Liberty Global Ltd. (LBTYA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everybody, and welcome to one of our keynote addresses at today's Fiber to the Future conference. I'm delighted to welcome Enrique Rodriguez, the CTO of Liberty Global. So Enrique, welcome, and thank you for joining today.

Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here.

Great. So maybe a kind of a good place to start is, I mean I think you sit in a unique position running networks across multiple geographies and in some geographies today, you've announced a decision to do an FTTH upgrade of the HFC networks and in other countries at the moment, you seem to be more committed to a DOCSIS 4.0 part. So a kind of key question we get from a lot of people. I think a great one to discuss today is maybe what's influencing your decision in certain markets, why FTTH overlay and some why DOCSIS 4.0 in others.

Well, as you point out, I mean, we are in a pretty unique position. And I think actually a very advantageous position, where we have the opportunity to optimize what we see as our network upgrade path for each one of the countries and in some cases, even on a region-by-region basis. Basically, we've, as you know, invested on our HFC network for a long, long time. And fundamentally, we feel that in every one of our markets, we have a network advantage with respect to the competition, which puts us in a position to select on a country-by-country basis, whether we feel that it is a better path to go into DOCSIS 4.0 or to go into XGS-PON in our case, which is what we've selected for FTTH and the factors are vary by country, but it's mostly around what network and what are the build conditions of our current HFC network. In situations where we have conduit like we do in the case of the U.K., the upgrade to fiber makes more sense. In situations where we have a varied network like in some of the other geographies or less availability of conduit, then the path that makes more sense is an upgrade to DOCSIS 4.0. So I think we're being very pragmatic. I think one of the signatures of Liberty Global has always been to be pragmatic about what path we follow. And in this case, I mean, to be honest with you, I feel like I have the best job, the best CTO job in the industry because we have the luxury of -- as you pointed out at the beginning, to select different upgrade paths.

And it sounds like the main driver of the different decisions ultimately is coming down to the different cost path for that upgrade per market?

Yes, the cost of the difficulty of performing that upgrade, right? I mean, ultimately, we do feel that fiber brings some advantages. And of course, that's why in places like the U.K. or Ireland, we have publicly announced our intention to basically upgrade over x amount of years, the upgrade the complete HFC network on to fiber. So we feel pretty comfortable that we can compete and provide our consumers a fantastic user experience on our current 1-gig HFC plant as well as the upgrade to DOCSIS 4.0 where that applies.

So I think some of the costs Enrique that have been mentioned to me as an outside observer -- a lot of people, do seem to vary quite a bit. I think you've talked about GBP 100 in the U.K. to home pass for a fiber upgrade, maybe EUR 200 in Ireland and maybe even as high as EUR 1,000 in a market like Belgium. Does this really entirely come down to the quality of the conduits you are seeing in the network? Or there are other factors in play here. This -- particularly between, say, the U.K. and Belgium, there's some quite wide variances.

Listen, from the outside, it looks like a wide variance, for the inside also looks like a wide variance. So I mean it will be a long time to get Charlie, our CFO; and Michael, CEO, to align on why it made sense that we were seeing such varied numbers. But fundamentally, it is what you said, right? This is the cost of the civil construction and in the case of the U.K. where we publicly said we expect about GBP 100 average over a 7-year upgrade to be our target, and we feel pretty comfortable. We're doing trials right now. I mean, as usual, technologies always get at zigzags, but we feel pretty comfortable that we'll be able to get to that average cost over the upgrade time. And in other places, as you mentioned, like Belgium where in certain areas, it can be as high as EUR 1,000 per home pass is mostly driven by the civil construction. There are some variations in terms of the length of run that you have to going to the average home and the mix between MDUs and single dwelling units. So there are a few other factors. But by far, the main variance is on the civil upgrade to get to that.

So when you're, say, sitting down with Charlie and then looking at the business case to justify fiber compared to, let's say, a DOCSIS upgrade path. What are the kind of vendor variables you're putting into the model to justify that upgrade? What do you see as the key advantages of FTTH over DOCSIS that's making you -- have made that decision in the U.K. and Ireland?

