Telecom Argentina S.A. (TECO2) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. On behalf of Telecom Argentina, I would like to thank everybody for participating on this conference call. The participants of today's conference call are Roberto Nobile, Chief Executive Officer; Federico Pra, Interim Chief Financial Officer; and myself, Luis Ubago, Head of Investor Relations. The purpose of this call is to share with you the results of the annual period and fourth quarter ended on December 31, 2025. If you have not received our press release or presentation, you can call our Investor Relations office to request the documents or download them from the Investor Relations section of our website located at inversores.telecom.com.ar. I would like to go over some safe harbor information and other details of the call. We would like to clarify that during the conference call and Q&A session, we could mention certain forward-looking statements about Telecom's future performance, plans, strategies and objectives. Such statements are subject to uncertainties that could cause Telecom's actual results and operations to differ materially. Such uncertainties include, but are not limited to the effects of the ongoing industry and economic regulations, possible changes in the demand for Telecom's products and services, the effects of potential changes in general market and economic conditions and in legislation. Our press release, dated March 10, 2026, a copy of which was included in our Form 6-K and sent to the SEC, describes certain factors that may affect any forward-looking statements that could be mentioned during this call. The company has reflected the effects of inflation adjustment adopted by Resolution 777/18 of the Comision Nacional de Valores or CNV, which establishes that the reexpression will be applied to the annual financial statements for interim special periods ended as of and including December 31 of 2018. Accordingly, the reported figures corresponding to fiscal year 2025 included the effects of the adoption of inflationary accounting in accordance with IAS 29. In this presentation, we will also include figures in historical values, which are easier to understand. Our press release is complemented by our earnings presentation. Please read the the disclaimer contained on Slide 1, Slide 2 of the presentation. Today, we will go over our business and financial highlights and end the call with a Q&A session. Now let me pass the call to Federico, our Interim CFO, who will start with the presentation.

Thank you, Luis. Good morning, and welcome to everyone. Slide 3 summarizes our highlights as of December 31 of 2025. Before diving into the main variables and financial highlights, it is important to clarify that throughout this presentation, we are presenting consolidated financials, including Telefonica Moviles Argentina or TMA acquired on February 24, 2025. As such, in this presentation, we will mention consolidated figures that include 10 months from March to December of 2025 of TMA's contribution. Figures for Telecom only, excluding TMA contribution and stand-alone figures for TMA for the annual period of 2025. Having said that, our financial statement achievements for the 2025 annual period were as follows. Telecom's consolidated revenues totaled over $5.7 billion, up to 53% year-over-year in constant Argentine pesos, mainly driven by the corporation of TMA results. Importantly, service revenues, excluding TMA grew in real terms for the first year since the adoption of international accounting standard 29. After 2 years of sequential improvement starting in 2023, making a clear inflection point in our operating performance. Our consolidated EBITDA margin reached over 30.3% in fiscal year '25, over 200 basis points versus the same period in 2024. This margin would be even higher, reaching over 32% if we exclude the increase in the run rate in severance charges registered in TMA. Furthermore, on a comparable basis, excluding TMA contributions, EBITDA margin reached 33.7% representing the highest level since 2020 and highlighting the structural improvement in our profitability. Consolidated CapEx amounted to approximately $1.0 billion for the annual period ended in December 2025, an 98% increase in pesos versus fiscal year '24. Investments continue to prioritize the expansion of both fixed and mobile access networks, particularly the rollout of our fiber to the home network and 5G infrastructure. Our net debt to estimated pro forma EBITDA leverage ratio stood at around 1.7x in fiscal year '25, significantly improving compared to fiscal year '24 leverage ratio, even after incorporating the financial of the acquisition of TMA demonstrating our solid credit profile. In November, we announced a dividend payment to our shareholders continued our consistent dividend payment track record maintained since 2017. We were honored with LatinFinance Awards 2 years in a row. In 2024, we received the award for Corporate Liability Management of the Year. And in 2025, we were recognized for the Digital Infrastructure Telecoms Financing for the Year award underscoring effectiveness of our financial strategy. Lastly, during February 2026, we were awarded by Global Banking markets where we received the recognitions for the Telecom Argentina, $1.25 billion acquisition of Telefonica Moviles de Argentina deals at the South Cone Deal of the Year. In addition, throughout our latest liability management transactions, we successfully extended the average life of our debt to more than 5 years, a very important milestone for the company that further strengthen