freenet AG (FNTN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning to everyone joining us today, and welcome to our analyst and investor conference call. It's great to have you with us. I'm Alexander, your moderator for today. Today, we are joined by freenet's CEO, Christoph Vilanek; and CFO, Ingo Arnold. Christoph will start with an overview of freenet's accomplishments and highlights for both the 9 months and Q3 of 2024. Following Christoph, Ingo will provide a deeper dive into the financials outlining freenet's performance. After discussing the results, we will transition to a very exciting part, the presentation of freenet's long-term ambition stretching up to the year 2028. Following the presentations that will last around 70 minutes, we will have a Q&A session. Please note that this call will be recorded. Without further delay, I'll hand it over to Christoph to start today's presentations. Thank you for joining us and we look forward to an engaging and informative session.

Yes. Thanks for the warm welcome and thanks to all of you already at this stage for joining us today. As just outlined, we thought it would make more sense to go through the entire presentation and have then a combined Q&A session on 2024 as of September results and the midyear outlook. So we get started with the key achievements or takeaways from the 9 months results. I think just for like hygiene factors, we repeat that the new MNO contracts are now in operation. They have been signed in Q2. But as of July 1, we have implemented all the new tariff portfolio that mostly came from Telefonica, including all the SIM-only tariffs and we are full-fledged 5G now. And luckily enough or like as a result, as we predicted and have expected Q3 with a growth of net adds in order of magnitude [Technical Difficulty] for south and east already a remarkable step into the right direction. We see the immediate impact and we do not disclose current trading, but the curve and the trajectory is exactly as we predicted. Month of October was also very strong and reflects the new setup with all the 3 operators. Same goes for the IPTV net adds. I'll go into more detail. But year-to-date, we have plus 48% on net adds of 460,000. And Ingo will give much more detail on this, but that was the reason also that we are obliged to change or to adjust the guidance from a stable to moderate growth of revenues, narrowing down on the EBITDA and increase on free cash flow. Going into Mobile, I think that is -- I think in the headline, we are not really the posh guys typically, but we're really proud and happy that we are back on track with growth. I think growth is still a big word in these times of full saturation, but we're doing much better than we did before. We have plus 79,000 net adds by end of September. So I mean, it's quite obvious that the 100,000 is taken for granted. We will be somewhat stronger without predicting a precise number. There is still black week in front of us and the entire industry is focusing on that. So we will see what kind of offers will hit the ground short-term promotions as always. It all results one hand, for sure, from the long-term agreements. But we also are happy that we've started the new sports sponsorship, Icon League, which is a indoor football league founded by Toni Kroos, the former, I think, best German football player for the last 4, 5 years. We have started the sponsorship that's quite interesting because it's young boys, age of 12 to 20 and we have done a lot of survey. And those guys suddenly say never heard about freenet, but now they're cool. So that sounds beautiful. And if I may add an anecdote, I was there one day at the tournament and I felt really old. We have launched a number of tariff plans. I think it's not worth going into detail. We are fully reflecting everything that blau.de and O2 is offering as well. And we are -- we have an agreement with Telefonica to add additional -- a number of additional tariff plans that we consider to be relevant for our customers. A quick take on this ARPU. It's stable as we have expected. Going on to the next page, strongest Q3 tends to get a bit boring that we provide the strongest ever quarter in a row. But on the other hand side, it reflects not only the strength but also -- of the product, but also a trend in the market. I also would admit and I think we have -- Ingo, myself and all the team have never communicated differently. We always said that the Nebenkostenprivileg drop will not create a kind of a tsunami wave. It is supporting our development. And I think to have a strong Q3 is underlying trend supporting to this. But also when we do the midterm outlook, you will see that we are conservative, but still this creates a wonderful new segment and source of revenue and EBITDA in our business. We expect to be plus/minus 2 million waipu.tv subscribers by the end of the year. We have just signed a Disney+ partnership. We have prolonged Dieter Bohlen's testimonial contract because he's still -- all the tests and all the research shows that he is the best promoter of the product. We have -- we'll do new campaignings and new pictures and creative next week. Whereas at the same point, we are not shy to admit that as planned freenet TV customer base goes down, it's expected to be around 500,000 by the end of the year. We always stress the point that for us, this is a portfolio management job and the fact that we are for the segment growing is -- has anticipated that we are slowly going down on freenet TV. That is a quick, but I think concise and relevant update from the operations side and I hand over to Ingo to give the numbers.

Yes. Thank you, Christoph. Good morning from my side to everybody. Starting with the group view on Page 10 here. I think first look shows that every green column is bigger than the blue columns. So all figures for '24 are higher than the figures for '23. So I think this is -- therefore, it is obvious that we have a very good year. In terms of revenue, I think we only expected a stable revenue. What we see now is a slight growth in revenue. Therefore, it is something which is something like an obligation to change the guidance here because we see the reality. And therefore, we changed the guidance for the revenue from a stable outlook to a moderate growth for 2024. The growth is based on the Television business definitely. For the gross profit, very strong figures. Again, here, we see that the gross margin could be improved further in Q3. So what we see in this gross profit development is a reflection of the new MNO contracts, but on the other side, a reflection of the increasing numbers of customers at waipu.tv and the growing service revenues in this business. On an EBITDA side, we still see that the effects from the gross profit are not in the same size shown in the EBITDA. This is something which is not new because we have the high acquisition cost in waipu.tv and where we have the high marketing cost here. This is something which is -- which was expected, which is expected. And this is why we said that '24 is a transition year. But on all what we know today, it was possible for us to narrow the range of the EBITDA guidance to EUR 500 million to EUR 550 million. Moving to the Mobile business. Yes, maybe on the revenue side, a little bit disappointing what we saw in the third quarter because the service revenue is slightly lower in '24 than in '23. It is based on lower revenues from roaming business here. Which is -- in terms of profitability, it does not make a big difference for us because the profitability for us in roaming revenues is relatively low. So I think it is -- yes, I think I'm also a little bit -- yes, I'm looking forward to the figures of Q4 and hopefully, service revenues could be increased again as it -- as we have seen in the first 2 quarters of the year. But I would say it's a clear sign of these roaming revenues. So therefore, I'm not nervous, but I think we are looking forward to the figures of Q4 now. Gross profit in Mobile, we see a strong increase here. This is based on the higher numbers of customers, what we gained, what Christoph already mentioned because with a growth, we do generate more payments from the MNOs, which I think which is clear to everybody. And therefore, we see the increasing gross profit here. It is more or less also translated into EBITDA on a percentage base. On an absolute figure base, the EBITDA increase for the first 9 months is lower than on the gross profit side because on the one hand, we have higher personnel costs because of, I think, also not surprising, but I think this is what we saw during the whole year that we see an increase of personnel cost by 4% to 5% because of the measures what we took in 2023. On the other hand, we see higher performance marketing costs, which are not shown in the gross profit, but directly linked to the acquisition, what we do if we do online acquisition. So I think it's also on the EBITDA level, it's very strong figures, but we see slightly higher SG&A and marketing costs here. Moving to the KPIs of the Mobile business. What we see is if we compare here, again, the percentage figures, we see a slight increase in the postpaid ARPU, but on the other hand, a higher increase on Mobile subs. So all in, this should help to increase the service revenues further on. But I would confirm what Christoph said, for us, this is a stable ARPU. Last year, it was EUR 18. This year it's EUR 17.9. So I think yes, it's a slight decrease, but in my eyes or in our eyes here, it still is stable. DLS, digital lifestyle revenues, also stable. It is a saturated market. So I think it was easy to increase the figures at the beginning. Now we are in a ongoing circle here. So I think this is what we forecasted and this is what we see at the moment here. Moving to the TV business. Yes, very, very strong figures on the revenue side here in the TV business based on the additional customers at waipu.tv. What we also see is that the ARPUs in both waipu.tv and freenet TV are stable. And therefore, with the increasing number of customers, we see the increasing number of revenues. On the gross profit side, we do also see a relevant increase here. And the margin is slightly lower because the waipu.tv margin is slightly below Media Broadcast margin. So whenever the share of the waipu.tv business is increasing here, then we see a slight dip in the gross margin. On an EBITDA side, also the same picture what we saw in the first 2 quarters. We are still convinced that the high customer intake, what we see in waipu, that this justifies the higher investments. So therefore, we see the dip here, the slight dip in the EBITDA. But I think we have the confirmation of the business and of the quality of the business from the gross profit. And whenever we will reduce marketing investments, then we will see it -- the gross profit will be shown fully also in the EBITDA. For the fourth quarter, again, we will have high marketing investments. This is what we also said during the whole year. We will have the high marketing investments during the whole year. So therefore, I would expect again something like EUR 25 million here for this segment for the fourth quarter. Moving to the cash view. I think no surprises here on this page. We see that change in net working capital is comparable to last year. We see higher tax payments this year, but '23 was influenced by a refund what we received in '23. I think we already discussed after the second quarter. CapEx, we see a lot of phasing effects here. At the end of the day, it's the question if the phasing could be -- if there could be a catch-up during the rest of the year or not. But I think especially on the digital radio side, we have some postponements in investments. Lease payments without -- I think without any surprise, interest payments slightly higher because of slightly higher interest rates, which leads me to the next page, where we give a forecast for the free cash flow up to the end of the year. I think what is relatively safe is taxes, minus EUR 40 million, lease minus EUR 70 million and interest payments. It's good to forecast these figures, these 3 figures. What is a little bit [ open ] is CapEx looks a little bit high here with the EUR 55 million. So this is based on the idea that there will be a catch-up of investment. But as you may also get a feeling that if you postpone CapEx during the year, it's even difficult to catch up because time is running and earlier or later than is the end of the December. So I think we have to wait and see what happens here. On the other hand, I think the EUR 45 million from the change in net working capital, this looks ambitious on the other side because we already have minus EUR 45 million at the end of September. And whenever we do -- whenever we grow the Mobile base faster and this is what also Christoph already mentioned that we see a relatively strong October already. So it is possible, I would say, all in, the increased free cash flow guidance to EUR 270 million to EUR 285 million is safe. I think only -- it's only a question at the end of the day, how the working capital and how the CapEx really will come in. But I think in sum, the minus EUR 100 million of both of them, I think this looks also safe to me. So I think we are happy here to increase the free cash flow guidance and we will show the whole guidance and the updated guidance on the last page, where we again see in a summary, the moderate growth now in revenue, the EBITDA guidance EUR 500 million to EUR 515 million, free cash flow EUR 270 million to EUR 285 million and no changes in the nonfinancial KPIs. So therefore, I think this is all what we would like to say to the first month of '24. And now I would pass back to Christoph for the ambition, starting with the review about Ambition 2025.

