Telia Company AB (publ) (TELIA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

September 26, 2024

Nasdaq Stockholm SE Communication Services Diversified Telecommunication Services special 127 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#1

Good morning, everybody. My name is Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, and I happen to be the Chairman of the Telia Company. A warm welcome to this Investor Update and your interest in Telia's further development. We, the Board of Directors, some of them are represented here today, and Telia's leadership team have an overall task to increase shareholder value. And as an owner of the company, we are here to increase the value for you and other stakeholders in our customers, employers, creditors and the society we are operating in. This year, the Board has worked intensively, I would say, together with Patrik and his team to update the strategy for the coming years. And I'm glad to see the outcome, which we are going to present here today. And now it's time for execution, execution, execution. Telia plays a special role in the markets we operate. We provide vital infrastructure and services to customers across all parts of society, depending on resilience in the service and the network we provide. Fulfilling this role while at the same time, delivering high shareholder returns, is and has sometimes been a challenge for Telia. I, my fellow members of the Board, and Patrik and his leadership team always to lay a new foundation for Telia and to push it into a new direction of travel, which gives us a better odds of tackling these challenges at the same time. To me, it boils down to three specific things. The first one is customer obsession. It has been a lot done in the company the last couple of years, but there is still much to do. Secondly, speed. Speed. Speed is very much related into simplicity and very much of the organizational work we have done here recently is just to increase the simplicity in the organization. And the third one, not to forget is to execute what we really are about to do. Today, Patrik, Eric and Anders will present some of the cornerstones of this foundation. Like all plans, it does not come without risk. It will require difficult decisions, tough decisions and very strong focus on execution. But I and the Board firmly believes that this plan will make Telia Company perform significantly better. We are happy to have you here to listen, and we hope we all can help to answer any question you may have. Thank you, again, and warm welcome.

Erik Pers Berglund

executive
#2

Thank you, Lars-Johan, and good morning, everyone, also from me. This is -- I am Erik Strandin Pers, Head of Investor Relations. This is the program today. Patrik, our CEO, will present where Telia is today and our value creation plan for the years ahead. Then we have chosen as a special focus today as Sweden. This is our largest business and it's in a transformative period in the next 3 years. So we have chosen to focus extra on that; and Anders Olsson, who is the Head of Telia Sweden will present this section. Then Patrik will come back and give a very condensed overview of the other markets. But our heads of the other markets are also here today. So please take the opportunity to learn more about these businesses afterwards. Then Eric Hageman, our CFO, will present the financial building blocks of this plan. Patrik, let's get started.

