Eutelsat Communications S.A. (ETL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Eutelsat First Quarter 2025-2026 Revenues Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the speaker, Christophe Caudrelier, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining us today for Eutelsat's First Quarter '25/'26 Revenues Presentation. I'm Christophe Caudrelier, CFO, and I'm joined today by Joanna Darlington, Head of Communication and Investor Relations. Let's start with the highlights of the past quarter. LEO revenues continued their robust growth rate, up 70%. Overall, first quarter revenues were in line with expectations, enabling us to confirm all our full year '25-'26 financial objectives as well as our longer-term targets. And finally, at the end of September, Eutelsat -- on the 30th exactly, Eutelsat held an ordinary -- an extraordinary general meeting, where all resolutions related to the contemplated capital increases were approved. Let's now turn to the Q1 performance. First, as a reminder, all commentary is on a like-for-like basis, that is to say at constant currency and perimeter. Total revenues for the first quarter stood at EUR 293 million, virtually stable at minus 0.3% on a like-for-like basis. They reflected a EUR 10 million negative currency effect and a EUR 7 million positive swing in other revenues, mainly from hedging as well as revenue recognition from IRIS2 related to Eutelsat's involvement as consortium system development prime. Revenues of the 4 operating verticals were down 1.2% on a like-for-like basis. Let's have a look at the segmental reporting. Video representing 47% of revenues, stood at EUR 133.6 million, a decline of 10.5%. Fixed Connectivity revenues, representing 22% of the group total, rose 16% to EUR 62.3 million. Government Services, 19% of revenues stood at EUR 52 million, a rise of 18.5%. And finally, Mobile Connectivity revenues representing 12% of the group total stood at EUR 34.7 million, a decline of 12%. I will come back to this. Let's now start with Video. As said above, Q1 Video revenues amounted to EUR 134 million, down 10.5% year-on-year. They reflect the ongoing mid- to high single-digit secular market decline, but also the negative effect of the latest sanctions imposed on Russian channels. As a reminder, this started in July 2025 with an impact of around EUR 16 million expected for the full year '25-'26. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, revenues were down by 8.3% more in line with the underlying market trend. On the commercial front, Eutelsat renewed contracts, notably with key regional player [ VHTS ] telecommunications, confirming the 7/8° West video neighborhood as the leading satellite position in the MENA region. Let's now have a closer look to Connectivity. Total Connectivity accounts for 53% of total sales and well over half of the operating verticals revenues. First quarter revenues stood at EUR 149 million, up 8.6%. As stated above, this growth was primarily driven by LEO revenues, up 71% to EUR 54 million and representing over 1/3 of the Connectivity top line. The LEO trend fully offset the GEO connectivity decline of 10% to EUR 95 million. Quarter-on-quarter revenues were down by 13.2%. This sequential decline was mainly the reflection of an exceptionally high level of LEO terminal sales in Q4 '24-'25 across all 3 verticals but predominantly Government Services and Mobility. As a result, LEO revenues in the first quarter were down 20%, reflecting this impact as well as the nonrecurrence of catch-up revenues recorded in Q4 '25. Let's look at each vertical in more detail now. Q1 Fixed Connectivity revenues stood at EUR 62 million, up 15.9% year-on-year, reflecting continuing growth in LEO services. Revenues were impacted by the cessation of revenue recognition from TIM on Konnect VHTS since January 2025 with an annualized impact of around EUR 12 million. As a reminder, this impact will wash through as of Q3 '25-'26. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, revenues were down by 6%. This reflected, in particular, more challenging conditions for GEO-enabled solutions. On the commercial front, Eutelsat signed a strategic partnership with Tussas for LEO Connectivity in Greenland as well as an agreement with Nelco, part of the Tata Group, to deliver LEO Connectivity across India. Moving to Government Services. Revenues stood at EUR 52 million, up 18.5% year-on-year. This rise reflected the growing demand on LEO-enabled connectivity solutions for governmental applications, notably with services delivered in Ukraine. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, revenues were down 17%, reflecting mainly the above-mentioned terminal impact. Mobile Connectivity revenues stood at EUR 35 million, down 12.1% year-on-year. They mainly reflected lower GEO revenues as well as the nonrecurrence of a one-off contract in aviation for about EUR 3 million in Q1 '24-'25. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, revenues were down by 19%, reflecting a one-off revenue catch-up in Q4 '25 and a slowdown in GEO in addition to the above-mentioned terminal impact. Moving to Backlog. It stood at EUR 3.5 billion at the end of September 2025, stable versus end of June '25. It was equivalent to 2.8x fiscal year '24-'25 revenues with Connectivity now representing 58% of the total. Let's now turn to the outlook. The first quarter performance was in line with our expectations with a further sharp rise of LEO revenues offsetting the decline in GEO, which embarked the impact of further Russian sanctions in Video from July 1. As a result, we confirm our fiscal year '25-'26 financial objectives with revenues of the 4 operating verticals in line with the level of fiscal year '24-'25, LEO revenues to grow by 50% year-on-year and adjusted EBITDA margin slightly below the level of fiscal year '24-'25. Gross CapEx expenditure is expected in a range of EUR 1 billion to EUR 1.1 billion. Following the contemplated capital increases announced in June 2025 and due to be completed by the end of calendar year 2025, net debt on adjusted EBITDA ratio is estimated at around 2.5x by year-end, '25-'26. Our longer-term objectives are also confirmed. Revenues of the 4 operating verticals between EUR 1.5 billion to EUR 1.7 billion by the end of fiscal year '28-'29, with LEO revenues significantly outperforming the market. Operating leverage, driving a mid- to high single-digit percentage point improvement in the EBITDA margin resulting in the margin of at least 60% by fiscal year '28-'29. With that, I thank you very much for your attention. And together with Joanna, we are now ready to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank.

