Please stand by for the Quebecor Inc 's financial results for the third quarter 2025 conference call. The call will begin shortly. As a reminder, you may queue up to ask a question anytime during the call by pressing star one, and to withdraw your question by pressing star two. Thank you. Good day, everyone, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Quebecor Inc's financial results for the third quarter 2025 conference call. I would now like to introduce Hugues Simard, Chief Financial Officer of Quebecor Inc. Hugues, please go ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this Quebecor Inc conference call. My name is Hugues Simard, I'm the CFO, and joining me to discuss our financial and operating results for the third quarter of 2025 is Pierre Karl Péladeau, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Anyone unable to attend the conference call will be able to access the recorded version by logging on to the webcast available on Quebecor's website until January the 5th. As usual, I also want to inform you that certain statements made on the call today may be considered forward-looking, and we would refer you to the risk factors outlined in today's press release and reports filed by the corporation with the regulatory authorities. Let me now turn the floor to Pierre Karl.
Merci, Hugues, and good morning, everyone. More than 15 years ago, recognizing a huge opportunity in Quebec and across Canada, Quebecor Inc set out on a growth strategy based on warrants. First, launching as an MVNO, then building our own network and further acquiring Freedom Mobile. We have never wavered in our resolve or direction. We invested wisely and established ourselves as a better alternative to the big three, a solid market disruptor with the best growth momentum and the strongest balance sheet in the Canadian telecom industry. As proof that our strategy is paying off, we continue to outperform our competitors, and I'm proud to report our strongest quarterly wireless service revenue growth since the acquisition of Freedom Mobile, as well as an impressive loading performance of 114,000 net additions in the quarter, with more than 323,000 new lines year- over- year, despite a generally softer market.
Collectively, Videotron, Freedom, and Fizz now have over 4.328 million mobile active lines, a significant milestone achieved in quite a short time in a competitive market. Each of our three brands continues to improve its performance quarter after quarter, resonating more and more with Canadians across the country with innovative and affordable products and services. We have created a healthy, competitive environment, giving Canadians more choice, lower prices, and a better experience. All the while improving our profitability, growing cash flow, and continuing to reduce our leverage to maintain the lowest ratio in the Canadian telecom industry. We will spare no effort as we press on with our strategy of sustainable, profitable wireless market share growth. I will now review our operational results, starting with our telecom segment. Our telecom segment continues to deliver strong operational and financial results.
Both in wireless and broadband, reflecting the disciplined execution of our growth initiatives, the strength of our brand portfolio, and our commitment to provide innovative and reliable services to our customers. Our service revenues are up for a second consecutive quarter at 2%, fueled by a 6.4% increase in mobile and 1.1% in internet. Our mobile service revenue grew by CAD 27 million in the quarter, surpassing our Q2 performance and our best since we completed the integration cycle of Freedom Mobile results. This results from our adding 323,000 new net lines over the last year, despite a Canadian market affected by lower immigration levels and organic growth, but also from our effective pricing strategy with a balanced and cohesive positioning of our brand.
Our consolidated mobile ARPU continued to improve its performance, recording its best since the acquisition of Freedom Mobile, which bodes well for the next few quarters despite a market that remains unpredictable and highly competitive, especially in Quebec, where discounting is comparatively, and in our view, irrationally heavy. At this point, we expect current market conditions to continue through the upcoming holiday season promotional period, but we intend to maintain our disciplined approach, focusing on the quality of our products while continuing to rapidly improve our network. Specifically on our ARPU, we are very pleased with our second sequential quarterly increase, reaching CAD 35.05 compared to CAD 34.76 last quarter. A CAD 0.29 gain in the three months. Our year-over-year performance continued to improve with a CAD 0.66 decrease this quarter compared to a drop of CAD 2.30 in Q2 as compared to the same period last year.