Well, from an end-consumer perspective, which ultimately drives everything we do, right? At the end of the day, we can do all the Excel modeling we want -- but at the end of the day, where our cases are made or broken is in the quality of the consumer experience that we can bring. And both DOCSIS 4.0 as well as FTTH, in our opinion, bring a significant improvement compared to today's consumer experience in just about every metric, right? Our ability to go All-IP, not just on broadband, but with all aspects of entertainment, that significantly enhanced when we think about FTTH or when we think about DOCSIS 4.0, our ability to support new use cases that we see in the future, I don't want to drop the M word, Metaverse, but because it seems like it comes up in every speech. But when we look at those use cases, including the Metaverse is going to require significantly improved capabilities from an end consumer perspective, both on the downstream and the upstream. And when we just look at how important broadband has become to the consumer. I mean if there's one thing that COVID shown us, is that fantastic connectivity is a necessity, is not just a luxury, right? When we think about it, we believe that we can bring that level of consumer experience on FTTH and on DOCSIS 4.0. And in fact, we've already upgraded our current plan to 1 gig. We have plans to launch a 2-gig service on the DOCSIS 3.1. So we feel that we have the flexibility to really optimize at the end of the day, the investment required because we can bring that level of consumer experience across all these different networks.

Do you see, digging in on that, do you see specific things you can bring with FTTH that you might not be able to bring with the DOCSIS 4.0 path?

Well, a couple of things. I mean first of all, FTTH is probably better suited for the step after changing, right? And as you know, in this industry, you're making investments with a pretty long time for [indiscernible] in your mind. And so when we think about not just this upgrade, but what happens next, we clearly see that FTTH has opportunities to go beyond 10-gig probably in a better -- in an easier way than the HFC network can break. That's a long-term advantage, but it's an important one, right? Shorter term, we do see advantages with respect to operating costs. Clearly, an FTTH network has fewer active components. It finally kind of gets rid of that RF analog component. So it does have advantages that we believe are going to come in the short term. But really, by far, the biggest factor, again, once you get satisfied that both options can bring you the consumer experience you want then the biggest factor is what is the investment required to get to that.

Maybe because you brought it up there, Enrique, to talk a little bit about the kind of cost savings of fiber versus DOCSIS. I mean that does seem to me to be one of the most obvious advantages of running that network in at least the near term. Can you help us quantify that a little bit more what kind of cost savings do you think you can get with FTTH?

I'm sorry, but on this one, I'm going to have to take the -- I can't answer that question yet. We haven't really disclosed any of our operating costs and advantages. We do see advantages. But to be fair, part of those advantages is just the fact that it's the new equipment, right? It isn't so much a difference between FTTH and HFC, it is that you're comparing an FTTH network that you're just building right now compared to an HFC network that you built over the years, right? And so that's probably ups the scales a little bit the real answer, okay? However, net-net, we do believe that our operating cost of fiber will be lower than the operating cost on HFC when you consider all things being equal. So this is a step that we're quite ready to take. We're not ready to share a quantification of those savings, but we're pretty comfortable that we're going to see those savings applying across. Another thing that is important here is, as you know, B2B is a very important component of all our businesses, right? And even though our current HFC network is very rich fiber, okay? I tell people HFC now for us is capital F and low c because when you look at our current network status today, we have gone very heavy on deep fiber and that helps us in applications like B2B. Now rolling out FTTH will give us even more capabilities. It will give us more reach to provide B2B services that are an important component of our service in every one of our offer.

So I mean, obviously, I'd love to have got a number from you on cost savings, but we'll move on from that. But as a part of the cost argument I was going to ask about that I was intrigued by on your announcement is that it seems as if at the moment, you're going to be overlaying the fiber on HFC and actually running then effectively the 2 networks in parallel. Maybe you could talk us through what the justification is for that because I was thinking as -- again, as an outside observer to really unlock the cost savings. You would then want to actually shut down the HFC network in the areas where you have deployed full fiber.

That will happen. The question is what's on stake, right? So if you look at our current economic planning timetable, that we will be operating the HFC network for a lot longer than our current horizon from an economics perspective. But eventually, what you say will come. One of the things, I think the industry has learned over and over and over, is that force migration brings a lot of issues, okay? Coincidentally, I'm sure you read the news this morning. I think BT has announced they're going to slow down a little bit on the telephony transition. I'm still trying to figure out all the details on that. It makes perfect sense, right? Because sometimes forced migration brings pain that you didn't expect. And the one thing that we know is ultimately where we really need to win is in the consumer experience. Okay? And so a consumer that is perfectly satisfied with today's service and is happy with 300 megabits or 500 megabits or 1 gig or even 2 gig and are operating in an HFC network that is operating, other are better, then we're not going to force migrate that consumer, right. Now the time will come when we have to look back and say, okay, do we have the right mix? Is FTTH performing really the way that we want? Do we have enough customers, enough coverage now that it makes sense to bring everybody on to FTTH? I'm sure we'll get to that, but it's not in the near-term horizon.

