All right, everybody, thank you very much. Batting cleanup for our C-suite TMT conference today is T-Mobile. We have with us, Peter Osvaldik, the Chief Financial Officer of T-Mobile. Thank you all for joining us. I know we're competing with cocktails. I promise we'll get through this quickly. Then start drinking. That's what we all do here at B of A. I'm David Barden. I cover telecommunications services and comm infrastructure for the bank based in New York. Thank you, Peter.
Well, thanks a lot, Dave. What an enviable position between you and drinks to be!
I know that I mean, you'll be running me over to get there. Do you have to make any kind of safe harbor?
Yeah, sure. Of course. Yeah, as we always do in these things, I might talk about, you know, sort of significant estimates, forward-looking statements, and just refer you to SEC filings for all the risk factors associated with that. I'll certainly make commentary around non-GAAP, and the reconciliations are in the same SEC filings. Thank you very much.
obviously, you know, sitting in Europe, there's, you know, we're looking from Europe into the U.S. I think a good place to start is to just kind of get a level set. There's been, you know, rising rates and rising unemployment and fears of recession, but everyone's traveling like mad, and you can't get a hotel room to save your life. I guess it would be great to kind of get a level set from your perspective is, you know, what's the kind of economic reality of the wireless business, you know, in the U.S. right now?
Yeah, well, it continues to be a very, very healthy business. You know, as we think about where everybody's focused on postpaid phone net adds, as an industry.
We're going to talk about postpaid phone net adds.
Yeah. I think, you know, we'll be a little bit more normalized relative to last year. Overarchingly, it remains a very, very robust industry. In fact, what was interesting is in all of these times, whether it's recessionary environments, inflationary environments, or even during the pendency of the pandemic, I think what would became more and more clear is just how critical connectivity is to consumers and how it's moved up in the order of wallet significantly. You see that in bad debt levels. You know, for us, we saw significant benefits in bad debts. In fact, Q1 was better than AT&T and Verizon, which just speaks again to the type of consumer we're attracting now, but it is a very robust and healthy industry.
Great. It is robust and healthy, but at the same time, coming off of a 2021 and a 2022, where we had $9 million postpaid phone net adds, assuming you take cable's reporting for granted at face value. Everyone seems to be expecting this normalization with, you know... It's begun. You guys did about $3 million, $3.1 million postpaid phone nets in 2022, and you're actually still guiding to a pretty healthy, roughly $2.5 million-ish, for 2023. How is it possible?
Well, it's two things. One, yes, I think we do see slight industry normalization from what we saw in the elevated 2022 levels. Remember, it's still significant growth in the US that we're seeing on a postpaid phone basis. I think if you step back, one of the things that people don't ascribe enough attention to is beyond postpaid phone, just what's happening from a connectivity perspective. You know, a lot of this is buried in the postpaid other line, but a lot of those connections have become higher and higher CLV connections. You know, for us, one of the things there is fixed wireless. You see the industry grow in regards to other connectivity, so a great kind of TAM expansion from a service revenue and profitability perspective.
With regards to postpaid phone, I mean, for us, really the optimism and why we didn't specifically guide to postpaid phone, but overall postpaid and, you know, said nearly half will come from phone. We did have Mike, a couple of weeks ago now, express optimism around Q2, in particular, on the back of some of the Un-carrier moves and continued switching activity we see, and that will be at or above last year's Q2. Even in this, you know, normalization environment, which we saw in the latter half of 2022 already and in Q1, really for us, we have a unique set of assets.
I know we talk about them quite a bit, but remember, this is the first time with the merger integration roughly complete, that you have in the U.S. a carrier that has both product leadership in the form of the network, and in fact, overall, I'd say worldwide 5G leadership, from a network perspective and value leadership, which we've always had value leadership, and we're going to jealously guard that and maintain it. The combination of the best product at the best price, combined with all the under-penetrated market segments that we've talked about that are unique to us, things like smaller markets and rural areas.
Now, the way we categorize them, that's roughly, you know, everything outside of the top 100 markets in the US, or 40% of the population, where historically we've had a low double-digit share, and we've started increasing that. You know, Jon Freier just gave an update at Q1 that said we're about 16.5% now, on our way to a goal by the end of 2025 of 20% and, of course, room to run beyond that. You have top 100 markets where, you know, we have a great share in a lot of the top 100 markets in the US, and that was one on the back of that customer value leadership proposition.