Our effective mitigation of the dilutive impact of the prepaid services of Fizz and Freedom was an important contributor. As you will have noticed, we adjusted our wireless subscriber base by 51,000 to eliminate zero revenue accounts, which translated into an approximately CAD 0.40 ARPU pickup. To be completely transparent and contrary to our competitors, we adjusted our ARPU numbers retroactively. With our ever-improving network quality and stellar customer service, more and more Canadians enjoy the richness and peace of mind of our plans, which continues to strengthen our market position and share. Freedom's marketing plans are honest and transparent, without any fake employee purchase programs, new customers only, or B2B offers. We have been upfront with all Canadians since day one, offering them better services at everyday best prices. Canadians have clearly embraced our approach, as evidenced by our significant churn improvement, ARPU and market share growth.
An internal survey even reveals that the global satisfaction score of Freedom customers approaches that of Videotron. We are very proud to have successfully transposed the key contributors of our great success in our own market to the other regions of Canada. In terms of new ads, as I alluded to at the beginning of my address, we delivered 114,000 new net lines to our mobile customer base in the third quarter. A strong growth considering the softer market this year. This performance is also attributable to our effective retention strategy, which kept our consolidated churn among top of the industry and thus helped to defend Videotron's solid market position in Quebec and to continue to improve Freedom's performance. In wireline, our service revenues continued to improve as we recorded for a second consecutive quarter our lowest decline in year-over-year.
Fueled by internet revenue growth of CAD 3.3 million and net additions of 10,500 in the quarter. These results are very encouraging as we are only still scratching the surface of the opportunity with new services like Freedom Home Internet and Fizz TV. We are also counting on the expansion of our Helix technology-based internet and television services in new territories where they will complement our wireless services already available. Since the end of the second quarter of 2025, Videotron has announced the expanded coverage of more than 180,000 new households in Drummondville, Magog, Rimouski, Saint-Hyacinthe, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, and Huntingdon, as well as in many cities in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region. Customers will now be able to benefit from a full complement of telecommunication services in competitive packages.
We intend to enter these new markets with a disciplined pricing strategy in line with our pricing elsewhere in Quebec, counting on state-of-the-art Helix solutions and our second-to-none client experience to make ourselves strong contenders in this territory. In addition to our wireline footprint, we are also expanding our wireless coverage and service areas in the Haut-Merigny region, in partnership with ECATEL and with the support of the Quebec government. This will significantly improve mobile communication in this region of Quebec, making it possible for more than 10,000 residents to subscribe to Vidéotron mobile services and enhancing connectivity along several highways. Freedom Mobile is also continuing to increase its service coverage, now in the Ontario region of Chatham-Kent, where the residents of this large and growing region can now access our fast and reliable wireless network.
These expansions reflect our continued progress in delivering on our ongoing commitment to always give our customers more with state-of-the-art advanced technology. This is just one reason why Vidéotron was ranked as Quebecers' preferred telecommunication provider in a recent Léger survey. Vidéotron stands out for its remarkable results, confirming its position as an undisputed leader in customer service among telecommunication providers in Quebec, while being recognized as the most reliable and trustworthy telecommunication company in Quebec. Turning now to our media segment, TVA Group generated EBITDA of CAD 18.5 million in the third quarter of 2025, an increase of CAD 6 million compared to the same period in 2024. This favorable variance is primarily attributable to the impact of streamlining initiatives undertaken over the past two years, as well as certain favorable non-recurring retroactive adjustments.
These measures are helping but are in no way sufficient to mitigate the impact of the structural crisis threatening the sustainability of Quebec television industry, particularly due to the accelerated decline in advertising revenues compounded by the negative impact of the absence of foreign blockbusters in MELS studios. Having acted recently and responsibly over the years by implementing numerous measures and a number of major restructuring plans to address the crisis, TVA Group has done its part. It is high time for our governments to take the necessary action on the right. After countless advocacy efforts, hearings, and meetings with successive CRTC chairpersons, Canadian heritage ministers, and Quebec culture ministers over the years, we can only repeat yet again that we urgently need real action and long-term solutions to protect our industry.
