Swisscom AG (SCMN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Swisscom's Q3 results presentation. My name is Louis Schmid, Head of Investor Relations. And with me are our CEO, Urs Schaeppi; and Eugen Stermetz, our Chief Financial Officer. The first part of today's analyst and investor presentation hosted by our CEO consists of 2 chapters. Chapter 1, a quick overview with some highlights, the operational performance and financial results of Q3. Chapter 2, with an update of our network situation, B2C and B2B performance and financial results in Switzerland and on Fastweb's Q3 results, operationally and financially. In the second part of the presentation, Eugen runs you through Chapter 3, the financial results and the adjusted EBITDA guidance for the fiscal '21. With that, I would like to hand over to Urs to start his part. Urs?

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and I would like to start with the highlights on Page 4. So overall, we had a good and successful third quarter. And on the operational side, but also on the financial side. Some highlights. We increased our ambition -- CO2 ambition for 2025. So we will be net 0 on the whole value chain of our telco in '25, and we will save 100 million tons CO2 on the footprint of our customer, let's call it, the handprint of the 100 million. So ambitious goal on our climate goals. Then the second point, maybe to highlight out in the B2B market, we have a strong and unique market position. We are doing a lot of business in the IT space, where we have a leading position on security cloud, but also on 5G IoT. So a strong differentiated market position in the B2B segment. On -- in our consumer business, we performed through service quality. We won some awards as an example, Connect Shop Test, Service App Test, that's an online app for sales service, but also our net tests, we won the net tests -- the several net tests in Switzerland. Fastweb had a solid performance on the consumer side, but especially also in B2B and wholesale. Then we will talk later on this fiber rollout. So the ruling by the Federal Administrative Court actually prolongs the regulatory uncertainty, which has an impact on how we will build the network in the face of this unclarity and also on the Salt partnership. We will discuss it later. And then so this leads us to an outlook which is unchanged on the EBITDA level. So we support the EBITDA guidance, which we have. We have a small change on the net revenue and CapEx. And the reason -- there are 2 reasons behind it. The exchange rate, which has an impact and then on hold testing of the Salt partnership, which has an impact, Eugen will explain it later. If you go to Slide 5, you see our market performance. So we have a solid robust market performance in Switzerland. Positive revenue generating units in Italy. If I start with Switzerland, you see that the wireline business. So we have net adds, which are slightly positive. We will have -- we have good churn figures and also ARPU figures that -- I'll come later to it, but stable in the wireline business. That's a good performance. If you look how competitive this market is, driven through promotions by our competitors. Then we have a positive net add on postpaid, 50,000 net adds positive, so a good momentum on postpaid. And then in Fastweb, a good momentum on mobile. That is 128,000 additional mobile subscribers, positive momentum on wholesale. And then a weaker result, I would say, approximately stable in broadband. September was positive on net add. So third quarter is always a bit weaker in Italy also because of this -- let's say, it's Ferragosto. It's more a holiday quarter. So overall, good market performance. If you go on Slide 6, you see our financial performance. Also here, solid underlying performance. If you go to the Q3 EBITDA development. You see that we have an underlying growing EBITDA business in Switzerland and in Italy. So CHF 11 million plus in Switzerland, CHF 16 million in Italy. The exceptionals, Eugen will explain them a bit later. But in the exceptionals, there are the exchange rates and the provision on regulation and litigation. But overall, good financial figures. Revenue, which went up by 1.7% and the net income, which went up by 32%. CapEx are in the region of CHF 1.6 billion. So overall, solid good financial performance, which also leads to this EBITDA outlook, which is stable. On Page 8, just some remarks to our business priorities. They are unchanged. So important for us is that we are continuously investing in our infrastructure and sustainability. The second priority is to deliver on our leading market position in Switzerland. So that means on the product side, on the customer service side, also through innovation as we have shown this week with our new blue offers, which really differentiates us in the market. That's important in a market which is very promotion-oriented, that we have a differentiated value proposition. Then we have a strong commitment to our operational excellence. You will also see that we are on track to achieve our targets, our cost targets. And in Fastweb, in Italy, it's important to invest in this further growth in Italy so that we can have growth in all segments. These are our priorities. On Page 9, you will see some more explanation to our ESG goals, with our environment sustainability ambitions. And as I explained it before, so we have these 2 goals to be net 0 on Scope 1 to 3, that means on our own footprint. And then to save 1 million tons CO2 on the Scope 4. That means the handprint -- and there we have the potential by using products like IoT, smart home, cloud that our customers can really save CO2. I think another important point to show the commitment of Swisscom to sustainability. So we do this now over 20 years is also the figure that we were able to reduce our CO2 emissions by 90%. So that shows the high ambition which we have and our 26% compared to 2020. On Page 10, some remarks to our network strategy. On the left side, we see our, let's say, outstanding coverage on -- with this technology on LTE. We have a coverage of 99% of the population with 5G with the base version of 5G, dynamic spectrum sharing, we have 98%. And on 5G Plus, we have, today, 31% of the outdoor sites, which are on 5G plus. So you see that the footprint of 5G is rapidly increasing despite all the challenges we have in Switzerland to build or to get permission for new antennas. On wireline, what is our fiber rollout strategy. We see that there, we have different phases. First, we have the phase to roll out fiber to the home in the cities. Then we made the push to get full coverage in Switzerland on ultra-broadband. So there, we have more or less -- over 90% of Switzerland has now an ultra-broadband footprint or 71% has speeds above 200 megabits per second. So you see the coverage increase. And now we are in the phase to roll out Fiber to the Home