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#3

Thank you. So good morning, everyone, again, and warmly welcome. Also for me here today to our Solna office, our home for Telia Company and also welcome to all of you participating online. Well, I joined this company February 1. So I've been here approximately 8 months. And during my first 2, 3 months, I really focused on traveling around in the markets and meeting customers, sitting down with employees. I think in total, I have had individual talks with around 300 people. Of course, to better understand Telia, how we operate, the services that we are delivering to our customers, how they are appreciated and -- but also here what can actually be better. And I'm very proud of what I've seen so far. We have -- I mean, first of all, we have engaged and committed people. We are acting in very stable and, I would say, predictable markets. Our customers are appreciating our services more and more. And in those markets where we operate, we have a strong position, and that is a very good start. But of course, there are many things that we can do better. And one thing is definitely around execution, what Lars-Johan just talked about. And this is also what we will go through with you here during the day. But before I start, I also want to take the opportunity to introduce and present my colleagues, the senior leaders here at Telia that are participating today. But I will start also by two Board members on additional, apart from Lars-Johan, one. Ingrid Bonde, one I appreciate the Board members, and Thomas as well. Welcome to you. Let's now look into the senior management team that we have here in place today in here. We have -- starting on the upper left, Mathias Berg. Mathias, where are you? There. Mathias is heading our TV & Media business in Sweden and in Finland. We have Holger, there. Holger is heading our Estonia business. Giedre, next to Estonia, of course. Giedre is heading our Lithuania business. We have Heli. There, we have Heli. Heli is heading our Operation in Finland. And then finally, on the unit side, we have Stein-Erik. Our big man, Stein-Erik from Norway heading in our Norwegian operations. Then Group functions, starting first with Stefan Backman. We have Stefan there. Stefan is our Group General Counsel and also responsible for Corporate Affairs. We have Eric. Eric, you will speak later on today. Eric is our CFO. We have in Hein. Hein is not here yet, but he will come. Hein is our acting Group Operating Officer. He is also heading technology, but he will be here in a while. And then we have Anders. Now we can take Anders first. Anders. I have already introduced you. So you can sit down again, sorry. Ola. I mean, Ola. Where is Ola? There. We have Ola. Ola, is responsible for Group Communication, also Brand and Sustainability. And finally, we have Maria, representing people and our culture. Then I hope all of you that are visiting here today that we take the opportunity to speak with them after this session. And also, when we have the Q&A, each representative here will also, of course, help and answer the question that you may have. But now let me talk about Telia and where Telia we are today, where our strong areas are and where we have our challenges and also, of course, opportunities. So we are acting in the Nordic and Baltic. We are serving some 26 million subscriptions. And our three largest markets: Sweden, Finland and Norway, represent 76% of our service revenues and 85% of our EBITDA. But we have, of course, also businesses in the Baltics. And although they are very small, they are performing very well. Then we have our TV & Media unit operating in Sweden and Finland, again, headed by Mathias. It looks today very small on the bottom right chart, but we are now turning around that and will contribute as soon as already in 2025. So that will be very positive. Let me start and say continue what our Chairman said in the start. Lars-Johan said that we are a special company, and we have a unique digital infrastructure position, where we are basically at the epicenter of digital development. We have our fixed networks. We are leaders when it comes to best 5G network. We have incredible robust transport network, and we have our data centers. This position in the center of digitalization is giving us the opportunity to deliver mission-critical to military defense, to civil defense, but also to hospitals, et cetera. But it's also business critical for small, medium and large enterprises, and we are also there for the mass market for consumers. This unique position that we have comes, of course, with responsibility, but it gives us also many business opportunities. If we look at our market, what kind of region it is? Well, we're covering around 25 million people and it's a very good place to be. We have stable democracies, we have robust markets, and good economic base for healthy level of GDP per capita if you compare to European average. And we are also quite happy with the positions we have, where we are either the #2 or #1 in all those markets. And if you look at an international perspective, majority of our business are located in high ARPU markets, where people tend to spend quite a lot on telecom and media. And more importantly, they spend even more every year. It's also important to mention that the digital maturity is high and that people at businesses are adopting and exploring digital technologies to transform and grow. Most of the fiber in our region is already built out, with the majority of the markets at 80%, 90% on the fiber coverage. And we look at 5G for our perspective, we have 94% of population coverage in this region. So it's a very digital and mature market. So then let us look into our own performance and look at Telia for the last couple of years. Well, first, I need to mention that very positive is that we have returned the company back to growth. We have not been growing the company for 13 consecutive quarters, which is good. We have also seen EBITDA increasing to around 5% or mid-single-digit. We also see that we are encouraged to see that the customer satisfaction shows a positive trend. And we have a TV & Media business that is in the midst of an impressive transformation. We have modernized our mobile networks, and we have also strengthened our spectrum portfolio. And we remain, of course, the position as the infrastructure leader in our region. We have made significant progress when it comes to sustainability, and we'll come back to that later during my presentation. But also let's look into, as you have noted, I mean, performance has still not been best-in-class and we want to be best-in-class. Here, we are raising the bar. There are activities that we need to continue with and things that we urgently need to change. So we, of course, need to continue to grow our business to maintain our infrastructure-leading position. We need to modernize our IT, it's given in the business that we have, and have our eyes on the cost. So we are disciplined and continue with cost reductions going forward. And of course, been very active when we talk about how we will handle our portfolio. But then, we have areas that we need to improve. In order for us to be the execution company that Lars-Johan and the board want to see and also we -- of course, in GEM, in group executive management team, we have areas where we need to step up. We need, of course, to be much faster. In order for us to be faster, we need to simplify everything we do in the company from the structure down to product and the IT side as well. We need to take decisions much closer to where the business is done, i.e., much closer to the customer. And accountability needs to be clear. It sounds very easy to understand. But here in Telia, we are making things very complex, and it's difficult to really understand who is really responsible and accountable for what we are doing. And then, if we look at our investments, we need to be much more disciplined when it comes to how we allocate CapEx, how we use our capital in an efficient way, focus much more on return on the investments and also how efficient in totally we handle our capital. And of course, what's given, we will never let our eyes away or off the cash flow. We need to generate cash flow that covers the dividend as a start. And that is also why we have changed the definition, as you have seen this morning on the press release. So these realities have guided us when we have set the new strategic priorities for the coming years. So let's move in on to look into the plan from today until 2027. We call this our value creation plan for that period. And let's start with the targets. Our ambition is, of course, to radically simplify, optimize and make Telia fit for the sustained profitable growth going forward. So we have set ambitious targets. We want to grow our service revenues by 2% per year, the EBITDA CAGR by 4% per year, and we want to reach a cash flow at least SEK 10 billion in 2027. This is really raising the bar. And -- but we have also a clear plan on how we want to create more value for our customers, our shareholders, all of you here today and of course, our employees. So now let me go through how we will deliver on this plan. We see three main building blocks to achieve this. The first one is about strategy and our strategic priorities, focused on simplification. We have already started the progress, the job, the work to decentralize and increase speed and of course, efficiency. I will speak more about that in the next section. So the second one is actually transition of business here in Sweden. Sweden is an important part. It's our home market. It's 40% of our business and Anders will talk more about that later on, because it is an important part of the building block for deliver on this plan. And thirdly, we want to be much more deliberate and also choiceful when it comes to capital allocation. And Eric will, in his section, talk more about this and also how we use, how the financials look going forward. But again, how we'll use more clever the capital that we generate. Then, what is then our strategy? This is in a simple way trying to explain the strategy on one page. So the first purpose. It is we reinvent better connected living. This is the same as before. And we really want -- this remains at the core of everything we do. We want and we will be a better Telia for our customers, our employees, of course, our shareholders and the society where we operate. We will continue to operate in the Nordic and the Baltic area, and we will continue to operate where we have the position to be #1 or #2. We will win by inspiring our customers with good services seamless and simple. We will continue to invest in our network to have the best network available and also the technology quality. And of course, what's given is that we have the trust position. We have been very long in the market. People customers trust us, that we are delivering good service to them. But underneath of this, of course, is everything we do to make it work to get things done. Then let's talk about the three key priorities: simplify, innovate and growth. Let me start with simplify. When I started Telia, during my first 2, 3 months, which I talked about in the start, I sat down with around 300 people asking them really to get their feedback on what they believe in Telia. And what many of those told me was that, Patrik, help us to reduce complexity. It's very difficult to work here in Telia and to get things done. Every time I need to do something, I need to ask at least five stakeholders or five other people, which hindering me and slowing me down in my work. So please, please help me to simplify. And of course, the feedback, and it was not only one, it was many people that said that. Of course, that is an important input, and it's, of course, not good enough that we need to address and do something about. So simplify is about creating a faster and more efficient Telia through simplification when it comes to organization, IT networks and products. This is a very, very important slide. We announced on September 4 that we're implementing a significant change program to simplify and clarify our operating model dramatically. And let's go back a little bit in time. A few years ago, Telia introduced a new operating model with the ambition or the idea was really to okay, instead of developing platforms, products, technology in every country, let's do it once on the central part. And we have tried to do this, but it has been very slow, and it has been very costly for us to do it. So when we try to do one solution that should fit for all markets, it has been very complex. And because the demand from the customers differs between the market and the positions we have also difference in the markets. And now we have seen that we cannot continue to do that. So we need to create a change with that model. And what you see here on the screen is where we're coming from and what we are moving into. So what we're doing is proportionately take out a higher proportion of number of people on the center level, put much more accountability and decisions closer to the customers, even will decentralize the model. We will, of course, keep things that are make sense to keep. So this is actually to reduce the unnecessary coordination, avoid duplication of work, increase the speed that's given, precision and but also end-to-end accountability. So this is what we recently exactly tried to address. So again, what we're trying to achieve is the proportional to higher reductions in common group and support functions, while protecting our countries where they are closer to the customers, where we want also the decision and the accountability to be. If you combine all the central functions in group, we have more than 5,100 people, one in four employees have been working centrally. In our new organization, a target, which we are now in discussion, of course, with the union, so this is subject for union negotiations, the number will be half as much. Reducing the number of total resources drastically by around 3,000 people, and this is exactly what we announced September 4. Of course, we will still have some common resources. And common technology unit, but a much smaller one and with a clear objective and where we see clear synergies that this makes sense to keep. If it doesn't make sense to keep, we either move it to the market or we just take it away. This will actually move the execution power and accountability into the markets. So every CEO is responsible for their P&L and their business local in the markets. So all in all, this change will also save SEK 2.6 billion. Out of the SEK 2.6 billion, SEK 0.3 billion is CapEx. The rest is OpEx immediately, of course, impacting EBITDA. But it's not only about organization, and we will be simplified beyond the structure and the organization. Again, we will continue to replace legacy of course, in our IT networks. We want to continue to simplify and modernize our IT environment through consolidation and to drive out cost and improve, of course, customer experience. This includes, for example, the big transformation or our complex B2B systems in Sweden. Anders will touch on that later on in his presentation. But we will also take steps to modernize specific capabilities in Finland and Norway to approach less complex IT and a higher level of automation and of course, again, better customer experience. Now I talked a lot about simplify, but I cannot stress enough how important this work will be in order to us to be better when it comes to execution and a higher degree of customer focus. Let's now turn into the next strategic priority, innovate. There is continuous innovation going on across our operations. Most of it is incremental innovation close to our core products and services. We also innovate around improving our customer experience and our ability to tailor and personalize offerings to each individual customers. We'd like to highlight a few bigger initiatives that we have. We have a 5G innovation program that called -- that we have named NorthStar. This is a cooperation we have together with Ericsson. And we have a similar in Finland named Sirius, that we have together with Nokia. Here, we offer leading Nordic businesses, access to the latest 5G technology to explore how it can advance in their business. Another one is Smart electricity grids, which Anders will take more -- talk more about later on. It's, of course, not possible to stand it today without mentioning the amazing technology, AI. And I want to briefly touch in on what we are doing. Because many are, of course, very curious when it comes to AI today. And at Telia, we are taking a broad approach. We are looking into agent support, sales, marketing, IT, as an example, but also actually how we run our networks. We have been able to try a lot and very broad at a reasonable cost. We have learned that technology is evolving very fast and that educating people and selecting the right partners are very critical for us. The value we get out of those pilots are increasing or is increasing all the time, but it is also a quick developing area. We're optimistic about the future. And we have already scaling up the first pilots. There is no doubt that AI will play an important role for us and our customers going forward. And the scaling up is around agent support where we see automation coming in, of course, in self-service, but also in interaction analytics, because here we get the opportunity to be much more precise in what we offer to the customers. So we save time for the customers, but we're also much more relevant, and these are areas that we're now trying to scale up. There are some global trends to drive demand for trusted premium communication. So now we will move into the growth sector. Digitalization continues to transform all societies where we operate and cybersecurity threats are increasing. For us, these represent challenges, but also business opportunities. The market for digital security services is expected to grow with 12% per year going forward. And IoT services growth also expected to grow equally fast, and national security concerns impacting all businesses, of course, but we see that the defense spending is also now increasing, thanks to two of our countries are now also joining NATO. This will, of course, increase the attention on network mission-critical communication. And remember what I said in the start, we are at the epicenter when it comes to developing digital societies. And with the networks that we provide, and the position we have and the trust we have, we are able to offer solutions to the most advanced customers within the military defense. Again, this creates, of course, demand for us a supplier like Telia. We have also the extensive experience, of course. And to serving these, typically not only the military defense, we have also the blue light customers. And they really want to have full control of the infrastructure, and that is what we can provide. Concretely then, looking again to our value creation plan and the targets, we think that 2% growth going forward in CAGR is reasonable. 2% has been speed lately. So we know that we can do it. If we get things right, of course. So of course, each country have their own plans to deliver here. But overall, I can give you a couple of examples where we want to continue to grow. First of all, we can become better in serving our existing customers. We can personalize and offer more value based on our leading networks. This means that household and businesses can buy more from us. Higher share of unlimited plans is also an opportunity for us and higher share of 5G, of course, in our mobile base. These are examples. Pricing remains a foundation of growth. We will continue to make market leadership and drive significant portion of our growth from this. Secondly, we also see an increased demand in specific verticals. And again, just mentioned, they including mission-critical communication service edge. And I think also when it comes to analytics and personalization, where we can target a more specific geographic region or customers will play an important role also from today and during the plan period. Thirdly, of course, reduced headwind when it comes to legacy will help us. And Anders will come into that in his presentation for Sweden because there, we have a perfect time now at the moment where we are actually dismantling our copper. So now talking about the strategic priorities: Simplify, Innovate and Grow. But our success is, of course, not connected to how good plan we have. Our success is dependent on how well we execute. And how well we execute is coming back to all the people here in Telia. It's coming back to the leadership and our corporate culture. And we have a corporate culture today that is strong and based on three values: dare, care and simplify. We need to develop that and put more performance into our corporate culture. We need also to, of course, to develop the leadership in combination with this. So -- and for us to be successful now, we need to be aligned and stay focused on our more, more decentralized model. It will not only be the people, the culture would help us. We need to change the structure. That is why it's so important to be disciplined to the recent changes we have announced with the decentralized operating model. So we will need to take away issues that we have today in the structure and to simplify, to help the way you're working to get this done. There is no plan in any company that we delivered without proper and focused execution. And that is the most important part of our coming years. Let me talk also through about key focus areas when it comes to sustainability. To ensure a resilient business operation. This has been part of our strategy for many years. Our most important focus area now is to reduce the CO2 emissions. We are targeting a net zero by 2040. And this is including Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3. 90% of CO2 emissions are generated in our supply chain. Means that, we are dependent, of course, of our partners to fix this. And we are happy now because we ask all our suppliers to join science-based targets. And today, 57% of our emissions are now signed up to science-based targets. Of course, we want 100% to come there, but it will be important. And so far, 57% is a good number. And of course, we're following up all our suppliers on their reduction and also on their circularity plans. The other important part now when it comes to sustainability is, of course, around security. We are putting now effort into providing our customers with security advice and tools for them to protect themselves. And we put significant resources into protecting our own operations. We, of course, want our system to run all the time. We understand that we plan an important -- play an important role in our customers' life in society, and we take that responsibility very serious. All the efforts that we are doing within sustainability has also been recognized by the rating institutions. For example, MSCI, Sustainalytics, and CDP, I know that they are followed by many investors, and we score well with all of them. So I hope this has given you an overview of our strategy and the priorities for the coming years. I also hope that you understand why I think simplification is so important. And our plan to decentralize Telia is an important part to deliver on our value creation plan for '25 to '27 with speed and precision. So this is the first building block to create more shareholder value. I will shortly hand over to Anders Olsson. He will talk you through the next of our building blocks, the three value creation building blocks, which is about Sweden, will go from diluting, actually to contributing. But first, I want to show you a short video glimpse what NorthStar is all about when I talked about innovation. Thank you. [Presentation]

