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TIM S.A.

Q12023

5/9/2023

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to TeamSA 2023 first quarter results conference call. We'd like to inform you that this event is being recorded and all participants will be in listen-only mode during the company's presentation. There will be a replay for this call on the company's website. After TeamSA remarks are completed, there will be a question and answer session for participants. At that time, further instructions will be given. We highlight that statements that may be made regarding the prospects, projections, and goals of Team SA constitute the beliefs and assumptions of the company's board of executive officers. Future considerations are not performance warranties. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as they refer to events that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that internal and external factors to Team SA may affect their performance and lead to different results than those planned. Should any participant need assistance during this call, please press star zero to reach the operator. Now I'll turn the conference over to the CEO, Mr. Alberto Griselli, CEO of Team SA, and to Ms. Andrea Viegas, Chief Financial Officer to present the main messages for the first quarter of 2023. Please, Mr. Alberto, you may proceed.

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

Good morning and thanks for attending our results conference call. I'm pleased to welcome here today Andrea Viegas, our chief financial officer, who was recently promoted to this position from within our ranks. Her extensive knowledge of the team and the industry will be a great asset to our C-suite. And in her debut as CFO, we are presenting a set of sound numbers to the market. This first quarter was again a reaffirmation of the new moment of the company with outstanding achievements due to the sharp execution of our strategic plan. We have completed 100% of the M&A integration process while overcoming many obstacles related to macroeconomic deterioration and dealing with the uncertainties of a noisy political environment. Our top line rose more than 20% year over year, with EBITDA growing 23%. This combination led to a margin expansion and operating free cash flow to double versus the first quarter of 2022. During the quarter, we closed a partnership with Way Brazil to cover 600 kilometers of highways in the country's Midwest, This type of agreement makes sense economically and transforms people's lives in a perfect integration with our ESG strategy. Our coverage will benefit nearly 300,000 people, more than 100 public schools and over 40 health centers. We are also well positioned to reach our goals in the commissioning process with more than 1.5K sites dismantled since November 22. Going over the details of our business performance, I want to highlight our revenue dynamics. In the first quarter, total service revenues grew more than 20% year on year, with a relevant contribution for mobile services that expanded beyond 21%. With a rational competitive environment and the end of the necessary post-M&A adjustment to our mobile customer base, ARPU is back to positive growth, reaching nearly 28 reais per month. Analyzing the mobile segments individually, post-paid revenues presented robust growth, up by more than 21% year-over-year, with an ARPU excluding machine-to-machine lines of 48 reais in the first quarter. Prepaid revenues expanded soundly at a pace of more than 27% versus the first quarter of 2022, pointing to an ARPU of close to 14 reais. And mentioned earlier, ARPUs in postpaid and prepaid are starting to recover after the dilution created by OIS for McClain's arrival and after the cleanup of silent lines. We also reclassified lines from postpaid to prepaid in March to correctly manage those customers. Since I'm talking about OiAssets impact, it is worth giving additional details of the integration completion. In March, we concluded 100% of all the network integration steps. We are using the acquired spectrum and clients are benefiting from the additional capacity. The non-overlap sites were integrated into our network, helping to expand coverage and improve customer experience. As for the client migration, we completed all the activities regarding those clients in April, executing the major cleanups and reclassification necessary to have a coherent and healthy customer base. Having finalized those actions, we are starting to see more and more of the benefits of these transactions. Synergies are becoming more apparent in our results, with the exception of the commissioning process, which is still in the early stages. Although we had physically decommissioned more than 1.5 thousand sites by March 23, the financial impact of this dismantling process will amount to a relevant size towards the end of the second half. Still immobile, our 5G strategy is paying off. we are being able to combine positioning and efficiency to build our solid leadership in this technology. TEAM has the highest availability 5G technology as a consequence of defining the most relevant markets and ensuring we have a large and meaningful coverage in them. This leadership was achieved with almost twice the number of 5G sites than our competitors. additionally 5g successful rollout is allowing us to reduce capex related to 4g capacity as traffic offloads from the older network to the new technology as we advance from our from volume to value strategy we keep improving our clients customers experience we still have a long journey ahead of us but we are achieving relevant milestones The number of complaints is reducing steadily and we are the least complaint operator in Sao Paulo Consumer Protection Agency with a 50% reduction year-on-year in the last survey and the least complaint in prepaid at Anatel. Additionally, we are by far the best performing operator in resolving clients' issues. We've been leading the Anatel Complaints Resolution Ranking for More than a year now, more recently, we achieved the fourth position in resolution ranking across all sectors in all Procons, the consumer protection agencies. In this resolution ranking of Reclame a Key Portal, we rank number two among all companies in Brazil and the only recommended among operators. In the fixed services, the growth driver remained in ultra-fibra with solid performance. Fixed broadband revenues presented a high single digit expansion. Broadband ARPU grew year over year for the 17th consecutive quarter, reaching almost 93 reais. Our broadband continues to be driven by the successful migration from FTTC to FTTH, Nonetheless, during the first quarter, we also saw net additions to pick up after the launch of the pilots to expand coverage in Parana and Santa Catarina states. We closed the quarter with a client base beyond 730,000 connections, and we are now present in more than 70 cities. This expansion is being achieved without losing the quality and focus on customer experience. For the sixth year, Team Ultrafibra was appointed the best fixed broadband in the country by the tech portal Canaltech. I will now pass the floor to Andrea to review the financial results.