It was particularly disappointing that the federal government in its budget deposited this Tuesday completely ignored our industry and turned a blind eye to the crisis that is hitting television broadcasting so hard. There is no tax credit for television journalism, no tax incentive for advertising in Quebec and Canadian media, and no information about when the digital services tax already paid by private broadcasters will be refunded. Furthermore, CBC/Radio-Canada's annual funding has been increased by CAD 150 million, without any requirement to eliminate advertising on its platform and to curb its unfair commercial competition with Canadian private television broadcasters. Regrettably, this new government has missed an opportunity to support an industry facing ever-growing challenges and job losses. At an alarming rate.
Regarding the Quebec government, we reiterate that it must quickly introduce concrete measures to implement the recommendations in the report of its task force on the future of Quebec audiovisual industry filed in October 2025. I will now let Hugues review our detailed financial results.
Yeah, Pierre Karl . On a consolidated basis in the third quarter of 2025, Quebecor recorded revenues of CAD 1.4 billion, up 1%, EBITDA of CAD 628 million, up CAD 34 million, or 6%, resulting from improvements across all of the corporation's business segments. Cash flows from operating activities increased CAD 36 million to CAD 582 million, or 7% compared to the same quarter last year. In our telecom segment, total revenues grew by 1%, or CAD 13 million, a first favorable variance since Q1 of last year when we completed the integration cycle of Freedom Mobile results.
This positive delivery is largely attributable to our strongest mobile service revenue growth of 6.4%, fueled by significant customer growth, but also by the favorable improvement of our mobile ARPU in the last quarter, resulting from strategic market positioning of our multiple brands and our pricing strategies. This quarter, mobile revenues were offset by our lowest wireline services revenue declines in more than a year, resulting from our effective strategies in mitigating the impact of organic declines of these services. Combined with rigorous cost management initiatives, our EBITDA reached CAD 602.5 million, increasing by CAD 16.6 million, or 2.8%, our highest EBITDA growth since Q1 2024. As a result, our EBITDA margin improved by 0.8%, ending at 49.5% compared to 48.7% of the same period last year.
The income CapEx spending was up by CAD 13 million in the quarter, regulating the timing difference explained in Q2 for wireless equipment deliveries required for our 5G and 5G+ network expansions and subscriber equipment rentals. Even with that regulation, we still anticipate higher investment levels in the last quarter to stay on track with our objectives, mainly expanding and improving our mobile network. Accounting for these investments, our quarterly adjusted cash flows from operations increased CAD 3 million, or almost 1%, due to our solid EBITDA growth. Our media segment recorded revenues of CAD 152 million, or 2%, decrease in EBITDA of CAD 23 million, a CAD 9 million favorable variance compared to the same quarter last year. Our sports and entertainment segment revenues increased by 7% to CAD 68 million, and EBITDA was up by 28% to CAD 15 million.
We reported a net income attributable to shareholders of CAD 236 million in the quarter, or CAD 1.03 per share, compared to a net income of CAD 189 million, or CAD 0.81 per share reported in the same quarter last year. Adjusted net income, excluding unusual items and losses on valuation of financial instruments, came in at CAD 242 million, or CAD 1.05 per share, compared to an adjusted net income of CAD 192 million, or CAD 0.82 per share, the same quarter last year. For the first nine months, Quebecor's revenues were down by 0.3% to CAD 4.1 billion, and EBITDA was up by CAD 4 million to CAD 1.8 billion, partly impacted by a CAD 44 million increase in stock-based compensation charges. Excluding this factor, EBITDA would have increased by CAD 48 million, or 3%. EBITDA from our telecom segment grew 2%, an improvement of CAD 38 million over last year, excluding the impact of stock-based compensation.