on this point-to-multipoint approach, where we have now these uncertainties caused by the Federal Administrative Court. We will come later to it. But we remain on the ambition to continue to roll out on Fiber to the Home. To this COMCO investigation on Page 11. So this investigation's currently jeopardizing our FTTH rollout ambition. The problem today is we have a lot of uncertainty, a lack of clarity. The investigation is around this point-to-multipoint technology. Actually, the technology, which is state of the art in the telecommunication world, which is used in all the different countries. And we have precautionary measures, which actually ask that we have to offer layer on of -- from the central office, there where we are building in the point-to-multipoint architecture. And what does this mean as an impact? We have to do some adoptions on the rollout -- temporary adoption until we have clarity. And these adoptions means that Swisscom will only build point-to-point compatible network elements. So that means we cannot do the whole rollout, but we will do all the elements of the network rollout, which are point-to-point compatible until we have this clarity from the court. We have to set the partnership with Salt on hold until we get more clarity. But important is the contract stays in place. And we are committed to make this contract work. So it's -- we have to work, how we could actually implement it on the new unclarity. What are next steps on this topic of the investigation? So we will appeal to the Federal Court. And it's so fundamental that we have to appeal. And we will have to do a review of our fiber rollout network strategy. It's too early to say what will be the outcome, but we will evaluate the different options. And as soon as we have clarity, we will come back. I would say it will be in the region of our full year results. We will have more clarity how we do the rollout, and we will give you an update there. On Page 12, to our B2C business. So overall, a good Q3 for the B2C segment. Important for this business is to have a customer-centric user experience. And you see on the left side, what we have done some examples how we improve our value proposition each day. So we made big progresses in online tools, called My Swisscom App, that's an online app for customer service, we were awarded as -- we get an award there on shops. We were the winner, call it, before on blue. We improved our value proposition with this blue Play. That's a huge media center, where we can improve the value of our TV products. Also on -- the reach of our TV platform is increased. So you can also see it on Apple TV. So our strategy on the TV platform is to be an aggregator to give our customers the easiest access to the world of entertainment with an excellent user experience. And that's why we do such things like blue Play, like a cooperation with Apple TV. On the market side, on the right side of this Chart 12, you see that we -- how we perform in the market, and we have a good market performance. Page 13, some remarks to the results of B2C. So solid performance, solid RGU base on wireline. Churn rate, which is lower than before. So that shows that the -- on the loyalty side, we have a good performance, 8.5% churn on broadband. ARPU, you can see the ARPU is stable. And also important to mention is that the fixed mobile converged subscribers are 46%. So that's important, because also, on a converged bundle, churn levels are lower. So also to the stickiness of the market, it's important. Wireless with the same picture, lower churn, stable ARPU on the one side, but -- and that's the good message, an increasing revenue-generating base. On Page 14, our B2B business. Just 2 remarks here. We are well positioned in the B2C market. We are strong in the projects business. You see some examples on the left side and you see also our standing in the security market. Swisscom is judged or recognized as the leader in security. And with all the threats, with all the trends in this B2B business, I think that's an important bit -- pillar to differentiate ourselves. The performance of B2B on Page 15. Also here, it's as expected, that the development of the service revenue is as expected. We have this price erosion of CHF 23 million in Q3. And you see on the right side, how this CHF 23 million is actually allocated. So CHF 14 million is going out of the wireless business and CHF 9 million of this erosion is coming out of the wireline business. The Solutions business is growing by 5.8%. And you see on the left bottom on -- from which segment this positive contribution is coming. Page 16, operational excellence. We are on track to achieve our savings over CHF 100 million. We had in the first 3 quarters, cost savings of CHF 99 million. Page 17, financial results of Swisscom Switzerland saw a slightly increasing revenue. It went up by 0.3%. Service revenue went down by around CHF 40 million, so less than last year. And you see where we were able to grow. One of the big impacts is certainly the Solution business from B2B. EBITDA is stable. The reported EBITDA is stable. Underlying, I showed before, it was slightly higher, and we have an operating free cash flow proxy, which is CHF 59 million above previous quarters. Fastweb. Some results so far -- some remarks so far on Page 18. So in the different segments, we were successful on the commercial side, as an example, we were able to increase our ultra-broadband growth. That's important because the journey is lower on ultra-broadband customer and the ARPU is higher. We are leading in the Net Promoter Score, that's important also if we talk about churn figures. And we made also innovation with a new router, an Internet router NEXXT, which is a fantastic router and which differentiates us in the market. Enterprise, successful business in Enterprise and Wholesale. We are entering now the mobile enterprise markets with 5G. And in Wholesale, we were able to increase our lines. So more revenue-generating units in wholesale. Infrastructure, 1 point to mention. Fastweb is recognized as a leading ISP. For example, Netflix gave us the #1 position in the ISP index. Then the financial results on Page 19. In Consumer segment, overall, good figures. Churn went down. And you see also on the right side -- on the left side of this chart, the benefit of a fixed mobile converged offer. So higher ARPU, lower churn, and that's why Fastweb is also pushing this fixed mobile converged products. Page 20, the B2B and wholesale business. So you see the positive momentum in these 2 segments on enterprise and wholesale. So we are growing there and that's a good momentum. The financials, on Page 21. So -- let's say, on revenue, we have 5% growth on EBITDA, we have a growth of 6% and an operating free cash flow proxy in the first 9 months of plus CHF 123 million. So overall, a good financial performance and in the guidance, so as expected. Now I would like to hand over to Eugen for the financial results.