I've got 3, please. Firstly, on Video. We saw a bit of a steeper decline this quarter with the Russian sanctions. And Christophe, in your comments, you mentioned a mid- to high single-digit decline. Can I check, is that the headline decline expected? Or is that kind of the underlying decline, i.e., the mid-single digit is now maybe could be high single digit within Video? And just wondering if there are any kind of big video renewals expected this year? Secondly, within government, a good kind of performance you highlighted outside of the U.S. Any details on the French framework agreement? Is there any contribution from that agreement within the government segment, please? And lastly, just on the LEO revenues, we did see this quarter-on-quarter decline, I guess, equipment sales driven. When should we start thinking that the revenue mix moves much more into the services component, and therefore, we should see a quarter-on-quarter growth within stand-alone LEO?

Okay. Very clear. Thanks, Roshan. So if I start by the -- your first question related to Video, I mean, as you said and as we commented, the biggest impact for this quarter is obviously the cessation of some of the Russian channels following the sanctions. But yes, I mean, we already mentioned in the last communication that the decline we saw on Video. I mean, obviously, if you look quarter-by-quarter, as usual, you may have some hiccups and some -- it might vary little bit or be different from one quarter to another quarter. But, yes, I mean, we confirm that the trend that we see is a more mid- to high single digit rather than low to mid-single digits. So that's for the Video part. For the gov, so you mentioned, first of all, the U.S. part. As a precision, I would say, that -- and to make sure that we're clear, the U.S. Gov used to be, in the past, a very significant proportion, if not almost a sole proportion, the integrity of the Video business for Eutelsat. It now represents less than 50%, so less than half and the increase coming from other governments. I mean, we mentioned Ukraine, but not only. More specifically related on the discussion of the contracts with the French DoD or the French so-called [ Direction generale de l'armement ] and the main contract, that agreement. It's not a contract. It's a framework agreement that was signed with the French MOD is NEXUS. So as a reminder, this is a framework agreement that is due to last for 10 years. It does include different elements, obviously, capacity and services, but also development, co-development in order to reinforce certain aspects of the military purposes. And it also includes hosted payload. So at this point, it's a framework. We are currently working and discussing with the French MOD and so-called DGA in order to finalize and to precise more the content of this framework agreement with the objective to start the recognition of revenues as from fiscal year '26, so as from this year. We are, in particular, discussing the content and the hosted payloads and in order to secure a first contract on these specific items by the end of this year. But I can say that, generally speaking, the revenue generation from this contract will be heavily, I would say, second half loaded during the period of the NEXUS agreement, which I remind is a 10-year agreement or a 10 years framework. So this will come more in the later part of this agreement. Moving now to your question on LEO and the mix of the sales of the LEO, I mean, clearly, what I would like to stress on is, first of all, that the high level of equipment sales is a good sign. It's a very good sign because that means that more and more the usage of the constellation is increasing significantly, is increasing at the pace of the development of the installation of the -- what the so-called UTs. What I must also stress that, again, Q4 was a bit specific, but the proportion between equipment sales and service revenues in the total revenues is still -- equipment are still representing a minor part of the total sales. And I would say that also you have a kind of delay a bit because the equipment that are installed and that are sold today allow also our customer to use more of their take-or-pay, so more of their capacities that they have already contracted. And again, is showing a significant increase in the usage of the constellation, not directly or not immediately an increase in revenue recognition because it's already taken into consideration in some of the take-or-pay. Obviously, it also increases the what we call the pay-as-you-go. I mean the more UTs you have, obviously, the more pay-as-you-go you also have. But again -- and I want to stress what I said, it's still -- I mean, it's a minor part, okay, of the total sale. It's not the majority that is represented by equipment sales.