Got it. So even if we're thinking longer dated, I mean, at the moment, when you, let's take the U.K. market, you're going to be deploying fiber to the end cabinet. BT has then talked about an installation cost to connect of GBP 250 to GBP 300 as they migrate people over. I mean, given where you're pulling fiber to in your network, would you see a similar type of order of magnitude to then actually do that connection over to end fiber from HFC?

I can't comment on Openreach number, but our operate cost is all the way to the premise. It's not just to the cabinet, okay? It literally means to demarcation point in all the homes passed. So once we get to that stage, from that moment to installing a customer, we're looking at pretty reasonable levels of cost. In fact, those costs tend to be dominated by CPE. They tend to be dominated by set-top boxes, by gateways, by Wi-Fi routers, all the things that you have to do around as opposed to the actual connection costs for the consumer. But I'm sure you've done your homework. I believe BT is a little bit more aggressive than that on the installation cost. But certainly, we're not expecting GBP 300 more just to bring the fiber to the house. We're going to be within feet of serving that customer.

Got it. It's okay. So substantially lower I think that will give people quite a degree of comfort on that. That is certainly an area we've had a lot of questions on -- and this new -- so let's talk through the market trend...

Just as a comment on that. I don't envy your job on this one because -- I mean, it's difficult enough even with all our visibility to our numbers to really do apples-to-apples as you're comparing between one company's prediction and another one, I mean, that's good luck to you because it's just there's so many asterisks on every one of these numbers, right? And so to me, the fundamental, we believe that we are going to bring FTTH in the U.K. and in Ireland up to a point of being able to serve a home passed. They had a very reasonable cost and with fantastic consumer experience. And that's really what's driving our decisions.

Got it. No, that's clear. So talking about the user experience. I mean what happens then for the customers in those markets that are still on HFC where you're now upgrading to fiber? Does the DOCSIS upgrade path stop at DOCSIS 3.1 kind of sub 1 gigahertz, no high split? Or do you -- are you -- is there going to be some transitional HFC upgrade for those customers?

So in the case of the U.K. and Ireland, let me focus on the U.K. for a minute. In the case of the U.K., with the existing plans, doing some better planning on the RF splits and on the allocation of bandwidth, we feel pretty comfortable we can bring up to a 2-gig service on the existing plan. Okay? Remember, basically 100% of our network today is 1-gig capable and customers are just now starting to enjoy that level of service. So we're talking about quite a bit of runway if you will, in the current HFC plan. Beyond 2 gig, it would require more upgrade of HFC, where it makes more sense to overlay FTTH. And this is why we've taken the decision and started the process the way that we have. But I'm not concerned in the foreseeable next few years of not being able to satisfy consumer demand and consumer experience with the plans that we already having on the ground in the case of the U.K. And that's pretty much true country by country. I focus on the U.K., the U.K., interestingly has become easier to speak about for 2 reasons. Number 1 is we're going full FTTH. So there's no -- I don't have to say in some areas or the usual asterisk. And the second one is because we've made our plans public. So I can very openly talk about that. But the same fundamental story, meaning being able to serve 1 gig, potentially 2 gig and a road to 10 gig. Now we're comfortable we understand that story in every one of our markets.

Got it. So I mean, lots of questions I could ask on this, but maybe 1 quick one here as a slight side bar, but what speed do you actually see customers downloading on the network today? I know those advertised speeds, but I've read some papers from cable labs that would suggest that even at peak hours, customers today are still only downloading at like 3 megabits per second. I know, for example, Zoom calls like this 1 megabit per second or so. I mean what levels of usage you actually see in peak hours at the moment

Well, I mean, if you look at what happens on a Windows 11 upgrade, okay? That consumer, if they're buying 300-megabit from us or 500-megabit from us, they're probably getting 175, 200, 225 just on that 1 service. If a customer buys -- gets a fortnight update, I mean, they're getting very high peak download streams during that time -- far exceeding anything that we use on a Zoom call. A Zoom call stresses the network in the other direction, right? I mean Zoom call is more symmetrical certainly, when you're downloading Windows 11, I mean there's no -- there's hardly any upstream that you have. It's a lot more -- stresses the network more on something like a Zoom call, but you're still speaking about megabits. You're not speaking about anything needing hundreds of megabits upstream from a consumer perspective. But consumers today do get the benefit of high speeds like 300-megabit, 500-megabit and very soon 1-gig.