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome also from my side. Happy to dive into the numbers. As Urs mentioned, overall, a very good result and very good quarter. I'll go directly to Page 23 to talk about group revenues. Group revenues were up in the first 9 months by CHF 142 million net of currency effects. That's an underlying plus CHF 107 million. Fastweb, as expected and as in the past, with the contribution of plus CHF 87 million, 5% growth. But also growth year-over-year from Swisscom in Switzerland, with a positive contribution from B2C behind those plus CHF 46 million, the typical mix of service revenue decline on the one hand, but higher hardware sales on the other hand and also higher other revenues, in particular, the famous decoupling effect in the first half of the year that gave us a lift here. On the B2B segment, minus CHF 29 million mix of service revenues began on the one hand. IT Solutions revenue up on the other hand, but not fully compensating for the service revenue decline. If you take a look at the quarterly evolution, there is no major changes to be talked about within Swisscom Switzerland. Q3, pretty much in line with what we saw previously in the first half of the year. One comment on Fastweb, we had, on Fastweb, in the first quarter, revenue was up by CHF 6 million. Growth was much stronger in the first and in the second quarter. The reason for this is primarily that the enterprise segment, that is typically the main engine of growth had lower hardware sales in the third quarter which obviously has only a minor impact on EBITDA as we will see on the later pages. So far on revenue, I'll move on to Page 24 and dive into the revenue for Swisscom Switzerland. We saw CHF 20 million up overall. I'm not going to spend so many words on this page as in Q2. For those of you who attended the Q2 call, the reason is results came in, by and large, as expected and as explained in the second quarter. If anything, a bit better than expected, so I'll run you quickly through it. On the left-hand side, we have the revenue bridge for Swisscom Switzerland, starting with service revenues decline now in the first 9 months, minus CHF 139 million. Compensating for that, the decoupling effect, which has run its course, as we explained. So that was an effect out of the first half of the year and it relates to old traffic plans that have now run out over 24 months, and we won't see this effect again. Solutions revenue, up CHF 35 million with a nice contribution also in the third quarter of CHF 15 million. So that's clearly positive. The hardware increase -- increase in hardware revenue, plus CHF 41 million, you know it already. That's mostly from the first 2 quarters. No big change in Q3. Same for wholesale, no big changes here. Maybe 1 word on the plus CHF 25 million from other revenue. There's 2 or 3 components in there. One is an IFRS 15 reconciliation that has nothing to do with the decoupling effect with the old tariff plans that are 2 or 3 years old. But as we run half year promotions, we build, under IFRS 15, new reconciliation items. And currently, we have a number of those promotions out there. So that gave a positive effect. Obviously, that will turn back on us in the coming years. There was also a sort of one-off in there with an insurance premium refund that contributed to that extra other revenue. And finally, our thanks to James Bond. Our cinema business is picking up again and that also contributed a bit to this number. Although to be a fair, James Bond, I think, just came out in October and not in September. So it was not James Bond yet, but the cinema business in general. Okay. Top right of the page, the typical bridge of service revenue evolution over the quarters. I explained in Q2 that we are more or less in the range of -- if you take out the roaming effects of the service revenue decline run rate a quarter, between CHF 40 million and CHF 2 million. Q3 confirmed that range. We had minus CHF 50 million in Q3. Roaming had almost no influence whatsoever anymore. So net of roaming, it's minus CHF 51 million. If you look at the bottom side of the page, I'll talk about, of the page, to the right. No big surprises -- no surprise on fixed voice lines, obviously. No surprise on fixed mobile convergence. No surprise either on roaming, I would like to remind you that most of our tariff plans include roaming in the European Union. So even if people travel more and people did travel more this time more than last year, it has no impact on our roaming revenues from retail or B2B customers. I'll quickly comment on the other line here, going from left to right. So on the wireline B2C side, a change in RGU mix, minus CHF 6 million. That's a bit lower than in the last quarter. The effect here is some of the traffic tailwinds that we talked about before, seem to have from their course. But overall, it's not a huge change. Price pressure in B2B as before, no big change. I move over to the wireless side, B2C change in our RGU mix, same-same, but different. The usual effects, brand shift, promotions, et cetera. And finally, the only that is definitely lower than in the previous quarter is price pressure, wireless. On the B2B side, I talked about that last time. We do have some visibility on upcoming contract renewals and that led to increased ARPU pressure on the B2B wireless side. By and large, we do expect a pretty similar picture in Q4. I move on to group EBITDA on Page 25. In the first 9 months, up by CHF 109 million, underlying plus CHF 89 million; Fastweb with plus CHF 36 million, 6% growth; also, Swisscom Switzerland, up by CHF 49 million; B2C and B2B basically following revenue trends; Wholesale, no big change; and in the infrastructure and support functions, the plus CHF 31 million that you see here reflects primarily the savings in the cost savings in IT Networks division and in our support functions. One word on Fastweb. Some of you, I'm sure, certainly noticed that we are up CHF 6 million on revenue, but up CHF 16 million on EBITDA. One effect that I mentioned before is lower hardware revenues on the revenue side, so very little effect on the EBITDA. And the other is that we had income from regulatory litigations on the Fastweb side. We do have that most of the time, if not all the time. It's part of the business, but it was a bit higher in Q3 than in the other quarters. I move on to Page 26. Diving into EBITDA, Swisscom Switzerland. I mentioned on the previous page, underlying plus CHF 49 million. We talked about revenue plus CHF 20 million. I move on to direct costs, subscriber acquisition costs, no big change compared to previous year in the third quarter. We did some -- we did have some higher stock in the first and the second quarter, but that was more related to the previous year, because in the previous year, in the