Bezeq The Israel Telecommunication Corp. Ltd (BEZQ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us on Bezeq's 2022 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Earnings Call. I'm Tobi Fischbein, Bezeq Group CFO. With us from the Bezeq Group senior management team, Mr. Gil Sharon, Bezeq's Chairman; Mr. Ran Guron, Bezeq's CEO; and Mr. Ilan Sigal, CEO of Pelephone and yes. Before we start, I would like to draw your attention to the safe harbor statement on Slide 2, our 2022 investor presentation, which also applies to any statement made during today's call. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. After presenting our results, you can ask questions by raising your hand virtually. Let me now turn the call over to our Chairman, Mr. Gil Sharon, for his opening remarks. After his introduction, I will continue the presentation of our group financial highlights followed by Ran, who will discuss Bezeq's Fixed Line results and Ilan, who will conclude with the results of our subsidiaries. Gil?

Thank you, Tobi. Let's start on Slide #3. 2020 was a strong year for Bezeq Group. Our focus on successfully executing our growth strategy is shown in the robust financial results and growth recorded in the group's core activities, with 3% growth in Bezeq Fixed-Line and 5% in Pelephone. We have accelerated fiber take-up, posted growth and significantly improved profitability in Pelephone and launched a TV and fiber bundle in yes. All was achieved while strengthening our financial profile and reducing our debt by over ILS 0.5 billion. In light of the strong financial results and the debt reduction, the Board of Directors decided to upgrade our dividend policy to 60% of net profit and recommended a distribution of ILS 246 million. In addition, the company will strive to upgrade the policy to 70% of net profit, subject to maintaining the company's credit rating in the AA group. Turning to the next slide. We show the group's technological and business road map and progress made so far. In Bezeq Fixed-Line, we launched the fiber project at the end of 2020. Today, we have 1.6 million homes passed and a total take-up of 332,000 subscribers on our network, resulting in a 50% increase in broadband ARPU since 2020. Our target is to deploy up to 2.7 million homes by 2027 and continue our accelerated take-up and ARPU growth. In Pelephone, we won frequencies in the 5G tender in 2020. And today, 32% of our subscribers are on 5G plans, helping to increase service revenues by 13% since 2020. Our target is to have 80% of our customers on 5G plans by 2027. In yes, we began the migration from satellite to IP. And today, 60% of our customers are IPTV customers, resulting in a 39% decrease in churn since 2020. We are on target to reach our goal of becoming the first satellite company in the world to fully migrate to IP by 2026, which will lead to a significant cost reduction. Turning to the next slide, we're proud to report strong results for 2022. Revenue grew by 1.9% to ILS 9 billion. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 0.7% to ILS 3.74 billion and adjusted net profit grew 3.6% to ILS 1.2 billion. In addition, we posted growth in subscribers and ARPU in most of the businesses -- in the business sectors, as shown on the next slide. Total fiber take-up reached 332,000 as of today, including retail fiber net adds of 133,000 in 2022. Broadband ARPU was up 7.5% to ILS 114 on average for the year and ILS 117 shares in Q4. In Pelephone, 5G subscribers reached 813,000 or 32% of total subscribers as of today. Cellular ARPU was up 5.6% to ILS 57 and Cellular service revenues grew 9.1% to ILS 1.8 billion. In yes, subscribers grew 2.8% to 579,000 with 60% IP subscribers. Now let me turn the call over to Tobi to discuss the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Gil. Turning to Slide 7. Revenues increased for the second consecutive year due to growth of 5% in Pelephone and 3% in basic fixed line. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 0.7% year-over-year to ILS 3.74 billion and adjusted net profit rose 3.6% year-over-year to ILS 1.2 billion for the full year, mainly due to increased profitability in Pelephone. Double-digit growth in free cash flow was mainly due to timing differences and improved working capital. Moving on to the next slide. Revenues in the fourth quarter of 2022 amounted to ILS 2.24 billion, down 0.6% from a year ago, mainly due to lower handsets sold at Pelephone. Adjusted EBITDA decreased slightly year-over-year to ILS 907 million. Adjusted net profit declined 2.4% year-over-year to ILS 250 million in Q4. Free cash flow for the quarter was much higher for the fourth quarter due to the impact of timing differences in working capital in all group companies. The next slide shows the group's key operational metrics for the past 5 quarters. On the subscriber side, we saw continued increases in TV and retail Internet subscribers, while we experienced a quarter-over-quarter decrease in several subscribers due to a removal of 96,000 prepaid subscribers. On ARPU, retail Internet grew 7.3% year-over-year and Cellular ARPU increased 3.6% year-over-year. Telephony ARPU was down due to the Ministry of Communications tariff reduction implemented in Q2 of 2022 and TV ARPU decline due to the change in TV subscriber mix. Moving to the next slide. Let me again emphasize Bezeq's financial strength and success in debt reduction. As Gil previously said, by the end of 2022, our net debt decreased by over ILS 500 million year-over-year or 8%, allowing for a further improvement in our leverage ratios. Looking back to 2018, net debt has decreased by over ILS 3.2 billion or almost 40%. Moving on to the next slide, we would like to share the 2023 guidance and our midterm ambitions. In terms of the outlook for 2023, we expect adjusted EBITDA of ILS 3.8 billion, adjusted net profit of ILS 1.2 billion and CapEx of ILS 1.75 billion. We're also now expecting to reach 2 million households by the end of 2023 with our fiber network. Additionally, we're also sharing our midterm ambitions. We expect adjusted EBITDA compounded annual growth rate of 1% with margins between 41% to 43% and mid-single-digit growth for free cash flow. CapEx and CapEx to sales are expected to remain stable until 2025 and decreased gradually thereafter. And we are targeting 2.7 million households for fiber deployment in the medium term. As Gil mentioned, we aim to upgrade the dividend policy to 70% in the midterm, subject to maintaining the company's credit rating within the AA Group, AA Group. Turning to Slide 12. In light of strong financial results and debt reduction, the Board of Directors decided to upgrade our dividend policy to 60% of net profit and recommended a distribution of ILS 246 million. We expect an increase in total dividends to be distributed during 2023 as compared to those paid in 2022. Now Ran will share the results from our fixed-line operations.