Anders Olsson

executive
#4

So good morning. That's a glimpse of our NorthStar, what we have ahead of us when it comes to exciting 5G things in the Swedish market and our total footprint. My name is Anders Olsson, and I'm heading up Telia Sweden. I'll spend the coming 20, 25 minutes to go through our Swedish business, which is in a turnaround right now, both top and bottom line. Historically, we have been pressured by a decline in the high-margin copper revenues. So DSL and fixed telephony, in combination with a weak development in our B2B. In the recent years, we have observed a stabilization in our B2B business and a strong ex copper growth in B2C and wholesale, supported by pricing. Going forward, we see structural support of growth coming from several areas, a possibility of a continued broad and recurring pricing agenda, a clear demand of mission-critical services, both for the military and civil defense, as Patrik mentioned. Reduced pressure from copper, clearly reduced pressure from the copper in the years to come and opportunities for operational efficiencies. And I will spend some time to go through the levers in these areas and some part of our plans. But before that, let's have a glimpse on the Swedish telco market. The Swedish telecom market is back to growth, and we expect the market to continue growing in the years to come. And during the past years, we have been able to keep our revenue market share fairly stable despite asymmetrical exposure to copper decline. And we address all segments of the Swedish markets, predominantly with our Telia brand, but also complemented with some other brands. In the B2C, we are complementing our Telia brand with Halebop and Fello for the more price-sensitive customers. And in the B2B side, we complement Telia with Cygate, our system integrator, our home of experts in the area of cloud, security and local networks. And based on the large network that we're having, we also have a sizable wholesale business addressing all operators in the Swedish market. Let me now talk about our distinct and strong assets that makes up the foundation of our plan ahead. Number one, we have a large and loyal customer base. In fact, more than 50% of the Swedish households have at least one service with us, and we have a very similar position on the enterprise side. And as I mentioned, all major operators are using buying network capacity and network solutions for us in the wholesale business. Our brand has the absolutely strongest consideration of our telco brands in the Swedish market, well ahead of #2. And Telia brand is consistently ranked as one of the most valuable brands in Sweden. And we have an undisputed network leadership position. That is supported, built on our superior network in the mobile where we today are covering more than 90% of the Swedish population with our 5G services. We have the absolutely biggest fixed network. And we have a backbone which nobody else have in the Swedish market. the only national transport network, 70,000 kilometers long fully redundant and to make it very resilient and robust, we also have 24 rock shelters and some 45 kilometers of tunnels to serve the most demanding customers in the market. Let me now talk very briefly how we intend to leverage these assets in our strategy. You already heard from Patrik of our priorities of Simplify, Innovate and Grow. Let me start on the right-hand side on this slide on the Grow side. We have, as I said, more than 50% of the Swedish households with at least one service for us. For us, it's not necessarily to grow that in amount of customers to 55% or 60%. But with that base, with our broad portfolio of services, our intention is to deepen the customer relationships and by that, Grow service revenue. Building on our network leadership and brand position, we also see possibility to continue to drive a value-based strategy where we innovate close to the core. Innovate close to the core for the consumer side means offer innovation and make sure it makes -- becomes simpler to be and to serve and meet us as a customer. And on the B2B side, the innovation mean, innovate together with our strongest partners, Ericsson, one example, and innovate together with our customers and the electricity grid that Patrik mentioned is one of them. And on top of this, we see clear simplification opportunities. Patrik mentioned operating model change, and the change we're doing to decentralization. But we also have some local simplification opportunities, such as the network modernization, which I'll come back to, how we can continue simplifying our product portfolio and continue driving efficiency, how we serve and meet our customers. In the next slides, I will elaborate a little bit what this means from the consumer side, enterprise side, how we intend to keep our network leadership position and how all this builds up to sustainable EBITDA growth. Starting with the B2C, the consumer side. In the recent years, we have seen the profitable growth, and our ambition is to continue this by three key building blocks. Firstly, as I already mentioned, we have a very large and loyal customer base. And here, we intend to deepen the relations with these customers, both the fixed and mobile convergence, but also the attachment rate, the Telia attachment rate, especially on our fiber customers is very important. And through portfolio evolution, we intend to almost double the unlimited share of our mobile base in the coming 3 years, together with a focus on family subscriptions, which has proven to be a power proposition to support both revenue growth and loyalization. Secondly, we intend to leverage our unique position in the Swedish market to crystallize value. Our network position is more than 2x higher than the closest competitor. And we have a clear premium willingness to pay. In fact, more than 1/3 of the Swedish population are willing to pay a premium for becoming a Telia customer. And building on this, our aim is to continue to drive a structured value-based pricing agenda, which is recurring, reflecting our network leadership and the value we constantly create to our customers. Thirdly, focusing on operations. We are working constantly with channel efficiency, aiming at cost reduction and also to have it easier to be a customer of Telia. And here, a key strategic priority is to drive more transactions in our own channels, which have a low marginal cost when we want to increase the sales in those channels. That means that in online, we will optimize for e-commerce, being very focused on personalization and simplification of the customer journeys. In our stores, which is and will continue being an important sales channel, we will not only serve our customers that are coming to the stores, but also increase the utilization of our store personnel by actively contact customers in outbound telemarketing and to some extent, also the inbound. In customer service, we intend to increase conversion rates on service calls, enabled by both a mix of better agent recommendations with analytics and expect offer engines and improved sales steerings. And last but not least, we will leverage new technologies, including AI, to help us better handle workload and improve customer experience. And when it comes to customer experience, being growing in our customer base to improve customer experience is a fundamental part. So let me touch a bit what we're doing, our trends and what we intend to continue doing to drive a continuation focus of customer satisfaction, including cost reductions. During the past years, we have focused on improving customer experience by working with our customer journeys. So we have worked with support system, agent interfaces, the way we operate, the way we organize. In some cases, this has included investments in new systems and capabilities, but in many cases, there's been a relentless focus how to step-by-step improving all the customer journeys we're having with small improvements. By working with this relentlessly, how we meet and serve our customers, we have reduced the incoming workload to our customer service by roughly 50% in the last couple of years. While at the same time, as you can see on the left-hand side of this graph, we have seen a positive development in NPS. And we intend to continue improving on both these dimensions in the coming 3 years. But fixing the basic is still a key part of this journey. AI and how we focus on automation will be an increasingly larger role for our customer experience agenda, where we expect to capture benefits from the existing pilots that we already have up and running that Patrik mentioned. Let me move into the Enterprise segment. We have the same overarching intention in B2B as in B2C, and that is to grow with existing customers. We have roughly 50% of the Swedish companies above Telia employees, which have at least one service with us. So that's a great pool of continuation of our revenue growth by offering them a broader range of services. That means that we have a horizontal approach in our B2B segment, but we also are going into some specific verticals where we see some very specific increased demands where we also have special operational capabilities at Telia side. And let me mention some words on the three #1s you see on this slide. Patrik mentioned energy grid companies. Due to the green transition, there is massive changes what is happening in the energy grid, not the least in the country of Sweden, which is fairly big in size, where we have production of electricity in Northern Sweden, but the consumption of electricity in Southern Sweden. There's a big transformation on electricity grid companies, and they need to transform. And we, in building networks in combination with our expertise in Telia Cygate, we have a great opportunity to make sure that we help them to digitalize the whole electricity grid companies. And we have some concrete examples. Right now, the biggest one with a big electricity company, Ellevio, that we're doing this transformation with here and now. Secondly, we have an opportunity in mission-critical services with increased demand, both on the military and the civil defense. I'll come back to this one in next slide. And thirdly, in the Healthcare sector. With an aging population, it's requiring much more digitalization in how to treat and take care of our elderly citizens, which is leading to a very big need of digitalization in the Healthcare sector. And here, we're doing a lot one latest example is that we're deploying 5G in some of the major Swedish hospitals. So they can take -- provide a full focus on how to deploy next-generation digital healthcare to both save costs and lives. Patrik already mentioned the need of simplification. And in our B2B business, we have a clear need to radically simplify the experience of being a Telia customer. And we have a very specific and focused program for that, that was initiated in 2022 to transform all our IT and processes how we meet and serve our customers in the B2B segment. This starts to show some results already now. And in the coming years, we will dramatically shorten the lead times from weeks to minutes in coming years and how we serve and meet our customers. This is done by drastically increasing automation and digitalization of our processes, where we remove manual workload and can shift attention to things that really creates value. So I mentioned opportunity mission-critical. Let me take just some minutes more specifically on what we're doing in that area. The geopolitical changes in our neighborhood has triggered significant increased focus, but also increased of money in state budgets to both the military and civil defense sectors. And the recent membership of NATO for Sweden is meaning also a need to develop host nation support capabilities. Telia has a unique position in the Swedish market to serve these needs based on both our unique infrastructure that I mentioned, but also our operational capabilities in this area. And that provides the foundation for a robust and resilient communication solution for even the most extreme conditions. I can't go into details in this area in all parts, but let me take some concrete examples. We are collaborating with the Swedish civil contingency agency, MSB, for the development of the next-generation public safety network for the blue light authorities. We already went public with this during the summer, where we will have a new Rockwell in Sweden, and we will have a very significant role to play in that network. And we also collaborate with the Swedish Armed Forces, on mission-critical, both fiber and mobile solution to make sure that we can deliver those host nation support capabilities that the military needs to do. And this, as you can see on the graph, means that we have a fairly clear view that we can significantly grow the revenue in this area and more specifically actually double the revenue in this area in the years to come. What I hope is clear by now is that our network position and our infrastructure capabilities is a key building block in our strategy. And let me spend some time on how we intend to maintain and develop that position. We will maintain to be the network leader in Sweden. We already reached more than 90% of the Swedish population with our 5G services, well ahead of the Swedish competitors. We will be done by our modernization of our network by end of next year. In fixed, we're the clear market leader with some 35% market share in a very fragmented market. And now when the volume of fiber rollout and for us, the 5G rollout is starting to get to an end, we will both focus on connecting the remaining part of the fiber households that has home passed but not connected. But we've also gradually reallocate investments to maintain the network robustness and resilience that our customers expect and value and will pay for. Parallel to this 5G and fiber rollouts, we're working to close down legacy. In end of '25, we will close down our 3G services. In end of '26, we will close on our copper services. And in end of '27, we will close down our 2G services. In terms of overall CapEx, this means that stable CapEx, we will have a fairly stable CapEx as rollout CapEx is shifted to life cycle management. And we see a temporary CapEx need for monetization of the copper assets and our technical sites. But from the Swedish perspective, we anticipate the CapEx to decline as of year 2027. Let's take some more words about the copper dismantling, which is an important transition and transformation for us in Sweden. For historical reasons, Telia Sweden have a dominant position in copper-based products. In fact, we are the only one that have a copper-based network in Sweden. Our financial performance has been under pressure during the shift from copper. But we are now nearing the end of the copper shutdown and the pressure will be released both on top and bottom line. And as we are dismantling copper, a big portion of the technical real estate will be vacated and sold. And the proceeds from these contractions will fund the relocation as well as the transition to target infrastructure. But in addition, this will eventually lead to cost saving driven by reduced maintenance, reduced energy cost and overall reduced complexity. I've talked to a number of factors that are supporting our EBITDA growth in Sweden. Let me summarize what I believe are the key drivers. As you can see in this chart, we see clear reduction in years to come in the pressure from copper as well as the potential to accelerate growth in some areas. We see a further potential in upsell and convergence in our existing customer relationships, both in consumer and in enterprise. We see a continuation of recurring pricing agenda, reflecting the value we can give to our customers. And as mentioned, we see an increased opportunity in mission-critical services, both in military and civil defense. In addition to these top line drivers, we see further potential structural cost reductions. Some part what Patrik already mentioned about the operating model changes, but also capturing the benefits of a simplified agenda, reducing our network ownership costs, channel efficiency, automation and AI. To conclude, we have the strongest market position in Sweden. We have a large and loyal customer base in Sweden. We have a very strong brand and we have unique infrastructure. And we intend to leverage these assets to deepen our customer relationships. And we aim to remain a responsible market leader with a broad and recurring pricing agenda. And we see a clear growing demand for mission-critical services as we are very well positioned to capture. Our network portfolio is starting to reach its target state with 5G and fiber rollout well ahead of European peers and the pressure from copper is soon over. We see clear path for EBITDA growth going forward. Thank you.

