It's already eaten into my time.
Yeah, no, no, we'll. We have a break after, so.
I'm teasing.
Yeah. No, it's, keep going here with telcos. Thank you, Doug, for coming to our conference.
No problem.
So TELUS has been. The telecom business at TELUS has been doing well. Last 2023 saw a very good growth. Can you tell us a little bit what is making that growth sustainable? And into your guidance also, we're seeing, you know, that kind of view continuing in 2024. What are the key items that is allowing you to, I would say, outpace your competitors in terms of revenue growth and EBITDA growth?
I think it's just consistency. So our product diversity, we've continued to build over time, as you've seen. I think our focus on profitable growth is also contributing to that. And are moving very quickly on cost reduction and rightsizing our business for the economy and any headwinds that were coming through. So I think you're going to see a lot of the same of us in 2024, of leverage our assets, which include the bundling side of our product sets, the best products, the most select products in Canada from a telecom. Best networks, best customer service, where we do believe churn really matters. And then leverage Health growth that we've done the integration substantially the integration from LifeWorks, where you're seeing the cost efficiencies from that also coming through.
And I'd say, you know, both Health and tech are on a positive growth rate. The recovery of TI will also contribute, where, you know, 2023 was a tougher year. 2024 is still gonna be tough, but at least it's in a positive trajectory. So I'd say it's a combination of all of those.
I'll touch base on TI and Health and agriculture in a bit, but I wanted to maybe just clear the view, the review first on the telecom side. So with Rogers being more present in Western Canada, how has it been in terms of needing to spend money to keep your customers or, you know, keep the churn down? The economics of operating a telecom in Western Canada, has it changed or, do you have an anticipation that it will change much in 2024?
I think, we have seen the competitiveness heightened, as the market has seen. And so, again, leveraging our bundles and leveraging our product and network superiority is really where our focus has been. Fiber is a superior asset, and making sure that we leverage that with our other product sets to ensure our customers don't have a reason to leave. That being said, there is definitely price pressure. You can see loading in the industry, but at times when your network revenue is falling and you're still loading customers, it means it's all coming at the cost of rate.
So we've been able to maintain, you know, positive revenue growth on the network side, and that's primarily to the quality, focus on AMPU, focus on value, and focus on the bundle, to ensure that our customers are getting quality, and a package for their home, not just an individual product. And I think that's the differential again, that we're seeing. But yes, it is definitely where you'd see significant opportunities, let's say, of maximizing your network, are more price-driven now than they have ever been before. And we just have to deal with that. And that's a competitive market. But again, we win on customers, networks, and then the packaging and products, and I think that is how we're gonna continue to win, and we've done well. Our loading's still been quite strong.
Our revenue and profitability, I think, is still one of the second to none on our product bundling across the board. Our churn rate across both wireline and wireless continue to be quite low. When you bundle that together, I think that's, that's how, again, we're competing, but under a price-stressed market or price reduction market.
And, has it, in your view, has it gotten worse or better? A little bit, you know, as if you think about the last couple of months in terms of price competition coming from Rogers in Western Canada.
I'd say it's been consistently assertive. It's been consistently competitive. I know if I were them, I would be bundling or trying to bundle as well. I think the quality of our network, though, is stands out, and I think that is what, you know, why you're still seeing our strength, the quality of our network and the quality of our customer service. So yes, I would say it's as or more competitive than it's been in a very long time, but it's been consistent since the transaction happened. And so, you know, we adapt accordingly, and ensure that we make the most out of the assets we have. And they've invested, like we've invested CAD 20 billion over the past five years in, you know, fiber, network, spectrum, M&A, et cetera.
They invested CAD 20 billion in one transaction, so there has to be a return profile that comes with all of this, and organic growth will be key for all of us in getting a return on our assets. I think that will be the longer-term deciding factor to where this all goes.
How much cost efficiency and the cost-cutting that you did last year and this year helping you offset some of these pressures, if you think about the margins of the business?
We had probably, you know, our largest restructure we've had in a long time. As you saw, the 6,000, 2,000 international and 2,000 in onshore. That flow-through has been fully executed, so we're getting the full flow-through for that into 2024. And we do have restructuring set up for another CAD 300 million worth of programs throughout 2024, and that'll be the combination, you know, of real estate and others, too. It's not all workforce by any means. But it's leveraging our technology, and I think we started very early on digitization, self-install, trying to do touchless activations back during COVID.