That's great. That's very clear. Can I just remind? Are we talking about 20% of the LEO revenue base is equipment perhaps?

Well, really, it's not any detail that we give. And it depends from quarter from quarter difficult. I mean difficult for me to tell you more on this.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Ben Rickett from New Street Research.

I have 2 questions, please. First question is just around the phasing of revenue. So revenue was down 1% in the first...

Can you speak up a bit, please? Ben, sorry, we can't...

Is this better now? Can you hear me okay now?

It's still a bit lower, Ben. Try to increase the -- on our side to...

Okay. I'll try and really shout. So hopefully, this will work. So first question, just around revenue phasing. So it was down 1% in Q1. Do you expect -- I mean, for the full year, will we be around that level? Or should we expect revenue to improve throughout the year? Is there any sort of particular phasing we should be aware of? And then second question, I was just -- could you give us an update on the IRIS2 process, the technical review process? And also specifically, could you say anything about the possibility of the U.K. joining IRIS2? And I hope that was clear.

Okay. Thanks, Ben. So for the first question, I mean, clearly, we gave our objectives, and we confirm our full year objective of a level of operating verticals revenues for this fiscal year '26 in line with the one of last year, so '25, meaning that the significant increase in LEO revenues, I remind that we expect. We are at plus 70% compared to last year for Q1. But for the overall year, we expect a growth of LEO revenues of around 50%. And this will offset the decrease of GEO revenues, both on Video and Connectivity. But -- so the trend is -- as we confirm, the trend is to be at the same level of last year. On the IRIS2 question, maybe Joanna can give some more insights.

Well, I can't really. So yes, like you, we -- I also did see the article where our French Minister was talking about the U.K. being welcomed to join IRIS2. But I don't think it's anything that's particularly concrete, and it's certainly not something that we've heard particularly with our discussions with our institutional counterparts in the U.K. So I think, obviously, from our point of view, it would be very much welcome. But I'm not really aware that there are a lot of legs to that particular story.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank.

Just on the equity injection, you reiterated to close them by the end of the year. Are there any -- you got all the approvals on the governance side, but are there any regulatory approvals that are still waiting as part of the process, either as part of the reserved capital increase or the, I guess, true rights issue? Anything you could say there?

Yes, very clear, Roshan. So we have all the authorization, all the regulatory approvals, but there is a piece -- one piece missing, and this one is coming from the U.S. As you may remember, we need to have 2 approvals actually from the U.S. One is coming from the foreign investment side and this one, which is CFIUS -- called CFIUS. And this one is fully obtained, so it's secured. We have another one as we are in the telco environment, so there is another one that -- another authorization that is needed coming from the FCC. And this one is still pending. And obviously, with the current situation in the U.S. with the current shutdown, it's taking a bit more time. So we're still waiting for this approval. But we expect, as we confirmed, we expect to execute both the reserve capital increase and the rights issue before the end of this calendar year, so before the end of December.

The next question comes from Stephane Beyazian from ODDO BHF.

Yes, I was just wondering whether you can make any comment on the competitive environment, generally speaking, in your different segments, if you've seen any changes lately? I mean, we know Amazon is also progressively trying to come into the market. So any comment?

Thanks, Stéphane, for your question. I mean nothing really new from last time. I mean, we have discussed that in previous meetings and previous communication with obviously the fast ramp-up of Starlink. I mean, I think we're still in the same situation. We still see a strong progress of Starlink on the broadband and the B2C segment, as you know. For the other ones, I would say, I mean, we are again the only 2 players. Amazon, I mean, is going to come, but we don't really know exactly when as we speak, right? And it still needs to be confirmed. But at this point, I have nothing else to comment compared to what we see. I mean the market -- clearly, the demand for connectivity by satellite and more specifically from LEO constellation is growing and is growing fast. The competition is still the same, and we still expect to have at least Amazon to come in the coming years and others, but I mean, I have nothing to add on that.

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers to conclude the call.

Well, thank you. Thank you very much for your questions. And I wish you now a very pleasant evening for those in Europe and a good day for those in the U.S., if any. And let's speak and let's gather to -- during our next financial communication. Thank you very much, everyone. Bye-bye.

This concludes the call. You may now disconnect.