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#5

Thank you, Anders. So let me -- before -- the intention now is to go through the rest of the countries, but before we do that, we have a colleague here that slipped in during the presentation. Hein. Just can you please just rise. Hein is then our Group Operating Officer and heading our technology. Welcome, Hein. So if you look at then the Swedish market, again, it's 40%. So we have another 60% outside Sweden. And I would try to give you a condensed overview of these markets and the plans. So let's start with Finland, first of all. Finland, the important point for them is to come back to growth and to turn around key financials. Finland has managed to turn around several important trends. We have great mobile networks. We have -- I mean -- and also -- but to enter the local networks, we have local suppliers also, Nokia is our sole supplier in Finland. We have brand perception NPS is growing, and we are growing mobile ARPU. We have also reduced cost and to manage them to increase and improve our EBITDA. But we have a clear opportunity to be better. Of course, we see the opportunity to improve our operations in Finland. Our focus in the coming years will be to simplify our operations. By an example, the closing down the copper, the 3G, and shutdown the IT legacy and also complete the RAN modernization. Secondly, will be to strengthen our channels. And here, we have -- we want to invest in our own channels and of course, use AI as Anders just -- I think, in Sweden, in customer front end and in operations. So these activities will support Heli and her team to really stabilize, I would say, our mobile market share, because this has been an issue. We have been growing the ARPU, but the mobile market share has been diluting or reduced. This is our main focus now to maintain that. The second one is to capture growth within the SME segment. Today, we have a good market share when it comes to enterprise and B2B. But in the segment, SME, we have a low market share, and we will take our fair share of that market. So these are clear priorities for Heli and her team going forward. Norway. Well, Norway will continue to strive to best-in-class profitability from continued growth and efficiencies. We have strong positions and also well-diversified brand portfolio platforms in both consumer and business. And we are the leader in 5G with 95% population coverage. In Enterprise, we're also proud because here, we're the player which has been growing the most for the last 5 years in a row. Our agenda in Norway is to strengthen our fixed position but continue to grow in our partnership model. We will also accelerate the upgrades to ensure in fiber, we ensure that we are responding to customer demand that we see in the market. And we have around SEK 1 billion for upgrading the upgrade CapEx for the coming years. And our agenda includes also to fix quality to upgrade, improve and stabilize our quality in our operations, in our networks, and in our services to create even better customer experience with, of course, increased NPS as a consequence. So Stein-Erik and his team, they have a clear agenda and plan, an ambitious plan to continue to grow mobile ARPU and keep the #1 position in wholesale. Capture, of course, the opportunity to strengthen our fixed business and continue to drive growth in enterprise through 5G SA and also ICT services since we just recently launch Telia Cygate also in Norway. Moving on to Lithuania. Lithuania is a strong performing business and the only converged player in the market and also well positioned to continue to grow. Giedre and her team are determined, of course, to maintain the momentum in mobile growth that we have there and grow also in ICT businesses, and at the same time, develop our omni-channel experience. Telia Lithuania has a strong position when it comes to TV, in linear TV. But we have a good opportunity, a great opportunity to continue to grow in the OTT services, where we have a fairly small market share today. So there we want to take a stronger position. Simplification, of course, is also our agenda for Lithuania, and there is much more about streamlining an organization and also an IT environment. And remember, in Lithuania, we are the tech leader with high quality. We are also ranked the #1 when it comes to customer service, but maybe what I'm most proud of is actually that we have the best employer nationwide in Lithuania. In Enterprise, we see good opportunity in ICT to go after, and we have, again, a great position, and we have great ambitions. So in Lithuania. So I think your team here, Giedre will have a good opportunity to take the shares in the market. Let's now move a little bit north to Estonia. So Estonia is another strong performer and a clear market leader across all services with a very strong brand. We have the best network. We have a nationwide connectivity. And we have the highest digital share transactions within Telia Company. Our plan for '25/'27 includes an expansion of cybersecurity in the portfolio, both for consumers and enterprise. And we want to continue to add more value on both our TV and connectivity customers. So I think we have a great opportunity to expand also the fiber reach. Many customers are still on slow copper connectivity. So Holger and his team have high ambitions, but we are especially excited about the target to offer high-speed connectivity for all people and businesses in Estonia using both fiber and mobile network to fix this. So that will take me to the last one, and that is TV & Media. Our TV & Media business operating, linear and digital TV in Sweden and Finland. Their main focus in the coming year is around digitalization, profitability and content portfolio optimization. TV & Media with TV4 in Sweden and MTV in Finland, offers, of course, the best-in-class content and have strong brand positions in the markets. The digitalization in our TV & Media business is about moving from traditional linear TV advertising into streaming. And streaming is both subscribers and advertising money. And the plan then is now to compensate for the lower revenues in the near advertising TV with digital revenues. And as you have seen so far this year, look at the first quarter, the gap was very narrow to compensate for the revenues. But in the second quarter, we balanced out the loss in linear TV advertising revenues with the digital revenues. And TV & Media have a clear plan in place to drive this transformation and to generate better EBITDA. We believe regarding EBITDA that this asset generate more than SEK 1 billion in EBITDA. And we will see also already in '25 that we will be very close to SEK 1 billion in EBITDA. Of course, [ extra ] Champions League gives us, of course, a push in the right direction there. So be the #1 streaming service to fully transform from linear to digital. These are the key ambitions from Mathias and his team. So thank you for listening. I hope, I have been giving you a clear view on our targets, how we will reach them and the priorities in the group, but also when it comes to our most important market, Sweden. I will now turn over to Eric to talk about our financial ambitions and also our capital allocation. Welcome, Eric. Thank you.

