Vodafone Qatar P.Q.S.C. (VFQS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Vodafone Qatar Q4 2021 Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I will turn the conference over to Bobby. Please go ahead, sir

Thank you, Claire. Hi, hello, everyone. This is Bobby Sarkar, Head of Research at QNB Financial Services I wanted to welcome everyone to Vodafone Qatar's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2021 Results Conference Call So on this call from Vodafone Qatar management we have Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdullah Al-Thani who is Vodafone's CEO -- Vodafone Qatar's, CEO we have Masroor Anjum, who is acting CFO; and Diego Camberos, who is the Chief Operating Officer. So we will conduct this conference with first management reviewing the company's results followed by a Q&A. I would like to now turn the call over to Pauline Saab, who is the Head of Investor Relations at Vodafone Qatar. Pauline?

Thank you, Bobby. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Vodafone Qatar Financial Results Call. Our investor presentation is available as usual on our website, vodafone.qa. Please note the usual disclaimer on Slide #2. So to begin, I now hand over to Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdullah Al-Thani, our Chief Executive Officer, to present the quarterly highlights.

Thank you, Pauline, and thank you, Bobby, and for QNB for organizing this call. Would you please turn to the page titled key messages. To start, we would like to mention that this year has been an exceptional year at all levels for our company. We are very glad that our turnaround strategy is working and resulted on a top line growing for 16th consecutive quarters on year-to-year basis. And our net profit increased by 77% on a year-to-year basis, reaching to QAR 327 million. This is clearly showing that our execution of our company strategy is on track. The second point I want to touch on today is that we are preparing ahead to deliver a seamless digital event experience for our FIFA 2022. Our infrastructure is ready in all the stadiums, and we have been enhancing our 5G coverage and capacity around all event-related venues. We have now almost 50% more radio network access across the country compared to the January 2018. The third point I would like to highlight is that our revenue mix keeps on getting more and more healthier over the years while we are focusing on diversification effort. We are seeing the reflection of these efforts directly from the revenue market share gain. First time in our history, we have captured approximately 25% of the market revenue based on Q3 2021. The fourth point I want to touch on today is that we are committed to provide seamless and digital customer -- experience to our customers. We are continuously improving the self-service capabilities as well as simplifying and digitizing customer journeys to deliver digital -- to drive digital adoption. For example, our consistent efforts -- with our consistent efforts, we have reduced our time to connect fixed customers by almost 70% and improved our digital device and postpaid services delivery by almost 90%. Lastly, I would like to mention that our Board of Directors has proposed a dividend of 6% per share, totaling to approximately QAR 253 million. This is subject, of course, to shareholder approval in the upcoming AGA on 28th of February 2022. With that said, I would like to hand over to Mr. Masroor, our acting CFO, to go over the financials and details.