Okay. Okay. Thank for that, Enrique. So maybe, I mean, you talked just before then about the upgrade path invisible across all your markets. Maybe we could talk about one of your other big markets, Switzerland. Can you talk us through the upgrade path there on the HFC network? I mean is the -- so I mean a few questions here is the cost to go to fiber in Switzerland disproportionately expensive. And if we're going to go down the DOCSIS route, is this a 1.2 gigahertz frequency upgrade with a high split? What upgrade path you're doing in that market?

So Switzerland is an interesting market for us because first of all, there's very strong competition from a fantastic provider like Swisscom. I mean my hat off to them. They're a high-quality competitor. We're really excited when we get to see our results next year because they are an interesting benchmark, right? It's also an interesting market because we have access to wholesale products, including fiber from providing like Swisscom, right? And it's also an interesting market because now with our acquisition of Sunrise, I think it closed 9 months ago or so. And when we look at the integration there, we really have kind of the best of both worlds because we have the ability to serve with a high-quality network on fiber in some areas, on HFC upgrade in other areas and even on 5G fixed wireless in some areas, which we're already deploying in the case of Sunrise. So to some degree, it's the more complicated market to analyze but it's actually a better market for us to serve because we have the ability to go across all 3. And the HFC network in Switzerland is mostly operated to 1.2 gig. So we feel very comfortable with the level of service that we can provide there. I think you probably know also the Swiss market is also unique in the number of channels. It has a very high number of channels because of multiple languages. So to some degree, Switzerland going to All-IP actually provides more benefits because when you're able to decommission some of the COM spectrum, what you're gaining is more actually than in other countries that have a reduced channel count. So Switzerland is quite interesting market. As I said, from our perspective, being quite pragmatic, I never have to defend whether 5G fixed is better than FTTH or better than HFC, I have to look at the specific application. And in the case of Switzerland, on a region-by-region basis in some cases, to decide which one is the best in that market.

So I mean, what percentage Enrique, do you think of your network in the long term in Switzerland will still be on an HFC DOCSIS platform?

It depends on your definition of long term, right? I mean in the long, long, long term, I'm sure the world will move on to fiber, okay? But I mean, we will be making those decisions.

I mean over the next five years.

In the next 5 years, we still be dominated by DOCSIS in Switzerland.

You talked there in Switzerland and about 1.2 gigahertz. I mean do you see a path to go to 1.8 gigahertz in Switzerland to further increase the spectrum on the network?

It's a difficult upgrade, as you know, okay? I mean any time you're talking about expanding the HFC bandwidth, it's a difficult upgrade because there's more points that you have to touch throughout the network. Again, we're fortunate in which our network tends to be more fiber deep than other networks, okay? So generally, it's an easy upgrade for us. But we think hard before we decide, hey, we're going to take that 1.2 gig plan to 1.8 gig, okay? Doesn't mean we're not going to do it, but it means that it will be selected cases where we do that.

And so I mean that's not something that's on the kind of immediate road map that would be longer dated.

Not as a bulk upgrade. I think we will upgrade what we need in order to get to that 10 gig fast, but not as a bulk upgrade. We don't have a plan that says we're going to take all of Switzerland and upgrade to 1.8.

And then maybe just quickly on the Netherlands as one of your other markets, Enrique, I think Mike Fries talked potentially about looking at a hybrid model there. I mean you could talk to us a little bit more about some of the network upgrade plans in that market.

It's actually quite similar to the Switzerland situation, right, where most of the plant has been taken to 1.2 gig. We will selectively upgrade to 1.8 gig where we need. And in the right cases, we'll partner with our neighbors in order to get access to the right wholesale products. Just like in more places, we are providing wholesale opportunities. I mean, you didn't ask me this, you asked me almost every question on the U.K., but you did not ask me what are our wholesale plans? And as we've said, we're quite open to wholesaling. We believe that high network utilization, it's a blessing, right? I mean that's probably the technical term that Charlie loves the most, high network utilization because he knows that just improves the economics, right? And I think we're going to be quite pragmatic and look for that in just about every one of our markets.