Eric Hageman

executive
#6

Sorry. I'm not going to read from the computer just my version of a minute stand, I guess. All right. So great to see you all here. So funny to see you. At the back where we normally have a sandwiches, but it's our home. All right. I need my glasses, it's old age. As Patrik mentioned, we also have other assets beyond our core telco operations, that you perhaps may be less aware of. These are both partly fully or partly owned assets and I want to touch on those before we discuss our financial ambitions. In addition to our TV & Media business that Patrik just mentioned, we own data centers including one for commercial purposes in Helsinki, a substantial real estate portfolio, mainly related to the copper network here in Sweden, but also rooftop sites, which we still own. We have an ICT business, Telia Cygate. We've mentioned it a few times today, and Telia Finance, which helps our customers with financing solutions. Within -- on the right-hand side, barley owned assets, the biggest is, of course, are Nordic tower platform, which we created together with our partners, Brookfield and Alecta. It's executing ahead of plan. It has an EBITDA now of around EUR 130 million, up from just over EUR 100 million when this partnership started. In Finland, we own 40% of Valokuitunen. Sorry, I've pronounced that wrong, Heli, in Finland, which rolled out fiber and has gone from around 20,000 households passed to around 250,000 today. In Latvia, we run a mobile and a fixed business together with the Latvian government, and we still have a small venture capital portfolio. All in all, we own significant value here. And we are operating with quite a pragmatic approach, happy to fully own assets or operate it with partners, but also very much willing to monetize value, if that makes sense for us. Before we cover our financial ambitions, let's have a brief look at our most recent performance. Like you've already heard from Patrik, as a group, we have in the last 3 years, we turned to quite consistent and broad-based service revenue growth with all Telco units contributing. This despite pressure on advertising revenue in our TV & Media business. This top line growth has supported our EBITDA development, which, to some extent, has been masked by the cost impact of the macro backdrop, higher salary costs due to inflation and an increased energy bill. But as you can see on this slide in the middle, with those headwinds slowly but surely behind us, EBITDA is growing again and has done so for the last 4 quarters. So as we embark on the execution of our plan for the period '25 to '27, it is fair to say that we start from a vantage point of solid growth in service revenue and EBITDA. But as you see on the right-hand side, with a cash flow that has been rather erratic, due to working capital volatility and rising interest rates. So this is how we see our current performance. Let's reflect on how the investment community looks at Telia. As you saw in the press release this morning, we have created an ambitious free cash flow growth plan, based on both an outside in analysis and the internal work with the management teams of the various countries in which we operate present here today. Also since Patrik and I joined, we invested lots of time to better understand the market's perception of Telia. During that period, we met with many of you present here today, and this is what you told us. Firstly, that we operate in some of the best telco markets in Europe. We fully agree with this and firmly believe that having strong positions in politically, economically stable and highly digital markets are a great starting point for being a successful telco operator. Secondly, you told us that investors want to see a more robust and predictable Telia with less cash flow volatility and with much better control of operating and capital expenditures. Thirdly, that investors want us to stay focused on telecoms as our core business. And finally, investors want stable, predictable and preferably progressively growing dividends that are covered by free cash flow. This feedback has provided us with great input when we worked on our value creation plan and to set out our ambitions we shared with you today. We want to increase our investment in the field. And we described this approach as having four missions. Firstly, we have the ambition to substantially improve free cash flow generation, driven by a consistently growing EBITDA, combined with a decline in CapEx intensity, so that we cover our dividend with the all-in free cash flow already in 2025. Secondly, we will be more choiceful in the assets we own and what we invest in. We need to own the right assets with the right return profile, and we stay close to our core business when we invest. This much more active portfolio management style will not only free up capital as we divest assets. It also means we invest less in absolute terms, and we invest in projects with much better returns. Thirdly, having a healthy balance sheet will continue to be important for us to be able to operate from a position of strength and that gives us good access to capital markets. We continue to target a net debt-to-EBITDA in the 2x to 2.5x range. We also endeavor to make the balance sheet more transparent and working capital more predictable. In that context, as you saw on the fourth of September, we reduced the vendor financing program by 50%. This brings it much more in line with the broader industry, and it should remove any concerns investors may have with regards to this program. Finally, as we grow our cash flow in the coming years, we want to get back into a position to grow our dividend per share in line with our already existing dividend policy. As you have seen in our quarterly reports, we have for the last 3 years shown consistent broad-based service revenue growth. We have the clear ambition to continue to do so in the coming 3-year period. This ambition of 2% revenue -- service revenue CAGR we announced today is first and foremost underpinned by a continued focus on value-based pricing across all our markets, all products, segments and services. Further supporting this top line growth is the growing demand we see for services within security and defense across our footprint, as you just heard from Anders. You also heard from Anders that Sweden's growth rate will also increasingly benefit from the fading legacy pressure. As you can see on the bottom right of this slide, Sweden will pretty much halved the copper revenue headwind in the coming 3 years, down from SEK 2 billion to SEK 1 billion. This, of course, also adds to the pot. Moving on to the other countries and our footprint. We see scope for market share increases in Finland, in Norway, and we expect structural growth to continue in the Baltics, where both Estonia and Lithuania continue to perform well. Let's now have a look at our EBITDA growth ambition. You heard me talk on the previous slide about our ambition to grow service revenue and this is, of course, the first important driver of our 4% EBITDA growth ambition. As Patrik explained this morning, it is equally important for us to create a much more nimble organization that focuses on performance and execute with greater speed, determination and precision. Therefore, we announced earlier this month our revised operating model and our change program. We expect this program to yield at least SEK 2.6 billion in annual savings, of which SEK 2.3 billion is OpEx and SEK 300 million is CapEx. Part of this 4% annual EBITDA growth rate is made possible because we will accelerate profitable growth in Sweden, as you just heard from Anders. On top of that, we will see margin expansion across all our other markets, most notably in Finland and Lithuania during this planned period. Lastly, we also have the ambition to deliver an EBITDA above SEK 1 billion at our TV & Media business. As you heard from Patrik, this is largely made possible by the continued optimization of our content portfolio by driving down general operating cost and a successful transition from linear to digital. Let me now move on to CapEx. Over the coming plan period, we see scope for falling CapEx intensity, and we are budgeting booked CapEx below SEK 14 billion per year in absolute terms. During this period, we will finalize the implementation of 5G across all our markets, and we don't foresee any large-scale rollout of fiber. We will make selected fiber upgrades to our fixed network in Norway costing around SEK 1 billion over the period, approximately EUR 90 million, but we will make this fit within this SEK 14 billion CapEx envelope. Still on Norway, it's important for you to know that approximately 50% of our customers are actually already on fiber or fixed wireless access. What also fits into the CapEx frame is the investments of around SEK 800 million relating to the divestment of a local copper real estate here in Sweden, something that is, of course, temporary nature only. We will, on the other hand, also get around SEK 1 billion in proceeds from selling these buildings, and therefore, there is no impact on our free cash flow on a net basis. As said, we aim to achieve all this by investing a total envelope of less than SEK 14 billion per year and with a much more disciplined and returns-based approach to investing, ultimately leading to an improved return on capital employed. Let's now look at free cash flow. As I'm sure you saw in the release this morning, we are moving to free cash flow as our key metric. This metric also takes into account line items such as spectrum licenses, minorities, which previously were left out of the two free cash flow metrics that we were guiding upon. We can see that in our industry, there has been some criticism of these types of adjusted cash flow metrics, which are often not appropriate for analyzing things such as dividend coverage or value per share. We simplify this. Our free cash flow metric is an all-in free cash flow. We are assuming in this definition, a normalized amount of spectrum CapEx of SEK 650 million per annum based on our historical spending. As you know, we've already been reporting free cash flow in our analyst presentation according to this definition since the beginning of the year. So we're not introducing a new definition today. We ultimately want a measure that is trustworthy, all inclusive, transparent and reflects funds that over time can be made available for distribution. Our road map -- looking then at what we target in terms of free cash flow generation, you can see there is a clear ambition to cover the dividend by our all-in free cash flow already in 2025 and then to reach at least SEK 10 billion by 2027. Breaking this free cash flow down into its main constituents, the main driver is, of course, the 4% EBITDA growth. Secondly, as just explained, we are increasing the discipline around capital expenditures. We are raising the requirements on the business case that teams present to us. And we are going to hold people's feet really to the fire on these business cases and the returns they give us. Thirdly, after peaking this year, interest paid for 2027 is estimated to be back down again towards the 2023 level. Four, tax and leasing will both be higher, driven by a profitable growth ambition. And working capital is estimated to have a positive, albeit more limited than in the past, contribution across the period, not driven by our vendor financing program anymore, but rather by traditional working capital initiatives like, for example, changed billing cycles. And finally, as I said, we've included a SEK 650 million assumption for spectrum CapEx. On to our balance sheet. Operating with a strong and healthy balance sheet, as I said, will remain a central part of our financial framework and an important component as we build a more robust and more predictable Telia for the future. Already this year, we have reduced interest rate sensitivity and announced earlier this month that we're reducing the vendor financing balanced by 50%. This will have an impact of around 0.2x on our leverage leaving us still well within the 2x, 2.5x range. Lastly, we have a new treasurer joining in November. And together with her, we will continue to work actively on the maturity and the interest rate profile of our bond portfolio. This slide, we specifically made for the analyst community, and it helps to clarify a couple of cash flow details linked to the vendor financing program. Firstly, to say that once this 50% reduction is done, we target to keep the new and lower balance flat over the coming years. The quarter-by-quarter impact on our working capital in the cash flow statement will, of course, still occur, but it should be much lower from next year onwards. Secondly, there is up to SEK 6 billion negative impact on working capital this year from the reduction in vendor financing, which will result in a relatively limited free cash flow in the second half of this year, but we can afford it. And of course, it will make for a much more stable and higher-quality free cash flow going forward. When it comes to portfolio optimization, Telia has achieved a lot in recent years. The big ticket items being the sale of Telia Carrier, the minority stake in our Nordic Tower platform and the sale of our business in Denmark early this year. All deals done at very attractive multiples and which gave us substantial proceeds which we distributed to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases. Going forward, we will continue to actively pursue further portfolio optimization. When and where we feel that Telia is not the best owner of an asset and superior value can be created from exiting, we will take decisive action. This is all part of a strategy to increasingly focus on our core telco operations across the Nordics and the Baltics. We will also invest in this planned period. For example, we will actively pursue customer projects with very attractive returns and we will consider smaller bolt-on acquisitions to further strengthen our business. Overall, however, in the coming plan period, we think it's highly likely that we will sell more than we will buy. And when we have excess cash as a consequence, our primary objective is to return that to shareholders. So as you heard me already say our capital allocation principles listed here in summary on the left-hand side are based on being more choiceful on what to own and whatnot, where to invest and where not, and is now much more shareholder returns focused. We have the clear ambition to grow our dividend again, once we've managed to sustainably cover the dividend by our free cash flow. Our stated policy is that we aim for a progressively growing dividend with a floor of SEK 2, and we aim to grow our DPS. Potential funds available beyond that, i.e., beyond the money needed to cover the dividend and which we are deemed as access will be returned to shareholders. This is, of course, always subject to the Telia Company Board approval. Now let's look at our guidance for next year and our medium-term guidance. Starting with 2005. We foresee this to be a strong year as we reap the benefits from actions taken this year with service revenue growth of 2% and EBITDA growth of at least 5% next year. We have the ambition to keep booked CapEx below SEK 14 billion. So below the circa SEK 14 billion we guided for, for this year. Consequently, we expect an all-in free cash flow next year of around SEK 8 billion which covers the dividend of roughly SEK 7.9 billion in absolute terms. It's important to point out that this around SEK 8 billion includes SEK 650 million for normalized amount of spectrum CapEx as well as dividends from minorities and associates and the proceeds from the copper real estate. So then looking at our midterm ambitions, we see service revenue continuing to grow at 2% and an EBITDA averaging 4% across the period, with 2024 as a base year. Booked CapEx is expected to be below SEK 14 billion, and we expect to see gradually declining CapEx intensity. In combination, this will result in an all-in free cash flow of at least SEK 10 billion by 2027. This now concludes our financial section. And with that, I hand back to Patrik for our closing remarks. Thank you.

