, since the government is changing, so I think there will not be any advancement on that probably in the next month. We were having a change of government and a change of minister, so everything is probably on hold. To your second question, you're assuming that parties talk about these things. Well, not really. We don't know the intentions of anyone. I don't see telecom as being on the major target of helping reduce cost of living. The focus in Israel is more about grocery goods, supermarket prices, et cetera.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Jerry. Next question is, Michael Klahr from Excellence Nessuah. Hi, Michael.
Hi there. Good afternoon. Well done on a good quarter. I had a few questions. Firstly, I wanted to ask about Pelephone and the increase in subscribers there. I also saw there was a large increase at Cellcom and just wondering if anything's going on there. Is that market share gains? Is that, I don't know, additional SIMs? Where's that coming from, if you have an answer?
Okay. This quarter, we managed to reach 29,000 net new customers. In a way, it's a compensation for the first quarter. Overall, in the first half, we reached 26,000. This quarter, we have decided to invest in this area again, in order to gain back the positive trend.
Okay. A related question, I see that some of the operators. In Pelephone, too, in mobile, we see that some operators have started to raise pricing in the last month. On the other hand, another operator, one of the MVNOs, came with quite an offer around. There was quite a bit of noise about their offer around free international calls, free international roaming. I just wanted to kind of get your view on where you think, you know, what you think in terms of mobile pricing. You know, how competitive the market feels at the moment to you.
I think in general I would say we're seeing stability in mobile prices in Israel. Most importantly, the 5G package, which is priced around ILS 10 higher than basic 4G packages or even a bit more than ILS 10 higher. As more customers migrate to those plans, we would see continuous growth in ARPU.
Okay. That's helpful. Then just two other questions, one on costs. You mentioned some of the inflationary pressures. You mentioned, I think, content and production. Yes and I think you also mentioned operating expenses in the fixed business. Just kind of wanting to get like a sweeping overview, obviously, where you know there's a lot of inflation anywhere. Where are you most feeling it or where are you most worried about it, maybe in terms of salaries, equipment costs? Is it across the board or do you kind of see it moderating, you know, if we look a bit further out, maybe 12 months out? Thank you.
Okay. Part of the, you know, increases that you have mentioned, for example, in content, is not necessarily coming from inflation, just from, you know, utilizing more content during the quarter. To your question, the area where we are, obviously more exposed to, inflationary pressure is through our CPI-linked debt, which is, still quite significant. Although we have a partial hedge on that debt but, you know, the more inflation there is, then, the more, you know, the more, finance expenses there will be on that. We have also included in our, board of directors report, you know, some, explanation about, you know, the potential impact of that going forward.
How much of your debt is CPI linked? How much for your [audio distortion]?
It's after hedging, it's a you know around 25%.
Okay. Alright, thanks I'll get back to the queue.
Chris Reimer with the next question, please.
Yeah. Hi, two quick ones for me. What would you say the roaming and contribution to cellular ARPU was this quarter? Also, what kind of upselling opportunity are you seeing as a result of fiber into maybe television and cellular or vice versa?
We don't specify specific roaming contribution. We don't split our ARPU. Do you want to explain a bit more about that?
The second quarter ARPU is slightly higher than the first one, the first quarter ARPU, about half shekel higher. As Tobi mentioned, we do not provide breakdown of the components that we have in the ARPU but definitely the roaming is having a positive impact on the results and this is what I can elaborate.
Could you repeat the second question, please?
I was wondering about the upselling opportunity, if you're seeing any traction from new fiber customers into cellular or TV or vice versa.
I will answer this. You have to remember that we're still under the regime of structural separation. That means that we cannot do joint marketing between Bezeq Fixed-Line and the other group subsidiaries. Of course, once it will be removed, then, like all operators in the world, we can do bundling and upselling. Currently it's impossible from Bezeq Fixed-Line. What we can do and started doing is that Yes, our TV subsidiary has started just last month selling bundles of TV together with Bezeq Fiber. This is allowed but of course. Go to market and total market presence is less than what Bezeq Fixed-Line can do when it will be allowed.
Okay. Great. Thank you.
Thank you, Chris. Next question, David Kaplan, Psagot. Hi, David.
Hi, everyone. A couple of questions, the first one on elections and I guess to follow up to the first question that was asked on the call. What can you say about the regulatory issues that are currently being addressed, are going to get delayed because of the process that we're in now? That's the first question.
As I answered before and as you know in Israel, there will be delay in some of the regulatory issues that are on the table. We don't know for how long but it seems that there will be some delay. Also, as you know, in Israel, it's not necessary that it will be over after one election. It could be even more. We have some experience on that.
Okay. Can you specifically speak to any of the issues like wholesale pricing or spectrum rollout for the mobile businesses?
We just don't know.
Okay. Great. Two quick questions on mobile, on the telephone. First of all, I see there was a little bit of a reduction in the quarter relative to last quarter. I know the numbers can be a little bit lumpy but where are you in terms of your rollout of your 5G at this stage and how much more is there to go? The second question on mobile relating to what Chris was talking about in terms of the roaming revenues. Rather than giving us the specific percentage of ARPU that is relevant for roaming, can you talk a little bit about where roaming is as compared with pre-pandemic?
Okay. Regarding 5G subscribers, so we see an increase quarter-over-quarter and as we just mentioned earlier today, the numbers of subscribers has reached more than 700,000. This is on 5G. I don't understand which decrease you are referring to. Regarding roaming, I can say that on a company level, the level of income in this quarter has reached the level of income that was in Q2 2019, which is our comparable quarter before the COVID-19 impact.