our financial flexibility and risk profile. Slide 4 provides an overview of the main operational and commercial highlights of Telecom and TMA. As we will be detailing in the following slide, mobile subscriber bases of Telecom and TMA reached 19.9 and 19.1 million accesses respectively, consolidating our leadership position in the market. In broadband, we returned to customer growth for the first year since 2021, supported by the continued expansion of our FTTH network and the solid commercial performance of our fixed services. Pay TV subscriptions in Argentina have also registered an increase in allowing us to achieve a second consecutive year for Pay TV growth, an achievement not seen since 2020, 2021, despite a highly competitive environment. Our fintech platform, Personal Pay continues to scale, reaching 4.7 million onboarded clients as of December 2025, maintaining a strong market position. Operationally, during this year, Personal was recognized once again by Ookla for having the fastest 5G network and the best fixed network in Argentina, where we continue advancing in the integration of our commercial brands under a unified personal strategy consolidating our offering across connectivity, entertainment, digital finance, smart home and enterprise solutions. From Slide 5 onwards, we will take a closer look of the performance of our business, highlighting operational trends, commercial evolution and the impact of the recent acquisitions on key indicators. Slide 6 highlights the positive evolution in real terms of the service revenues and ARPU trends both for Telecom and the ones provided by our subsidiary, TMA. On a consolidated basis, service revenues have reached over $5.4 billion, increasing 55% year-over-year in real terms, incorporating 10 months of contribution from TMA. Excluding the contribution from TMA, total service revenues grew by 4% year-over-year in real terms, reflecting a solid commercial execution. Furthermore, mobile broadband and Pay TV service revenues have been growing in real terms at a weighted average growth rate of 7%, while only fixed voice and data service revenues has been growing below inflation. Considering TMA on a stand-alone basis, service revenues grew -- grew 4% in real terms during the fiscal year 2025, reaching approximately USD 2.1 billion. Consolidated revenues totaled over ARS 8.3 trillion, increased 53% in real terms versus fiscal year '24, showing a 118% nominal increase. It is also important to clarify that Telecom does not determine TMA pricing strategy. TMA continues to define and implement its own commercial strategy independently in line with the specific market position and operational priorities. ARPU evolution remained positive across all segments, while mobile, broadband and pay TV showing consistent growth in real terms, reflecting our ability to sustain value and pricing both for Telecom and TMA. Slide 7 shows the evolution of our products where we continue to observe growth in most segments of our subscriber base. For Personal, in the mobile segment during the fiscal year 2025, we continue to observe the effects of an updated disconnection criteria for the new prepaid adds in personal mobile which was implemented in July '24. This change shortened the period of inactivity required to deactivate the dominant prepaid line mainly explained the 10.7% reduction year-over-year in prepaid, reaching almost 12 million accesses in 4Q '25. Postpaid decreased 3.2% year-over-year, reaching almost 8 million accesses. It is important to highlight that in prepaid, the decrease is mainly explained due to the disconnections of lines with no traffic, does not generate an impact on mobile service revenues. The participation of postpaid subscribers over the mobile subscribers is 40% of our total mobile base, up to 38% in 4Q '24. In broadband, we have observed growth driven mainly by higher FTTH adoption. Our subscriber base has registered an increase in 3.2% year-over-year, reaching 4.2 million accesses in 4Q '25. FTTH now represents 30% of our personal broadband base, with almost 1.3 million accesses supported by the acceleration of our fiber rollout. In Pay TV, our Flow platform continues with a good performance as personal flows pay TV accesses has grown year-over-year. During fiscal year '25, Personal Flow's unique customer reached almost 2 million, increasing by over 490,000 total clients or 33% when compared with the same period in fiscal year '24. Personal Flow's subscriber base in Argentina has grown 1.4% year-over-year, reaching almost 3.3 million accesses, reflecting an improvement in real terms of net adds mostly due to the strong performance of our Flow Flex product. TMA provided figures has shown solid results across its core segments, particularly in mobile and broadband. In mobile, we have seen strong growth in postpaid customers with an increase of 2.2% year-over-year, reaching over 9 million postpaid accesses. Postpaid customers now represent 49% of TMA's total mobile base. These figures includes machine-to-machine connections for almost 2.9 million accesses, increasing by 6% versus fiscal year '24. In broadband TMA continues to demonstrate a solid expansion. Broadband accesses grew by 5.8% year-over-year, reaching more than 1.6 million accesses, approximately 95% of TMA's broadband customers base is on FTTH technology. In Pay TV, TMA has seen a modest decline. The subscriber base decreased by 7.9% year-over-year with a net loss of approximately 33,000 customers bringing the total up to 391,000. When combining the evolution of both Telecom and TMA subscriber bases, we observe