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#7

Thank you, Eric. We will shortly open the Q&A, but let me first briefly summarize this presentation. So we are on a journey to radically simplify, optimize and make Telia fit for sustained profitable growth going forward. We are stepping up the pace and are raising also the bar when it comes to our execution ability. We're doing this by decentralizing, simplifying interfaces and have clear accountability throughout the organization. Our Swedish business presented by Anders before, can clearly accelerate its performance. And we will intend to be much more disciplined when it comes to capital allocation and how we use our CapEx. And the whole plan and the road map will give us at least SEK 10 billion in free cash flow in 2027. So this is a step up. It's all about execution, have focused on our customer experience and executing very well on the plans that we have. Then we have good opportunity to deliver on this plan. Thank you.

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#8

Perfect. Thank you, Patrik. And then we are ready to start Q&A. So we're actually 1 minute ahead of time. So we've already become simpler and faster at Telia. That's great news. [Operator Instructions] But I'll start right away. We've had a few questions this morning, Patrik. Why are we guiding for only 5%? You've made this big change program, great saving and TV & Media is going to increase its EBITDA?

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#9

You mean, guiding for the 5% EBITDA growth next year? Well, first of all, we are not guiding for 5%. We are guiding for more than 5% to be super clear, first of all. But -- so the ambition is more than 5%. But remember now we are going through a huge change program in the organization. And we have a target to have everything in place by December 1, but it is critical, and it's a big change that's going on in the company. So if we see and feel that we will perform better in 2025, of course, we will update you on that at that time.

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#10

Perfect. We have a question from Andrew.

Andrew Lee

analyst
#11

It's Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. Thank you also for the much clearer free cash flow guide. It's much appreciated. And you've clearly guided to pretty strong growth over the next few years. What we wanted to better understand is the underlying EBITDA and CapEx intensity assumptions you're making here. Because obviously, you're laying out this big structural change in your corporate structure, which presumably doesn't repeat every 3 years. This is a big shift and that's obviously helping support that EBITDA growth of 4% and the CapEx being below SEK 14 billion. We're not quite clear exactly how much in each of those cases. So I wonder if you could talk about why maybe the EBITDA growth isn't even higher than 4%, given you've got that extra boost over these next 3 years by -- from the corporate change. Is there something holding it back, given that legacy is coming down? And then also on the CapEx side, I guess one of the key questions from investors is once you get to the end of this help from the corporate structure, do we then start seeing capital intensity go up again? And I realize we're asking you for kind of full year out guidance, but just to give us a sense of what's going on beneath the surface.

Eric Hageman

executive
#12

Shall I do the CapEx first?

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#13

You can do both.

Eric Hageman

executive
#14

Is it working? Okay. He can hear me anyway. So yes, we're very comfortable with the guidance that we've given, right? And a lot of time has spent in the last 6 months on coming to what do we feel comfortable with, what do we want to say at the outset. So we feel very comfortable with the 2%, and the at least 5%, and then subsequently in the 2% and the 4% CAGR. It's also a couple of years out, right? So we're standing here at September '24, and then we're guiding also for at least SEK 10 billion free cash flow by December '27. That's a long, long time ahead. So we feel very comfortable with that. You also want to cater for unknowns, right? And by definition, you don't know necessarily what they are. I think it's practically if you look at the various building blocks of EBITDA for next year, 2025, yes, that we feel very comfortable with what we said. And as Patrik said by, you missed it, because you were getting handed the microphone. We obviously, if we see things progressing in the right direction, if we are executing according to plan, we obviously come back to you in 2025 and see if at least 5% maybe was too conservative. When it comes to CapEx, we feel very comfortable with the below 14% for this planned period.

Andrew Lee

analyst
#15

In terms of that tick up. So just to follow up just in terms of that capital intensity essentially coming down during that period. Is that something that's structural into the long term beyond that period or?

Eric Hageman

executive
#16

Yes, you mean if you look at '27? Beyond '27? It's very hard to predict. And I've been in the sector for 12 years before you know we're always predicting a lower CapEx around the corner, but then anything else, a lot of other -- actually initiatives are coming up that we need CapEx. So what we foresee is, of course, so that CapEx to sales will continue to go down, but will be around the 14% and just below 14%. So we will not be significantly below 14%, because we need more CapEx and not only for networks, also for IT. So beyond '26 and '27 onwards, it's very difficult to predict today. But we don't see a major shift going up again in CapEx, to be clear on that.

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#17

I think the one advise that I would give. I have another look at what Anders was saying about Sweden, right? But it's practically, we give group guidance, we don't necessarily want to guide on things one, beyond '27 and certainly not when it comes to specific divisions. But I think Anders story was pretty clear.

Andrew Lee

analyst
#18

Just last just quick follow-up. Could you give us any sense as to how much that corporate structure saving the SEK 2.6 billion, how that splits between OpEx and CapEx?

Eric Hageman

executive
#19

Yes. So SEK 2.3 billion is OpEx and SEK 300 million is CapEx.

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#20

And that, I think, answers one of the questions we've got online, which is from Usman Ghazi at Berenberg. We have another one from him, which also others have asked. Making a 15% headcount redundant in 3 months can have an impact on morale and execution? How do you mitigate this?

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#21

Yes, of course, I understand that. This is a big change and a lot of people are involved, of course. But I must say, so far, when I talk to people in the organization, I got -- I get an okay feedback. People understand the rationale and why we're doing it, and what we're trying to achieve. But of course, it comes down to each individual, now okay, how will this and we have big respect for that. We have mitigation activities, and we'll do activities throughout the coming year to try to mitigate the uncertainty, et cetera, that we have. But that is also one of the reasons why we want to do it very quick and get this in place by December 1, because people are involved now and we want to show them respect and do this quick, so they know. So you don't live with this uncertainty too long time. So that's the reason why we speed it up. So of course -- but we, of course, we know it will have impact on the company. But so far, I think it's okay.

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#22

Good. Yes, there's a question here in the middle. Andreas has got the microphone already.

Andreas Joelsson

analyst
#23

Yes. I took it before. Andreas Joelsson, Carnegie. A bit of a harsh question, perhaps. But Patrik, I think you mentioned dare, care and simplify. If memory serves me right, that was introduced 2014 or something like that. So it's a company that has worked with simplification for quite some time without them obviously having had this success. So to boil it down, what is different this time?

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#24

Thank you. I didn't know when we introduced dare, care and simplify when it comes to corporate culture, because these are the values based then building up then to our corporate culture. And again, what I'm trying to explain in my section was really that we -- how we need to develop our corporate culture by putting in more performance into it. So we make sure that we are delivering that we are accountable. So the difference now is that during the last years, we have tried to centralize the operating model, makes it very complex and we took couple of bets to saying that, okay, let's now centralize, develop products and services and platforms and then scale them out to markets. What we have seen now is doesn't work. It's theoretically very correct, but in reality, it's very difficult and it's costly and it takes too much time. So now the most important part now is this changing the structure back to the countries, make them real accountable and also support them with necessary resources they need to be able to execute the local plans, because the business is to the majority local. Second one we do is, of course, continue to see -- look through the ways of working. Then giving comfort to the short plan now to deliver, of course, yet to be seen, but we think that we have a good commitment together in the Board and in the group activity management, external leadership team, to deliver on the ambitious plan to December 1. That is also one of the reasons why we try to stress it now to make a speed decision to get the new organization in place from December 1. And then focus anything, everything on execution. So these are the plans, the mitigations that we have to be able to deliver on the plan. So -- but of course, I understand yet to be seen, but let's see that we are capable to do it. I think we can do that.

Eric Hageman

executive
#25

And I build on your answer just because we like numbers, right? We can put those in the model. I think the simplest way when people ask me what is make the difference. This is one big initiative, execute -- planned for 6 months, executed in 3 months versus what historically was long-term multiyear, several hundred initiatives. That is the big, big difference between the two.

Andreas Joelsson

analyst
#26

That is sell a 325 in my model. So thanks for that. If I may have a follow-up on the centralized, decentralized, can you give some concrete example of where this has taken too long versus what would happen with a decentralized order? The customer experience, how that will be impacted in concrete example?

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#27

Yes. So let's take some -- try to give some concrete examples. We have been running a transformative initiatives when it comes to products, try to centralize the product development and say that, hey, this is the architecture on products, and this will then be rolled out in all the markets. The problem we have been facing is that given that the markets are in different positions and the demand from the customers is a bit different between the markets, we have not been able to scale this centralized product development to all the markets. To the maximum, we have two markets that are using the common products. And this is because the nature of the business is local. So we need to make sure that we serve the local customers with the local demand. So that's one concrete example. We have been driving also a centralized other transformation project that has been too big that we actually lost control of to be fully enhanced and that we now need to back off from and do much more localized. Then we have also development areas where we have seen, we have been beneficial for it. In Networks as an example, the common core networks very beneficial to have it in common. And we are among the few telcos that actually have achieved a common core when it comes to our core mobile networks. So there are areas where we actually can develop common and those we should continue with. But the rest, either we localize it or we stop. And for us, it's important also, we are doing a lot of initiatives in parallel. We need stop that and do fewer and do that really good. So that is also what we're doing. We are stopping initiatives by taking out these 3,000 people, decentralizing the model, we're also stopping a lot of activities that we cannot continue with. So we do fewer and do them more proper.