Thank you, Tobi. We posted another strong year of results with massive deployment of fiber towards the year. Turning to Slide 13, we presented a summary of our progress in 2022 with revenue growth driven by increased focus and accelerated fiber take-up, resulting in double-digit broadband revenue growth as well as continued business sector growth. Turning to the next 2 slides. We posted a 3% increase in overall revenues despite the MOC decrease in telephony rates in the second quarter of 2022, which impacted adjusted EBITDA, among other factors. There was a decrease in adjusted net profit, mainly due to an increase in depreciation expenses related to the fiber deployment as well as other infrastructure projects. And free cash flow decreased for the year due to payment received for sales of real estate in 2021. Slide 16 shows our achievements for the year in terms of broadband Internet that recorded revenue of ILS 1.8 billion, representing a 10.2% increase year-over-year. Retail ARPU increased by 7.5% to reach an average of ILS 114 and retail broadband lines grew 0.9%. On the next slide, we presented the fourth quarter broadband Internet results, which followed the trend of the full year of 2022 with revenue growth of 10.6% to reach ILS 460 million, 0.9% growth in retail broadband lines and retail ARPU grew by 7.3% year-over-year to reach ILS 117, positively impacted by fiber customers take up. Moving on to fiber optics. On the next slide, our fiber network has reached 235,000 retail fiber subscribers and 97,000 wholesale fiber subscribers as of today. We posted record retail fiber net adds of 41,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2022, continuing to accelerate -- the accelerated trend, which began in the third quarter of 2022. On the wholesale side, following the higher new agreement with partner, we are showing a rapid growth beginning in the first quarter of 2023 with 28,000 new wholesale subscribers as of today, twice the average take-up in the previous quarters. Turning to the next slide. We have reached 1.6 million homes passed today through our fiber deployment and expected to reach 2 million homes by the end of the year. Customers with Be router continue to grow and were 764,000 by the end of the quarter, while broadband speed increased 70% year-over-year to reach 220 megabytes per second. We continue our focus on accelerating fiber deployment and take-up, which reached over 20% penetration as of today. As shown in the next slide, the business sector continued to gain momentum in 2022, with 4.1% revenue increase in transmission and data as well as 4.1% year-over-year growth in cloud and digital services. Other revenues grew 14.2% year-over-year to ILS 275 million due to growth in infrastructure projects. Telephony revenue declined mainly due to MOC tariff reduction beginning in the second quarter of 2022. Slide 21 shows fourth quarter results, which largely reflect the trends in the 3 years. Moving forward to the next slide, we detailed our expenses for 2022. Salaries increased 3.9% due to employee recruitment related to the fiber project, operating expenses were up due to higher subcontractors and equipment expenses also related to the fiber optic project and the increase in depreciation expenses were driven by CapEx increase over previous periods. Our fourth quarter expenses are detailed in the next slide. The rise in other expenses was mainly due to capital gains from the sales of real estate in the corresponding quarter in 2021. In summary, our growth broadband has offset the negative impact of the -- caused by the MOC decrease in telephony tariffs and the fiber deployment, combined with accelerated fiber take-up and continued success in routers and WiFi, and hence, it reflects our potential for continued growth in residential market. Our strong results proved our strategy, and we continue to be very confident in our growth trajectory moving forward. With that, I will turn the call to Ilan to talk about basic subsidiaries.