At the end of the quarter, Quebecor's net debt-to-EBITDA ratio decreased to 3.03 x, still the lowest of all our telecom competitors in Canada. We remain committed to further deleveraging in the coming quarters and intend to continue operating in this low-three range, consistent with our current financial strategy. Our balance sheet remains very strong, with available liquidity of over CAD 1 billion at the end of the third quarter. I would also like to highlight the success of our recent refinancing, where Vidéotron issued CAD 800 million of senior notes yielding 3.95%. The high demand from investors was very strong, with the book more than three times oversubscribed, and we were able to negotiate very favorable conditions, most notably the lowest seven-year credit spread seen in the Canadian telecommunications sector, a convincing testament to the strength of our financial foundation, our disciplined management, and our growth prospects.
The net proceeds will be used for the redemption of our, or Videotron's rather, 5.125% senior notes maturing on April 15, 2027. During the first nine months of the year, we also purchased and canceled 3.7 million Class B shares for a total investment of CAD 140 million. We thank you for your attention and will now open the lines for your questions.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do have any questions, please press star followed by one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by two. If using a speakerphone, you will need to lift the handset first before pressing any keys. Please go ahead and press star one now should you have any questions. First, we will hear from Maher Yaghi at Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
[Foreign language]. I would like to first ask you the strong performance in wireless. Hugues, you mentioned that it came from lower churn and also improved gross loading. Can you maybe dissect a little bit more what drove that strong performance in the quarter? Q3 usually is a strong quarter for Freedom, but how are you thinking about Q4 so far and which sub-markets in wireless you still haven't been able to gain market share from that you think over time could provide you more growth down the line?
Thanks, Maher. So in wireless, yeah, I mean, as you said yourself, the Q3 and the back-to-school period has historically been a very strong quarter for us. These are the target markets that particularly resonate well with us.
We, again, even though organically and in terms of immigration and all the things we've talked about, the market is a little softer. We've been able to maintain our performance. Why have we been able to maintain our performance? It is because we are increasingly resonating with other cohorts. Whereas the Freedom of the past used to be very strong with first-time buyers and immigrants and people looking for a deal or the cheapest deal, we are now able to attract and retain customers that are willing to, that want a bit more, that want better performance. We have an increasing number of 5G+ customers because we have been expanding the access to 5G+ to many more of our customers. Fizz is also continuing to perform increasingly well, quarter after quarter, which should not be a surprise because you will remember us telling you the Fizz was created.
With a very specific objective, with very specific objectives in mind, and that was to go after and to target the younger, more urban, more digital-savvy generations, which are representing the future. I think we are showing that we're better than our competitors at reaching out to these people, to these customers. In terms of going forward, in the following quarters, I think you will see if you look back that we are very, not stable, but very consistent in our penetration, in our growth. We are continuing to retain our customers more, longer, so churn's down. Our ARPU is going up. This is really the story in this month. Look at our wireless service revenues, CAD 27 million more in the quarter, which flows down to margin with considering our very disciplined cost containment.
That's basically how I would call the wireless story of the quarter, which bodes, as we said in our, as Pierre Karl said in his note, bodes very well for the historically competitive Q4. Where we intend to continue to perform very well.
That's a pretty good answer, Hugues. Isn't it?
Yeah.
After that.
It's a very good story, for sure. Very good story.
Maybe just one.
May I add just one thing, Maher? We all know that when Freedom was under their previous ownership, for whatever reason, I mean, historically, the weakness was the network, the quality of the network. I think it's important to mention that we are investing in the network. We've been always dotant, as an enterprise culture, considering that we need to deliver the best product in our available customers. We inherit a good brand.
Certainly also some very good people in this organization. Now, I think that we've been doing what is appropriate to improve our product by investing in the network. We will continue to do so, and we will continue to do it on a disciplined basis as we've been doing, obviously, in Quebec for the last almost 15 years now.