first half of the year due to COVID, acquisitions didn't go as planned. Our payments are flat. There is a bit of a saving here in the third quarter, which might be counterintuitive because obviously, there is higher roaming volumes. But with higher roaming volumes, we have lower roaming prices. That's how the agreements are structured and these lower roaming prices, we retroactively applied also to the first and second quarter, so this explains the plus CHF 13 million. But as you see, over the whole 9 months, that adds up to basically 0. COGS, cost of goods purchased and others, CHF 46 million higher costs in the first 9 months. If you take a look at the full 9 months, that's basically higher hardware costs, which reflects the higher hardware revenues that we talked about on the revenue side. If you look at the first quote in particular, there is a bit of an outlier with CHF 36 million higher cost that does not have necessarily to do with hardware in that quarter. But last year, in Q3, we had some one-off effects that led to lower expenses last year. So that shows up as a negative year-over-year comparison in 2021. Indirect costs, we are quite happy with the performance here, savings of CHF 99 million compared -- to be compared to an overall annual target of CHF 100 million. So we are already scratching at a target with contributions from workforce expense and other operating expense, as usual, quite a bunch of different initiatives across all the segments but adding up, in the end, to the right number. Maybe just 2 words, 2 comments on that. One comment and one that of caution. One comment is these savings would be even higher if we hadn't growth, fortunately, growth in the Solutions business on the B2B side. So with revenue growth in the Solutions business, there's also additional costs in the Solutions business. So that's all in that number. Probably next year, we are going to separate this for you in order to show the separate effects for the Data business and for the Solutions business. But now it's all in that number. So that's the comment. The word of caution is you shouldn't extrapolate, necessary, these 9-month figures the full year because typically, in the fourth quarter, we have some seasonality and not the same amount of savings due to, for example, marketing and communication expense, which is typically very heavily skewed towards the fourth quarter. I move on to Page 27. CapEx, CHF 1.6 billion in the first 9 months, basically on the same level as last year. In Q3, Swisscom Switzerland of CHF 372 million, minus 9.3% year-over-year. There is no big structural effects behind this, just the usual seasonality. Our FTTH rollout was maybe a bit slower than we expected. We had a bit lower IT expenses, but part of seasonal fluctuations. To be clear, there is no impact in there out of the COMCO investigation story that was mentioned and there is also not yet any impact there from the Salt agreement because the Salt agreement was about to be implemented by the end of September and is now on hold. So just normal course of business. Page 28, free cash flow, starting from operating free cash flow, which is obviously up by CHF 136 million given that EBITDA is up. Free cash flow, on the other hand, is down by CHF 91 million. So what is in between, it's basically just 1 major effect, and that's the phasing of our tax payments, which last year, we pushed out towards the fourth quarter. And this year, we pay, basically, as they become due. No further comments on free cash flow. I move on to Page 29. Net income bridge. We have -- I'll start with EBIT. EBIT is CHF 117 million higher than last year, obviously driven by the increased operating performance for the higher EBITDA. Now net income is substantially higher with CHF 360 million -- sorry, CHF 366 million above last year. The major impact is here from other financial results of CHF 246 million with the effect that we already mentioned in the first and second quarter, sale of BICS and the FiberCop transaction. Finally, our tax rate is particularly lower in the first 9 months of this year. It has to do with the exact same transactions that I just mentioned. And in addition, there is a new tax law in Italy that allows to do a step-up on goodwill and transactions that are long gone, and that creates a tax asset. We used that possibility and created a tax asset, and this leads to a low tax rate for the first 9 months of the year. Finally, Page 30 on the guidance. Let me do a quick review of what I told you in the first quarter because that's important to understand what we did here. For those of you who attended in the first quarter, as there explained, the impact of the Salt agreement on our numbers. And I talked about the full year impact back then in Q1 and explained that due to the IFRS 16 treatment of that deal, the Salt agreement has a positive impact on revenue, on EBITDA and on CapEx. So I explained that, and I also explained that in 2021, 2021 is a ramp-up year. So it's not a full year, it's a ramp-up year. So all the effects I talked about for the Salt agreement for a full year have only a limited impact -- limited positive impact in 2021. Now the impact is limited, but it's there. And now that the Salt agreement is on hold, it's gone for the fourth quarter. So this is the reason why we adjust the guidance, and I'll walk you through the individual line items. So on revenue, as Urs already mentioned, guidance is down from CHF 11.3 billion to CHF 11.2 billion. There is 2 pieces in there. There is the expected revenue from the Salt agreement in the fourth quarter, which is now not in the guidance anymore. And we also adjusted the FX exchange -- sorry, the Euro/Swiss franc exchange rate to the currently prevailing rate in the same goal, and that gives an overall effect of minus CHF 100 million from about CHF 11.3 billion to about CHF 11.2 billion. On EBITDA guidance so far, CHF 4.4 million to CHF 4.5 million, very important. No change on the EBITDA guidance. Why? There was -- we expected in the fourth quarter, a positive impact from the Salt agreement, but it was fairly low numbers. This positive impact is now gone. What's compensating for that, the ongoing business went a bit better than expected, in particular, service revenue, as you saw, came in quite well in the third quarter. So the guidance on EBITDA stays the same, CHF 4.4 million, CHF 4.5 million. On CapEx, guidance so far was CHF 2.2 million to CHF 2.3 million Included in there was an expected CapEx reduction of a low double-digit number out of the Salt agreement that is gone now. So we'll end up towards the upper end of this CHF 2.2 million to CHF 2.3 million guidance and therefore, we adjust the numbers to about CHF 2.3 million. Finally, and most importantly, no impact whatsoever of all of this on our dividend guidance, which remains 2.2 -- sorry, CHF 22 per share. With that, I hand back to the operator.