overall growth across fixed segments, which is a very positive achievement. Broadband showed a combined growth of 3.9% and Pay TV 0.4% confirming the recovery trend in fixed services, while mobile subscribers show a decrease, mainly driven by the reasons mentioned above, particularly within the prepaid segment with no impact on mobile service revenues. Moving on to Slide 8, we will review the performance for our regional operations. Our operation in Paraguay continues with a strong performance. Revenues has grown almost 7% year-over-year in U.S. dollars. EBITDA has grown 12% year-over-year, reaching an equivalent of USD 115 million equivalent, while also showing a strong EBITDA margin of 53%. Our operation continues almost unlevered with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.1x. Regarding customer bases, we count with 2.6 million mobile customers, which has grown 3% year-over-year. Our fixed broadband and Pay TV offering in that country also continues to show good results, where customer base is amounted to 345,000 and 110,000 subscribers, respectively. Personal Pay onboarded clients in Paraguay amounted almost 1 million. During the Mobile Congress 2026, Personal Paraguay was recognized by Ookla with the Best Fixed Network and Fastest Fixed Network Speed Test Awards for Q3 and Q4 of 2025. The recognitions underscores the company's ongoing commitment to the network quality and to delivering reliable, high-performance connectivity. In Uruguay, we count for 101,000 Pay TV customers as of December '25. We continue to see potential to grow in the local broadband market where we began adding customers at the end of 2024. We are progressively gradually as this remains a developing segment for our operations in this country. Personal Pay has reached 4.7 million onboarded clients in Argentina, reflecting 29% annual growth. The platform achieved a remarkable increase in total payment volumes, TPV, which increased 1.9x and a growth of almost 36% in total payment number, TPN, when compared to December 2024, achieving more than ARS 414 billion in remunerated client account balances as of December 2025. During the quarter, we also advanced in our digital financial service strategy through the creation of joint venture with Banco Macro. This partnership combines Banco Macro's financial expertise and products capabilities with Personal Pay's scalable digital platform and growing active customer base. The objective is to accelerate Personal Pay's growth, expand its product offering and further strengthen our ecosystem by leaping customer engagement across the connectivity and financial services. In Slide 9, we provide an overview of our EBITDA margin evolution. During 2025, and due to the incorporation of TMA to our consolidated financials, our total cost increased in absolute terms. However, they did so at a slower pace than the other revenues, which led to an improvement in our profitability. Consolidated EBITDA increased by 132% in nominal terms versus fiscal year '24, generating a nominal EBITDA margin of 31.7% during fiscal year 2025. The EBITDA margin in constant currency was 30.3%, representing an increase of 200 basis points versus the margin reported in fiscal year '24. We will make some special considerations in this regard in the following slide. Slide 10 shows the evolution of EBITDA year-over-year and the impact of the different components of revenues and costs. In real terms, EBITDA increased by ARS 1 trillion or 65% year-over-year, reflecting both the positive contribution from TMA and our ongoing efficiency efforts. The lines that contributed the most in this margin expansion were fees for service, maintenance and materials, mainly due to lower cost of maintenance, materials and supplies, handset costs and lower labor costs associated with the rightsizing of our operations. It is important to highlight that if we exclude the effect of an increase in the run rate of severance charges for TMA during the fiscal year '25, the consolidated margin would reach 32%, thus registering an expansion of 400 basis points versus fiscal year '24. Slide 11 shows that over the past years, we have been increasing our productivity while almost demonstrating our commitment to efficiency, innovation and sustainable growth. In this sense, since 2017, we achieved an important increase in the ratio of subscribers per employee considering Telecom on a stand-alone basis, moving from 1,200 in 2017 to 1,800 as of 2025. This reflects our ability to scale efficiently while optimizing resources. On the right, you can see the evolution of our EBITDA margin despite severance charges impacting results in some periods, we have been able to register an important improvement in our margins, reaching almost 34% in fiscal year '25. These improvements are supported by operational initiatives and digital transformation efforts, including our award-winning SAP cash flow optimization project, which earned as the 2025 SAP Innovation Awards. In Slide 12, we show the improvement in TMA profitability and the key figures as of fiscal year '25. TMA has been executing an efficiency plan aimed at aligning its EBITDA margin with Telecom's margin. In this regard, TMA has implemented several measures, including the elimination of management and brand fees as well as the optimization of handsets and SIM card procurement. Additionally, TMA is advancing initiatives to reduce video platform operation costs. Looking ahead, the focus remains on further efficiencies in programming expenses and the optimization of its commercial network to enhance channel performance, reduce