Is that something that makes sense from a cost benefit perspective in a market like, say, Netherlands where the cost to upgrade fiber could be quite expensive, but it will still be more cost-effective for you to stick with a DOCSIS product for consumers.

I think so. I mean I think it will be -- the Netherlands is probably the one where you need the final degree of definition to understand which pieces you want to do a DOCSIS port upgrade, which pieces you want to do in a different route. And of course, in the case of the Netherlands, we work very closely with our partner, Vodafone, to determine what's the best investment profile that ultimately Vodafone VodafoneZiggo needs to run, right? And it would be fair to say it's a little more complex than in other markets. But again, we feel quite comfortable with respect to the competition.

In areas where you've talked about going to 1.8 gigahertz. I mean what speeds do you think you then might be able to achieve as an advertised headline speed on the DOCSIS networks?

As a general statement, the cable providers, HFC providers have been more cautious about headroom between maximum theoretical speed and advertised speed -- and if you see what some of the early fiber deployments advertise, they tend to get closer, okay? So very transparently, we're going through that debate internally. Do we keep the philosophy of bigger headroom like we have had in HFC? Or do we take the philosophy of, let's call it, the pure fiber providers, which generally have been more aggressive on the view of that headroom, right? The ideal headline will be 10 gig, okay? And clearly, there's an attractiveness to 10 gig. It is simple, it's simpler than 9.5 gig or 10.5 gig. So clearly, 10 gig will be our target. We will be competitive because I'm very comfortable that a DOCSIS 4.0 network can be competitive to an XGS-PON network on an apples-to-apples comparison. And so -- but fine-tuning, the ideal outcome will be that from a regulatory perspective and from a competitive perspective, we can advertise 10 gig. That clearly is the goal.

It's exciting to see that is a great target to have in mind. How -- I mean how much extra speed uplift do you think you can get and something you've alluded to already in recurrence today from actually moving to IP and freeing up some of the video capacity, which obviously takes up several -- some of 200 megahertz, I suppose, of your current network today.

Yes. I mean, easily, you could recover 20% if you really had a complete path, maybe even as high as 30% in certain cases, right? And so it's very attractive, very attractive. This is one of the reasons why we've been investing and actually quite happy with the results on our entertainment platform because our entertainment platform Horizon, Horizon 4, we call it, I guess, we'll change the name to Verizon 5 one of these days. But Horizon 4 gives us all the flexibility we need to bring these services, all entertainment services over IP. If we look at what we've deployed in Poland, which -- you look at what we deployed in Switzerland, Netherlands, in Belgium, we already have a complete IP service that as a consumer, you can get on a little set-top box like this, I don't know if you can see it, but this is what we call our Apollo. This has now been deployed in Switzerland, Netherlands, Poland. And I think we're about to deploy in Telenet, okay? It will be deployed in the U.K. as well. Sorry, we deployed this in the U.K. now with our new [indiscernible] product. And now which we will, I believe, launched first in Switzerland, we'll also have entertainment offering that comes to you with no set-top box, okay, using your built-in app on a television or using a small dongle. So we feel very comfortable that we've done the homework required to move our services to All-IP. And I can tell you, I'll be doing a nice little private celebration the day that we sell the last set-top box that supports non-IP services because I think that will be a breakthrough moment for our network. So this is -- there's a lot of opportunity here. 20%, 30%, you can easily see it.

Do you have a timetable you're working towards to try to achieve that?

Yesterday. I want it yesterday. I'm a pain the butt in every internal meeting because my timetable is yesterday. I mean we have all the capabilities. The U.K. market is probably the most complex from a rights perspective, but you're seeing already significant steps forward in that market. So we're happy to see that this will come to reality in the near future.

But then it's interesting you mentioned that, let's say that comes in the next year or 2. You talked then about then selling set-top boxes to get changed. I mean, couldn't we move into a world where we don't have any set-top boxes at all given the speed upgrades with fiber and DOCSIS 4.0

We could. And I think you'll see a more mixed world, okay? But what we still see today is that every time we deploy Apollo, which is a little set-top box I just showed you. Every time we deploy Apollo, we see a significant improvement on NPS, okay? And we know that a significant number of our customers still want to be able to do this and to push the voice button and just say, "I want to watch Ozark," or whatever your preference is these days. And so we'll continue providing that integrated service because most consumers still enjoy the benefit from that. Now the reality is the customer is becoming very sophisticated, which we love. And consuming our entertainment services or even other providers' entertainment services over just IP is fine for us as well.