Thank you, Ran. It is indeed exciting here at Bezeq with the results we accomplished. In the next 2 slides, we can see that for the full year, Pelephone reached record revenues since 2018 with a 5% increase year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA grew 20% to ILS 761 million, and adjusted net profit increased 155% to ILS 193 million. Free cash flow grew to 3351 million for the year compared to a negative 47 million for 2021. We added 53,000 postpaid subscribers in the year, and our 5G subscriber plans grew to 813,000 or 32% of total subscribers. The Q4 results for Pelephone are shown on Slide 27 and largely reflect the full year trends with adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net profit growth of 9.5% and 63.3% respectively, largely due to a recovery in roaming revenues, an increase in the number of subscribers and growth in 5G subscriber plans. Total revenue for Pelephone in Q4 was down 1.7% to ILS 592 million due to a decrease in the number of handsets sold. Free cash flow improved this quarter due to timing differences in working capital related to employee sanctions in the first quarter of 2021. The graph displayed on the next slide shows the turnaround in service revenues in the last 2 years. The year-over-year increase in service revenues was driven by a recovery in roaming revenues and growth in subscribers and 5G subscriber plans. The following slide shows key operational metrics for the quarter. Pelephone's ARPU rose 3.6% year-over-year in Q4 2022, while total subscribers increased by 0.2% year-over-year to reach 2.6 million, impacted by the removal of 96,000 prepaid customers who did not meet the definition of an active subscriber. Moving to the next 2 slides. yes saw significant progress in 2022 and continues to be the largest Israel IPTV operator with 344,000 customers as of today. Net subscribers grew by 16,000, the highest yearly subscriber growth since 2014. Revenues grew for the first time since 2014 by 0.6% to reach ILS 1.28 billion. And yes made significant milestones this year with the launch of the bundle combining TV and basic fiber and new agreements with leading content providers. The decline in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net profit were mainly due to an increase in content and salary expenses as well as the launch of the TV and fiber bundle. Looking at the Q4 financial results in the next slide, the results reflected the trends for the full year, and we see that revenues grew 2.5% year-over-year, mainly due to sales of content. The next slide shows yes key operational metrics. Net subscribers grew for the eighth consecutive quarter by 2.8% year-over-year to 579,000 and 60% of yes subscribers are now watching IPTV as we move towards our goal of 100% IPTV by 2026. The 4.7% decrease in ARPU is due to the change in subscriber mix with growth in STINGTV subscribers which moved to 107,000 as of today. Now let me turn the call back to Tobi to discuss Bezeq International and for concluding remarks.

Thank you, Ilan. Turning to the next slide, Bezeq International, achieving 2022 strong results even with the reduction in ISP consumer activity due to the regulatory removal of the Internet infrastructure and ISP separation as of April 2022. The focus on expansion of ISP activities are showing results. Looking forward, the implementation of the labor union agreement for voluntary retirement of employees is expected to save significant expenses. The next slide, revenues grew by 0.2% to reach ILS 1.2 billion following our acquisition of CloudEdge. Adjusted net profit increased by 156.3%, mainly due to lower depreciation and amortization expenses and free cash flow was higher due to timing difference in working capital due to employee sanctions in 2021. The next slide, Bezeq International's results for Q4 reflected 2022 trends with a 2.7% decline in revenue and 12% decline in adjusted EBITDA due to the previously mentioned reduction in consumer ISP activity. Turning to our last slide, Bezeq's Q4 and full year performance showed record results and growth in numerous metrics, once again, testifying that we are on the right track with our strategy. Moving forward, we aim to continue our growth momentum and enhance profitability while maintaining financial strength for the benefit of all our stakeholders. I would also like to mention that we will attend 2 conferences over the next few weeks to further engage with analysts and investors. The Citi TMT Conference in London tomorrow, March 15 and 16. And we will also attend the Jefferies Pan-European Mid-Cap Conference in London at the end of the month. We look forward to meeting you there. With that, I will open the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] We have our first question from Tavy Rosner.