Yes, thank you. Maybe just to touch on the improvement in the cable segment revenue growth rate with the pricing that you passed last December starting to really kick in. I'm trying to gauge that with Pierre Karl's prepared remarks. You specifically called out the very aggressive pricing competition happening in Montreal and Quebec in general on the combo plans, very low prices. Is it easy to pass another price increase this year like you did last year amidst t he competition that we're seeing right now in the marketplace?
Obviously, you can easily expect that you're going to have an answer for that, but I'll tell you. We're used to that. We've always been in the same kind of environment, so there's nothing new for us. What we're doing to make sure that we're for this situation is by being as much as disciplined as possible, watching our cost. We've always been in that kind of business and will continue to do so. Historically, pricing between Quebec and all the other areas in Canada for whatever product was the same for cable, was the same for wireless, had been lower. Our competitor, our main competitor, the blue guys, have been trying to get market share by having lower prices than elsewhere. They certainly, in the past, have been able to benefit from a higher margin elsewhere.
Are they using this to compete even more aggressively in Quebec? It's not impossible, but they can do whatever they want. At the end of the day, we're going to continue to be the preferred supplier of Quebecers for many reasons, one of which is that we're offering better customer service and our products are of higher quality.
Okay, thank you.
It's a pleasure, Maher.
Question will be from Stephanie Price at CIBC. Please go ahead.
Hi, it's Sam Schmidt on for Stephanie Price.
I wanted to ask a question about ARPU. The declines have been improving sequentially for the last few quarters. How do you think about the timeline to return to positive ARPU growth? And it was strong in this quarter. Any one-time items to call out there? Thanks.
I'm sorry, I missed your first name. You're replacing Stephanie, right? Yes, sorry.
It's Sam Schmidt on for Stephanie Price. My first question was just around the ARPU declines that have been improving sequentially for the last few quarters and how you're thinking about a timeline to return to ARPU growth.
Yeah. You saw our performance. We're very confident. ARPU is turning the corner. I would expect that corner to be very, very soon.
That's helpful. Thanks. Just one more from me on mobile equipment revenues. How are you thinking about device financing heading into Black Friday?
With discipline. How would I say. Continue disciplined, reasonable offers? We've said this in the past, that Black Friday is a time of the year where we can easily go crazy and lose our shirt, as we say, on equipment or device subsidies. We certainly do not intend to do that.
To continue to be, as I said, disciplined and reasonable in our equipment offers for the rest of the year.
That's good color. Thanks. I'll pass the line.
Thank you. Next question will be from Matthew Griffiths at Bank of America. Please go ahead.
All right. Thank you for taking the question. Just on churn firstly, if I could. It seems as though across the industry, everyone's reporting churn being lower this quarter on a year-over-year basis. I was wondering if you had any comments about how much of your churn benefit in the quarter is just kind of that halo effect of industry churn falling, or were there things that you were doing that you kind of can see that would have been responsible on your side for reducing the churn? And then secondly, if you can make any comments on the kind of decision.
How you evaluate the network expansion. Question. Specifically, you mentioned this quarter expanding the wireless network into the Chatham-Kent area. If you could share kind of just how you evaluate it, how many more opportunities you see for this going forward, it would just be helpful on our side. Thank you.
Matt, thanks for your question, Matt. On churn first. Probably a little bit of both, to be fair. Our churn, as you know, started from very high with Freedom. The highest in the industry by far, and is now fairly equal to the lowest of the industry. That was mostly due to the improvements to our network, its performance, its coverage, its reliability. Roaming, packages, marketing agility, customer experience. I mean, it's a, who knows, bundling opportunities. There are so many factors that collectively contributed to this lowering or this decrease in our churn.