I think on that note, I mean, what do you make of Sky Glass I mean do you think Liberty needs to follow suit with something similar?

Well, I mean, I don't know that I would call it follow suit. I mean the nice thing about Sky Glass, I mean, I can't speak for Sky, but -- you're not going to do IT upgrade on Sky Glass, okay? So you need something else. We have a huge advantage because our network in the U.K. is second to none, and we can provide IP services. I love the fact that Sky is moving forward with an All-IP service. I mean that certainly will make things easier from a rights point of view. And we have -- we are a fantastic partner of Sky. I mean, we distribute a great deal of their entertainment, and I expect we'll continue to be fantastic partners -- but at the headline, I'm happy to see All-IP take hold everywhere. And if Sky Glass helps us move the conversation on All-IP, fantastic.

Very good. I know you were asking me earlier saying, come on, James, you haven't asked any questions about the U.K. wholesale and new build. So here, we've got a few minutes left. But I mean, a lot of people have been looking at the kind of cost that you spend to build out the network. And I think -- I mean the cost we've seen has been continually coming down but it still seems to be around the GBP 500 mark or so to build out a new home. Openreach talks about levels at 250 to GBP 300. And I know as you mentioned earlier, it could be hard to compare apples to apples. But the question we get a lot is why is it that order of magnitude difference between the 2. So maybe you could help us to unpick that a little bit.

Maybe I'll try a slightly different angle because I don't think I'm going to succeed in giving you what you'd be comfortable with apples-to-apples, okay? So let me try something where I think, hopefully, you'll be comfortable with the numbers. We have been building under our Project Lightning in the U.K. fiber-to-the-premise with numbers that we have now published for years and years, right? So we're very confident on the validity of those numbers. We're also very confident that being the only provider on those new homes gives us the proper economic return even to the level of investment that we have today. So we're pretty clear that increasing network utilization by selling some of that access to other providers is going to, in fact, improve our economics. And so when you look at it, you have to compare it to where we are today as opposed to comparing to Openreach. If you compare it to where we are today, we're very comfortable and this is what we've spoken about it publicly that increasing the network utilization to wholesale is going to improve our return economics. And in some cases, it may improve the economics to other investors. We've talked about our program in the U.K., where we're in progress, contemplating, bringing other investors for the newbuild part of the network, not for the overlay or the upgrade to FTTH. And as you can imagine, as we're going through those conversations, investors need to get comfortable that they can get the return. I think we're going to see success on that. It's still a story being built, but I think we're going to see a happy ending to that story.

And I mean in the areas where you are now deploying fiber, I mean is rather than having the HFC network in place. I mean, are there reasons why on the Project Lightning build, you're not out advertising speeds at 5 or 10 gigs already on full fiber. Wouldn't that be quite a competitive advantage to be pushing?

Well, remember, our Project Lightning today uses what's called RFoG, RF over glass. So it's basically using the fiber as a better way to deliver an HFC like network, okay? And now those -- the advantage we have on those homes is very easy to operate those to XGS-PON, even lower cost than what we've been talking about before because you already have the fiber all the way to the home. But those are still running. Think of it as a better HFC network, more F, less C, okay? And so it has -- today, with the equipment that we have deployed, we have the same basic limitations we're able to provide 1 gig probably 2 gig as well, but not be able to provide 10 gig without the upgrade to XGS-PON.

And so that would then be a -- that would be an additional upgrade you would look to do within the Lightning footprint as part of the overall fiber upgrade?

Exactly, our 7-year plan, to bring the complete U.K. into XGS-PON takes into account that some of the Lightning homes will also be upgraded to XGS-PON.

Got it. Well, no, that's a positive note to end on. I think we've run out of time here, Enrique, but that's been a super fascinating discussion. I think one of the best jobs in the world being able to look at all these different markets, very fascinating.

I tell you I'm unfortunate -- this year is, and I think this literally is make me really feel old, this is my 38th year in the industry. And I got to tell you, I've never been more optimistic because we have the opportunity for this improvement on consumer experience at very reasonable investment level. So definitely have the best job in the industry.

That's great to hear, like to see you manage smiling.. So thank you very much indeed.

Thank you.