overhead and streamline operations. The objectives of this plan is to bring TMA's EBITDA margin closer to Telecom's margin. This process is already delivering meaningful improvements as TMA's fiscal year EBITDA margin, excluding the impact of higher severance charges, it stands at approximately 26% versus 11% in fiscal year '24. As in fiscal year '25, TMA contributed to consolidated revenues and EBITDA with nearly $1.9 billion and over $0.4 billion, respectively. Looking at the figures on the annual basis as of fiscal year '25, TMA generated almost $2.3 billion in revenues and EBITDA of $0.5 billion versus $265 million reported in fiscal year '24 under the previous shareholder Telefonica from Spain. This underscores the strong execution of the efficiency plan by TMA, which has been able to almost double the EBITDA generated annually from the reported figures as of the fiscal year '24. It is important to highlight that this is a market repair transaction. TMA has limited profitability and constrained investment capacity. With Telecom's acquisition of TMA, we are addressing this issue and reinforcing the health of this industry. Now let me pass the call to Luis, who will continue with the presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Federico. Slide 13 shows the company's consolidated net results and EBIT. Our consolidated EBIT increased in fiscal year '25 as we registered an expansion of the EBITDA in real terms. We recorded an operating income for the fiscal year '25 of ARS 450 million. The operating margin during fiscal year '25 was 5.4% of consolidated revenues in real terms. And in historical figures, the same margin was almost 23%. During fiscal year '25, the company recorded a consolidated net loss of approximately ARS 145 billion compared to a net income of almost ARS 1.4 trillion in fiscal year '24. The results obtained in fiscal year '24 was financial in nature. The strong real appreciation of the peso during that period generated significant gains, mainly related to our foreign currency denominated financial debt. This appreciation led to positive exchange differences in real terms, which accounted for most of the net income reported in fiscal year '24. During fiscal year '25, the evolution was different with inflation being lower than the peso devaluation and generating FX exchange losses that impacted on our financial results. Slide 14 displays a summary of the company's consolidated CapEx in PP&E and intangible assets during fiscal year 2025, which amounted to almost ARS 1.5 trillion or an equivalent of over $1 billion of the official FX rate. This represents a consolidated intensity over revenues of 17.8%. This amount is 98% higher when compared to the previous year in constant pesos with a strong focus on FTTH expansion and 5G deployment. Technical CapEx was mainly composed by investments in our access network and technology, representing 60% of the CapEx during fiscal year '25. Over the course of fiscal year '25, 105 new sites were deployed with nearly 688 existing sites were upgraded. We also added over 800 new 5G sites operating in the 3.5 gigahertz band during the year and a 5G network footprint reached more than 1,000 sites as of December 31 of 2025. In our fixed access network, we increased the deployment of new FTTH over 16,000 new blocks, and we performed overlay of almost 11,400 blocks of HFC network. 2025 marked the largest FTTH rollout since the Telecom Cablevision merger with over 1 million homes passed during the year in new expansion. Approximately 31% of our CapEx of fiscal year '25 was allocated to installations and customer premise equipment, or CPE, which are installations and equipment in the homes of our clients and 9% to our international operations. Slide 15 describes our consolidated cash flow during fiscal year '25 compared with the same period of 2024. Our cash flow generation, net of payments for the acquisition of TMA included in investment activities remain robust. Free cash flow before dividends and interest payments during fiscal year '25 was over USD 0.6 billion compared to the free cash flow obtained in fiscal year '24, we generated an expansion of over $0.2 billion, which could have reached an expansion of approximately $0.3 billion, excluding TMA's extraordinary tax payments. Slide 16 shows our key figures for fiscal year '25. The conversion to U.S. dollars is obtained dividing the figures in constant pesos as of the end of each period and using the end of previous spot FX for each year. Pro forma revenues were equivalent to $6.1 million as of December '25. Pro forma EBITDA was equivalent to $1.8 billion as of December 2025. Our gross debt amounted to $3.7 billion as of December 2025 due to the incorporation of financing of the acquisition of TMA. As of December 2025, the company holds cash and equivalents for over $0.5 billion and thus, our net debt was $3.2 billion. Consequently, our net debt to estimated pro forma EBITDA leverage ratio stood around 1.7x in fiscal year '25, improving when compared with the ratio obtained in fiscal year '24 and reflecting a solid balance sheet. In Slide 17, we will address the company's resilience to FX fluctuations. As mentioned in other earnings calls, during December 2023, the Argentine peso experienced a significant devaluation that impacted our fiscal year '23 figures. Subsequently, our equivalent EBITDA figure in U.S. dollars recovered back to the levels of third quarter of 2023 in only 6 months as reflected in the last 12 months second quarter '24 EBITDA, showing a rapid rebound, thanks to effective pricing of our products in