If you remember, even during out of COVID, how quick of a start we had compared to, compared to our peers on loading and being able to load and satisfy all of our customer needs then. Well, that momentum continues, trying to make sure that we leverage technology, continue to build off the momentum we had that started during COVID, and ensure that we get, again, more efficiency and effectiveness to, to help offset that top line, so. But everything that we executed in 2024 is full run rate, or in 2023, is now full front run rate at the end of Q1 2024, and so you'll see that definitely enhancing the margin. You would've seen that in our guidance, too, 2%-4%, and then 5.5-7 on EBITDA.
So you're getting significantly higher flow through on EBITDA than you are in revenue.
When all said and done in Q4, we saw the net adds for all the players. You guys fared very well in Q4, but we don't have the split for Public versus TELUS versus Koodo. Can you help us understand a little bit what drove that strong performance that you had on net adds in the quarter versus, let's say, a couple of quarters ago? How much Public was a contributor to that?
Public's still a contributor. You would've seen pressure on our ARPU, and part of it's mix, yet the AMPU that you get with a Public Mobile load is very good. For example, as we highlighted, even if it is a CAD 39 rate plan, when you have no customer service, no channel, no commission, and it's fully digital loading, your margin profile is quite strong. So, I think ARPU from... You know, everyone's talking about our AMPU. I think we lived it, and we've lived it for a very long time now. That's been our strategic focus on making sure that we drive value for our organization.
I would say, you know, Public and being first to do that with Public is a good indication that we take it seriously on seeing price points that are going to be coming down, and having a completely digital environment to ensure that you can fulfill that obligation. So, I would say that the mix at the end of the day, I think is going to be less relevant. I think it's going to be completely on cash flow generation and AMPU margin enhancement. I think ARPU will become a little less relevant, as you go forward on if you can manage your cost structure and manage digitization. I think that, to me, is the key to creating shareholder value right now. And as I said, we've talked about it for and executed on it for many years now.
And that would include the handset and device financing as well, and making sure that you're linking that to a value prop. And it's hard to give away 0% financing at the moment and a subsidy on top of that. Yet during, you know, Black Friday and Christmas season, a lot of the specials went there again. And when you're having CAD 39-dollar, CAD 40-dollar, CAD 50-dollar rate plans at subsidized 0% interest for five years or four years on certain providers and two years on others, that cost just keeps adding. It's not as if we're all don't have any debt.
So I think you really need to focus on the end-to-end free cash flow profile, and that includes everything from financing charges on how you invest your money in handsets, to the investments you make in CapEx, to subsidy on handsets overall, and that's how we're managing our business.
So you're telegraphing that ARPU, potentially in 2024 for TELUS, could be negative, but you're making it up with all the costs cutting, and that should not be something to worry about?
That would be the most likely trend as we've seen right now, and a lot of the specials that you saw in Good Friday and back to Christmas are continuing in February. And so it hasn't been the typical, you know, Q1 goes back to more traditional pricing. So I would not only do I think that that is the trend, I do think your first half of the year is going to be a little tighter than the back half because of that.
All right. Maybe if we can talk about during the whole Rogers merger with Shaw, you kept saying that we have a one-year head start to increase penetration of the bundle, and that will help us out the gate when they close the transaction. Can you help us understand your level of penetration of the bundle within your customer base, and how far can it go up to? You know, what's your objective?
Our goal, and we have targets right within our scorecard, on product penetration within customers. So, two is too low, in our mind, and so I'll just leave it at that from an internal targeting perspective, is we actually want three or four products per customer. And so working towards bringing up that penetration, has always been our strategy, and that would include all of our diverse portfolio, from Healthcare, to agriculture, to home automation, to security, in addition to all of our TV and our wireless TV programs, to our traditional programs. And when you look at the opportunity for us to do that across the spectrum of everything we offer, we have a great opportunity to do that, and we've been very successful on that.
So for competitive reasons, we've never really highlighted the how much are really bundled, but it's significantly more than half have multiple products. But the target setting that two is not good enough, and it should be materially higher than that, on aggregate for our overall base, is absolutely one that I'd put a stake in the sand as being a key driver within our organization.
... Okay. I'll switch to the regulatory side of telecom. You know, there's a big review going on with high-speed internet access. You made representation at the last hearing that kind of departed from your normal way of requesting support from the regulator. You're actually proposing openness, more openness. You know, very different than, let's say, what Bell is proposing. When you think about regulatory decisions coming up on high-speed internet access, how important are they for your business, and what is your current view on what is the likely outcome of that review?