Yes. Thank you, Ingo, and thanks for presenting the number. Let me start with the statement. We have -- I mean, it is common sense that we do a rolling multiyear forecast. There's also some obligations with the auditors to do so. During the ongoing budget phase that we are conducting for 2025, we have asked all the units also to do their multiyear forecast till 2028. And we have then the 2 of us basically assembled it to give a better -- to get a better picture and then to communicate it today. And what we will show you today is a result of this. There's a couple of disclaimers to this, but Ingo will then mention it when we go to the numbers. The first step is to have a quick look back in 2021, we have given an ambition for 2025. Most of you will remember we have said on the EBITDA that we go beyond the EUR 520 million. As you can see, the guidance now is for 2024 already close to it. I think no doubt that we will meet the above EUR 520 million for next year. We have certainly incorporated an ongoing level of marketing expenses for waipu that is already incorporating in the budget the higher amount that we have released this year. And we have also given all the other stuff that we have experienced now, a close look and we prolong this for 2025. So I think that is, for sure, safe. If we look at Mobile, we have said that we would go beyond anywhere between plus EUR 30 million to plus EUR 60 million in EBITDA and we are already now beyond plus EUR 60 million. So I think that is really a result of a great team working hard on it with all the details that I'm not planning to repeat now, focus on CLTV management and tough and tight cost control. On TV and Media, we have predicted plus EUR 35 million to plus EUR 65 million. And reality by the end of 2023 shows plus EUR 30 million. So waipu is definitely growing. I think the growth that we have anticipated in 2021 is not slower, but it came in later. I think we are a bit later than the business plan was at that stage. But most important is that we go into the direction of 2 million subscribers by the end of this year and then we will grow further in 2025. I think when we look back, we thought that the Media podcast business would develop as is, but we saw a bit faster. So if we would not have spent EUR 20 million extra this year, we would be very close to the ambition. So having said that, we feel overall that this is doing really well. On the next page, we also -- we have illustrated this once again, I won't go to all the details here but the net add development is great. I think we're going to go maybe not the EUR 150 million, but well above the EUR 100 million for 2024. And as a consequence, 2025 will be fine. And we see next page, the segment, TV segment. Left-hand side, we see that the ambition specifically outlined again on TV and Media. Yes, it was a bit higher. We are on the lower end by end of 2023, but there's still a long way to go. And next year, you will see that this segment will contribute to the growth in the expected way. And net adds, we're really doing well. We're getting close to 600,000 this year and this will, at that stage, also meet the 2025 ambition. So I think if we look at the comparison of 2021, what we predicted for 2025, we feel everything -- that we achieved everything. Maybe the mix is a bit different. But I think with a 4-year projection, we feel very comfortable. I think we have proven with that we keep our promise and you have also, as always, can identify the character of our kind of predictions and planning. It's serious. It's not including exceptional items and you are not finding exceptional items in any of our reporting. So it's a serious and very solid planning. And also, maybe, Ingo, you want to say something about the shareholder remuneration where we also fully delivered on what we said.

Yes. What you can see here is that we are definitely a reliable partner. We promised to pay 80% of the free cash flow as a dividend, which is part of our financial policy. This is what we did in the last years. And therefore, with the growing free cash flow, we see a growing dividend year-by-year. And based on the outlook for the free cash flow for this year, what I gave earlier, I think it's easy to forecast that the next dividend should be higher than what we saw in '23. On the other hand, we also did some share buybacks. I will come back to the topic, capital allocation later on. I think, yes, you are all waiting on further share buybacks. I know this. We did it in the past. And I think we -- I will discuss it later on.