a highly competitive environment and demonstrating the solid resiliency of our business. As shown in fiscal year 2025 figures, the acquisition of TMA did not impact our relative leverage ratio as the EBITDA contribution for the new business helped to maintain our financial balance, adding a substantial contribution to Telecom's EBITDA. The FX depreciation during the third quarter of 2025 had a low impact in our EBITDA figures and almost no effect over our leverage ratio. During the fourth quarter of '25, despite a 5.4% FX variation during the quarter, inflation reached 7.9%, allowing us to continue observing the impact of currency movements. As a result, leverage further improved to around 1.7x confirming the resiliency of our balance sheet and the limited sensitivity of our financial metrics to short-term FX volatility. On Slide 18, we highlight the substantial improvements in our debt maturity profile achieved through recent liability management transactions. Despite the challenging macroeconomic environment during past years in Argentina globally, we have successfully maintained a competitive financial cost while extending the pro forma average life of our debt for 5 years. Our strategy allowed us to keep the average cost of dollar debt relatively stable even as global rates and risk premiums fluctuating significantly. Additionally, during 2025, we secured a financing totaling $2.7 billion. During January of 2026, we issued a 10-year final maturity note for $600 million in the international markets. The transaction represents an unprecedented milestone for Telecom and Argentine corporates, reflecting strong investor support as evidenced by an order book exceeding 3.3x the issued amount. Moreover, the company was recognized with the South Cone Deal of the Year at GBM Awards for $1.25 billion acquisition of Telefonica Moviles Argentina, underscoring its strategic relevance and financial execution. Slide 19 shows the breakdown of our debt maturity profile. As of December 2025 on a pro forma basis, our total outstanding debt principal amounts to approximately $3.7 billion. The pro forma figure reflects the $600 million issuance of the Class 2027 international notes due 2036, and the application of proceeds to, one, net repayment of $163 million of the 2036 notes. Two, the cancellation of $181 million of loans incurred for the acquisition of TMA. Three, the consideration of $109 million equivalent of local loans, and four, the payment and maturity of $121 million equivalent of local dollar-linked notes and the use of $14 million of available cash to reduce bank overdraft. As a result of these liability management actions, we extended the average life of our debt to about 5 years, reinforcing a more balanced maturity profile and incrementally reducing refinancing risk. Our maturity profile for the upcoming years is highly concentrated and manageable, and we will continue with our liability management strategy aiming to reduce costs and expect tenors. Additionally, we also maintain a very good relationship with multilateral and export credit agencies and have availability of financing from local banks. Let me conclude in Slide 20 with some key takeaways from this period. In the fixed business, we achieved solid performance supported by subscriber growth, particularly in broadband. This marks a continued recovery in the segment with improving demand dynamics. At the same time, we continue executing our 5G and FTTH deployment strategy achieving record levels of expansion during the year. These investments are key to strengthening network quality, supporting data consumption growth, and reinforcing our long-term competitive positioning. Previously mentioned, during the quarter, we also advanced in our digital financial services strategy through the creation of a joint venture with Banco Macro and an accelerating Personal Pay's growth and expanding its product offering. We delivered a strong improvement in EBITDA margin. Telecom's margin expanded to 33.7% in fiscal year '25 while TMA also showed a significant recovery, excluding the increase in severance charges run rate, reaching approximately 26%, confirming our margin expansion across both businesses. This reflect the resiliency of our business model and the effectiveness of our cost efficiency initiatives. We successfully expanded our fixed combined customer base in Pay TV and in broadband even in a very competitive market. We were able to generate a significant improvement in top line performance in real terms supporting revenue growth across all major segments. Telecom, excluding the TMA service revenues grew 4% in real terms during fiscal year '25 marking the first annual growth since the adoption of IAS 29. We delivered strong real ARPU growth across our main segments, reflecting disciplined pricing and improved commercial execution. We maintained sound financial management with solid free cash flow generation and strong cash position, primarily in U.S. dollar-denominated instruments, providing us with flexibility and stability. Free cash flow reached over $0.6 billion in fiscal year '25, and our cash position reached over $0.5 billion at the year-end. We continue to strengthen our debt maturity profile, extending the average life of our debt while preserving our competitive financing cost. The average life of our debt exists 5 years on a pro forma basis, the longest in recent years. This action position us very well to sustain long-term growth. With this, now we are more than pleased to answer any questions you may have. Q&A session will be open immediately. Thank you very much.