The likely outcome is probably the hardest one because I've given up on guessing what the regulator's gonna do. But I think when you look at the regulatory environment overall, we're looking for consistency, transparency, and predictability with the regulator. And if you get that from your regulator, you can make all the right decisions. Irrespective of what the ruling is, you can make all the right decisions in a competitive environment. And if you actually have, call it, fair competition, without artificially subsidizing someone else, where they have to pay, you know, a fair market value, then that will hurt the industry, and that will hurt future investment theses. So completely open to access. I'm completely open to competitiveness, as long as it's on the same playing field.
and the same playing field being no subsidies or positioning that entitles discounts or even government funding to organizations. They should compete on their price, their brand, their involvement in their communities, their product sets, their customer service, and they need to invest themselves in their own networks in some capacity. And, as I highlighted, we've invested in the last five years more than CAD 25 billion in Canada in some form or another, between the most expensive spectrum in the world, our fiber, our 5G, and strategic M&A. And so, you know, if we have to, or we have wholesale on that, as long as we can do it in a competitive environment, then we will do okay because we have confidence in our operational plan. But if it ends up being subsidized, it becomes...
It changes the playing field, and that would be where I believe you would then see differentiation.
You're basically saying, if Quebecor is allowed to hop on somebody else's fiber network, we would like to also have the opportunity to do the same.
I don't see why you wouldn't. At the end of the day, you should be able to compete, across, across the board. And again, I'm not looking for subsidies. And you would just compete, outright, as in every wholesale environment.
How about MVNO? We have not seen MVNO affecting you for now on the wireless side, mostly Bell and Rogers. Are you entertaining any work that you can do with Cogeco or somebody else in the marketplace to be a partner for them, with them? How do you think about MVNO regime in Canada going forward?
We're looking at, obviously, all opportunities in which you would maximize the value of our assets, and you can do that through your own retail, or you can do that through wholesale, and MVNO being just a wholesale-type environment. I would say if the relationship was right, we would absolutely look at opportunities. I think pricing at the moment is at a point, though, when you look at some of the Black Friday and Christmas specials, where you actually aren't making money in a two-year contract. You aren't making money out of the gate. And so MVNO environments aren't gonna help any on that. The competitiveness is already extremely high. And if, you know, even those... If I'm an MVNO, and I'm coming into where rates are already in a loss position, I'm not gonna subsidize a handset.
I can't give good customer service. There's a snowball effect to that. So I think at the end of the day, the competitiveness right now is so heightened, and prices are at a point that, you know, you can do leverage MVNOs. But at the end of the day, I think we're in just a competitive environment, hands down, anyway. And I don't think it's gonna impact it much beyond a lot of the same old that's going on right now.
Okay. Before we switch to you know, your other businesses, maybe a quick question on how competitive Quebecor and Freedom is in Western Canada right now and other parts of the business, because you have a national wireless network. You expect prices that could continue to go lower than this? Because if you say your marginal player is not making money with an MVNO regime, how much lower prices can keep going in Canada?
I would assume, you know, they also have a lot of debt to pay, and their leverage is quite high. So I think there is a balancing off, where any of us don't want to lose money for a long period of time. And so I see prices stabilizing and assume they would stabilize. The competitiveness in the market, though, is everybody. It's hard to pick one provider that says they are the creating the market dynamic. It's how everyone reacts.
In Q4-
Yeah
... the Big Three, you know, you, you hit each other on the head.
The competitiveness is across all four. It was even before this transaction happened, there were specials and competitiveness that were bringing prices down... and bringing prices down materially, even before this transaction happened. So, I would say, are they being competitive? Yes, you can see it in the results. They're getting a share that they're attempting to get, and that's okay. The market will progress through three providers and four. A lot of countries don't even have four providers anymore. But they also got significantly subsidized spectrum. So it's a little easier when they don't have to pay back the CAD 7 billion of spectrum they got, where we do, so-
The MVNO regime.
And the MVNO regime. And I have no idea what the rates they are with others, but they probably are making money even on that as well, just based on, you know, what I assume happened in the regulatory regime.
Okay. If we think about TELUS International Healthcare, TELUS Health, and TELUS Ag, you've invested quite a bit of money in those three buckets, and a lot of investors we speak with are, you know, wondering: what is the added value from investing in those assets versus either returning that cash, or lowering leverage, or investing it in your telecom business? So again, I, I think it comes up in every meeting I speak with investors about TELUS, and, there's that sense of: when will we see the actual return on that investment? I'll leave you maybe to talk a little bit about that.