Yes. So as I already said, I think if we look -- if you compare our view by the end of 2024 to what we said in 2021, we have 2 strong segments, the Mobile business, which is steady, very solid, cost efficiency game. We have defended our market position, even bigger changes such as 5G, such as the changes with [indiscernible] and also things like Magenta family and everything that most of us have already forgotten over the last 3 years. Nothing has really hit us, but we defend not only our position, but become stronger and stronger. And that is paralleled with the growth in IPTV and the planned slowdown on the DVB-T point. We have delivered more than 4% in CAGR on EBITDA and the EUR 520 million, I have absolutely no doubts. And free cash flow, we are already beyond and I think that will continue. We all know that midterm, we will run out a bit slower on tax savings, but also that is no surprise to anybody. So now it's time to have a look into the future. The first page here is confirming what I think both of us have said in the last 30 minutes. We still continue to believe that our Mobile business is super resilient. We defend and hold the market share even though we get headlines of we go more direct; even we get headlines, things are changing; even if the headlines are out, one or the other is playing on quadruple play and so on and so forth. So I think we have survived all storms in a better shape. We came out of pressure in a better shape than we went in. We also see and measure that customer satisfaction is high. We get very positive feedback. The fact that freenet is giving a freedom to the end consumer in choosing the right network and having the broadest variety of tariff plans across the market is something that people appreciate, honor and also are ready to pay for and pay also in terms of their loyalty. And these 2 elements lead to stable profitability. We are still tough on expenses. We are still tough on the cost side, but we consider this more as a attitude and then it's a daily work and I think it's well-established across the entire company. On the TV side, no surprise, this is a growing market. There is a very broad variety of predictions. They haven't really changed over the years. I think 4 years ago or 3 years ago, we have presented predictions for 2030. I think they remain to be valid, but we know much more like what reality is. I think the fact that so far, any quarter, we have beaten the Magenta growth by 50% and this still remains to be valid is a very strong signal that we got the right product. I have never doubted that in the long run, Deutsche Telekom will remain the biggest player. But we are very happy to be the second. And I think that is a super strong position, which is well-appreciated and well-established. The gross profit in that field is growing and combined with scale and cost control, midterm EBITDA will hit in and Ingo will give a flavor on like what the contribution out of IP is going to be in the future. When we look at the future, we do not -- before we go to the next page, let me say that anything that we are predicting here is not anticipating M&A, it's not anticipating a big change or relevant change in product portfolio. So if you want to say so, it's the extension of the existing environment. And I think also in a long discussion with Ingo, we have agreed to do exactly like that. And that also reflects the fact that I have announced that I will not be here in the company beyond 2025. I think it's not reasonable to now incorporate things that I might either not initiate or operationalize, but it also reflects the strength of the handover period. So he will give you the details, but it's worth for me and important for me to mention that. So what are our thoughts on Mobile market? I think we face a situation with 4 network operators. We do not anticipate consolidation. I think no doubt and that is a very mundane statement here, data usage is increasing, even not so exponential as it did in the past. I think there are, as of today, no additional services that would boost it, but it will remain and there is people still using less and this will drive the overall volume. There is still prepaid to postpaid transition. I think for years and years, everybody is reporting more contract customers well because there's still significant numbers of prepaid. This is not new people. This is not immigrants or newly birth -- born people. It's just a ongoing migration and we anticipate this to continue at the same level. And as a conclusion of the first -- the last 3 points, we think that ARPU is going to be more or less on the same level. This also indicates that we anticipate a similar mix of channel and SIM-only/subsidized handset customer acquisition as we had in the past because you all are aware that SIM-only customers are a bit lower in ARPU, but same level of absolute EBITDA or margin. So we anticipate for the next 3 years, a similar setup of our mix of channels, but also mix of hardware and SIM-only tariff plans. So we anticipate a persistent market share in the pure B2C. This is where we are home. We think that is 20%. And having said, the prepaid migration is still going on. We think that this is going to continue and deliver a moderate growth. What are the key things that we consider important omnichannel approach? We do believe in the combined of brick-and-mortar and online. The fact that we are -- in the sense of our brand name, free net choice is a strong argument and will remain a strong argument and the digital lifestyle services remain a key thing, even though we are now on a revenue level of around EUR 200 million and we don't see the 20% or 25% growth that we have seen in the past. This will remain a pillar in our day-to-day relationship to the end consumer. We consider the Mobile business as a stable profitability business. That is a combination of like the contracts that provide ourselves security and predictability of the midterm planning. And we also know that we have always been strong in operational excellence. We will be coming into a period where fluctuation also into pension and retirement will start to hit the ground and that will also help us to keep cost control. So our gross profit ambition compared based on current numbers for 2028 is plus EUR 40 million. And once again, Ingo will give you the details on that one. What are the headwinds in the Mobile segment? No doubt, we foresee from 2023 to 2028 increase in personnel costs and also increase in SG&A. That is -- we anticipate this approximately around 3% a year, maybe a bit higher on the individual personnel cost, but combined with some optimizations and restructuring, we can keep that on 3%. The last 2 years, if I look at average increases, we're talking about more like 5% to 6%. And what are the 2 key levers to mitigate those -- this pressure? One is digitization and AI. We cannot miss out the word AI here. I think everybody does it. Yes, we have a lot of things that we work now on AI, whether it's automatic call reasoning in customer care, whether it is quality control in inbound and outbound calls, whether it is the predictive models. I think we've done a big, big step over the last 18 months into that field. And there is more than 10 projects running on AI and AI is helping us to improve the business and manage it better. And -- but we always internally talk about the combination of technology, but also standardization, simplification. I would still claim that the creativity of individuals and the innovation that is created in processes, in customer journey, resulting from individual people, experienced people working hard on it is the bigger driver than the pure fact that we can use software. So on the cost, we expect a headwind of about EUR 20 million. Moving on, same picture as we had on Mobile. What is our anticipation or the underlying assumption under our 3 years lookout for IPTV? We believe that IPTV shift is continuing. In this plan, we have not anticipated that there is a disruption or superfast or exponential growth. We are more or less and you will see that in a second, we have more or less said it's going to continue at the same pace. The migration and transition is going on at the same pace as it did the last 12 months. Having seen Deutsche Telekom's lookout, I think they take the same assumption because nobody knows better. But this is -- I mean, by all means, this also shows that there is an upside, which we did not incorporate into the plan. And I think it's safer not to do it, but it's not indicating that we don't believe in it. It's just -- I think it's a safer way to predict things. The consumption is still beyond above 200 minutes a day. So linear TV remains to be relevant also for the next 3 years. Yes, you can argue young people are changing, but the old people are spending the money and consuming the product. So I think that is a matter of fact for any of the industries. Also, we do not believe into a stronger switch into VOD, even if we look at our own offering and we can monitor the usage of VOD on our own as soon as the customer uses our stick, we see that there is a complementary use, but not a substitutional use. There is -- and last but not least, we have just taken over the numbers from Vodafone and Tele Columbus on how many of those households are addressable at this stage and will be addressable over the period. Why do we think that waipu is a great product? And this is not only our opinion, but this is also proven by survey and public comparisons. We are the ones with the broadest and widest number of channels, 95% on HD. We have cooperations with WOW/Sky, with DAZN, with all the big studios. So I think the content is really compelling. And the way people can use and select the content and also manipulate their EPG is a strong argument. We have this -- we have still the best setting time. We have the sporting, the live events, mainly Bundesliga fully integrated into our EPG. And we have proven once again during the European Championship, football championship, that we are the ones where you can watch the gold first. We are always ahead of cable and other IP providers. We measure constantly the satisfaction of our customers, very low number of complaints, NPS above 40, strong recommendation rate. So I think that all is working perfectly well. And as you well know, we have invested into brand awareness and brand recognition during this year, especially and I just mentioned that we continue a testimonial with Dieter Bohlen for one other year. So what are our -- what is the translation into EBITDA? Our ambition is to drive the EBITDA resulting purely from IPTV. The waipu product is going to be -- to contribute more than EUR 100 million in the course of the year 2028, so above EUR 100 million. The pillars for this belief is of what is forecast is we think that IPTV as such is growing and waipu will stand around 25% market share. I think the color of the biggest part is familiar to you. We think that Magenta is doing a great job there. And they will just outspend us and have a broader customer base. But it's great because they make a lot of noise for the platform as such. We strongly believe that we have best value for money. We have a very compelling and appealing combination with site, with VOD services. We do niche channels, a lot of testing there. It's API-based integration. If somebody has content, we can place this new channel within less than 4 weeks and test it with our users and the key driver is simplicity. When we ask the customer, why do you use it, the straight open answer is because it works. This service must just work. We will show you the subscriber growth. We still -- we believe in ATL, but mainly in performance marketing. And the business model is a business model which is highly scalable. It makes no real difference whether we serve 2 million or 4 million customers in terms of fixed cost. Currently, the head count in FTEs is about 75. And if we would go to -- we would double this, maybe we go into 100, but not more. I think I recently gave a speech on technology differences. And if I look at our Mobile business to maintain and innovate our Mobile business, we need about 400 people, which we would call IT people. On IPTV, we have 30. And this is not because they're smarter, it's just because they started with the latest platform. So technology is really the driver here. On this next page, 31, we show you what our anticipation or what the underlying numbers for the 2028 trends are. And many of you will now immediately be surprised and said like I heard them saying they're growing much faster. I am not taking back anything that I have said. I'm just saying this is a super solid plan where we not only believe, but where this is going to happen. And this is already contributing significantly. So in our hard planning here, which is the underlying for the numbers that Ingo will show, we will go to 3.5 million subscribers by the end of 2028. I think Deutsche Telekom gave also an outlook to 2027. They said plus 860,000. So we are predicting here plus 1.5 million or if we would say, to 2027 to compare plus 1.2 million, still 50% higher as they are. But I think we both companies believe that this could be much higher depending on what the cable and satellite trend will contribute. We anticipate that the ARPU will be plus/minus EUR 8 per month. We have variable cost. This is content cost, but it's also other components and some of the content costs are not really in the variable. So -- but like we thought that you were always asking what is the right number to calculate in gross profit or monthly contribution and I think 50% is a fair assumption and the rest goes against acquisition cost and against SG&A and personnel. And having said that, it's easy to understand for you that how scalable the business is or what scale will do to EBITDA and gross margin. There's a couple of things which we did and do not include. We did not include more revenues from target advertising than we have today proportionally. So we just anticipate a linear development. If you have today 1.8 and then we have 3.6, then it means that we anticipate that it doubles, but we did not anticipate exponential growth or a big widening into other channels. Today, we do it on approximately 20% of our usage. And this is -- again here, we remained at that level and did not anticipate that the usage that we can provide advertising for is increasing. We did not include cross-selling or upselling revenues. Still in Netflix, at DAZN or something alike, they have a small margin. But we did not -- we never did so far and I think the easiest to explain would be DSL. We have from the telemetrics of our users, we could easily tell those ones, there is a better provider for DSL or there is fiber, et cetera. And with the 2 million subscriber base, upselling is certainly attempting. I'm not saying we are not doing it. I'm just saying we did not include any numbers into the -- into our planning. And we certainly believe that on the content fees, it's worth talking to the channels. We have anticipated small optimizations, but nothing out extraordinary once again. So I think all that gives you a flavor on how conservative the planning is. No doubt and I think we do not run away from also admitting that in Media Broadcast, the situation is different. We expect there to lose approximately EUR 20 million in EBITDA by the -- over the next 4/5 years till the end of 2028. This comes from the pressure on carriage fees with the current federal government searching for money. Also public television and TV [ Go ] comes under pressure. For those who live in Germany, they have seen a press release 2 weeks ago from the Minister President and that they claim that the public channels need to bring down cost. We also anticipate that sooner or later, some of them will reduce the service at least at like borders or ends of the country on DVB-T. We also believe that freenet TV customers more and more will either go to IP or other services. And our event business is already closing down. It never did a great contribution. But still Media Broadcast will come down by about EUR 20 million. Still EUR 80 million is a nice business and we're happy to continue with it, but it is worth mentioning it because you need to run it against the EUR 100 million that we have seen on the waipu side. So Media Broadcast, I love this page. It's a simple one. B2B will go down, B2C will go down, DAB will be stable because there's long-term contracts. And there is field services. There is 5G broadcast. There's a number of initiatives. But we did not include any of them as a success into our planning. So I think this is setting up the scene and now Ingo will flavor it with the numbers.