speaker
Andrea Viegas
Chief Financial Officer, Team SA

Thank you, Alberto. I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve as the new CFO of TIM in Brazil. I'm very excited to work with you and the rest of the leadership team to drive this company to success. I also look forward to building a strong and lasting relationship with the financial community. Without further delays, let's talk about numbers. As Alberto explained as well, the first quarter signals a robust performance in all relevant lines of our results. The country's macroeconomic challenge and the uncertainties have not impacted us, at least yet. Our performance continues to be driven by the M&A integration and the organic growth. Despite the inflationary pressure, our OPEX line is starting to decelerate as we are reaching the end of the integration process of OI mobile assets. As a consequence of this, in revenue-robust space, our EBITDA is rising more than 20% year-over-year, reaching R$2.6 billion. Under this scenario, the EBITDA margin is returning to expansion. After a year of contraction due to the additional costs related to the M&A transaction and comparison-based issues, the margin rose to 46%, an expansion of 100 base points versus the first quarter of 2022. Regarding those two elements, this is the first quarter we have a fair comparison base for fiberless mild rental. On the other hand, the negative impact of the temporary service agreement with OEI was still present in first quarter 2023. The contract ended only in April. From now on, as present in our guidance, we believe TEAM will deliver margins above the 2022 levels. This excellent EBITDA performance is driving that income back to grow, despite all the transitory impacts we have presented and explained to you in the recent past. We closed the first quarter with profits summing almost 440 million reais, growing above 4% year-over-year. Those transitory elements are still present, During the quarter, more than R$ 207 million were added between depreciation and interest related to the leasing contracts we got from OEI. Additionally, during first quarter 23, we saw negative impacts from a provision updated for civil contingents. We did not announce IOC. We declared their first transfer only last month. But the on-deposit side, we had elements such as the renegotiation of tower contracts and the usable life of assets that helped our performance. As mentioned last quarter, net income performance is still volatile. So, a better way to understand our evolution is to use operation free cash flow metrics. EBITDA of the Lease Mineral Capital grew more than two times, reaching more than R$530 million. Under this circumstance, we maintained a solid financial position and leverage level. The net debt to EBITDA ratio stood at 1.4 times, with a total net debt including leases of R$ 15.1 billion. Again, this sustainable trend leaves us comfortable in a scenario of high interest rates. Now, I hand the call back to Alberto to complete the discussion related to the first quarter.

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

Thank you, Andrea. We are completing one year from the closing of the transaction with OI. During this period, our efforts concentrated on integrating the assets and executing the company's transformation plan. And we are reaching an important milestone with the completion of the integration, but we still have a lot in front of us. Our focus for the coming quarters will be centered on having a healthy competition environment where we can recover the inflation impact while using other tools of the marketing mix to differentiate from our competitors. We want to compete on value proposition and customer experience, and 5G can help us do so while saving capex. As I mentioned during my speech, we are only beginning the site decommissioning process. The plan is on track, and we are committed to delivering on time and with all the expected benefits. For fixed broadband, we will continue to use the asset line model to expand testing this approach in new markets while we complete the migration from FTTC to FTTH. The coming quarters for customer platform initiative will be more exciting. We will soon deploy commercially our partnership with Cartao de Todos, our health partner, and new partnership will be launched. Lastly, we will continue to evolve our B2B verticals. We are expanding our activities in logistics with deals like the one with WEI Brazil, bringing IoT connectivity and solutions to Brazilian infrastructure. On the utility vertical, we doubled the number of smart lighting points since the third quarter of last year, and the expansion will continue at exponential speed. Today, Engie is our main partner in these projects. And for our crown jewel, the agribusiness segment, we extended our coverage to 14.4 million hectares connecting fields, farms and countryside communities all over Brazil. I'm reaching the end of my comments and I want to thank the entire team because we are starting the year at a strong pace. Things will not get easier from here, so we must keep up with the great work, maintaining the focus and the execution to reach our goals by the end of the year. Let's open the floor for questions. Please, operator.