[Operator Instructions] I will now open the first one, which is Ulrich Rathe, Jefferies.

I have 3 questions, please, 2 very short ones. They're just clarification. So the Fastweb litigation income, is it correct to assume that, that could be sort of a CHF 6 million benefit beyond what you usually have? You mentioned that you have this quite often. So it's about CHF 6 million or so. Second question is the other sales. The -- on a slide, you're highlighting in Switzerland, CHF 15 million insurance income and CHF 14 million IFRS 15 effect. Could you comment a bit on the nature of these 2 items, in particular, whether they are continuing items or somewhat sort of one-off-ish items in the third quarter? And my last question is a more substantial one. You're talking about sort of the review of the rollout strategy, the fiber rollout strategy. And it sounds, if I understand the sort of indications correctly, as if you want to maintain, really, at all cost, the fiber coverage target of 60%, but possibly on a different time scale and at a different cost if indeed, the regulator sticks to their views, which you might challenge. Is that a correct summary? Or is there any chance that you would actually adjust also the coverage ambition as such?

So you'll take the 2 on, and I'll take the rollout question.

Okay. Okay. So starting with the income from litigation at Fastweb, please understand that we cannot comment on specific numbers for specific litigations. There are counterparties involved and these are individual deals. But overall, these are items that are recurring in the sense that we do have litigation income, most of the time. It's just sometimes it's up and sometimes it's lower, but I can't comment on specific numbers. On the other revenue in Switzerland, the IFRS 15 is -- IFRS 15 line is a reconciliation line that comes up when we have hardware promotions. So as we do have new and additional hardware promotions, this line has a positive effect. If we reach a certain steady state of hardware promotions, this becomes basically 0. And if at some point, we would reduce our hardware promotions, this would become a negative number. So you should expect, given that we plan to have further hardware promotions, you should expect that some numbers of this sort will be in our future numbers. On the insurance refund, this has to do that we offer insurance to our retail customers. And if -- for the insurance company, this is a profitable undertaking. We get a refund after a while. It's typically being given after 3 years, if I'm not mistaken. This is something that will probably come year after year. So it's a continuing effect. It was just that for the first time in this quarter, we had the full CHF 15 million effect. Okay?