What we're seeing more and more now and what creates more opportunity in those marketplaces is network seekers, as we're calling them, because of where we sit now with not only 5G network leadership, but translating that into overall network leadership. We're starting to see prime network seekers in the top 100. The other areas is what we call the T-Mobile Business Group, but enterprise and government, where we continue to rack up more and more success. One of the recent deals that was very exciting was the VA. You know, the VA went through an extensive RFP process that looked at a number of factors. Most important to them was really network. What can you do with in-building coverage? What can you do with other connected solutions, fixed wireless in some of the regional centers for them?
They went through the extensive RFP, and T-Mobile came out on top, on, you know, really network quality and what we could deliver there, and the incumbent came in third. They lost all of the business, and we announced that. It's about 50,000 net adds that'll come through in the, in the, enterprise and government space for us. That'll still come over the course of numerous quarters as they kind of ramp up and do the transition. Probably only about 20,000 of those will hit in Q2, but we're already seeing other connected device opportunities there as well. It just speaks to, again, it's not just about phone.
It's on the back of the quality of what this network can provide, that we're able to win in spaces like enterprise and government, that historically, you know, have been a single-digit share for us. Fixed wireless is an amazing opportunity that I know we'll probably talk a little bit more about.
Absolutely.
a little bit later. It's really, again, for us, that combination of the best product, the best value, and these under-penetrated market segments that we're gaining more and more traction in, that give us optimism around 2022 and 2023 and 2024 and beyond.
Let me Congrats on the VA contract.
Thank you.
Win. Let me fact-check some things that we heard earlier today. One was that AT&T walked away from the totality of that contract, which was 75,000, sounds like you won two-thirds of it, customers. They said that it was just uneconomic. They weren't gonna, you know, whoever presumably, then whoever did win it, did something uneconomic. Can you explain-
Yeah.
-why this was a good thing for T-Mobile?
Well, I certainly can't speak to how they modeled their economics. I can speak to the fact that they definitely didn't win on the basis of network and other quality. It may be easier to walk away when you actually don't win the business, and you're forced to walk away. I can tell you that we don't. In the past, T-Mobile was definitely, in the enterprise and government space, a price stalking horse. There's no doubt about it. In fact, we couldn't gain business. Post the merger, as we built this network, we're actually winning business, and in a lot of cases, in enterprise and government deals, we're actually not the low-cost provider, but it's the network capabilities I give you there. I can tell you, the VA contract is definitely has positive CLVs for us.
In fact, quite attractive CLVs when you look at it. As I said, the things that we also thought might come but weren't calculated in the case is other connected devices that we're already starting to be able to provide solutions to the VA, such as with fixed wireless in some of their regional clinics.
Hmm.
Yeah, it's interesting, but again, I'm not going to speak to other people's calculations or-
Mm.
overhead burdens or things like that.
Yeah. Okay, interesting. Yeah, fixed wireless access, that's something you're doing they're not doing that could change the e-economics for you in a positive way.
Yeah, That wasn't the economic analysis.
Yeah.
It's just another opportunity...
Yeah.
that we gave that actually makes the deal overall more and more attractive.
Another thing that happened during the quarter, you guys announced the latest Un-carrier program. AT&T flagged it as a roughly month-long, you know, increase in churn, and it's all back to normal now. Apparently, you didn't create as many waves as you were hoping for as a function of this?
Well, again, I'm not gonna speak to what they see or not, but I can definitely tell you, there was a couple things that really motivated us for this latest Un-carrier move. The first was just the propensity of Verizon and AT&T to try to lock customers in and then unilaterally raise prices on them. You've seen that happen over and over again with three-year contracts. The other thing that really was a big part of this is the market was telling us, with the mix that we saw in our highest tiered rate plan, that consumers really wanted what this network and the overall value proposition could bring. We saw mix loading for new customers coming on to T-Mobile at roughly 60% at our highest tier rate plan.
When the market's telling you that, you know, it, you should definitely do something with it. That kind of gave us the confidence to release Go5G Plus. We still have the Magenta plans available to consumers, but to pack even more features and more of the network into an even higher tiered rate plan. It kind of gives you the dichotomy of how we approach things versus how the other carriers approach things, and that is give customers the choice. In fact, for us, it's led to industry-leading service revenue growth from a postpaid perspective, profitability growth, of course, combined with synergy unlocks as well. So it's working for us. The formula works.
Mm.