Thank you, Hamad, and good afternoon, everyone. Let's start with the financial review with key highlights on Slide #6. We continued our strong financial performance in FY '21. And we had a strong growth in our top line, primarily driven by postpaid, fixed and managed services revenues. The service revenue for quarter 4 exceeded QAR 600 million, which is highest quarterly service revenue for Vodafone Qatar. At the same time, we managed to keep our underlying costs under control, driven by cost optimization. This led us to report highest-ever profitability levels this year. EBITDA growing 27.5% year-on-year to more than QAR 1 billion with a margin of 40.8% and net profit reaching QAR 327 million. Lastly, we grew our mobility customers by 16.3% year-on-year. Moving on to Slide #7. Our key financial performance metrics for the year ended 2021 in comparison to the last year. Total revenue grew by 15% or QAR 326 million, led by a strong service revenue growth of 10% as a result of growth in our fixed, postpaid and managed services, coupled with project revenues. These are projects related to government and semi-government organizations and companies, wherein we are able to integrate our core telecom services with equipment installation and managed services. Expenses are 7% higher due to growth in direct costs corresponding to growth in revenues. It is notable that despite growth in costs due to network expansion and higher subscribers and revenues, expenses are well controlled and cost optimization helped us to keep the cost, excluding equipment, stable. Direct costs higher by QAR 126 million, mainly due to equipment costs, managed services costs and higher roaming costs, while OpEx is lower by QAR 21 million, which includes a onetime benefit of approximately QAR 19 million. As a result of cost optimization, our OpEx intensity, which is OpEx as a percentage of our total revenue has reduced from 28.7% to 24.2%. That's a reduction of 4.6 percentage points year-on-year. Higher service revenue and largely stable costs have contributed to the EBITDA growth of 27.5% year-on-year to more than [indiscernible] highest-ever EBITDA. Higher depreciation and industry fee [indiscernible] include net profit. But nonetheless, we still recorded a very healthy growth of 77% in our net profit to reach QAR 327 million, again, our highest ever reported net profit. Now let's take a closer look at the service revenue on Slide #8. These are all full year numbers. Postpaid continuing its growth momentum, increasing by 7.6% versus last year. This is mainly driven by higher subscribers. Our unlimited plans are selling well, helping to penetrate into high-value segment. The plans are attractive in the mid-value segment, giving flexibility to the customers with in-bundle entitlements. And finally, Enterprise is growing well as we diversify our product portfolio with services like push-to-talk. The price increases that we did back in the March month for some selected consumer postpaid plans are also contributing to postpaid growth. Now coming to prepaid. The decline in prepaid is primarily due to lower ARPU. However, I'm glad to share that we have been able to arrest the double-digit decline in prepaid segment this year. Prepaid revenue decline of 2.4% is lowest in last 7 years. Overall, total service revenue increased 10.4% year-on-year, with increasing contributions from fixed, managed services, IoT, visitors and other revenues. Moving to next slide and looking at our EBITDA margin. Slide #9. The first bar chart on the left shows steady growth in our absolute EBITDA over the last 5 years. Our EBITDA has almost doubled this year compared to FY '17. This is the result of steady growth in our top line, coupled with the rationalization of our cost base. Line graph to the right shows EBITDA margin over the last few years with gray trend line being the reported EBITDA margin and the red trend line showing EBITDA margin, excluding equipment business and one-offs, we call it our underlying EBITDA margin. As explained in previous slides, higher service revenue and lower cost enabled us to reach reported EBITDA margin of 40.8% with 4.1 percentage points improvement year-on-year. A similar growth is reflected in our underlying EBITDA margin, which is a true reflection of our core business at 43.8%, growing 4.4 percentage points year-on-year. These are our highest EBITDA margin levels. Now moving to net profit margins on Slide #10. Again, the bar chart on the left shows the growth trend of our net profit. We turned net profit positive in FY '18. And since then, our profit has increased at a CAGR of 41% to reach QAR 327 million during the year. These results are reflected in net profit margin, which has increased by 7.4% since FY '18 and 4.6 percentage points since last year to 13%. Now moving to the next slide and looking at our CapEx. CapEx for the year is QAR 408 million with an intensity of 16.1%. As usual, this was focused on investment for capacity expansion and coverage footprint enhancement, investment to enhance digital capabilities and products; and lastly, investments to maintain the network. As mentioned by Hamad earlier, we have significantly expanded our fixed and mobility network, giving better coverage and also enhanced our digital capabilities for a superior customer experience. Now return on capital employed on Slide #12. The increase in net profit, as explained in the previous slide, has resulted in significant improvement in our net return on capital employed over the last 4 years. If you analyze this carefully, you will notice that our invested capital largely remain the same over these years. While we have been really efficient in allocating capital into areas where we generate value, and this is done in the most efficient manner to monetize the new as well as existing assets. We have been successful in cautiously allocating CapEx into growth areas at right times, bringing the best in technology for both consumer and Enterprise segments, while continuously controlling our expenses as well. This has helped us increase return on capital employed 2.5 percentage points this year to 6.7%. Now coming specifically to financial performance in quarter 4 on Slide #13. Again, Q4 has shown strong financial performance with continuing growth year-on-year. Total revenue grew 33%, strongly supported by growth in service revenue of 15%. Again, increase in expenses is due to growth in direct costs corresponding to growth in revenues. On an underlying basis, costs continued to be stable year-on-year despite growth in service revenue and higher 5G and fixed related operational costs. With the increased revenue and lower OpEx, our EBITDA grew by 43% or QAR 93 million. And finally, despite higher depreciation and industry fees, net profit more than doubled, reaching BRL 127 million for the quarter. Now taking a closer look at quarterly service revenue trend on Slide #14. Postpaid continuing its growth momentum, up almost 12% versus last year. It crossed QAR 300 million for the first time and now contributes 50% of our total service revenue. Prepaid revenue in Q4 has increased by 8.3% year-on-year. This is the first time after 7 years that prepaid revenue has increased year-on-year and is led by population growth, FIFA Arab Cup and seasonally strong Q4. And overall, total service revenue increased 15% year-on-year with increasing contributions from fixed, IoT, managed services, visitor roaming and other segments. Turning to the full income statement on Page #15. We have already covered major year-on-year movements. Both consumer as well as enterprise and other revenue segments revenues have increased year-on-year. The higher depreciation and amortization charge is a result of the elevated CapEx incurred during the last 4 quarters. The investments in fixed 5G and growth in sites. And also, as mentioned in the previous quarter, accelerated depreciation of some of our old assets was also done. Lower finance costs is due to the impact of lower borrowing, coupled with lower interest rates compared to FY '20 and a one-off benefit that we mentioned in Q3. And lastly, very important for you guys to understand our underlying EBITDA and net profit. The accelerated depreciation after offsetting the one-off benefits in P&L had a net negative impact of roughly QAR 10 million to the net profit reported for the financial year 2021. Moving to the last slide, Slide 16 is the final slide, and I want to close my section with a snapshot of our successful profitable growth over the last 5 years. Since FY '17, we were able to grow our revenue at a CAGR of 6%, reaching QAR 2.5 billion in FY '21. At the same time, our costs remained largely stable despite significant growth in our network. This translated into significant growth in our profitability, with EBITDA almost doubled and net profit growing at a CAGR of 40% to reach QAR 327 million. With these results, we believe that we rank as one of the best in the region in terms of revenue and profitability growth. As usual, the balance sheet ARPU, subscribers and net debt is included in the appendix with commentaries. That concludes my review. Thank you, everyone, and now back to Pauline.