So on the question of the rollout strategy, as I already explained, there are a lot of open questions. We are talking about precautionary measures. So a lot of things are unclear. That's why we are reviewing our rollout strategy. On the one side, it's important to increase the footprint. But it must also be on a, let's say, not for all costs. It must be on a way we can digest it. We will certainly prove all or evaluate all the different options, how we could optimize our rollout. It's too early. It would be speculation on how we do it. But if we would go for a full point-to-point rollout, we would have to reconstruct some of the figures. But -- that's quite a complex thing. Not each would have the same cost. So it's too early to speculate on this topic. Important for us is to -- now to evaluate all the different options. Maybe we could also go for a more segmented rollout approach. We will accumulate as soon as we have more clarity and get also more clarity from the regulator. We have -- in our view, we have an optical product for layer-1. There are options on the point-to-point turf. We have -- we sold a deal actual which brings more competition. I think a lot of things are open in this rollout -- fiber rollout topic. Important to know is also that we are fully aware that the dividend is an important topic for Swisscom, and certainly also the investors, that's clear. And we have also a solid balance sheet. So don't let [ speculations ] today. We will review the rollout strategy and come back as soon as possible when we have more clarity. And I think that it's our ambition to come back in February with our full year results.

Next, Georgios Ierodiaconou.

Firstly, a couple of follow-ups on Urs' question on fiber. If it's possible, Urs, can you give us an indication of why is point-to-point less efficient? Like, is there an indication you can give us in terms of the additional cost you would have if you were to go in some of these greenfield things and go for a point-to-point solution around the point-to-multipoint. The second 1 is just to understand a bit more the process itself. You talked about potentially updating us in February with the full year results. Is there any chance or as part of the process that we get clarity before then? Or is it more likely than not that this process will actually last for a while hence, why you are talking about an update in February with some of the intermediate measures you are taking? And then my second question is on Fastweb. Just to understand, I don't think it's a huge surprise that the broadband momentum has slightly reversed. But if you could just give us any commentary around how you see the market developing and any actions you guys are taking to reverse the trend?

So to the cost, if we would have to switch totally to point-to-point, it's too early to give you figures, because it's only correlated to our rollout strategy, how we would do it. And what is actually -- what would be, actually, the major investment? We could use all the investments we made. So we don't have actually, let's say, a depreciation on the old investments because we can review it. But what we have to do is, is actually to increase the tax to make digging work, to increase the tax. And this is community-per-community, different. So the situation's very different. In cities, as an example, we don't have to do something on the tax. If you are more in a rural area, you have to reconstruct some tax. So that's why the rollout strategy will have a huge impact on this additional cost. And that's why we have to do now our homework. We have to get more clarity how -- what would be actually -- what is the view of the regulators. So we will certainly get in contact with the regulator to see what is his ideas. And so that's why it's also difficult to answer your certain -- second question on the time line. I can't tell you the time line. I hope that we have more clarity on -- in February, so that's a bit the view. But we will get in contact with the COMCO to see what is really their view, what kind of flexibility we have, and then we will come back. On Fastweb, on the dynamic in the B2C market broadband, yes, you're right that the whole market in Italy was weaker on the broadband connections. I explained September was a bit better than August and July. We have a lot of promotion activities in Italy. This is also certainly driven by some preemption activities of competition because of this [ area ] of market entry. For us, it is important that we execute our strategy on the network side, the customer service side, the product side and then have combined products, fixed mobile combined products for the B2C market. But the B2C market will be certainly a bit more under pressure. That's for sure. On the other side, we have a very good momentum on B2B. A lot of opportunities in B2B and also wholesale. So that's why we are optimistic that Fastweb will continue to have a good momentum.

Next question is Steve Malcolm, Redburn.

Yes. I've got a couple if I can. First, just on overall cost reduction. When I look at the sort of individual cost lines, it seems like the biggest contributor to your OpEx improvement year-on-year is the increase in capitalized costs and other income, which I think is roughly 2/3 of the CHF 99 million. So I guess when you're looking into sort of 2022 and beyond, do you think you can maintain that benefit from that line in your OpEx performance? And then just going back to Fastweb, I take the point on your inability to sort of call out individual regulatory settlements. But if I look at the sort of capitalized and other cost line there, it's quadrupled in Q3. I think it's gone from sort of normal run rate of 10%, 11% to about CHF 40 million. And if I kind of normalize that, then fast EBITDA would have been down by about 5%. Can you help us understand -- I take the point you get regular settlements, but if we look at the last 3 or 4 years, I think only once has it been anywhere near as high as that. So just any more color on just why that contribution to EBITDA has gone up quite so much in Q3 would be welcome.