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#28

Siyi, I believe, has a microphone.

Siyi He

analyst
#29

You hear me okay? Okay. Siyi from Citigroup. I just want to follow-up on the question on the reorganization. I think my question comes in two parts. First of all, I understand that you decentralize and allocate more responsibility to locals. Should we expect, you actually will need to invest in the local operations. So the net benefits coming out from your cost cuttings will be actually less or you think that the SEK 2.6 billion will be achieved regardless? And the second question is really on the control of local management. I understand that local management now have control of the own P&L. And I guess, if you can walk us through what's the KPIs or measures that you monitor the performance in locals. Because in the past, we have the cases that local operations has been to focus on gross adds and is that they lose sight over the profitability? Just wondering what's kind of things I can monitor.

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#30

Yes. Maria, do you want to answer the first question? I can take the second one? Or do you want me to answer it? I take it? Okay. Let's start with the second question. So clearly, the country CEOs have a clear P&L responsibility. It means what we are measuring them on, not only on gross adds, it's actually on revenue development, EBITDA and the cash flow and of course, CapEx and how well they use the CapEx. So these are the most important KPIs that we are now measuring the countries on. And then on your second question, will it add cost to do the reorganization? No. We will not add cost. Because what we were trying to do, of course, we have a cost of SEK 1.4 billion to do the structure program. But on top, it will not be more cost. Because what we're doing is now, we are reducing the number of people by 3,000. And again, this is subject for unit negotiation that we are now doing. And then, we are then taking a higher proportion of that on the central common and head office functions versus in the countries. But then, what you don't see in the 3,000 is that we have another -- a significant number of people that will be moved from central into local. So what we are trying to achieve here is to strengthen the local operations closer to the customers and make them clearly accountable for the service and product they deliver and the financial KPIs. I hope I answered your question.

Eric Hageman

executive
#31

And just one nuance, if I may. It is at least SEK 2.6 billion in savings.

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#32

Terence, please go ahead.

Terence Tsui

analyst
#33

It's Terence here from Morgan Stanley. I've got a couple of questions, please. Can you just elaborate a bit more on the fiber strategy in Norway and Finland. The SEK 90 million seems like a pretty low number. So can you talk about the various partnerships you've got and how you're mitigating the investment costs there? And then in Finland, it feels like your competitors are also investing a bit more into fiber. So what's your strategy there? And then secondly, my question is around copper monetization. So you speak about the EUR 1 billion of proceeds. Can you share some assumptions around like how many tonnes of copper you got to monetize? And the timing of monetization definitely seems pretty early compared to what other people in the sector to other telcos in the sector are anticipating at their end more, next decade in terms of monetization?

Eric Hageman

executive
#34

I'll do the second question first. Yes, so just on the copper, it's not actually physically the copper. So what this is, is the real estate portfolio where the local exchanges were, which historically used copper as an infrastructure. So we are in the process of selling those, right? This is information we've shared before. We expect to get about SEK 1 billion in proceeds from that divided between this year and the coming 2 years. The cost of moving the buildings as Anders explained, is about EUR 800 million. So it's net proceeds positive this year and a small positive also next year. There's no physical copper related to this. Shall I do say something on fiber?

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#35

You can start and then I want to, Stein-Erik. Yes.

Eric Hageman

executive
#36

Yes. So maybe just to repeat what was said in the slides today. So it is indeed a SEK 1 billion over the next 3-year period. We have already around 50% of our customers on fiber or fixed wireless assets. We've been growing our fiber business quite steadily in the last 7 years, quite successfully. And we see an opportunity now to deploy in both SDUs and MDU. So quite happy with that. We don't foresee that more is necessary. But maybe we can ask Stein-Erik to add a bit more color.

Stein-Erik Vellan

executive
#37

Yes. Well, I can see if I can answer a little bit. And then I think we need to take one step back to 2018 when we acquired -- get TDC. Because at that time, the strategy was to then upgrade from DOCSIS 3.0 to DOCSIS 3.1. And that seems like just a technical upgrade. It's not because you actually deploy fiber closer to the customer, when you do that to be able to get the speed that we are looking for. At the same time, also, we have now a fully, fully fiberized metro network. That means that the backbone of what we are doing is solid and caters for them going further with fiber. Just as Eric said, we do now have more than 50% of our customers already fiberized. So what we will do with the SEK 1 billion over the next 3 years is obviously to go customer by customer. We have been focusing a lot on the MDU segment. We will keep focusing on that. But also, we will be selective when it comes to the SDU market to be able to drive up our ARPU. And doing so together with deployment of fixed wireless access, because of what you also heard that we have more than 95% 5G coverage. But it is one final thing here, and that is the fact that we have not only the largest wholesale set of customers in Norway, but we also have the largest partner network. Norway consists of more than 100 utility companies throughout the country. 26 of them is our partners, and they will also grow, obviously. So they connect to us, but they connect with their fiber, which again drives service revenue for us and also makes us have a nationwide footprint, because the to get TDC network was never fully operating throughout the whole of Norway. So that's our plan. Okay? Heli?

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#38

Yes, we have a question here in the middle from -- sorry, Heli is doing the Finland.

Heli Partanen

executive
#39

I'll try to be quick. So in Finland, as Patrik went through, we have a joint venture, Valokuitunen, which is basically doing the fiber build-out in Finland, where, and we own 40% of that company. Finland has been a bit different market compared to the rest of our footprint. So the fiber penetration has been historically quite low. We are mobile country, as you know, and fixed wireless access is pretty much the standard product for the north urban areas. But we see that the fiber has reached Finland already now. So last year and this year, I think that we have a peak season for the rollouts in fiber. What we clearly see is that, that will start stabilizing. So for the CapEx usage, I don't expect a big increase for next year. We are focusing more on the activation of the homes passed going forward. But I think that the key factor is that how do we balance the fiber together with the fixed access -- fixed wireless access to support the houses connectivity going forward.

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#40

Now, Fredrik.

Fredrik Lithell

analyst
#41

Can you hear me? Fredrik Lithell from Handelsbanken. I think, Anders, you became Head of Telia Sweden in 2018, is that correct?

Anders Olsson

executive
#42

Around that time. Yes.

Fredrik Lithell

analyst
#43

And that was a year after that, this centralized organization was announced, I think. So you had to work your way into that type of organization setup. And now you're going to reverse all that. So it would be interesting on all this theory to hear you describe your daily situation and how this might improve your ability to win market shares in the Swedish market. That would be the first question. Eric, on '25 cash flow, did you say that divesting the real estate on the copper will be part of that SEK 8 billion. So can you gauge that number for us? It would be good.

Anders Olsson

executive
#44

Should I start then, for me concretely what this means. I think, Patrik described it in a way that I fully subscribe to. And what that means in practice is that we are removing rules and mandates and decision close to the customer. And that is a difference in terms of taking one line of decision rather than sometimes having two-line of decision structure. So I think that is the main difference and both in the operational day by day, but also allocation of funds. So if you take, for instance, the CapEx, the CapEx then will go through the country dimension completely, which historically, to some extent, has gone both into the central organization and then come to the local organization. So I think this will clearly make us more efficient and more speedy, which is the intention of these changes.

Eric Hageman

executive
#45

Very good. It's a very modest benefit in 2025, similar to what we will see in 2024. So we will sell a bit more, the proceeds are a bit higher than CapEx that we have to deploy. And the delta over the 3 years is roughly SEK 200 million.

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#46

Great. We have a few questions on the third row. Please go ahead.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#47

Cost reduction programs are abundant among telecom operators within your case. The former management had quite extensive program. I take it from memory, I thought it was SEK 5 billion in '23 or '25, I think that was the number. What has happened to that? How much is that into your program, which is only FTEs. Could you describe what happened there? Did it go away? Or are you still executing on that, please? That's for you, two. Anders, one of the important things in Sweden will be ARPU development. Could you describe your plan? Firstly, why you have -- why you are where you are? And secondly, the plan to increase ARPU in the Swedish market.

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#48

Okay. Should we start with the historical. I think historically, and Anders help me out because you have been -- what 2 and 4?

Anders Olsson

executive
#49

SEK 2 billion savings and then SEK 4 billion savings.

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#50

Okay. Okay. But start you then, because I have another comment on that, but start you.

Anders Olsson

executive
#51

Yes. So part of the savings is in that period. We delivered that as a company, just over SEK 1 billion of the SEK 2 billion. There were reasons for that macroeconomic headwinds, et cetera, that's in the past.

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#52

But historically, we have been taking out around 1,000 people per year. So -- and when we looked into the business and meeting -- again, meeting a lot of people working very actively together with the Board now we have seen that, we are still too complex and we need to reduce the cost in the organization in the company. So we saw that. We cannot continue for doing this, because we made some progress as well, and then we fell short of the plan. So now we said let's take a bigger grip now, and that is the 3,000 people now, make it big now, and then, of course, we will continue to take out efficiencies going forward. But we will do a bigger step now. That was, I think, the biggest change. And if we had in the plans already this year to reduce the number, and we have already taken out around 500 out of 3,000 this year. So they were already in the plan. So this is included, but I think we are accelerating the plan by doing this.