-treat customers well. In terms of how we've seen the quarter progress, now, this, the momentum has continued with Phone Freedom, and that's what gave us the optimism, and Mike the optimism, to come out and tell you, even to your point, in a year that's going to be normalizing relative to the peak levels of 2022, we're still going to be at or above what we delivered in Q2 of last year.
That's not as a function of one chunky contract win.
Nope.
it's just better execution.
Again, I think the aforementioned chunky contract was the VA, which, for us, is going to come in over multi quarters, and that's maybe up to 20,000 in Q2.
That's important. Okay. You know, again, the European perspective on telecom has been informed by brutal competition, you know, encouraged by maybe regulators that had something other than investment as their optimized function in the business. When they look over at the U.S., I think especially in the last few weeks, we've seen T-Mobile stock price come down on a lot of different things. I'm gonna throw three of them out there, and we'll talk about them. The first one is, you know, Verizon changing prices, you changing prices, change doesn't make people feel good. It seems to add risk. It must be because everyone's getting more competitive. People are think, "Oh, it's the most competitive it's ever been." The second was this whole Dish-Amazon nonsense. Talk about that.
The third is cable, you know, the existential question of convergence, and does it have to be like that? Will it always be like that? Starting with number one, yes, you wanted to win market share, maybe win mind share. Do you believe that with the latest Un-carrier, you've disrupted the pricing equation in the U.S. marketplace, and we're on the precipice of something bad happening?
No, absolutely not. In fact, when you look at it's again, our way of creating a win-win, where consumers are telling us, with the mix loading, both from current customers that are upgrading as well as new customer flow coming in, that they want what this network has to offer. Really, it is a big part of this is the network story and the 5G leadership, worldwide 5G leadership perspective, and what's that delivering for consumers in the U.S.? Putting the spectrum to work and technology leadership to work. What that allowed us to do was actually increase the top-tier rate plan price and put more value features into it. Again, this lives together with our Magenta products as well as Magenta MAX, it's customer choice.
They are loading up and moving up the rate plan. It's a different philosophy than perhaps Verizon, which, you know, effectively stripped features out, but left the pricing the same and then lets you get to higher pricing. I don't see any of that as disruption of the pricing dynamics in a negative way. In fact, it's perhaps disruption of the pricing dynamics in a, in a positive way.
Yeah. Someone was saying, like, "Is the U.S. the most competitive it's ever been?" I'm like, "Well, we've had prices going up for 18 months.
Right.
In the U.S.
Right.
The first time I've ever covered it. It's pretty interesting. Okay, second topic, you know, the M word, if you're a European, the MVNO that, you know, Amazon might have been negotiating. I think all the carriers came out. I'll just ask, you know, did you have conversations with Amazon about helping them get into the US wireless market?
No. Not in terms of including it in Prime, not in terms of an MVNO deal. In fact, Amazon itself, in that article, said they have no plans to do this. I think all the carriers came out.
At present.
At present. Well, if you know Amazon, they typically don't comment on anything. I think actually commenting on that would give you quite a bit. All three carriers came out and said, you know, "This isn't happening." I think there was some residual questions around Dish, and, "Well, what if they partner with Dish?" Of course, you know, I leave that to Charlie, but I will say, certainly our arrangement with Dish doesn't allow for resale of our network to a different brand, under a different branding construct.
Mm-hmm.
Why Amazon would do that then with a Dish relationship that really has a network that's quite different than, you know, what a T-Mobile network is, I don't know. Nor really what the benefits for Amazon would be. You know, there's really, I think, nothing to this other than an article with a rumor.
You kind of discount then Amazon-Dish partnership also?
Yes.
What do you think happens to Dish?
You know, I would never put anything past Charlie. I think he's a fierce competitor. We certainly have a, you know, good working relationship, and we're here to support them. I know they've recently filed that they achieved the 70% milestone. You know, in our calculus of how the industry unfolds, we always had Dish as becoming a competitor in the postpaid space, so that's how we continue to see it play out and what actually happens, of course, you know, probably Charlie is better placed to speak to that than I am.
Just for the sake of argument, in your longer term guidance, there's an assumption that Charlie's wireless business is relevant to that outlook.
Yeah, yeah, cable continues to be relevant in that outlook as well.