That's not opening it at all. I think when you look at our investment thesis, there's two pieces to it. There's, one, the standalone, vertical, for a better term, or product on its own, and then the integration it has with our telecom assets. When you look at all three, if you're picking TAC, Health, and TI, they have a significant overlap benefit into telecom. And I think if you started there, to say, first and foremost, we wouldn't be as far along on digital experience. We wouldn't be as far along on being able to do, like, a Public Mobile, without having TI by our side. TI is an enabler.
They have been nothing but an exceptional partner to moving us up the digital chain, to be able to be a leading provider in that, and I think they've also now got insights that could help other telecoms around the world, the way they've helped us. And so when you looked at times where we outperformed our peers just on digital experience, you can contribute that to our TI and TI partnership. Let alone, you know, they've, they've, had their own IPO and their own monetization along the way. And yes, they're at a little bit depressed in share price on the moment, but, in a good recovery path with the assets they have. You then go to: how is it going to help us with AI and into the future?
That is absolutely where TI is, again, going to be an extremely important partner to TELUS on how do we leverage the new technologies and bring our organization further down, both Ag and Health, let alone telecom, on data insights and AI. Because when we bought and moved into Health and Ag, you're looking for outcomes. You're either looking for better food outcomes by connectivity, you're trying to get all the right food in the right spot, instead of 30% of it going in the garbage. A lot of that is going to be applications, AI, and technologies, which again, TI is going to be front and center with helping us, so synergies with Ag. You then look at Health and wellness and well-being.
Insights that come from Healthcare data, you need, you need the AI applications and insights to do that, and TI is well more positioned to do that than we are. So leveraging, again, that tool that's going to have synergies across. You then go to the who we are as TELUS, and the verticals that we want to invest in and be relevant for the future, is that I would rather be doubling down and making a difference in Healthcare and improving people's lives than investing in sports, gaming, and media. And we've seen the pressure that our peers have had in some of that dynamic as it's changing. So we had a different turn. And then when I talk about our world-leading wireless churn, it's... A lot of those customers have TELUS Health.
A lot of those customers are our Ag customers in rural Canada, who said: "Well, if you're going to help me run my farm, why wouldn't I take your telecom services?" So the leverage of multi-product, when I say we can bundle seven, eight, nine products, it includes the multiple ones across Health and Ag. So from a synergy perspective and a standalone perspective, I do think we've made the right spots from need and opportunity. And I don't think Healthcare valuations are going down per se, and I think we're going to take them significantly up based on the trajectory we're on and the quality of assets that we have. When you then look at where are they going, Health and EBITDA growth, you would have seen the strength that we've talked about in Q4.
That momentum's carrying into 2024, and our EBITDA growth rate, assuming, you know, you were to carve it out that way, we don't carve it out, but just a proxy, would be definitely in the, in the twenties. Revenue growth will be approaching the tens and, and, leveraging the synergies that we had from, from LifeWorks. So I would say it is on a very positive trajectory on returning, to, to shareholders and a trajectory where we would expect it has other opportunities for the long run, and that could be partnerships, IPOs, et cetera. Timing right, market right, monetization opportunity right, and the right partner that's going to bring incremental value, to our organization, not just, not just monetarily.
I'd say TAC has that opportunity, and we've got, you know, the applications that we had talked about being slightly behind on why they had a little bit more of the headwinds over the past year and a bit, are well underway now to being scaled multinational so that they can actually roll those out in the way that we anticipated a little over a year ago. So I would say we're about a little behind on that one, as we've talked about, maybe a year, a year and a half behind, but leveraging again, TI, leveraging the insights that we had and putting it back on track to being positive revenue growth, positive EBITDA growth.
And I'd say 2025 will be an inflection point, where that one will be more of a Health profile versus the you dig yourself out of the economic and technology hurdles that we've had. So very optimistic. And I think you'll see that again, is that our revenues in Canada are falling. We're having more and more international revenue, more diversity in our products, and that's why you're more confident in how we're going to generate free cash flow into the future, is that it's actually going to be a more diverse portfolio for us, leveraging synergies, leveraging TI, and then leveraging the cross-sell and integration we can take each of these assets to.
In terms of return on invested capital, I know it's hard to break because of this very significant convergence between TI and your telecom business, and Health, and telecom, like you said. But in terms of return on invested capital, I don't have all the financial details that you have access to. I tried, but it's there are still many holes that I have to fill to get to the solution. But where would you rank return on invested capital versus your traditional telecom business? Higher, lower, at... from a big scheme of things?
I think, I guess right now, it would probably-
So far, yeah.