Eric Hageman

executive
#53

All right. On the Swedish revenue side. So I feel very confident of what the things that we have in our plan with the library service revenue growth. And just to dissect that part. Remember, the copper headwind is going to disappear for us in the coming period. The underlying revenue development, not the least in our Consumer business have been strong in the last couple of years. The other thing is that our strong position, as I mentioned, give us a possibility to price. Now we have clearly a superior network position, and we clearly have a willingness of people to pay. So what we will not do is focus on the gross intake as we talked about here before, we talk about how we delivered over the general service revenue. But we will not look at ARPU just isolated. I think that's a key component. We are a very converged player. So for us, it's important that we are working with the total portfolio products we're having. And in some period, that means that, we are sacrificing a bit of growth in one specific product to make sure the totality is where we grow in. So I feel confident that the plan we're having or being really playing the convergence player, having less copper pressure and having some specific verticals where we go after the growth such as the mission-critical services is the right strategy for us in Sweden.

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#54

Thank you. Then we have Stefan.

Stefan Gauffin

analyst
#55

Stefan Gauffin, DNB. I was told I was -- I needed to stand up. Otherwise, it would be a strange echo. I just have a clarification on the gross savings of more than SEK 2.3 billion on OpEx. How much of that will be visible in 2025? And then, I have a question on the TV & Media business. You did not extend the Champions League rights instead Viaplay took over that right, and you have an ongoing content agreement with Viaplay. And it's a well-known secret, that right cost around SEK 1 billion. How much of the cost disappears from Telia? And what impact could this have on the service revenues from TV & Media?

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#56

Should I start with the TV & Media? I can start with TV & Media. It's right that we didn't extend or renew the contract with for Champions League. We have not been, I think, transparent with how much it cost, even though you are speculating SEK1 billion. So for us, it's important to have these content rights. We said immediately, we will be disciplined when it comes to content cost and also renewal especially on international sport rights. We will not continue to do the game where we pay so much money for it. It has to be realistic and it needs to be profitable for us. So in that case, we have today an agreement Viaplay. We expect and deliver which they are in our services. So this will be in our normal model with which we have with Viaplay. So no extra included there. So that is an important case to say. So -- and then we will continue. I mean, sport price will be important for TV & Media, and we will continue to be open-minded to see for international sport rights, but we will be disciplined when it comes to cost, because we have seen what happened in market with Viaplay, with also our performance in TV & Media also with the increased cost. We cannot live with them. It's too expensive.

Anders Olsson

executive
#57

And a small part for you based in Sweden, we have a very good sport package now with samples we included and all Premier League matches. That is not the case for all in the market.

Eric Hageman

executive
#58

What you're likely tell in football [indiscernible] So then on the at least 2.6, as we had explained, subject to union conversations, of course, we're executing this at pace. Hopefully, get it done by the beginning of December, which means that the full run rate will impact thereafter. Some questions in the back there.

Oscar Ronnkvist

analyst
#59

Right. Oscar Ronnkvist from ABG. So my question would be just a follow-up on the cost reductions. So you've taken out around 1,000 in head count per year. You've had around, I think, SEK 1 billion in restructuring. So one, you've made this sharp cut of 3,000 employees, how will the underlying cost reduction plan going forward? So let's say, in 2026 and 2027, can we still expect around SEK 1 billion in restructuring or should that fade as the sharp cuts have been made now in 2024?

Eric Hageman

executive
#60

Yes, yes. So we're not guiding at the moment for what restructuring costs will look like going forward. We have said that, at least 2.6 takes a restructuring charge of about SEK 1.4 million. So that's what you should take for this program. Then as we move ahead, so I would say somewhere in '25 will give you a better sense of what the building blocks are after that, things like interest rate tax, et cetera. Yes.

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#61

Okay. Jacob.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#62

I had a question on your cash returns. A two-part question actually. So firstly, you're guiding for the dividend to be covered next year and then grow more than 25% into '27. So I guess the question is why are you only guiding for a low mid-single-digit growth rate because that would presumably imply a falling payout ratio? So that's the first question. And then the second question is, you've obviously alluded to the potential for some disposals and returning excess cash to shareholders. And I just want to understand a little bit better what happens or what is the mechanism you're looking to do that with in the past, because your dividend was uncovered, you were to some extent, reliant on asset disposals to fund your ordinary dividend. Now that your dividend will be covered is the idea that you would grow the ordinary faster? Or is the idea that you would do special cash returns like buybacks or dividends, if you were to make disposals. That's it.

Eric Hageman

executive
#63

Do you want me?

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#64

Yes.

Eric Hageman

executive
#65

So we're quite happy with the guidance that we have given. So from SEK 8 to SEK 10 million is the ambition. And the ambition was, as Patrik said in his opening comments, and as well instructed, we want to cover the dividend, right? That's the first starting point. Then when it comes to our dividend policy, that is an existing dividend policy that is there every year and proposal goes to the AGM for proposal. There's a clear packing order that the company historically has had, which is let's cover the dividend. And then from that, as I said during the analyst presentation, we will try to grow that, and there is a dividend policy for that. What happens beyond that? That's a conversation for a later stage.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#66

If I can just pick up on that. I mean, you're saying you want to return all excess cash to shareholders. Your dividend policy suggests paying out less than all the cash. And that's -- and obviously, then as you grow the EBITDA, if anything, you could recap and pay even more than your cash flow. So what I'm trying to understand is why aren't you going for a more aggressive dividend policy?

Eric Hageman

executive
#67

Yes, we're very comfortable with the policy that we currently have. First, let's go and execute this plan. let's deliver the around SEK 8 billion. Let's then get to the at least SEK 10 billion. Let's cover our dividend first. And I think from that, the moment we've done that and it's sustainably covered, we can have a conversation of what happens next.

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#68

And I think that is an important statement. Our focus now is to reach the level where we cover the dividend then. When we take the next steps, next levels, of course, we will have a discussion with the Board how to handle that. But let's now focus on delivering on the short term now in '25..

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#69

Great. Many good questions. So there's at least one more here from Felix, yes. There we go.

Felix Henriksson

analyst
#70

Felix Henriksson, Nordea. Just couple of clarifying ones on the EBITDA growth drivers. Firstly, on TV & Media, you mentioned the long-term target of SEK 1 billion and that you would be close to that already in 2025, which, I guess, it represents a small implicit upgrade to the previous communication of SEK 600 million. So just a clarification there. And then, you also mentioned potential for margin expansion in Finland and Lithuania. So could you just elaborate a bit more on that, especially in terms of Finland where you're looking to also improving market share?

Eric Hageman

executive
#71

Do you want to reply on the EBITDA for next year?

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#72

Yes. Yes. I will ask Mathias who is heading our TV & Media business to reply on the question.

Mathias Berg

executive
#73

So as I'm sure all of you know, TV & Media, our company, TV & Media as an industry has been going through some pretty rough times lately. We are fortunate, 2 years ago, we made some important decisions in this company by the Board, by the management which has really put us in a good position. We're transforming the business from being a linear business to being -- becoming a digital streaming business. We have had addressed very difficult situation with sports rights, sports costs. And we have addressed long-term underperformance in our Finnish business. When you do stuff like that, you do a lot of initiatives. And eventually, you'll have the outcome. And where we are right now, and as Patrik has alluded to, we've done a lot of stuff. We've changed everything. We've addressed our cost base. And much about everything comes out a bit better than we hoped for. So we are on a good trajectory, and I leave the financials for the big boss on the stage, but we have a very good trajectory based on the changes we've made, and those takes us to a better place in 2025.

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#74

Yes. And to add to Mathias as well. I mean, the transformation from traditional linear TV to digital revenues is really important that we mitigate the lower levels in linear TV and which we are doing at the moment, which is very, very good. At the same time, we have been able to take out cost. So getting a much more cost-efficient operation, and that is what we see. And that is why we will be closer to SEK 1 billion, very close to SEK 1 billion next year.

Eric Hageman

executive
#75

So maybe on the margin expansion question. If you think about what ultimately gets you to that 4% EBITDA growth, it is not just a cost-out exercise, clearly. It is also working very closely with them in the last couple of months, all an ambitious plan. And in the deep dive, you heard from Anders how he creates this smiley face from declining to growing and even accelerating EBITDA growth. The same is true for the other markets, right? So we have agreed a very clear plan where in the various markets, depending on what their position is to increase market share, but also to expand the margin. We obviously have clearly not chosen to share that. For the obvious reason, there's enough targets out there already. So we're not -- but that's the clear vision that we have.

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#76

Great. Many great questions. So we are happy to run a little bit over time. Let's take one more there on the third row.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#77

Can you hear me?

Patrik Hofbauer

executive
#78

Yes. It's perfect.

Erik Lindholm-Rojestal

analyst
#79

Erik Lindholm-Rojestal from SEB. So 1 question to you, Eric. You mentioned a couple of assets in your portfolio that you're looking to perhaps monetize in the coming years. One of these is Telia towers. We own 51%. I mean, is it fair to say that you would be looking to divest further out of this asset? And are you also looking at fiber assets?

Eric Hageman

executive
#80

So no one know now, I would say. What we're happy with is to look at everything and see where the best return is, I talked about the ownership levels, et cetera, and what we've publicly said is roofed up just one of those things that we are thinking about, again, yet to be determined if that's the case. As played back on TV & Media, et cetera, again, not for us to comment on. Because it is part of the family. So and then the one which is obviously very public, which is what we're executing now actually, as we speak, is the sale of the real estate related to the old copper network. Those are the other ones. The other ones are not happening at the moment.

B. Jarnheimer

executive
#81

Thank you. Thank you, Eric, and Patrik and Anders, and thanks for all the good questions. We are nearing the end of this webcast Q&A session. We hope to continue this dialogue in the next few quarters and we have our Q3 earnings on the 24th of October. So tune in for that. But for the online audience, we say goodbye here from the Telia headquarters in Solna.

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