Let's talk about that. You know, especially in Europe, there's been a, you know, a movement towards convergence between wireless broadband, wireline broadband. There's a sense that. There's definitely different views about what cable's longer term opportunities are. But, you know, if I'm a cable bull, you know, I believe that, you know, they've got a relatively ubiquitous wireline broadband capability. They've got a very attractively priced MVNO with Verizon. They're putting that together at very strong discounts. They've been taking very strong share. They've been lowering prices every year. Does that worry you?
No, no. It really doesn't. First off, I, and I, and I understand the mentality and the mindset, certainly from a European investor base, but there's a lot of structural differences between how Europe played out and what the U.S. is. That doesn't ultimately mean, you know, the way convergence played out in Europe is the way it'll play out in the U.S. I mean, some of those are, well, one, geography, right? I mean, when you think about U.S. geography, it is the size of Europe, slightly smaller than the size of Europe, continental U.S. There is no incumbent nationwide, you know, wireline or cable operator. That doesn't exist.
There's two kind of regional players. There's a whole host of, also the U.S. that actually doesn't have broadband, which is a great opportunity that 5G can help fix in the form of fixed wireless. We're working on it. Also, as you said, kind of structural differences in terms of how the U.S. investment plays out, and there's a lot more investment in networks and the consumer benefits from that in terms of speeds, et cetera, et cetera. That really. We don't see anything that would, to us, indicate that there's convergence from a long-term perspective in the U.S., could be anything more than discounting. We don't see kind of a product enhancement, right? There's no utility enhancement to customers from a bundled, cable wireless product.
We have, really, you know, as we've said, customer value leadership and the perception around customer value leadership. I think more in the U.S., what's top of mind for consumers is that wireless is a very considered purchase. What's really important there is what kind of network offering, what kind of mobility offering in all this geographic space can you provide? That's where we feel very comfortable. We have, but, you know, far and away, the best 5G network in terms of geography, speeds, technology. We're able to monetize that. We're seeing consumers self-select up our rate tier plans just to get at the best level of that network, and so we don't really see it. We see, as we said, cable's been in the run rate for a significant portion of time.
We continue to see them be meaningful players. We like any time there's competition. The U.S. has always been, you know, a competitive marketplace in the wireless space. We love that because anytime, you know, consumers actually start thinking about the category, I know, unlike you and I, they don't think about the category day in, day out, but when they do, they start shopping around. They've asked their friends, they asked family members. We love that because we are winning the switching relationships. You saw us in Q1 deliver yet another fabulous quarter of pure account switchers, which is really the best measure of what's happening from a switching perspective.
What we saw with cable, as we said, is kind of the step change in growth that we saw at the end of last year from Charter, in particular, all seems to be coming from non-ports. That could be coming from the prepaid space, but it's also given, you know, that you're giving away exploding first-line lines and dropping them into the bag. The question becomes: How much utility are consumers really getting from that versus just, like, you know, a free line in the bag? What happens when that typical cable pricing explosion actually occurs?
Mm-hmm.
At that moment, one, is it a real used line as a drop, or two, does it create a consideration moment? We're comfortable in any of those moments when consumers really look at the network and what it has to offer, and the value, and the combination of the two.
A lot of people won't remember this. You probably do, but there was a time, when, Marcelo and crew at Sprint, were trying to chin up, postpaid phone subs, and they would give you a 10 or 15 dollar discount for a year or 2 years.
Yep.
Then it would explode.
Yep.
at the end, the churn went hyperbolic.
Absolutely.
Um, so I think-
Then you're left really considering what is the network? What am I paying for at that moment in time? Yes, the, I mean, Sprint did first line free, right?
Mm-hmm.
Well, kind of a very similar concept.
Bunch of stuff, yeah.
Yeah, a bunch of stuff, but certainly service contracts that were free for a year, and you're absolutely right. What the impending churn profile when consumers were hit with that exploding bill was significant.
There might be a big switcher overhang in a year.
Could be.
Could be in 2023 even. All right, let's talk a little about maybe why cable's been trying to move more aggressively into the mobile space is in part because the wireless industry has been moving more aggressively into the wireline space as a, with a fixed wireless access substitute. We've talked a lot about this, but I guess there's kind of two or three big questions. Even Mike, I think, has acknowledged that, look, there's a limit to what we're gonna do in fixed wireless access because we got to kind of conserve our spectrum resources. A, there's a limit. B, there's a concern that 100 megabits probably isn't really the right answer for the vast majority of that limit.
The third piece is that the AT&Ts of the world argue that the notion it's a very high incremental margin product are misplaced because there's all the marketing and the branding and the installation and the care and the billing and the whatnot, and it's not as, you know, it's not as great as it's chalked up to be.