I have three short questions, please. The first one is on Bezeq fees. You talked about the increase in operating expense linked to contractor and the deployment of fiber. Looking ahead, as you're tackling higher penetration rates, are you comfortable with that level of run rate OpEx? Or should we expect higher expenses down the road?

Thanks, Tavy. We obviously are growing and experiencing a very strong take-up momentum in Bezeq Fixed-Line with our fiber penetration. And as you would expect, expenses are going up in parallel. However, as we get more experience in making those connections and those installations in the customer premises, we are expected to become more efficient in the way we spend the money when we go about and do this growth. So we would expect to continue our growth momentum as explained before, and have, what I would say, better control of our costs along the way.

Okay. That's helpful. And then moving to Pelephone. There's been a significant increase in adjusted EBITDA that you attribute it to the move to 5G. Can you remind us what's the increase in ARPU between 4G subscribers and 5G subscribers? What kind of uplift do you get when someone migrates from one to the other?

So when you look at the Pelephone website, and you would see the difference in tariffs between 5G and 4G. Of course, we manage our customers' base in the way that we, over time, move the customers over to 5G plans, and that contributes over time, on average, around ILS 8 per subscriber per plan per month, not including VAT. And this is something that we are very focused on going forward.

Okay. And last short one for me on yes. So yes has been losing money for quite a while now. I'm wondering, is there a plan for it to breakeven at some point down the road? Or are you comfortable with the ongoing losses that is part of the broader, as a group and you need there to generate revenues?

As you know, Tavy, we are very focused in progressing with the migration of yes subscriber base from satellite to IPTV, which would deliver along the road, but especially from 2026 on, significant reduction in both CapEx and OpEx. And I think we have discussed this several times what are the reasons behind that. I think that yes has successfully reduced the cash flow burden had in previous years. This specific year, it had some costs out there, but nothing significant, and it has not needed Bezeq to give it cash during the past 2 years. So at the end of the day, yes behaves quite independently on a financial basis. Our next question is Ondrej from UBS.

I have questions -- two questions around fiber. One is on the households that you aim to pass because the number has gone up quite significantly. I think the assumption previously was that you'd be doing 80% of homes, which was around 2.1 million, and roughly 2.5 million. So first of all, the definition clearly changed because now you're saying that the total market is kind of 2.7 million. So how does that definition change? Does that include businesses, for example, on the households? And then why is the upgrade so significant? Is that a result of you now assuming that no other operators apply or are successful in applying for the non-economical areas with subsidies? So just to clarify, first of all, the definition then your own targets within that definition? And then related to the CapEx, because you are saying that you're now expecting CapEx to sales at about 19% and roughly 1.7 billion all the way through 2025. So just 1 year longer, higher CapEx to sales on a, say, 0.5 million, 0.6 million more homes. So how do I reconcile the fact that you are doing so many more homes with just 1 extra year of high CapEx, please?

Thank you, Ondrej, for the question. In terms of fiber penetration, you're right, in the past, we said 2.5 million, but that was around 2025. Now we are saying 2.7 million around 2027. And if you remember, when we announced our initial penetration into the fiber deployment project, we said that we would cover 80% of Israeli households. Now we have increased that to around 85% on one hand. On the other hand, population grows in Israel at around 1.8% a year. So when you push this 2027, you get more or less to the 2.7 million figure that we have released today. And in terms of the CapEx to sales, basically, we said that we would start coming down during 2025. Of course, increasing the number from 80% to 85% and the fact that we have been able to deploy with a very good pace allows us not to bring down that space in the next 2 years, but actually want to bring forward the deployment that we would otherwise have had later on. So for us, we have the cash for that business performance is strong. So we see no reason to actually delay what we can do earlier. Next question from Jeremy Dellis.

My first question is in relation to regulation. I wondered if you could update us on more discussions you're having with the newly formed ministry. And what you think are going to be the main debating points between yourselves and the government during 2023? And then very specifically, in relation to wholesale fiber rates, is the ILS 72 per month wholesale rate on fiber lines up to 1.1 gigabits per second, is that now sort of set in stone? And what would be the duration on that regulatory agreement, please?