Now that it has reached, as I said, a very competitive level, then obviously it becomes naturally a little bit more affected or more influenced by maybe more market-related metrics. It is our goal to maintain that churn through the various improvements. I mean, we're nowhere done. I mean, it's not as if we're at the end of our plan here in terms of improving everything that I've talked about and going after different cohorts, as we said earlier. As our experience keeps getting better with our customers, I think we're very confident on the churn level that we have not only reached the industry's best, but that we will maintain the industry's best. Of course, there are the investments that Pierre Karl talked about that will continue. We're taking this very seriously. When we relaunched, when we bought and relaunched Freedom.
We said very clearly that we went about very diligently about fixing all the pain points and making sure that the experience was quickly very much better. We still have work to do. This is a never-ending work. We certainly intend to, as Pierre Karl s aid, continue to invest in our networks. Also in our marketing agility to make sure that we continue to resonate with Canadian customers. As to the network expansion, these decisions are made on a— It's a bit of a— How would I say it? It's a bit of a balance between going after strong and interesting regions and balancing it with the investments needed in these regions. This is something we have a plan, and we're continuing to be very diligent, very disciplined about our network expansions going forward.
Focusing on the MVNO areas where we're starting to resonate well, where we're building the business. You will remember us saying that we're not going to build and hope that people come. We will launch MVNOs, and where it will make sense for us, we will prioritize network investments. I think that's the good business way to do it. That's still what we intend to continue to do.
All right. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you, Matthew.
Next question will be from Jérôme Dubreuil at Desjardins. Please go ahead.
[Foreign language] . Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on the free cash algorithm. We're seeing a bit of EBITDA growth, but also CapEx increases. I'm wondering if you're seeing a potential.
For free cash growth in the coming year or if value is going to be created more through the leveraging and buybacks. Appreciate there was the share-based comp situation this year, but essentially, will absolute dividend growth outpace CapEx growth in the next few years?
Thanks, Jérôme. Merci, Jérôme, for that question. I think you're seeing it in the numbers. We look at our performance in terms of generating margin, generating cash, which provides us with the opportunity to continue to invest in the network, which we had said we would. I think you will remember, again, us saying from the beginning of the year or even last year that we were going to maintain very strong, stable cash flow, even though we were intending to invest more in our network. In terms of buybacks, as you know, we flexed in the past on this, and we will.
Continue to do so. Dividends will be—we will continue to stay true to our dividend increase, reasonable increase that we've had in the past. We're still in the soft—not in the soft, in the best spots that we've announced between 30% and 50% of our payouts. We feel pretty comfortable with our continued capability to generate cash, very strong cash flows that then give us the leeway to continue to invest in the network and eventually in the network builds.
Great. I'm just going to push a little bit on the capital allocation point here. You said in the preferred remarks that you were probably happy with leverage in the lower threes. It seems like you're getting real close to destination here on the balance sheet side. Does that mean that we should be expecting a ramp-up in the buybacks.
Probably, or is that a fair assumption?
It's not an unfair assumption, but I wouldn't necessarily agree to it now, this morning.
And Jérôme, I think that we should say it's a prerogative of the board of directors. Look at the sequence previously. Where we've been changing our balance sheet policies. I guess that we should—that would be a good example or a good illustration of what we can expect being the situation in the future. Understood. Messi?
He's there.
Thank you. Next question will be from Vince Valentini at TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks very much. Let me spin that free cash flow question just more specifically to the near term. Hugues, you've done CAD 1.06 billion of free cash flow through the first nine months of the year. In the fourth quarter of last year, you did over CAD 300 million in free cash flow.
Is there something material in terms of timing issues we should be thinking about for the fourth quarter, or you're going to smash through CAD 1.2 billion or CAD 1.3 billion of free cash flow for the year?
Hi, Vince. No, we've talked about this, I think, last quarter. There are some timing issues. Our CapEx did increase a little bit in Q3, as you've seen, but there still is some timing ahead of us, timing issues ahead of us in terms of CapEx, which you should expect to be higher in Q4. I wouldn't go all out in our expectations of us breaking the bank in terms of cash flow. It will be a very strong cash flow, and we will more than deliver what we had said we would deliver, Vince.