Yeah.
Let's kind of knock those out. spectral capacity, am I worried about that?
We're not. What we've always said, and we're unique in this. I think when others make commentary about fixed wireless, yeah, it could be that other players in the space may be facing different constraints. For us, what we've always said is to achieve our target of 7 to 8 million customers by the end of 2025. We're about a mid-single-digit penetration, is that it is a fallow capacity model, and you have to remember just the amount of capacity that we're creating with this network. We're already devoted to mid, to 5G mid-band. We're at 150 megahertz of spectrum, devoted to 5G in the mid-band space on the way to 200 megahertz by the end of this year, covering 300 million pops, by the way, with 200 megahertz of bandwidth.
Add to that technology leadership, and by the way, we have significantly amount more incremental mid-band that we put to use for consumers as quickly as we can. There's solutions there. The way it's approached is in the areas where no amount of mobile traffic, and this is done on a sector-by-sector basis, modeling out growth, our anticipated growth of subscriber additions, you know, being the share taker, as well as the anticipated growth in mobile usage growth. Where all of that modeling, given how much bandwidth we're creating in the network, creates still fallow capacity, that's where we go sell fixed wireless.
Mm-hmm.
It's a very fallow capacity, very high margin product as a result of that. The majority of our fixed wireless additions are actually coming from our mobile phone base. This notion of, well, there's very high incremental marketing and CPGAs isn't really true. You have an embedded base that sees the value of this network, and you're getting a lot of acquisition there. ARPUs that are similar to postpaid phone, which, by the way, was another structural difference to the US, to Europe, right? In terms of where ARPUs sit, and what consumers are getting for that. You have a high ARPU product with much lower cost from a subsidy perspective. Really, you're doing a CPE router, self-install. There's just, you know, I always point to consumers don't lie in this.
Everybody likes to advertise, "We have the best, we have the best, we have the best." As of Q1, we're at 3.2 million customers. When you look at what customer satisfaction scores are, you're, you know, 30 points above cable, and in fact, you're 10 points above fiber as a category, which is very interesting in and of itself, and that has continued to hold. Our gross adds have gone up sequentially every quarter. Our churn has gone down sequentially every quarter. Consumers are telling you there's a space for this product. When you compare it to what's actually happening, 'cause cable in the U.S. has this, you know, love of advertising speeds that aren't realized. When you look at third-party reports of actual cable speeds on average in the U.S., they're about 200 megabits a second.
When you look at our 5G network, by the way, that's roughly where it is, and actually has been increasing every single quarter in those third-party reports, which also tells you about the capacity that we're creating, utilizing speed as a, you know, pseudo proxy for capacity. The reality is there a place on a mid-single-digit penetration perspective where this is going to work for consumers in the long haul? We absolutely believe it is. We're very, very happy with just how quickly this product has been adopted by consumers, that it is a fallow capacity, high-margin product for us. We're unique in this space, in the fallow capacity approach. I'm sure AT&T probably doesn't have that ability, given what they've rolled out from a network perspective.
This is one where we continue to see great progress towards that 7 million-8 million goal.
Did you say that you've been seeing churn come down in the...
Yeah
fixed wireless access business?
Yeah, which you'd expect. Remember, this is an early base. This started just a couple of years ago.
Mm-hmm.
In reality, as the base matures, you tend to see. You know, early cohort churn, it's very similar to postpaid phone business, where you see the most churn happen at the very onset.
Mm-hmm.
You know, the first three, six, nine months, you see if end vault churn is going to happen, that's typically when it happens. It's very similar to the postpaid phone business from a, how the churn curve develops. Not only as you're creating more capacity, but as that cohort gets more aged, we are seeing churn decrease.
Should we be seeing fixed wireless access adds kind of creeping up through time?
Well, what you do... Remember, this is an increasing base.
Mm-hmm.
Every quarter, just to keep that mid, low to mid 500,000 range.
Fair enough.
... you've got to increase gross adds. Our focus is every single quarter, how do you get the profitable gross add profile so that we stay in that low to mid $500s?
Before we move on to the other two items real quick, the how important or impactful is the 2.5 gig Auction to this fallow capacity model, just the capacity in general?
Well, our auction went away, and really there. Remember, all of this modeling was done before that auction.
Mm-hmm.