speaker
Operator
Q&A Moderator

Thank you, Mr. Alberto.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Now we will begin the Q&A session. First, we will take questions from analysts. followed by general public, both in English. If you are listening through webcast, your questions can be sent by chat. We ask each participant to restrict himself to two questions at a time. To ask a question, please press star 1, and to remove the question from the list, please press star 2.

speaker
Operator
Q&A Moderator

Our first question comes from Marcelo Santos with JP Morgan.

speaker
Marcelo Santos
Analyst, JP Morgan

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. The first question is, could you please just explain the reason for the gap between the decommissioning, the physical decommissioning of the towers and the financial impact? I think clarification would help. And the second question is on broadband ads. How much of the fiber ads you are doing a replacement of fiber to the curb? And when you are done with your fiber to the curb, I mean, at this pace, eventually you run out of fiber FTTC subs. Should we expect kind of the same level of gross ads in fiber? That's the question. Thank you.

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

Take both Marcelo. So I'm open. Okay. So in terms of the gap between the physical, the commissioning, the economic, the commissioning, it's primarily related to the interworking among ourselves and the tower company. uh uh to get the let's say the green light uh for the community economic decommissioning so it's like when you rent an apartment and you leave it you need you need to take out all the stuff that you have inside then at the end of it there is an inspection and if the apartment is found clear then we are good to go in terms of economic decommissioning so the first step which is the physical one is taking all the equipment out of the towers whereby the second one is related to the interworking among ourselves and the tower company to make sure that they agree and green light the fact that the tower is empty. So this in practice is a back and go of documents, picture and inspection to make sure that both us and our partner are clear that the tower is empty. So this is for the first one. In terms of timing, it depends on the tower company, on the process, on the equipment that is there. But roughly the guidance that we gave is once we are done with the physical decommissioning, it generally takes among roughly 90 days to move from the physical to the economic decommissioning. Okay. Related to the second question in terms of net additions, as you correctly saw, there is an acceleration of net ads on FTTH in this quarter. So this is a combination of the immigration of copper to fiber, which is happening primarily or better exclusively on the high system plant in San Pablo, Rio de Janeiro. So our share of FTTH was 60% one year ago. It's roughly 80% today. we are moving faster, we are almost completing the process. When you look at the increase that we saw, for example, in this quarter, and what we are going to expect for the following quarter, is the combination of the two things. So the migration of copper to fiber, which is almost finished, and the increased coverage of new regions. With the agreement with Vital, we moved to Paraná and Santa Catarina in the south, and a chunk of the net additions is coming from there as well. If you ask me how will it look going forward, it will look closer to what we are seeing in this quarter. So we moved to something like a 15K net addition, 16.4 to be precise in this quarter. This number was a bit below this number in the previous quarters. Year on year, we moved from 5 to 16 and we are likely to now to basically move steadily on this level going forward.

speaker
Operator
Q&A Moderator

Perfect, Eric, thank you very much. The next question comes from Marco Nardini with XP.

speaker
Marco Nardini
Analyst, XP

Hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I actually have two on my side. The first one is regarding the expected dynamics of the EBITDA margin following the end of the TSA with OI. What should we expect here? And the second one is regarding neutral network. I was wondering if you could share your initial experience with VITAL and provide some insights into the expected growth and economics of this new partnership, please. Thank you.