Okay. So I think that the new ministry has performed its internal, I would say, internal management and to perform its agenda and working plan for the year. We know that they are working on it these days. We are trying to put cancellation of structural separation on that agenda to be examined. We'll see what happens with that. In regards to your question about wholesale tariffs, first of all, we must say that it is becoming less important because we have the IRU agreement with Partner, and Cellcom has a few days ago announced that they have signed an IRU for the next 3 years with IBC. So -- and they will still buy from us something probably on the rate. So there's not a lot of flea markets. But to your question, the ILS 72 was done by us as part of the negotiation for approval of the IRU as you recall. It's voluntarily. And it doesn't mean that when the final review of tariffs by the ministry that is expected by August or September when they make their final decision on reviewing the tariffs with the consulting firm, they still might want to set new regulated prices that possibly could be lower than ILS 72. However, as I said, it would not have, we believe, a significant impact.

Could I just ask a question on something else, please? In relation to inflation, I'd be interested in the sort of inflation assumptions that are baked into your 2023 guidance. And perhaps if you could to us in qualitative terms about where the sort of inflationary pressure is within your cost base and what mitigating actions you're able to take, in particular in relation to raising prices?

Thank you, Jeremy. So we assume -- we first look at market rates and expected inflation rate for the market. That's what we have in -- reflected in our guidance. It's around 3% in Israel. When we look at the impact on inflation, it's on one hand on certain brands that we have across the group, especially in Pelephone, but also in Bezeq fixed line, those are the more important ones. But I would say that the greatest exposure is in our CPI-linked debt -- financial debt that we have at Bezeq Fixed-Line, some of which is hedged. We have taken certain measures to try to reduce our exposure, for example, to pay in advance certain CPI-linked charges that we have with certain municipalities across the country. These are certain amounts that we are saving for ourselves. We are saving the CPI increase the inflation. But other than that, we still remain exposed, especially through the financial debt, as I said before.

And then in terms of your ability to raise prices to mitigate?

Well, in the short term, as you know, especially in Bezeq Fixed-Line, many of our tariffs are regulated. So we cannot increase prices by ourselves. And the rest of the group, we are in a very competitive market. So there is some upgrades on some of our tariffs, not necessarily on the back of inflation, but part of the competitive dynamics. We've seen that Pelephone in the Cellular market. And in wholesale, I would say this is one area where when wholesale tariffs are updated, those are linked to CPI on the fixed line wholesale Internet, both for copper and for fiber. And the IRU agreement we partner has also some elements of linkage to the inflation. Next question from David Kaplan.

I have -- first, my question is on Pelephone and on ARPU. When I take into account the prepaid subscribers that were removed from subscriber count, I think you guys wrote in your report that, that added ILS 2 to your ARPU. So then when I compare on a year-on-year basis, ARPU is actually down, if I'm not mistaken. So can you explain to me how the ARPU -- how the different parts of what runs through the ARPU, including roaming? Because I know the holidays go on in the fourth quarter this year, and on top of that additional 5G plans, how is that going to run through ARPU? Is it a timing issue when it comes to the 5G plans? And when will we start to see an uptick? I understand also in the middle of this year and into the next 2 years after with the interconnect down. So kind of how are we supposed to think about ARPU going forward?

David, on this quarter, the fourth quarter, we had a negative onetime accounting adjustment that we made on the ARPU. And we also had a Minister of Education project that ended, reflected on the ARPU for this quarter. As I said, roaming and the move to transfer to 5G plans were helping the increase of the ARPU. But what happened this quarter is that what I said, the onetime accounting adjustment and the ending of a project from the Ministry of Education.

Okay. I understand the answer to that question. So then when I think about ARPU going forward and I think about the lower interconnect fees over the next couple of years, how are we supposed to think about service revenues going forward? Because obviously, when subscribers and ARPU are a function of service revenue, it seems to me like we're looking at a downward trend.