That would be incrementally beneficial to consumers. In fact, the moment that the authority is created and we actually can turn these on, because it is just a roll-on, right? There's no actual incremental radios being hung. It's just a flip of a switch.
Mm-hmm.
We can create significantly more capacity, about 2.5 million more households that will have availability for fixed wireless, that you can sell into, that where you'd have excess capacity, as well as, you know, the mobile phone business. Yeah, it's the moment it's there, we can flip the switch, but that is incremental fallow capacity versus what was in the model.
For those of you sitting at home, you probably know that the FCC, because of government, incompetence, lost their spectrum authority and hasn't been able to get it back yet. We can't have spectrum auctions in the U.S. right now because no one can do it.
That'll be resolved, of course.
Of course. It only took, what, 2-plus years to get an FCC commissioner done? All right, the speed, I guess your point being, you're only looking for low single-digit, mid-single-digit penetration. You know, there's a spectrum of usage from power gamers-
Yep
... toward my dad. Somewhere, you know, in there, 100, 200, 300 megabits of speed is plenty.
It is. We see, I mean, in terms of users on the network and using the product very successfully, it's everything from low users, like you say, all the way through to actually multi-terabyte users-
Mm-hmm
... of the product, and we do have gamers and, you know, so yeah, there's definitely room for this product.
The speed will grow through time, presumably?
I don't know if it'll grow through time-
Okay
remember, it's going to be 200 megabits a second. Again, consumer speak with, you know, consumer satisfaction and churn and additions more than all of us talking heads do.
How about the incremental margin assumption? I guess a lot of people, I guess myself included, are guilty of just assuming it's pretty high. You know, I guess I just don't know what else there really is, other than maybe some of these smaller issues.
Mm-hmm.
I would say 70%-80% is kind of what I'd throw out there.
Yeah, I'm not going to get to the exact margin of the product, but because we've never said that, and, you know, there's a number of ways...
You're suggesting-
what I'm saying is that...
You're right. I mean, Dave's a good analyst. He did a good number.
Dave's an amazing analyst. All I can tell you is that, like I said, because of the dynamics of how we're selling it is a very high margin, accretive product.
Okay, great. There you go. Let's maybe shift gears a little bit. One of the fallouts from the kind of Dish-Amazon episode was the stock price got impacted. I guess, I don't know exactly how to ask this question. My exact question is, did you take advantage of that to buy back more stock at a more rapid pace? Or is the stock price kind of an indifferent variable, and you're kind of more in the market all the time?
Well, I certainly won't get into the dynamics of how we buy or what the plan is. That's not really would be appropriate for me. Really, the way we look at this capital return program is that is a long, multi-year capital return program that's quite significant in its potential, as we've said. We are very pleased as to have being able to get started earlier than we initially projected in terms of Analyst Day. Our job, with regards to the capital return program, is really to create the success that enables it. All of that is really the profitable growth that we're delivering as T-Mobile. You know, ultimately, what makes all of this possible is free cash flow generation.
You know, you can look at EBITDA and service revenue and all of that, and it's important to be a service revenue growth leader, which we are in the industry, but it's also important to be able to convert that into free cash flow, which we have now, as of Q1 arrive, that the best conversion of service revenue into free cash flow. As you saw in our Analyst Day guide, that continues to expand in 2024 and 2026 with the guidance ranges that we gave out there. So that free cash flow generation is what allows all of this potential shareholder return strategy to create. As to the day-to-day mechanics, yeah, I can't really get into that.
We'll find out at the end of the quarter, believe me.
We'll find out at the end of the quarter, yeah.
I do wanna talk about the free cash flow in a second, but just before leaving on the cash flow returns, you know, one thing we've discussed is the idea of a dividend, perhaps opening the aperture of the universe of potential investors in T-Mobile. Nothing too crazy, but just to try to, you know, open that door. Is that a conversation that you have today about next year? Is it a conversation that you're willing to have at some future time? How do you think about diversifying the capital return? Would it come at the expense of share buybacks, or would it be incremental?
Well, again, I think it's looking at the totality of the program and what that free cash flow unlock allows. Of course, you have to look at what's the right mix, what's the right strategy for shareholder returns. For us, at the moment, it's, we believe, share buybacks are the appropriate strategy. What the future brings, of course, one would be predicated on the board approving something, and, you know, at that point in time, whenever that is, whether it's incremental share buybacks or any other alternative structures or a mix, you know, it would be probably too premature for me to opine on it.