Okay. Steve. So first, on the capitalized costs, our personnel expense in the end is obviously net of capitalized costs. There is a gross number, then there is capitalized costs, which drove then the CapEx. And then there is a net number and that is the one we think about when you think about cost reduction. As to our commitment going forward, yes, we are committing -- we are fully committed to continue our cost reduction program. We don't commit on individual lines though. So every year is different in that respect. But overall, the commitment stands firm. On other operating income, in Italy, I mean, you spotted correctly. The impact of the regulatory settlement that we talked about is not totally immaterial, and it shows up in that number. That's correct.

Okay. So -- but it's all -- most of the increase is regulatory. It's not a sort of increase in the amount of CapEx, but you're -- or OpEx, sorry, that you're capitalizing? Is that how we should think about it?

It's a mix of numbers. It's a mix of both numbers.

Okay. But from Q4 onwards, should we expect it to kind of revert back to the sort of CHF 10 million to CHF 15 million that we're more used to seeing in Fastweb?

Yes, it should be normal.

Next question, Jakob Bluestone, Credit Suisse.

Just to come back to this point around the... [Technical Difficulty]

Sorry, we lost Jakob. Please let me get him back. Sorry, Jakob. Your line is unmuted again.

Great. So just to come back to this point around the costs of point-to-point versus point-to-multipoint. I was just wondering if you could maybe be a little bit more specific about what does it actually cost to reconstruct the feeder? It seems like it's sort of the main cost difference if you went down the sort of -- went more down the point-to-point point route. I mean, is it EUR 500 per home passed? Or what does it sort of typically cost in the nonurban area? And then just secondly, just a point of clarification on that. You said that one of your options was a more segmented rollout for fiber. Can you maybe just clarify what does that actually mean? So just maybe elaborate a little bit on what are some of your options. Not necessarily what will you do, but just what are the options that you have. And then just finally, if I can ask a question just on competition in Switzerland. I mean it looks like it was sort of a fairly stable quarter competitively for most of the quarter. But I think towards the end of the quarter, we saw some new tariffs from Sunrise UPC, for example, on the yallo brand. So if you can maybe just give a little bit of a comment around how do you see the outlook for competition in the Swiss consumer market?

On the -- on the cost -- it would be speculation if I give you our figures. But because the reconstruction of the figure depends extremely strong on your rollout strategy. If you go in a city, as an example, or in a rural area, there are communities where you don't have to reconstruct figures. In a more rural area, it costs you quite a lot because you have to do construction work. So it's all correlated footprint. It's correlated also with this feed costs. So I don't feel comfortable to give you now a figure because we should now look how we can, let's say, optimize our rollout strategy. And for this, we need a bit time. We need, also, clarity on what the COMCO is really asking for or what is actually the space of maneuver and, so it would be speculation. That's a bit the topic I can't tell you more today, unfortunately, sorry. And on competition, competition in Switzerland is approximately the same as before. If you look to the new offer of Sunrise, the Sunrise We -- if you take the list prices, you'll see that there is actually no big change. It's also not a kind of price decrease. There are some incentives to do more cross-selling. And with our product portfolio, we are well positioned, also, against this new Sunrise offer. And also, with the move we made now on the TV side with blue Play and all the different features I think we are well positioned. yallo is actually the fighter brand of Sunrise, that's clear. But also there, the impact of a second brand or low-cost brand on the wireline business was quite small in the past. So it's more -- yallo is more turning strong on the mobile. I think also there -- that there, we have not a fundamental change in the market dynamics through this launch of yallo. And we have Wingo to compete against such an offer.

Great. If I can just ask a follow -- or just one clarification. I mean you mentioned earlier, one of your options in terms of Swiss fiber network architecture was a segmented approach. What did that actually refer to? Was that just sort of picking specific regions or...

Maybe, but it's speculation. I don't want to say now something and tomorrow, I will say something -- another thing. So I would really like to take the time to see what could we do the best. And the best would be an optimization between the boundaries we have and certainly, our competitive positioning in the market and also the CapEx. So we will not -- we are a rational player at the end. And we have -- what you should also see is that we made our Fiber-to-the-Home footprint rollout. Today, we have 70% in the Swiss market to have speeds above 200 mega. So we are in a good situation at the end. But yes, we have to find a solution how we do this fiber rollout. And I think we have also strong arguments. That's why it's not -- that's why we talk about this unclarity. We have, I think, good arguments. Point-to-multipoint is the state-of-the-art technology in the telecommunication world if you go to more rural areas. So I think we have to explain us also in the -- on this level.

Let's take next, Polo Tang from UBS.