No, not necessarily. Actually, we are looking at the same trends that we've benefited from in 2022. Overall, I don't look at a specific quarter, which may be influenced by seasonality, or obviously, Q4 less roaming than Q3, for example, or certain things like Ilan explained before, which actually have an impact mainly on the prepaid ARPU, which is the area where we think it's not the basis of the company. When you look at service revenues going forward, we expect to see a couple of things in Cellular in Pelephone. Number one is a slow but gradual increase in tariffs. We are seeing this throughout the market. Number two, the transition to 5G plans, which are a bit more expensive than 4G plans. And in roaming, we have seen a significant recovery in 2022 versus 2019, especially on the consumer side. On the business side, we haven't seen the full recovery yet, and we might see it in the future.

Okay. And then just my last question on the IRU agreement with Partner. Has that already been taken up? Are we going to see that already in Q1? Or is it not playing out as quickly as originally expected?

You asking in terms of the impact on our financial results?

Yes.

So you will start to see it gradually from Q1 definitely because we have started that agreement. It will have a minor impact per quarter. But if we see that there is an accelerated pace in the usage of our network by then, then you will probably bring forward part of the revenues that we would otherwise be recognizing in the second, third, fourth year. So that's something that we would expect also to see actually in 2023 throughout the year.

So you can't give us any updated -- where -- you can't give us an update as to where you are in terms of the number of lines they've taken already.?

Well, if you saw the presentation and the slide on fixed line take up, you will see there the expectation of -- not the expectation, but where we are now as of today in terms of wholesale lines and the change in wholesale lines, you see there are significant uptick in the first 2.5 months of the year, and that's coming mainly from the IRU agreement with Partner, which is partly offset also by some other players. Next question from Siyi from Citi.

I have three, please. First one, I was just wondering if you can comment on the competitive dynamics in the market. Bezeq Mobile, we see the churn has gone up a little bit. Just wondering if there is any changes in the market, or is that simply because of the disconnection of the prepaid? And a similar question to the fixed as well. You have the IRU agreement has been implemented. I wonder if you have seen any changes on the retail pricing after this? And my second question is on the international business. I was just wondering if you could indicate where are we with this ISP transformation? And also how much those customers have been retained within the Bezeq Group? And then my final question is just on the potential to increase the payout ratio to 70%, providing the rating stay at AA? And I was wondering if there is any numbers we could look at in terms of your financial capability. So that's -- to allow you to show that you are within that AA rating.

Thank you, Siyi, for your question. I suggest that Ran and Ilan perhaps discuss the competitive dynamics. The first one Gil or myself will deal with Bezeq International, and I will speak about the dividend one.

In the last quarter, we see a decline of churn in Pelephone subscribers. What we -- as you said, what we saw in this quarter is because of the write-off of the 96,000 to prepaid customers, we saw a slide of up on the churn. So that's the only reason for this quarter.

Okay. And this is Ran. I'll discuss fiber optics. So we see very strong momentum for Bezeq fiber optics. You see take-up is going up with record-breaking figures for the fourth quarter, and then you can calculate yourself the first quarter, which has a higher figure as well. And we do not see any obstacle from the IRU dealing with Partner. Partner hasn't yet published their results, so we have to see that. But we have a really strong momentum both in IRU take-up and retail customers. I heard something about ISP, we published at 47% of Bezeq Fixed-Line customers are getting ISP services from Bezeq Fixed-Line, so we are in a trend that soon majority of our customers will see full end-to-end service by Bezeq Fixed-Line so then on the side of fixed line, I'll let Tobi speak about Bezeq International in this aspect.

Okay. So I will just complement that comment. What we're also announcing our full year -- our annual report is also that Bezeq International is down to 22% market share, which reflects in some way that they have lost about 1/3 of their consumer ISP customers. When you do the math, you will see that Bezeq has really captured a more significant amount of ISP customers than Bezeq International loss. So of course, many of them are coming from Bezeq International, but also from some other firms. What we expect going forward is the continued decline in ISP consumer activity on behalf of Bezeq International and resulting from that also lower revenues. And on the other hand, we would expect to see also a compensation from the expansion of the ICT activities and growth in all the services that we provide businesses including [ garbage ] company we acquired at the beginning of last year, but also organic growth as well. And in terms of the third question on the dividend and the 70% aspiration, the Board has upgraded it now from 50% to 60% and has mentioned its aspiration to go in the foreseeable future to 70%. We expect to keep reducing our debt -- keep our ratings, as you mentioned. And with the financial performance that we have posted and assuming that we will be able to perform well on our guidance for 2023, there will be a discussion most likely about a year from now about this issue. We have a follow-up question from Ondrej from UBS.