Yes. To see what the financial ambition is based on the operational outlook from Christoph, I think I have to do some introductory remarks here, some general remarks what Christoph basically already did. I think all what we see here or what we forecast is based on freenet's business up to September '24. We do not have any M&A transaction here forecasted. We do not have any product portfolio extensions or something like this put into consideration here. We see the ongoing shift from prepaid to postpaid. We still see a rational Mobile market during the next years. In the IP market, we still see that there are uncertainties, but we also have a conservative outlook here. And you saw the figures on the subs. And what we have not incorporated here is a disruption in the cable or satellite market, which would help to increase our IPTV figures. What I would also like to refer to is to what Christoph said. I think we did all these forecasting here. We put together all these figures in very, very good cooperation, both of us as we did in different constellations during the last 20 years. And so I think, hopefully, you are not angry, Christoph, but I would like to say it is so robust what we show here that I'm 100% sure that it will even work without you.

That's okay.

So I totally believe in these figures here. And so we start with 2023, where we had a EBITDA of EUR 501 million. We expect the gross profit in Mobile to be increased by EUR 40 million. You already saw a good development during 2024. So it does not look so difficult. On the other hand, definitely and this is something different to what we did 4 years ago. I think this is reality. We see that personnel costs are increasing. We see that it will be difficult to deny it here. And so therefore, the minus EUR 20 million is relevant to show. So therefore, we expect an increase of EUR 20 million from the Mobile business. On the other hand, we have the strong waipu IPTV business. And therefore, I think -- and Christoph already mentioned all the initiatives what we have not put into the plan here. I think this also looks relatively conservative to me, the EUR 100 million in addition for IPTV. And yes, I think we have to be honest here from the Media Broadcast business, there will be a decrease. This is what we already see during 2024. And so all in, what we forecast here as an ambition is an EBITDA of more than EUR 600 million or at least EUR 600 million in 2028. Translating it into the free cash flow figures, yes, I think for clear, we have the EBITDA growth of EUR 100 million of what I just showed. On the other hand, if I look into the buckets of the EBITDA to free cash flow bridge, I do not expect any big changes in working capital and CapEx in all the other buckets of the bridge. But -- and I think you are already prepared and all of you are prepared to see it, the tax loss carry-forwards, what we are using still, they are getting smaller and smaller. This is what you see in the balance sheet. And we will have relevant impact out of this in 2028. So tax payments will be higher by EUR 42 million, something like EUR 50 million compared to 2023 in 2028. But I think all in, it is still a high free cash flow conversion of 50%, of more than 50%. And all what we expect now is a free cash flow of more than EUR 330 million in 2028. As announced earlier, coming to the capital allocation scenarios, I think one is for clear. We will not change our financial policy. We will pay a dividend, which will be calculated as 80% of our free cash flow. With the increasing free cash flow during the next years, we will also have a dividend per share, which will be increasing. This is for clear. On the other hand, the big question in all investor calls or in talks what we do have is what will you do with the rest of it with the 20% of your free cash flow? I think one is clear and will not be changed in the future and was also clear in the past. It is that, first of all, whenever we can grow the business, we will use the 20% to grow the business if it is possible in the IPTV arena or if it is possible in an M&A case where we would buy customers or whatever. I think, yes, this is still our clear focus here. But what we would also like to say and where we would like to be clearer in the future than in the past is that we -- every year with the publication of the preliminary figures at the end of Feb, beginning of March, we will give a clear decision what we will do with the 20%. And if it was not paid, then there will be a share buyback. This is a clear promise from today's point of view. The third part here of the capital allocation, I think this is not relevant at the moment. We have a very strong balance sheet. The leverage is already very, very low. So therefore, there is no need to reduce debt further. And therefore, we will focus on first and second. Having said this, I will hand over to Christoph for the last page.

Yes. Thank you, Ingo. I think it's quite straightforward and I won't spend a lot of time on this page. I think we've said it, we anticipate a strong continuation of a very good business in Mobile. We have proven and will continue to be successful in IP and the portfolio works. IP is growing. Mobile is stable and the traditional TV business is slowly going down. And the financials, our low leverage, our high cash conversion, the low CapEx and everything will be the basis for a very satisfactory setup for our shareholders. So having said that, I would like to hand over back to the moderator and to invite -- I'm happy to invite all of you now to an intense discussion on your questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Polo Tang from UBS.

I have 3 questions. The first question is, can you talk through competitive dynamics in the German markets? And can you comment on whether the dynamics have changed as we head into the Black Friday sales period? And how big a contributor or driver of growth is Happy SIM? Second question is really just about waipu.tv and your new midterm guidance. So you had a choice of investing to drive even stronger subscriber growth or to focus on profitability. It sounds as if you've gone for something in the middle. But can you really comment on your assumption in terms of the level or quantum in terms of marketing costs going forward at waipu.tv relative to what you're spending in 2024? And my final question is you brought a lawsuit against the BNetzA in relation to the outcome of the 2019 spectrum auction. Can you give us an update on the court case and the next steps? And given that you've already seen improved conditions in your contracts with all the MNOs, what are you seeking as an outcome from this court case?