Yes, there definitely is going to be a catch-up in CapEx towards the end of the year, between now and the end of the year. Yeah.
But you definitely expect to have positive free cash flow in the fourth quarter?
Oh, for sure. For sure. Yes. Yes.
Okay. Thank you. The second thing. Your internet ads were a bit better than I expected. Is this in Quebec, in your core video churn business, or are you starting to see some benefit from Freedom Internet in the rest of the country using TPA?
A little bit of both. It is in Quebec, but it is also in Freedom Internet is performing well. Fizz Internet is performing well. We are in a very competitive situation and an ever-increasing competitive situation in Quebec. We have talked about the quality of our services and network. We have been performing well.
Essentially everywhere in terms of broadband.
Okay. And last one. I do not know if there is any materiality to this, but as you know, I am a happy customer. These roaming SIM cards that you guys have and people on other carriers are allowed to use them when they are traveling. How are you counting those? Are they being counted as a subscriber in the third-quarter sub-ads?
No. No. No. They are not a sub. If you have turned on that SIM card, as I know for a fact that you were finally successful in doing, Vince. After some help. You are not counted as a subscriber, no.
So that is actually, it is obviously service revenue. So it is going to be helping your ARPU even more than just the underlying trends in the business going forward.
That is correct.
Okay. Awesome. That is all for me.
Okay.
By the way, it's high time that you do become a customer, Vince. We're counting on you.
I'm waiting for your Black Friday offer.
Thanks for your business. Thanks for your business, Vince.
Thank you. Next question will be from Aravinda Galappatthige at Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple of quick ones from me. You mentioned that one of the reasons for the success of Freedom's subtrend is because you're kind of going into other cohorts that the old Freedom did not. I mean, should we translate that comment as speaking to sort of the prepaid/postpaid mix? Any comment around how that mix has changed as you sort of progressed with the gains on the subscriber front? And then secondly, just a small follow-up. The wireless ARPU redefinition, can you just clarify what that was? Thank you.
As to your first question, Aravinda. Postpaid and prepaid for us, we're continuing to perform well on both. We're a bit agnostic, to be honest, and have continued to work well. On all the cohorts that I talked about, I think that was more of a general comment applying to both. Postpaid and prepaid. Not specifically a move from one to the other, but to be quite transparent, we're continuing to perform well on postpaid. Your second question, sorry, I forgot, was to do with what?
The ARPU redefinition. I think it was just a small definition change of CAD 0.40.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It's about CAD 0.40. We've restated it. But as those were CAD 0 accounts, you'll see that it's almost consistently CAD 0.40 over the last so many quarters that we've restated.
Okay. Okay. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Next question will be from Drew McReynolds at RBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks. Excuse me. Thanks very much. So a couple for me, maybe for you, Hugues, on the CapEx trajectory in telecom. It looks like you're running a little hotter than the initial kind of CAD 650 million or so of CapEx. Just wondering, and I think your commentary from Q4 would say you come on above that. Is there any kind of change overall to the kind of medium-term trajectory on CapEx from your perspective? Then just tied to that, we are seeing pretty efficient kind of cable CapEx intensity come down with some of your cable peers. Just wondering your cable CapEx, how you expect that to trend again through the medium term.
Thanks, Drew. On medium-term CapEx, both wireless and wireline, we will, as I said earlier, we will, in Q4.
Be a little bit higher. That does not necessarily change our midterm. What we said about the midterm, that we are, and we have said this before, that we are continuing to invest, and we are continuing to improve and ultimately expand as well. Our networks. As such, you should expect a gradual CapEx increase over the medium term. Again, gradual, nothing. No CapEx wall. I know some of your colleagues, unfortunately, used the term in the past. I do not think there is anything to be worried about, but just very reasonable and very sensible investments in both of our wireline and wireless network going forward. No change to our midterm CapEx trajectory.