I lied, I have to ask this question, I ask this question every time. Which is, you know, when your stock was at $148, this was a bigger question.
Yeah
about this idea that there's a glass ceiling at 150. That's informed, if that's using the proper word, by this $48.8 million, you know, in incentive shares that will get issued to SoftBank if and when we get there. You know, I've asked this before, you know, why don't we just clean it up? You've got the room in the buyback, just put it to bed. It seems like it would be so much more efficient for all the parties involved than, you know, you issue shares to, you know, SoftBank, and SoftBank dumps them on the market. That seems like a stupid option for everybody. Is it that Masa isn't picking up the phone? Why, why can't we just solve this?
I think we've talked about this a little bit at Q1. Of course, we've had discussions.
Cause I asked about it.
Of course you did. Well, brilliant question from a brilliant analyst, as you say.
78% incremental margins. Okay, go ahead.
I did not say that. You did. All I said is really good model, fallow capacity. Yes, of course, we've had discussions, and I think Would we be open and interested in solving this? Yeah, we'd be open and interested in solving it, but it has to be a win-win on both sides of the equation, there's nothing here that I have to announce. I think maybe more to importantly is to put it in perspective of, yes, it's up to 48.8 million shares. There's certainly some restrictions in terms of what they can or can't do with it for a period of time.
More importantly, even as of when we announced and gave the last share buyback figure, we've actually already purchased back more shares than this potential 48.8 million share dilution. Will we continue talking? Yeah, we'll continue talking, and if there's a mutually agreeable solution, of course, we'd be open to it, but there's nothing to date to announce.
Okay. Just the couple minutes we have left on the free cash flow outlook. You know, we've kind of seen the CapEx, we think, drift down, you know, from that 13 range to the 9-10 range. We've seen kind of a jumping-off point for the shutdown of the Sprint network and its synergy benefits that'll get realized over the course of 2023. As we look ahead, if we're kind of at run rate synergies from the network, and we're at run rate CapEx from a business as usual standpoint, are the moving parts to free cash flow looking into 4 and 5 really just execution on the top line?
Are there other things like the systems integrations and other things that are gonna come that we need to kind of think about that are gonna augment what we're gonna already see and anticipate as reasonable EBITDA growth at the free cash flow line?
Yeah. There's a number of factors playing into there, and you're right. We have arrived at the point where we're also the most capital efficient in the industry, and that $9 billion to $10 billion guide feels right, and the longer-term guide feels about right from what we gave to Analyst Day for everything that we'd need to deliver against those plans. What I'll say is probably a few things. One is there's still continued synergy unlock on our way to about $8 billion in 2024. From a free cash flow perspective, remember, some of the synergies and those merger-related costs that were accrued earlier in terms of the P&L side actually flow a little bit over time. A lot of the especially the decomp payments related to the tower decommissioning.
There's a little bit of that that'll kind of drag out and kind of see, and we've given guidance before on what we think the cash flow incremental impact is for 2023 versus, for example, the P&L. You do have the continued profitable growth, the top line service revenue delivery and how that drops into core EBITDA. You might have a little bit of working capital changes here and there, but on the balance, that's not big swings for us. The other big factor as we get past 2024 into 2025 and 2026, is that we'll ultimately become a full cash taxpayer as well. When we gave the analyst a guide of the $18-plus billion free cash flow profile in 2026, that was under the assumption that we're actually be a full cash taxpayer in that year.
That gives you a sense of how much unlock there is between the periods.
Mm.
'Cause there you've arrived at $18-plus billion and a full cash taxpayer status, and we'll be past basically all of the merger-related costs, the cash flow element of that. At that point, it will become primarily a story of continued profitable share taking in the industry and converting that into free cash flow, you know, at the best ratio.
Just a question on that before we wrap it up, which is because of the bonus tax depreciation, you know, it's gonna start to taper off.
Mm-hmm.
You haven't been paying taxes anyway. Have you accumulated a tax shield that could be used to offset those full cash taxes in 2020?
That NOL utilization is assumed.
Okay.
throughout between now and then, and that it'll be exhausted by the time we reach 2026, given the profitability profile of the company.
$18 billion, 1.1 billion shares, 17 and change per share, 10 multiple, $170, $130 stock price currently. Sounds like a pretty good deal.
Well, it's $1.1 billion in shares current.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Peter, thank you so much for doing this.
Thank you so much, Dave.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you. I appreciate it.