I've got some 2 questions. The first question is really just about the Competition Commission situation. So you mentioned it's possible to offer layer-1 access on a point-to-multipoint network, given that this is what your agreement with Salt entails currently. If this is the case, why did Init7 not take up this offer? So do you really need to change your network technology to satisfy COMCO? Or is it just a case of changing commercial terms around layer-1 access? My second question is really just about your operating performance. You saw very strong trends in terms of postpaid net adds. It was like 50,000 in Q3. That was a big step-up versus prior quarters. So can you just clarify what drove that improvement?

I will take the first question, and Eugen on the second one. So on this agreement with Salt, take [indiscernible], it's a kind of [indiscernible] deal with Salt. So they're in West. And in Init7 is actually looking for a dark fiber access without investment. So it's a pure layer-1 wholesale products they are looking for. And so that's the difference between these 2 things. So they are looking for a dark fiber and Salt, with Salt, you have -- it's a corporation. That's the difference. And the players in Switzerland, they have access our network, also on a point-to-multipoint architecture. They have access. They can have these products that -- as other competitors are using it, and they are very successful in the market.

Maybe on the second question, strong net adds performance in postpaid value in the third quarter. That is primarily driven by 2 factors. One is churn came down. You might remember in the third quarter, we had pretty high churn that came down over the year, in particular in the third quarter. And secondly, and most importantly, the Wingo performance was very good. So we seem to have a very strong competitive weapon here also to compete against the other low-cost offerings. So it's very much driven by Wingo and the lower churn on the Swisscom brand.

Next is Joshua Mills, Exane.

One question and one clarification. Just on the wholesale deal with Salt, are there any discussions ongoing with the company about alternative setups if this regulatory delay persist? So either giving them access to your existing fiber network or maybe finding smaller agreements to be done on a point-to-point basis rather than point-to-multipoint? Just wanted to understand whether we can see or expect any real wholesale revenues to come through in 2022 without clarification on this. And then the second one was just on the annual impact for 2021. I think you said that the CapEx impact was low tens of millions in losing the Salt deal. And I can't remember if you noted the revenue impact, but it would be great if you could clarify what that is just for this year in Q4.

Okay. Good, you take the question on the impact. I can answer on this discussion, we sold -- so what I can tell you today is that we have to put the agreement on hold. So the short-term impact is limited. Eugen will explain the impact on the guidance. But we are committed to make the cooperation work. But for this, we need more clarity. It's actually like the rollout strategy. And then we need a bit time how -- what would be the best way. So that's what I can tell you today.

Maybe just more additional comment. I may have not been entirely clear when the talked about the Salt agreement. The rollout under the Salt agreement is on hold, but the agreement is very much alive. And as Urs explained, the spirit of the parties is -- and actually also, the agreement is to deal with this situation, and both parties are committed to make the agreement work even under the changed circumstances. So the rollout, the originally planned point-to-market rollout under the Salt agreement is on hold, but not the agreement itself, which leads me to your question on the impact for 2021. So originally, we planned an impact of this agreement in the fourth quarter. You understood correctly that CapEx is in the low double digits. You saw that we adjusted the revenue guidance from CHF 11.3 billion to CHF 11.2. billion. Part of it is FX, that's easy to calculate. And the rest by and large, is the Salt agreement.

Next question, Ulrich Rathe, Jefferies.

Sorry for the delay. Just on this regulatory situation once more. A lot what we're discussing today and the way you're answering questions sound as if a change to your strategy is likely because of what has been -- what is happening at the moment. But could you talk about the possibility that we're going to be looking back in 6 months' time and it was a story with a hiccup because the regulator essentially dropped the whole thing again? And what I'm really after is the sort of assessment of the likelihood of that rather than what you think should happen. So -- I mean, obviously, you think that should happen, right? It would be a normative comment. But in terms of how likely it is, in your view, also based on your conversations with COMCO, that they essentially just turn around and say, "We looked at all this. We looked at the impact on -- it has on Salt. We looked at what Swisscom is telling us and we looked at the competitive issues. And ultimately, we think this is a nonissue and we dropped the whole thing again." Is that still a realistic possibility?

It's hard to answer your question. We will have next week, I will have, first, a discussion with COMCO. Then maybe I see a bit clear, but we will not have clarity, a lot of clarity in the next weeks. That's a bit my feeling. So the likelihood that we get clarity on it fast is low. That's why we are saying we have also to work -- or reviewing our rollout strategy. And I think we have to have a parallel work. We have to get in a dialogue with COMCO to see what kind of opportunities and solutions we have. On the second path, we have to elaborate the best options for us. and then we can come back. But the likelihood that we have clarity in the next weeks is low. So that's what I can say.

Thank you, Ulrich, and thank you to everyone. Timing-wise, we are at the end, and we would like to conclude today's conference call. If you should have any further questions, please not hesitate to contact us from the IR team. Speak to you soon, and have a great day. Bye-bye.

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