Okay. Thanks for that. Clarification, crystal clear. Just in the ending there, you alluded to some favorable kind of provisioning in Q3 within telecom. I am assuming the 2.8% year-over-year telecom EBITDA growth, ex the provisioning, is still.
A reasonably good growth rate. Can you just comment on quantifying those favorable provisions?
I will not give you the number, obviously, Drew, but no, I think your statement is fair. Yeah. There were some provision adjustments, as we do. In a number of quarters and almost all quarters, as everybody does, but it is not material enough to impede or to change the conclusion on our increase in profitability for the quarter.
Okay. No, that is great. Last one for me, just the usual. Fixed wireless impact in Quebec, just how that is kind of contributing to the competitive environment, if at all. That is it for me. Thank you.
To be honest, nothing significant. By that, do not misread us. We are not saying that this is something to be dismissed, as we said in the past. Fixed wireless is—we are not saying it is not a thing.
It may very well become a thing. We are certainly in our own shop looking at opportunities for fixed wireless. Certainly, in answer to your question, so far, the impact on us has been very limited in our home turf of Quebec. We are definitely, and we've got the teams already lined up to start reflecting on how we will turn that into an opportunity for us in our various markets outside of Quebec.
Okay. Thanks very much. Again, congrats on great wireless results.
Thank you.
Thank you, Drew.
Our last question will be from Tim Casey at BMO. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for fitting me in. Hugues, just one modeling question and a couple others. Working capital is running very positive so far this year. Should we expect a reversal in Q4 or maybe into Q1 next year? What's driving that?
Is that cash management, or is it just timing?
Hi, Tim. No, answer to your question, there should not be. I do not see any material difference in Q4 or Q1 of next year in terms of working capital. To be honest, it is something that we have been focusing on for the past year or so, a year and a half. Where we recognized, I think sometimes you have to question yourself on various occasions. We were not as efficient in managing our working capital as we should have been in the past. We have tightened a lot of things, and I think it is showing. I certainly intend to continue to perform well on working cap, and I would not expect, I mean, there is no bump either way that you should expect in the next quarters. No.
Okay. Thank you for that. Just two for me.
On the 50,000 subs you removed out of the base, can you give us any color on why they were CAD 0 subs? Was this an aggressive promotion from the relaunch of Freedom? Was it an enterprise deal? What was happening there that they were so poor ARPU? And second one, as you think about expanding out of footprint on wireline, do you expect to retain similar type economics, maybe on a margin basis? Or should we assume that it will be dilutive to ARPU on the wireline side? Thank you.
Tim, to your first question, the 50,000 or 51,000 were CAD 0 accounts. It's basically people who had opened an account but never or had a SIM card, mostly from before the acquisition, and who never really bought a package. We had them as an account, but they weren't active, and they weren't generating any revenue.
We just took them out. In terms of our out-of-footprint wireline, again, our intent is to remain very disciplined and very, I think that was your question. If I'm not answering the right question, you tell me. As we've said in our notes today, both Pierre Karl and I, we intend to, whether it's out-of-footprint wireline or eventually fixed wireless, whatever, it is our intent to remain very disciplined. I think, if I may make the point right now, we have been, and for quite some time, been very disciplined and very predictable in our approach. We say what we're going to do, and we do what we said we were going to do, which I don't think can be said for everybody in telecom in Canada. We certainly, in terms of wireline, intend to continue to apply that philosophy, if I can call it that.
Thank you.
We would like to thank you all for attending this conference call and expect the same for our next quarter. That will be our year-end. Do not miss Alouettes game. Yeah. The Alouettes against the Tiger- Cats on Saturday.
And you said roots for the Alouettes, right? Yes, sir. Thank you very much, and have a nice day. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Quebecor financial results for the third quarter 2025 conference call. Thank you for your participation and have a good day.