Three quick follow-ups, if I may, please. So one is just on question in terms of the CPI kind of impacting the regulated rates. So I was wondering if that also accounts for the fixed voice tariffs that are kind of where we have a progression year by year? Are they also kind of changed to impact -- to reflect the changing inflationary environment? That's one question. Second question, in terms of the spectrum CapEx return. So this is based on kind of rollout targets, if I understand correctly. Are there more kind of targets for you to see in the future to get the -- to get CapEx returned the same way you did in the fourth quarter in '22? And the third one was just on lease costs, please. So we've seen some inflation on costs even though I think intuitively one would expect that maybe with upgrades of copper into fiber, there will be maybe less real estate to and with your real estate sales, there'll be less lease costs going into that part of the business. If you could explain where this is coming from and how you expect lease cost to evolve going forward, please?

Right. So on the first part of the question on the fixed line, most of the tariffs are not CPI linked, at least not in the short term. In terms of the impact on the CapEx -- on the spectrum, this is just a timing difference between Q3 and Q4. If you remember, Pelephone paid in Q3, ILS 88 million and now got back ILS 74 million in Q4. So it's -- when you look throughout the year, you will see that CapEx remains more or less with a stable trend. And going forward, we don't expect any significant payments such as this one that we want to see now in Q4 by Pelephone. Generally speaking, in terms of leases, some of those increases come from Pelephone which has quite significant leases, especially in duration to their towers, to their sites, that's even larger than Bezeq Fixed-Line, but we see an increase due to CPI inflation across the group. We have a question from [ Sabina ] from [ Leader ].

First of all, congratulations on the results. I have two questions. The first one is regarding the fixed line. I just wanted to understand regarding the potential of the penetration rate. Now currently, your customer base is approximately 20% of the total on past plans. So I was wondering if you can share with us what is your target or ambitions for the mid, long term, how do you see the penetration rate of the customers -- of the paying customers? And the second question is about yes. So on one hand, we are seeing higher penetration of like the STING -- there are more STING customers compared to the traditional customers. And we know that STING, usually, they have lower ARPU, they're low priced. So -- and on the other hand, we see the total ARPU holding relatively well. So I'm just trying to understand what's going on there? And if we should see the same trends going forward? Or we should see more sharper decrease in the ARPU for yes?

I'll take the first one. First of all, we do not release the future of the take-up or penetration rate. But as you can see for yourself, 20% of our customers of our current retail Internet customers are on fiber as for now. And if you take the figure of the first quarter, it's even more than that. So you can make the calculation yourself and see that first of all, we still have a lot of potential to grow. And second, if you continue in this space, we will reach a significant figure out of this 1 million retail customers approximately in 2 to 3 years, but you should make the calculation yourself. So sorry for that.

[ Sabina ], I'll take the yes question. We have 579,000 customers, yes, and 107 are STINGTV customers. So it's 18% of the customer base. Most of the customers are on the yes premium product. And most of our customers still want a major and big plan that has the old content and not the STINGTV content and the small packages, and we see more and more of our customers that want the yes+. It's the premium one. And also the customers that are still on satellite, they take the yes premium packages.

We have a question from [ Latte Solomon ] from [The Sevelle Fund, ILA ].

Thank you for the results in the presentation. I have a quick question about the ARPU in Pelephone. Regarding the -- I forgot the name, when you travel abroad. So you have an additional payment from -- how do you say...

Roaming, roaming.

So how the roaming tariff. So how do you see the threat from alternative solution like ESIM or AI alternative solution that will maybe [ hollow ] the roaming revenues?

First of all, we see that after the corona, the Israelis are getting back to travel and they travel a lot, and they take telephone packages, roaming packages. There are also options that are already in the market for 2 years. Physical SIM and also an ESIM. And we don't see on the short term an effect we probably will -- on the short term and probably on the long term, we will see some effect, but we also see opportunities in this area of ESIM in the next years.

Can you elaborate for that? I mean what do you mean you see a potential?

We see that when the trend will be higher, then more and more people that travel abroad will take ESIM. We are looking at some technologies also, I can't elaborate right now, but we're working on it.

Okay. So in general, I can summarize that there is no risk in terms of the roaming about the ARPU?

On the short term, we don't see an effect right now.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to thank you all for taking the time to join us today. Should you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to contact our Investor Relations department. We look forward to speaking to you on the first quarter 2023 earnings call. Thank you.