Yes. Thanks, Polo. I mean, dynamic in the market, we have seen numbers, I think, from Telefonica yesterday, we are seeing -- we will see Deutsche Telekom. I think it's a bit repetitive if I say I see single occasions where somebody is trying something. I think the extreme focus from Deutsche Telekom on their family and friends offering, I feel it slows down a bit. We have also seen Telefonica testing it and drawing it back a bit. So if I listen properly to the reports that I have been reading, it was not so successful. We have done the same. We have done tests with Deutsche Telekom as well on the Deutsche Telekom as well as on Telefonica for this like family tariff plans. There is a segment for which it is attractive, but it is not a kind of like 5% to 10% game-changing event. I think this is what I would conclude. To my personal attention, I think that I see less from United Internet. They are still -- I mean, they're out there. They do a lot of their generic stuff, but one would consider them to be a bit more silent than they've been. Obviously, some of the transition planning was too ambitious or they faced a couple of technical problems. So we don't see them right now so heavily in promotions, at least compared to what we have had before. You were asking about Happy SIM. I mean Happy SIM is one out of a couple of white label shops where we offer SIM-only tariff plans that are also available on Klarmobil and on other platforms. We -- I think we are late, but we are copy pasting here a model that the Drillisch part of United Internet is maybe best-in-class. They run more than a dozen of those shops. We are running 3 or 4 right now. It's Happy SIM, it's Doktor SIM, it's Crash. It's just trying to address the real deal seekers across the market and to place -- if you place more shops, then you're more visible on Google and other search engines. I'm not in a position to quantify what it really helped or contributed as a single one because we do not -- I mean, we count it, but we do not consider it as a single channel. So overall, SIM-only is doing really well. And the growth in the Telefonica network comes from SIM-only because this is where we did not have an offer before, simply said. And it cannot come from MediaMarkt because they're there themselves and cannot come from our own retail because there Telefonica was somewhat overrepresented anyway. So then I think that was your first question. The second question was on marketing expenses on waipu. Yes, I mean, we have added an additional EUR 20 million this year. Given the similar net add numbers and activities for next year, we anticipate a marketing budget, which is like a bit lower than the 2024 plus EUR 20 million. So we are not continuing at that level. Maybe it's EUR 5 million to -- I would say it's EUR 10 million lower if we take the plus EUR 10 million, plus EUR 20 million this year. And this then -- and for the future years, we -- it's always relative to the growth at the same level. So far, we cannot see that [ SACs ] are going up. What we see is that no surprise, those customers that buy our stick and our remote control are the best customers. And the expenses for hardware is also reflected in acquisition cost and goes straight into expenses and is not written off over the period of the contract, which also means that this is a dynamic which in the midterm will increase the gross profit when penetration is even higher and proportionally growth would go down. I think the last one was a bit, if I understand correctly about like spectrum environment. If I knew, I would let you know. We have all read the documents. I don't think there's big things going to happen. That's my simplistic answer. We are very happy and proud that there was a court decision giving us some support. We do not believe that they will now reverse-engineer either the auctioning or the results because it would be extremely complicated to take the spectrum back and re-auction it. So I think realistically, it was a warning signal to the BNetzA that they should end to the public authorities in Berlin. We need to take care. Yes. Sorry.

Maybe just following up on that point, though, could you just clarify where we are because we had a court decision in August. So what are the next steps from here? And if you don't think that much is going to change, why not just drop the court case?

Okay. I'm trying to make it short. The court case was we felt that there was some intervention from the Berlin public authorities into the BNetzA during the auction which were not appropriate. The court ruled that we were right. This is not the Federal Minister of -- in charge of telecommunications must not intervene in any way. So this is the court statement. And the court said that if this intervention was taking place, which they proved it was taking place, they said, in principle, the auction is not valid anymore. So now -- so that's the jurisdiction. Now you take a step back and say what -- so option one, BNetzA takes back the entire auction as a new one. Well, if the outcome of the new one was different than the old one, then the network operators would claim that they have already customers on the spectrum. So how would you treat that? So they would ask for a penalty fee, damage fee or something like that. I think -- and I have not, for obvious reasons, not talked to [indiscernible] about it, but he would be under pressure because he was granted some spectrum, but he is not really fulfilling all the necessities to prove that he is building a network. So his interest in a complete renewal of the whole thing is also limited. And the jurisdictional uncertainties about the new ruling would also be dramatic to any party. So I think at the end of the day, it's nothing -- the outcome will be they will reformulate the decision of the BNetzA. They will confirm the granting of the spectrum, but it will be much more difficult in the future because any intervention would cause a stop in the process. But I'm not expecting or we are not expecting that we see any changes to the existing situation. For the future, it's a new regulation in a sense and it's a tighter and tougher setup, but we do not expect a reengineering of the status quo.

And the next question is from Ulrich Rathe of Bernstein.

I have a couple of clarifications and maybe one more substantial question. I mean, first of all, on the mobile service revenue growth, which obviously went into a slight decline was slightly disappointing versus expectations. You're talking about the roaming element being the main cause of this. Could you quantify how much the roaming revenues were down year-on-year in the quarter and why that is? Second question is what elements of the CapEx have you delayed? You talked about CapEx delay and sort of the catch-up and the dynamics of that. But I'm not sure what element of the CapEx actually was delayed. And then the third clarification would be on the margin in Mobile. Can I just confirm that you're not -- have changed any of the bookings of costs between the TV segment in the Mobile segment or versus the central unit, just in terms of allocation policies of costs? And also, I wanted to ask, I mean, if it's really the new contracts, in particular, the Telefonica one that have higher gross margin, I mean, what's the give? I mean, why would your new contract be so much better so that you get sort of this margin uplift? I mean, what has happened? Was it a competitive situation with all these contracts coming through and you were in a better negotiation position? Or is there sort of a sting in the tail somewhere that some of the T&C sort of create maybe worse conditions over time? Or just a bit more color on that would be helpful. And then on the clarification on the 2028 plan. You talked about the EUR 8 ARPU for waipu. I wasn't entirely sure whether that actually includes the targeted advertising opportunity or not. Could you clarify that, please? And then maybe the one bigger question. Mr. Vilanek, you said that you won't continue, right, and as CEO beyond 2025. Now you're setting up -- you have created a very advantageous situation for the firm and you have given very big guidance now in the midterm. I mean, could you explain sort of timing against the backdrop of what you're talking about in the midterm here? And also comment in this context on these media reports that one reason why you decided not to continue at freenet is because you wanted to make strategic acquisitions that the Board didn't agree with. Is that ultimately at the core of why you wouldn't continue running the firm when it's doing so well under your leadership?

Okay. I will start with some -- with the clarification questions. I think you started with the roaming effect. As you saw in the first quarter, the increase of the service revenues were relatively low. What you see in the first quarter is a very, very low decrease of service revenues from EUR 435 million to EUR 434 million. So you could also say stable. So therefore, I think from my point of view, this is not really important. And therefore, I would not make it more important than it is. I think let's wait on the fourth quarter and what we are expecting here is again an increase in the service revenues and then nobody will discuss about the third quarter. With roaming also, this is a relatively small effect. I think there is a number of effects and we used one of these effects here. It is more of EUR 2 million or EUR 3 million. So it is a very small effect. And I would not say all in that people are not traveling as much as before. It's just a very, very small figure and a very small difference. Therefore, I would not over-exaggerate it here. With the CapEx delay, this is based on digital radio. I think it's -- as I already said, it's difficult to pick up in the last 2 months now or what you have not done during the year. It does not have any special reasons. I think people are trying. At the beginning of the year, we are planning the CapEx and we are -- and then during the year, some things work faster, some things work slower. And especially in investing, you need also external firms here who do help you and so on. So I think it is a phasing. It does not have to do basically with the company. It's not by intention that we stopped anything. It will be done, but it will be done slower than expected. Then about the Mobile margin, if there would be any change of accounting methods, no, there is definitely no change. If there would be a change, we would mention it. So therefore, no changes here. Then you -- and I think this is important from my point. We have not said that the gross margin increase is based on the Telefonica contract what we have. What we said is it is based on the contracts what we do have with all the MNOs. And so therefore, it is not possible to link it directly to Telefonica. And so with all the agreements what we have and with the increasing number, especially with the increasing number of customers, what we saw in the third quarter, then we do generate higher bonifications as we already had in the years before and this is something what you see in the gross profit. Then your question about the ARPU of waipu, the EUR 8, this is without advertising. And I think this is what we discussed earlier in different calls with you that we are trying to convert people from lower plans into higher plans. And as you may know, is the, let me say, most popular tariff is the EUR 12.99 tariff, which is within VAT, yes. But -- so the EUR 8 does not look that high. And then last, I think I cannot answer the personal question.