Thank you, Masroor. Now we can start with the Q&A session. Claire, can you please explain to the participants how to ask questions?

[Operator Instructions] And our first question today comes from [ Mr. Lahosha ] from [ Cyclone ].

Congratulations on a strong set of results. I have a few questions. First on the 4Q, your revenue was exceptionally strong. And I understand the service revenue increased by around QAR 80 million year-on-year, but there was a huge growth on the overall revenue. So it looks like your equipment sales did bulk of that heavy lifting on your revenue. So what exactly was your strategy? Was it is bundled offers, iPhone sales, what went through in 4Q? And how much of this is sustainable going forward? So some color on the you have -- I mean, increase in revenue trend that we've seen in 4Q from the management side would be helpful. Second, on your subscribers, we've seen, again, a very solid increase in the number of subscribers in fourth quarter. So what led to this? I mean, was there any aggressive promotions? You mentioned more mix of prepaid into the mix. So what exactly is going on? Are you focusing again on your prepaid business to increase at the expense of possible ARPUs you're targeting more customers there? What's the strategy there from the management side? So if you can just focus on that. I think these 2 for now.

Okay. Regarding your question number one. So growth in revenue year-on-year in Q4 is driven by both service as well as nonservice revenue, as you rightly noted. So if you look at the growth in service revenue, that is primarily driven by both postpaid and prepaid revenues that you can see on Slide #14. So postpaid has grown by 12% year-on-year, and that is primarily because of growth in our subscribers, plus ARPU as well has increased. We had a positive impact of the prices that were done back in March. Prepaid revenue has also grown year-on-year. Again, that is a result of significant growth in our customers, specifically during Q4. Lastly, before I answer your second question, specifically on customers, there is a growth in our nonservice revenue as well. And that is related to, as we mentioned on my first slide, that these are related to the projects, managed services projects in government and semi-government organizations and companies, and that is driving the growth in nonservice revenue during Q4. For your second question regarding subscriber...

Can you just intervene on the first question, I'm sorry, but on this managed services project and the project services, how much of this revenue has come in 4Q that flow through your -- or that -- to the bottom line, which is sustainable? And how much of that was one-off that one can assume?

So these are multiple projects, actually. And as I said, these are in the managed services. Some of these projects are one-off and some are of long-term nature as well. Regarding the profitability impact, we cannot disclose the exact information on that. Definitely, the margin on these projects is slightly lower as compared to our normal service revenue. Yes. Regarding your second question on -- coming back to the growth in subscribers. So that is mainly a Q4 driven phenomenon. We had a lot of population coming back, schools opening up and travel opening up as well at the same time, plus the FIFA Arab Cup, which has resulted in significant growth in our prepaid subscribers.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from [ Hashan Kobani ].

Yes, I'm a little bit confused here on the equipment revenue in Q4. So what you're saying is that is also -- some of that is coming through that these managed services or these managed projects. So some of it is coming because of that contracts with private and nonprivate -- sorry, government and nongovernment organizations? Just to be clear.