Okay, great. I was talking specifically about CapEx in the Excel sheet you guys sent out today. The net capital expenditure. In Q2 in mobile were ILS 66 million. They were ILS 72 million the previous quarter. They were ILS 60 million a year ago. I'm kind of wondering, you know, where that's headed.
you know, telephones CapEx, you know, behaves according to a long-term plan. you know, on a specific quarter or even sometimes in half a year, you may have a certain halt, you know, in the deployment of sites. Pelephone is running ahead and this year we will definitely see an increase versus last year in the deployment of the network and they are on track to reach, you know, the target and have what they call, you know, national coverage by 2025.
Okay, great. The last one having to do with the fixed line business. Can you talk a little bit about the growth in fiber subs? Are those coming from? Are those some of those conversions from broadband to fiber? Are most of them just 'cause of new homes passed that are new customers? Where is the growth in the fiber subs coming from? That's it for me for now. Thanks.
I'll take that. We see both. We see upgrades from copper to fiber and we see more and more new customers onboarding on the Bezeq network. We are now covering 1,036,000 home pass versus the other two networks that each one of these networks is covering 900. There are many areas of which we are the sole vendor of fiber optics, which allow us to recruit new customers. We see and expect that the share of new customers within the customers joining the fiber optic network will increase.
All of those, by the way, are Bezeq customers. None of those are wholesale customers? Sorry, I know I said the other one was my last question. My bad.
Some of those customers are Bezeq customers upgrading and some are new customers overall. It's the same answer, basically.
Are any of them wholesale as in wholesale from o ther operators using Bezeq?
Well, yes, some of them are wholesale, copper customers and some of them are even fiber optic wholesale customers. All kind of customers.
Thank you.
We have a follow-up question. Thank you, David. We have a follow-up question from Ondrej.
Yes, thank you. Just, on the expensing of the previously capitalized subcontractor charges, can you just tell us how much per year roughly that is going to be? Is that going to be a linear situation up until, you know, the whole project is finished? Related to that, once, you know, the project is done around 2025, can you talk a bit more about what other OpEx benefits you get from migrating fully into fiber? Because some companies in Europe specifically are talking about, you know, big OpEx savings once their fiber rollout is done, copper decommissioning, et cetera, not just, you know, what they're incurring in terms of rolling out fiber currently but then also, you know, structural savings from decommissioning copper and moving on to fiber.
Is there anything, you know, in 2025 or beyond that you can tell us? Thank you.
Okay. I'll answer that question, Ondrej. We don't specify and don't give specific guidance on the amount of, you know, expenses on subcontractors but definitely we're using more and more, you know, to get done with the work of connecting homes. You know, the more take-up there will be, the more we will be expanding this and this have a very good return in the medium term. Obviously, you know, once we will reach a kind of steady state, which I don't see it anytime soon within the next, you know, two, three years, we will continue using those subcontractors in addition to our own technicians, which are fully deployed across the country.
In terms of the opportunity to reduce OpEx longer term, once we have stabilized our new fiber optic network, I think it's a bit too early to talk about that because we continue operating with significant amount of lines on our copper network. I think it's a bit too early to speak about that. What I can say is that over time, you know, while more of the subscriber base moves over to the fiber network, then there will be less maintenance calls relating to the copper network and that's something that we will see fluctuating over the years.
Just to follow up here, please. Why would you continue using the subcontractors after the rollout is done? Because I thought you're basically contracting those in order to get the rollout done specifically. What would make you continue basically paying for them after the rollout phase?
I let Ran address it.
Yeah. Well, basically, we're using two kinds of subcontractors. First of all, one kind help us to deploy. Once deployment is almost done, we'll stop with that, of course. The other kind of subcontractors help us with installation, so it helps our technician to do the installation within the customer homes, so this should take a bit longer. Once we're in the steady state, both this kind of subcontractors we will be done with overall.
The first kind of subcontractors that Ran described is actually being capitalized as we did before. The second portion, the second kind are not.
Just to thank you, if I may, just one very quick follow-up in terms of the content cost. You mentioned, you know, higher content cost in the quarter at Yes. Is this a one-off in terms of production or is this like a new run rate that we should expect going forward?
It's more like a one-time. It's not a new level.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Ondrej. Yes, we have a follow-up question from Jerry Dellis from Jefferies. Jerry?
Yes. Thank you for taking the follow-up question. I've got two questions, if I may. First of all, broadband infrastructure lines have stabilized obviously over the last 12 months or so. As you increasingly focus on driving customer take-up across the new fiber infrastructure, would it be reasonable for us to expect broadband infrastructure lines to start growing over the next couple of quarters? Second, I think you mentioned in the presentation that obviously Bezeq Fixed-Line ISP market share is developing but you know, across Fixed-Line and international across the group, are you able to comment as to at least qualitatively as to how your ISP market share is developing? In other words, the removal of the separation between infrastructure and ISP earlier in the year are helping you to drive stronger ISP market share gains. Thank you.
I'll take the first one. We face fierce competition. Fiber optic market here is crazy. Everyone is deploying, everyone is pushing take-up. While we certainly hope that our new initiative in pushing forward and accelerating the take-up on the fiber optic network will in fact have an overall effect on the total number of internet customers within Bezeq. I cannot say for sure or project that this number will rise but we certainly hope so. Tobi, will you take the ISP question?
Yes. I will take the second question, Jerry, on the ISP reform. We have not disclosed specific numbers but I can say that the amount of ISP customers that have been gained at Bezeq Fixed-Line is significant and is about double the amount we've lost at Bezeq International. We are actually taking market share here as well.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome. If there are no further questions at this time, I would like to thank you all for taking the time to join us today. Should you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to contact our investor relations department. We look forward to speaking to you on the third quarter earnings call. Thank you very much.