Thank you. No, Ulrich, thanks for the question. First of all, I mean, the fact that there was a public article raising a couple of things that actually we have not commented at all. That will remain to be valid here as well. I will not comment on this. But still, I mean, my decision to not continue beyond 2025 is not driven by any strategic or other disagreement between myself and my colleagues or myself and the Supervisory Board. It was triggered by the fact that I thought a lot of things are now in place. My personal agenda for the 2024 year was to bring waipu beyond the EUR 2 million, was to sign long-term contracts. And when this was done/in strong visibility, I sat down in July with my family and said, like I think I should -- my internal planning at that stage was like I will not continue. And then what was only a matter of time when would I announce it? And then I thought I'll announce it early enough so that everybody can properly plan that this is not going against any midterm planning against any necessary prolongations of other contracts of my dear colleagues in the Board. So it is -- and the personal decision always like sounds like, oh my God, there is some wonderful thing in the back or he is sick or ill or remarrying or whatever. No, it's not. It's just -- I think I feel that freenet is my home. I cannot imagine -- I've been working in the company as such more than 20 years now and more than 15.5 years as a CEO. But I think it's also a point where you should step back and say like everything that was in my mind is either implemented or in implementation. And I think for the next round of innovation and fantasy, I think somebody should come in with a 5- to 10-year vision and ambition and not somebody like me who would say, okay, I can do it another 2 or 3 years, maybe till the age of 60. So it's very much based on like personal life situation and also tenure within the company. I mean, it's a big word I'm saying, but like if one would ask me what should you regulate, I think one should think about like what is the maximum time spent for Board members and CEOs because we need to innovate in companies. And with all my due respect for our entire team, we are, on average, 57, and we are in a business and we're talking about young people and I mentioned to you that I was at Icon League and I felt like a grandfather, and I was a grandfather there. So this is not damaging today. I myself decided that it will be damaging if I continue beyond 2025.

And the next question is from Joshua Mills of BNPP Exane.

A few questions from me. Firstly, can you give us a bit of color around what you're anticipating with regards to the online and offline shift in your sales program over the next 3 or 4 years? So there must be something built into the gross profit and EBITDA assumptions. And just interested to hear how you think the industry is heading there? Secondly, on the Media Broadcast business ex-waipu, you've guided for a EUR 20 million decline in EBITDA. I think in the past, there's been some concerns raised that you could see a more significant contract loss if the German government and your partners were unwilling to extend the broadcast contract beyond 2028. So could you just give us some updates on how much visibility you have around the Media Broadcast business and any milestones that will come up in the next few years regarding the longer-term nature of the contract? And then finally, on the uses of cash, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there are still minorities today in the waipu business. Could you just remind me how -- what percentage of the minorities are in waipu? And then an idea of based on recent transactions, how much it would cost freenet to fully consolidate the waipu business and whether you would consider that part and parcel of the use of cash that you've outlined on 23 -- Slide 23?

Yes. Thanks, Josh, for the questions. First one, on and offline. I think there's one trend which we have built in now or reflected it's like a full match of on and offline offers, what we call advanced personalized shopping, APS. Across any retail platform, it seems to be necessary to have the same offers on and offline to protect both channels. So you will not find differences in pricing between on and offline with us. We are doing this because on the one hand, we believe that there is a number of customers and we can argue how many of these are, but it's a relevant number and it will go away because it's a bit older people, maybe those ones above average. They want to have an individual personal contact. They want to discuss things. They want to discuss with the clerk and/or with the sales rep and be helped and serviced. And they would be -- feel mistreated if the online offer was much cheaper so that they kind of like because of their individual needs, they would be harassed. So I think that is kind of a social reason for the full match and we strongly believe that this is the right way to go. It also is based on the belief that this will -- there will always be a proportion of the society that want to have that individual contact. So when we look into the next coming years, we do not think that the channel mix is significantly changing. We run 500 shops. We run a cooperation with 500 or 400-something shops in MediaMarktSaturn. And there is probably a number of 100, what we call free dealers that are working with us. So it's a total number of outlets that plus/minus 1,000 through which we serve our customers and those are interested in our products and this will remain the same. We do not think that it's expanding, but we also, for the reasons I mentioned, we believe it's necessary for our type of business. The online business or digital-only is the most transparent one in the market because by a split second, you can change your offers and follow the others. That's the positive side on it. The negative side is that individuals can deteriorate the entire situation short-term, which is happening sometimes with special offers on hardware, where some dealers like put into Amazon super prices and suddenly the market is dropping the prices for a day for no real significant reason because supply was not even there on the offer. So to make a long story short, I believe that -- or it's our strong belief that our strength is the broad and concise and fragmented existence across all the channels. And we do not see, we do not experience and we do not anticipate significant shifts, meaning plus/minus 5% on one or the other hand may well be. Black Friday is typically an online event, whereas Christmas sale is more an offline event. So no, we don't see a big shift. Second question was on Media Broadcast. Yes, as mentioned in the document, we plan or we accept a loss of EUR 20 million in EBITDA. This is based on a multiyear planning with also the mentioned contracts with public televisions. We have taken notice of the resignation periods of the notice periods and of their planning as far as we know. And for obvious reasons, I will not disclose individual dates, but we think that the number that we have put into our perspective for 2028 is fully reflecting the necessary risk that you would put into a plan. So I mean, on any contract, you do -- we did a review on a important contract, we did a review. So how likely is it? Is it a contract that will be 100% resigned? Or will it be maybe a renegotiation query on a discount or something? And this is how it ended up in the plans.

Christoph, can I jump in there quickly, just to clarify? I understand you can't give us specific contract details, but could you maybe just confirm whether the majority of the contracts related to Media Broadcast come up for renewal before the 2028 period and are therefore included in the guidance? Or are there other big contracts that come after 2028? So what I'm just trying to understand is how derisked is that number?

There is no contract to be renewed before that.

No contracts to be renewed before 2028. They only come after renewal, only comes after that time?

Well, you asked till 2028. I'm not talking about 2029 and '30. And you asked specifically about renewals. The contracts allow to a certain extent that the [ F&R ], these are the 2 ones that are relevant that they can say, by the way, in 2027, we want to reduce the number of antennas from 100% to 95%. And these kind of things that are following the logic of usage, et cetera, et cetera, these are incorporated in the plans because they are quite visible for us and they are known to us.

Okay. And then thanks for the question about the uses of cash at EXARING. You are correct. We have a share of 74.6%, something like this, near to 75% in the company. And so at the end of the day, yes, you are correct. There should be a split earlier or later, and there could be a decision about a dividend or whatever. I think what I do expect is that the cash will be available for us because today, we grant loans to the company. And so it's a question what the company should do with except any cash on top. So I would expect they do loans in the other direction. So this is something what I do expect. Let's wait and see. But -- and earlier or later, the AGM there has to decide about dividend payments. So this is the only thing what I can say. And if there will be -- would be dividend payments, then we would only get 75% of the dividend. Yes, this is clear.

And I think the other question was like on valuation. There is no valuation.