... be a little bit lower. But then when you look at, we've just spent CAD 5 billion on spectrum, that's going to have a significant long-term payback. You look at the fiber spend we've done, which has a significant long-term, but they're infrastructure assets. I think the quality of our Health assets fall into the category of they're going to be around for the very long term. They're going to provide the type of benefits that you would get from a long-term asset like fiber and spectrum. So I would say yes, they're a little behind the telecom business, but they've only been around for, you know, Health for, like, maybe 8-10 years, and Ag for 3-4, where telecom's been around for 100. So I think there's a completely different profile there.
But I would say the investments we've had to make in spectrum and fiber, which again, are solidifying assets for the, you know-
The-
... the very long term, I would put that all in the same category of we think we're making the right decisions. You can see it in our results, you can see it in the quality. And that's how we're going to continue to execute to be relevant across the board for both telecom and our growth strategy, our growth products.
Okay. And maybe we'll finish off with capital allocation and leverage because they tie into your deleveraging process and, you know, fiber decommissioning. I know there's a lot of layers here I'm talking about, but can you help us understand how so copper decommissioning is going to contribute to deleveraging, and how quickly, in terms of moving that asset to real estate and diversifying that? And any targets on deleveraging that we should be looking for you to achieve in 2024 and 2025?
Yeah. So we're probably only about 15% of the way through, call it the MSO rationalization opportunities. It's still in its infancy, so there's a significant opportunity for us to drive further operational cost effectiveness. And we have a good 80 sites that we can develop for real estate. We've got a pilot right now of the 12-14 that we've talked about. We have sites of short-term sites to about 30. And so monetizing that is well underway. We want it to just be a normal course of business. You... five every year start coming in, and you start making a call, "Do I sell it? Do I partner? Do I build myself? What do I do?" And so getting that rhythm going is really where we're at on real estate.
But the actual decommissioning of copper goes well beyond just real estate. That's like a one-time monetization if you do a REIT, or an ongoing, if you're doing, you know, cash flow generation, which will come from that over time. But when you actually look at the efficiencies and effectiveness that fiber brings, both from a customer experience perspective, from our operating cost perspective, that's where majority of the benefits continue to come. And as we can shut off those MSOs, there goes more operating costs, property taxes, hydro, et cetera, even maintenance and supplies. So I see that as being, again, a continued operational advantage we have to our cost structure. We're not running two networks. I don't have to integrate, big M&A on telecom anymore. I'm well ahead on the fiber chain.
My capital intensity is down to below 13%, this year, and probably going to fall even further. That I'm in a good position in a rising rate environment. And so most of our spend was done when interest rates were low. And now we're starting to decline our capital, we're starting to de-lever through our growth, as well as our capital being flatlined now for two years and starting to decline. As we said this year, decline this year and flatline, and I don't see it going up in the foreseeable future. If anything, it can keep coming down. But when intensity at a telecom is in, you know, the 13 below, 12 below, 10 below, you know that we've actually got to a good point on that investment thesis.
Ten below?
Potentially. If you get enough farther up on your fiber and the growth trajectory continues, I'm setting aspirational targets now.
Aspirational.
Darren can do it in our calls, why can't I? So I thought that is the key, is actually keeping your CapEx to a very respectable level, continuing to have the best in class. We have the best networks in the world. You know, top two in wireless and, you know, top five in wireline. So, continuing to do that, but scale down, and I think you'll see great results again come out of our organization as we de-lever in the process.
So, any deleveraging objectives that we should?
We haven't yet, other than this year will start to come down further. It'll all depend on the timing of the millimeter wave spectrum as well. You know, we were happy to see the 3.8 pricing, obviously, on being a little bit more balanced, that everyone had to pay their fair share. And it's funny, when people have to pay their fair share, prices come down materially. That it was the first auction that was structured that way in a very long time. So, hopefully, that will continue with millimeter wave and won't have any other material impact. But CAD 5 billion over five years does whack your leverage as well. And so, you know, looking forward, I'd say we'll keep coming down. I'd say more down in 2025, when we get past millimeter wave.
But I would say, expect a slow and steady and then potentially a monetization along the way, either through Health partner, Health IPO, or real estate. Might do a little bit faster than that, but we'll, we'll get back into the zone in the midterm.
Is there a leverage ratio that you'd like to hit before you think about removing the DRIP?
It's a conversation Darren and I are having as we speak, but we have not set a specific target yet. I think it'll come down to stability, and make sure we have the right investments, to your point, on capital allocation, and that most of the spectrum is behind us, spectrum purchases are behind us. So those would be more the metrics.
Okay, great. Thank you, thank you, Doug, for-
Thank you
... coming today. I hope it was answered a lot of questions you had in mind, and we'll look forward to have you next year.
Thank you.
Yes.