This is Hamed speaking. As Masroor has explained, initially and for almost 18 -- for the last 18 months, we had started targeting managed services and diversifying beyond our core, which is telecom. Now we start actually getting orders, we start getting signed contracts. So some of those services partially comes to the service revenue, but partially comes as equipment cost because, as you know, some of those services actually requires an investment, which actually being paid by the customer. And so that's why it's actually being allocated partially to equipment costs.

And I understand some of these projects are -- or some of these revenues are project-based. So there'll likely be some one-offs. If we can get some sort of breakdown about -- when we looked at it in the previous years, you had these pure equipment sales. So how much of that is coming from projects versus just your typical handset sales?

So our handset sales are largely flat year-on-year. So the growth that you see in Q4 equipment revenue is mainly coming from these managed services projects as Hamad just explained.

And as you see, it comes at like in 1 quarter, actually evenly distributed is that sometimes the cycle and the nature of those projects actually takes a long time to get the acceptance from customer. And that's why sometimes you will find it comes in 1 quarter or 1 month. Just one point to add, there will be revenue -- a service revenue associated with this. And some of them is very long -- I mean long term. But again, there is an initial investment that will require the customer to pay periodically for the service to be actually running.

[Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from Zohaib Pervez from Al Rayan Investment.

Congratulations on a good set of results. I've got 2 questions. Firstly, could you give us -- could you repeat the one-off cost that you mentioned? I think you mentioned there was a QAR 19 million one-off cost, but you also mentioned another one-off cost. Could you just tell me what is the total one-off cost during 2021? My second question is on pricing. Your competitor recently increased prices for some of its products. Do you -- or have you -- do you plan to or have you already increased -- followed your competitor or do you plan to do so?

Okay. Regarding your question number one. So we had one-off benefits above EBITDA and below EBITDA, okay? So these are positives on the P&L. And then we had accelerated depreciation as well. So what I explained during my presentation was that there is a net negative impact of QAR 10 million to the profitability of the company because of these one-offs. So for your second question...

Yes. We don't usually -- we don't comment on competition. But we have implemented a commercial strategy that is working. And we're always looking into any pricing changes. And we have a very disciplined way to do it. So we take many factors into consideration, like behavior of customers, cost of technology, market conditions, et cetera. So we're -- it's a constant monitoring of these things before we do any decision on price changes. So we'll continue monitoring that to make the decision.

Just a follow-up on that. So the last time you increased prices was only in the March of last year. Is that -- is my understanding correct?

Yes. Yes.

Our final question comes from [ Han van Chu ] from Arqaam.

I have a quick question on Slide 15. You mentioned that the network and other operation expenses decreased due to optimization benefits and one-off credit. So could you please just quantify the one-off for us, please? I need to know the exact amount if possible.

So there is roughly QAR 19 million of benefit in that line. And I will again say what I said before as well. So there is our 2 one-off benefits. One, above EBITDA and one is below EBITDA. Combined together, there is a positive impact on the P&L. We had accelerated depreciation as well, which is a negative impact on P&L. Both these positives and negatives had a net negative impact of QAR 10 million on underlying net profit.

Okay. When was this QAR 19 million recognized in Q4?

No, it was all recognized in Q3. We have already explained this in Q3 as well, yes.

All right. All of that in Q3, yes? Not in the...

Till Q3, yes. Exactly, yes. Not in the Q4.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further -- we do have one further question which has come through. Would you like to take it? It's a follow-up from [ Hisham Kobani ].

Yes, Sure. We'll take it.

Yes. Just on the net debt. So your net debt has come off quite a bit over the last few years. What is the comfortable level of net debt-to-EBITDA that you're targeting? If you can just give us some color there.

Yes, net debt has reduced, and that is primarily because of very strong cash flows and EBITDA that we have delivered this year. Current net debt-to-EBITDA ratio is 0.5, and our debt covenants allow us up to 2.5. So I'm very comfortable with the current level of net debt to EBITDA. But going forward, I mean, definitely, we can see if we have projects where we can invest to increase our profitability. Net debt can go up as well.

We have no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to you for any closing remarks. Thank you.

This is Bobby Sarkar again from QNBFS. If we have no further questions, then we can end the call for today. I want to thank Sheikh Hamad and rest of Vodafone Qatar's management staff for taking the time to answer our questions, and we will pick this up next quarter. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, operator. Thank you all for joining today's call.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.