And the next question goes to Usman Ghazi of Berenberg.

I've got 2 questions and one clarification question, please. On -- in your presentation, I guess, on the third priority for capital allocation, which is -- which you call debt relief, I mean, what does that mean? I mean, I guess in your comments, I understood that you do not want to take leverage below the current levels. But then obviously, EBITDA is growing. So leverage will be falling. So I mean, what is your thinking on that front, please? The second question was, again, going back to the Media Broadcast business. So the $20 million reduction in EBITDA that you're planning for, just to clarify, that's not a function of any renegotiation? You've got plans of the public broadcasters. They expect to use less antenna sites that comes with lower EBITDA. And so there's a reduction in EBITDA of $20 million, there's something similar on lease costs as well. Is it in the cash flow? So if you can just confirm that. And then just related to this, in 2027, I believe there's a extension decision that you have to take on the towers that you are leasing. I mean, what is your thinking there as to -- because obviously, the EBITDA is going to continue declining. The cash flow contribution is very minimal for the group. And you might carry the risk that you commit for a 10-year contract on towers beyond '27 and the EBITDA comes below what you think and then you have a negative cash flow business here. So just that interplay, how you're thinking about this in the scheme of things would be helpful. And then just my final question on the tax losses. The -- previously, there was an assumption that from 2026 onwards, the cash tax payments will start going up when the trade tax portion of the total asset is utilized, but that full tax will not be payable until 2030. And I was just wondering what has driven the bringing forward of the full tax payment status of the company to 2028?

Okay. Thank you, Usman, for your question. For the capital allocation, yes, I think for clarification, it's definitely a good question what you have. What I was linked to is to the absolute debt, the absolute debt will keep stable. And yes, you are correct, then the leverage would look lower because of the higher EBITDA, yes. But this is at the moment the idea. It's not the idea to reduce any -- or to increase the debt is not the idea at the moment. Then your question about the EUR 20 million reduction in EBITDA, no, there are no renegotiations. It's not based on renegotiations. It's just based on the number of TV customers, which are getting lower during the period up to 2028 in our plan. Then your question about the contract with DFMG here with the towers company. For clear, if we do -- we are just started to renegotiate the conditions. And yes, definitely, what we would try to do is that we will have variable cost here based on the antennas and on the tower space, what we really need. And if we would have, on the one hand, hand less antennas, we should have, on the other hand, less cost for the towers. And I think this is one of the tasks. In the past, it was not necessary to have a variabilization. But I think definitely in the future, this will be necessary. Then your question on the tax loss carry-forward. I think this is what you see in the balance sheet that they are getting lower and lower. And starting in 2025, there will be a slight increase on the taxes what we will have to pay because of a lower number of tax loss carry-forwards. And in '28, it will be based on the result what we will generate there for sure. It will be something like EUR 40 million to EUR 50 million more taxes what we will have to pay. Part of it is because of lower tax loss carry-forwards. Also one part is because we have a higher result. And then in -- yes.

Got it. And then -- and so the tax increase is gradual? Or is there kind of a step-up in '28 to the full tax rate?

It is -- I would not say it's not a linear development. So it's very, very small in '25. But in '27, it will be already near to the EUR 40 million to EUR 50 million.

And the next question is from Adam Fox-Rumley from HSBC.

I had a few. The first one I wanted to talk about your decision on your outlook for TV customers. So I completely get the message that you're essentially expecting the kind of current status quo to continue. But clearly, you feel like there is some upside there. So I'm interested in the extent to which you could drive exponential growth in this market if you chose to because the market has been pretty supportive of your short-term investment, I would say, and you've proven that you can accelerate customer growth. So I'm just curious in the decision-making process for your -- for putting the business plan where you have? Yes. So that's the first question. The second question was on transitioning freenet TV customers into waipu.tv. That didn't get a mention, but obviously, the dongle that you've created provides a bit of an opportunity. So to the extent to which that's within the plan, it would be interesting to hear how you feel that will evolve over the next 3 to 4 years. And then my final question was on legacy in IT. You made that very interesting point, Christoph, about the scale of your IT staff count in the TV business versus the Mobile business. And I suppose the question, therefore, is, is there an opportunity in the Mobile business to recreate or regenerate the IT stack to create further efficiency there? Or are you -- do you have the legacy that you've got and therefore, that's just -- that's too big a project for where you are now?

Yes. Thanks, Adam. Three very interesting questions and they were on my list when I prepared. First one, the outlook. I think what we are seeing right now is it's not you spend a bit more money and you get -- for the same price, you get more customers. And the team is very careful in overspending the market. And maybe that is also a good point to the previous question on, on and offline. Maybe you're all familiar, but I'm still trying to explain it. If we say waipu customers, majority comes from online, why can't we spend instead of -- and I'm making up the numbers, instead of giving a quote on 60 seconds -- EUR 0.60 on the keyword to Google, we give EUR 0.80. What is the impact? Well, the impact is that the first customers that we would create on that day anyway will cost EUR 0.20 more. And it's not the customers, it's the click and the click is converting into customers. So we are spending immediately more money and that's different from other businesses and from offline business. So the unfortunate story and this does not go for waipu only or for freenet only, this is for everybody. If you raise the payment for clicks, then you do it for any of the orders. And I would even assume that Google is manipulating so that you will never go back. So your scalability in the online business is more limited than one would immediately think of. And I think everybody who would not admit it is a liar or is running away from truth. This is really what Meta and Google are out for to make you spend more with the promise to get more. And if you don't get more, they say, well, unfortunately, you didn't spend enough, you should continue. So it's a long answer to a short point. It is not so easy to just say, okay, instead of 10,000 a month, we do 20,000 by spending just 10% more. This is not what's going to happen. The -- so SACs, if you want to say so, are in these online dynamics are kind of like the jump start on a higher level. So what we can do in order to do more customers is turn on promotions such as we would do on Black Friday or we do with WOW or we do with Netflix. These are drivers that where we can really drive new customer acquisition and offers. But those, you always need to be careful if you do -- we don't do, for example, 3 months free trial anymore because we saw that the conversion into a real pay was too low. So that is a constant battle on what offers are driving more response, how does this impact the conversion and what is the mid- and long-term. So there is no right formula. There is just a task for the team to work on it on a daily basis. The second part of your question, if I got that right, was are we seeing or are we managing this as now more as a balance of growth and EBITDA contribution cash than we did in the bit before. I think that is a perfect observation. So far, we said we want to reach to 2 million because this seems to be -- for us to be like a first big hurdle, a relevant number, scalability, you're serious in the market, you get the offering from others. You are a serious partner, which is also addressed by the American Studios. And so now we got that status. And now we also want -- and I'm repeating myself, as a portfolio of activities that we do, we want also EXARING or waipu to contribute next year to the bottom line and we want this to happen also for the future. So if in this year, after 6 months, we realized that everything is working better, we can afford more, I think the first address where Ingo and myself would go to, let's say, okay, we got another EUR 10 million more to spend on cash and on EBITDA, we can manage it, I think the first place to go for the 2 of us would be the guys in Munich or EXARING and say, what would you do with another EUR 10 million? But we urge them also to start paying back what we have invested over the last 8 years. And we do it not because we are angry people. It's just because, well, the other TV business, which was a supporting unit to take a serious is slowly going down in their contribution. Related to that topic, you asked about like what is the potential or what is the migration of freenet TV customers towards waipu and you also perfectly well remembered that we have that hybrid stick. We send the hybrid stick and those people become customers at freenet TV and they are more likely to convert into waipu.tv. The bigger number of freenet TV customers is the ones that buy an annual voucher. And those are anonymous to us. So if these people go away from freenet TV, by research, we would know that 15% to 20% go to IP and others go to cable because they are moving into a house where it's a cable and apartment where it's cable. So we're working hard on this, but we have to admit that a lot of those people are unknown to us because of the voucher scheme. But you can be assured that we think this is a perfect valid source. This is why we have done the hybrid stick. This is why the team is incentivized on bringing them over. Even in the individual incentive scheme, we would not -- we would count customers that they kind of transferred to waipu still as their customers so that we have no conflict of goals here. But it is part of it of the entire acquisition methodology, but it's not a big contributor. And the third question, I found that -- yes, that's one where Ingo is smiling here. We have discussed a lot. But reality is in the so-called legacy IT systems, there are horrendous efforts in making them modern and smarter and leaner. We have a product. We have a move now we are getting rid of our own data center. We do a cloudification of the entire systems. We have a modernization system, which is called Vamos in order to recreate the core functionality. But it is -- I mean, even if you're very fast on migrating into new world, the old stuff gets even older and then you need to update it. So it's like 2 steps ahead and 1 back, and we will continue to do so. And Stephan Esch, who is in charge, is a big fan and he is heavily looking into it. I mean, we're good in timing anyway. So let me give you one more. The new system that we have implemented for our retail shops, the one which is now combining on and offline at full length is made a system called MAUI, which is Mobilcom Activation Information System, obsolete for retail. So I was so happy until a colleague of mine reminded me that it's still used by MediaMarktSaturn and the free dealers. And IT assured me that it's now much better and we took a lot of functionality out and so on and so forth. And then well, the plain question was like so -- how many people can be released because we have done that? And the answer was none of them because we have only a few of them anyway and we need to keep them because otherwise we cannot maintain the system. So I think it's a well-understood task and it is on our strategic list that is also reported to the Supervisory Board, but it will remain to be a topic at least for the next 4, 5 years.

And the next question is from Titus Krahn of Bank of America.

Two please on the Mobile segment, both. The first one was a little bit more looking into the next couple of years when you talked about your growth in subscribers. If you could provide a bit more color on the mix shift? Also on the low-end SIM brands, what you're kind of targeting there? Maybe any numbers you could give? And I would be interested in hearing -- you're talking about your new, I think, family plans, which I would say are at a very attractive or, let's say, consumer-friendly entry-level price point. Kind of how do you see those developing? That's a bit of a follow-up, I think, to the first question we had. And then secondly, also still on the Mobile segment. I mean, you're targeting EUR 40 million in gross profit growth until 2028. If I'm right, that includes 2024 already. But in the first 9 months, you already did more than EUR 20 million in extra gross profit year-on-year. Does it imply gross profit trends in Mobile for the next couple of years are basically flattish? Or how should we think about the trajectory there?

Yes. Okay. The first one, we have seen an outstanding development of [indiscernible] over the past couple of years, seen plus 600,000, plus 800,000 net adds. From all we know, this -- a big chunk of this came from SIM-only at the lower end of the market and we were not able to match these offers because we were limited in access to Telefonica. So now this has changed. We can do that. Certainly, we are not aiming to lower the overall average ARPU, but we can now address a certain proportion of deal seekers and lower end of the market, which we couldn't do before. This is driving the numbers and this is in all kind -- in all levels, net adds, gross adds, gross margin and so on and so forth. So I think we just tap an area of the market which we did not tap before. Hard to say how big it is. And we certainly focus on profitability and CLTV, but this is really the source that we are looking into and where we haven't been before. These friends and family tests are attractive. But as I mentioned from Telefonica and also from Deutsche Telekom, it is something where you can do a 5-digit number a year on top. Hard to say whether they are all marginal or whether some of them are self-cannibalizations. That is part of the issue. If you have a family today and they have 2 contracts at whatever, EUR 25 and somebody is smart enough to replace and then to cancel one and to put it into the other friends and family and then you charge instead of EUR 50 before you charge EUR 35 because they combine it into one tariff brand. I think that is the risk of those plans. So this is why I said it's not something which will significantly change the market. We do offer it in order to complete the portfolio and we do a couple of thousands, but it's not a game-changing event.

And then Titus, I think your interpretation is totally correct on the increase of the gross profit in Mobile up to 2028. There is a big step-up already in 2024, which is based on the new contracts with the MNOs. And then in the following years, I can just repeat what we said several times today, it is a saturated market in Mobile. We have to defend it. We grow in the IPTV market, but we keep stable in the Mobile market. So I think we are happy to have these new contracts and the better conditions. But the increase of the EBITDA in Mobile is not based on high growth rates in this business, high service revenue growth rates. It's based on the new conditions what we have. And so yes, a good part of the way should be already done in 2024. This is totally correct what you said. And earlier in my presentation, I already tried to show this point already.

And the next question goes to Mathieu Robilliard of Barclays.

I had 3 simple questions. The first one, in your guidance, you give some detailed breakdown for Mobile and for the TV business. You haven't mentioned the so-called others. I assume this is probably because it won't move much or maybe I'm wrong and you can give more color on that. Second question was on the tax rate. And the question is really by 2028, what you have in your numbers, is that kind of a normalized tax rate? Or is it still benefiting from the net operating losses utilization and therefore, we could see an increase -- a further increase beyond '29 -- or '28 rather? I realize you're just giving guidance for 2028, but I wanted to understand how I should think about the tax charge after that. And lastly, on IPTV. So obviously, this is a business that is growing very fast and I think you highlighted a number of the related costs, be it on SG&A or acquisition costs. But if we think about a business that is a bit more normalized, what is, in your view, a sensible EBITDA margin for that business? You mentioned in the presentation a gross margin of 50%. But obviously, the EBITDA margin today is very much affected by the strong growth. I was wondering if you could have a bit more color as to what is the normalized EBITDA margin?

Thanks a lot for your questions. For your first point, yes, I can confirm the other parts of the business are planned stable here. So we do not expect any big differences. On the taxes, in 2028, the tax rate will be something like 25%. And in '29, it will be 30%. So there will be a further slight increase maybe by something like EUR 15 million, something like this in '29. But then I think we will have the normal tax rate then. Then on the IPTV business, I think it is -- with what we said already, it is clear that the EBITDA margin will be something like 40%.

And the last question is a follow-up one and it comes from Usman Ghazi.

Two questions, please. On the cash flow guidance, I mean, is it assuming any minority dividend leakage to waipu, if waipu decides to put in place a dividend of its own? And then I guess just coming back to the balance sheet again, Ingo, I mean, I was just reflecting on your previous answer, which was, look, we're happy to keep absolute debt at a stable level. I guess what that does imply is that you are accumulating a cash pile, right? Because you're obviously generating, I guess if you don't distribute the 20% of the cash flow that is left over after dividends, you're ending up accumulating a cash pile and that cash pile is only earning a 2% rate. So yes, I mean, as a CFO, I mean, obviously, you leave the company open to hostile actions, right, from external parties if the balance sheet is left underutilized like this. So how do you -- and the poison pill on the tax losses, that's also slowly expiring. So how do you see the situation?

So I think the first question, there's no leakage. The second question about the balance sheet. I think what we do plan is, yes, 80% is dividend and 20%, if it is not used, then there will be a share buyback. This is the idea.

Got it. And I guess in terms of strategically, though, given the net debt to EBITDA is coming down constantly, the lease liability as well is going to come down because you're going to be leasing less towers. And any change of control issues that existed in the past because the tax losses would be foregone, that's not going to be an issue as well over the next 3 to 4 years? So do you not believe that this policy is still leaving your balance sheet in an inefficient situation and leaving the company exposed to kind of hostile takeover, et cetera?

No, I do not see a change of control issue here. So it is the plan to leave it as it is. And I, from my point of view, do not see the risk.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your questions. Since we didn't receive any further ones, let me hand back over to your host for some closing remarks.

Yes. Thanks, guys. Thanks a lot for the good questions and the intense discussions. I hope you like the format. As always, we skipped the big dog and pony show and focused on facts, figures and numbers. I think that works out well. Thank you for the trust and for also your comments. Looking forward to discuss everything again in the soon future. And if we don't hear from each other, I already -- we wish you a good end of the year. It's early to say Merry Christmas, but something like that. Okay. Thank you.

Bye.