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

Okay, Marco, so on the first, on the EBITDA margin, we said in our guidance for 23 that we were expecting to move up a double digit. This implies clearly a margin expansion versus last year. And so we are basically aiming to get to a level close to the one we have the previous year. Uh, the margin is pack expansion is driven by a number of things. Uh, and so, as you correctly mentioned, there is the. Conclusion of that remember we remember it was something like 75Million per. 7070Million per quarter roughly so we close it at the end of this of the last quarter. And there are other additional opportunities related to the customer base, which is in general less digitalized versus ours. So in terms of digital billing, PIX payment, this sort of stuff, there is an opportunity there. And there is a number of initiatives that we are running inside of our on operational that are related, for example, to the insourcing of e-commerce and many other activities that are expected to increase our productivity. So there will be emerging expansions going forward. And that's the reason why our bid is going double digit versus a high single digit of our expected revenue growth. When we go to the network, I can say that we are happy with both iSystem and Vital. The experience so far has been quite positive. we can say that now the model is correct is working correctly so we we are satisfied with the service level and the working of both agreements in terms of how we are going to accelerate the two networks that we are using it's in line with our plans so they are complementary so At the end of the day, we're going to use iSystem to expand coverage in some areas, and we are going to use Vital where iSystem is not present. So we're going to complement the rollout approach to avoid building a network where there is already another one. Perfect. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Our next question comes from Lucas Chaves with UBS.

speaker
Lucas Chaves
Analyst, UBS

Good evening, everyone. So thanks for having my question. So I have two on my side. The first one is related to ARPU. And if you could please enter in more details in the dynamic that you saw in the quarter and what you expect going forward. And about raising prices, do you expect to perform any of it during the next quarters? And the second one is the commissioning. So you already explained well in the first question about the commissioning, but I would also like to enter in details about the schedule and the timeline. Thank you.

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

Okay. So, Lucas, going to the ARPU dynamics. So the ARPU dynamics, as you saw, we are back on track in terms of ARPU growth, both for prepaid and postpaid. And this is primarily the results of the cleanup of customer base. So let's put this way. It's a sort of a mathematical effect. So we clean up and almost the big chunk of client that were not active. And therefore, basically, we reduce the denominator while impacting the revenues. And, uh, we expected these and we commented these in the last quarter results. Also, when you look more in general, in terms of the pricing dynamics. So, I think that, uh, here we have 2 important milestones. The 1st, 1 is already passed has been related to the fact that the price has been adjusted. Uh. a bit above inflation on the entry prices, what we call above the line. That means prices at retail stores and on the website for new customers. So this happened in March. And it worked out quite well. So that was the first important milestone. So we did it, Vivo did it, and Claro did it partially. So as I said, the sector managed for the first time in many years to pass inflation on the NT prices. What is going to happen now in this quarter, as a matter of fact is happening, is the price adjustment on our side, on our own customer base. So we did that last year in this quarter, in the second quarter, we are going to do this in the second quarter this year. And so we are updating prices for control and postpaid this quarter. So you will see the results in the next quarter results. I think that important point that is going to be another key points to look at next quarter is the washing machine effect that generally happens when we do this price adjustment on the customer basis. so the thesis is that since the market is more rational since we moved up the prices on the entry levels the washing machine effect in the second quarter is going to be this year milder versus last year so we're going to comment on this next quarter but this is the expectation on our side Last comment is on prepaid. So we have been steadily increasing or remodulating the prepaid benefits and it's working out well, as you can see in terms of our prepaid revenues. And so we are readjusting unit prices within face value and benefits with a positive effect on our revenues. When it comes to your second question related to the commissioning, So, we are on track, uh, Lucas, so we end up March with the 1.5 K towers, the commission physically. Uh, we are, I said this week at 2.1, so we are moving according to our plan. That means that we're going to reach 3.5 K by the end of this year. Roughly the economic effect is going to pick up in the 2nd half. uh because this is this uh difference between the timing with the commission and the timing when the uh the economic benefits kicks in but so far we are we are on track may think that was very clear

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Our next question comes from Luca Brindin with Bank of America.

speaker
Luca Brindin
Analyst, Bank of America

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Two questions here from my side. First of all, when we look at the impacts from the 5G expansion, were you able to see any signs of capitalization from this? I mean, monetization from the 5G if you're gaining new customers. or if you are being able to upsell customers with 5G, what have been the early impacts from the rollout? And then second, if you could give us an update on CapEx, if there were any changes from what you initially expected for the year. Thank you.

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

OK, let me go with the first one, I will pass on the CapEx guidance, the word then to Andrea. So in terms of 5G impact, let's put this way at this point in time, We are deploying 5G in a quite different way versus our competitors, meaning that we selected several markets where we go all-in or sort of all-in in terms of coverage. What is our aim with this strategy? On the commercial side is to get the leadership on 5G and close the gap that we currently have in high-value customer segments. So it's more of a positioning approach rather than a monetization approach at this stage. And that's the reason why we selected capital like Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro. We've got almost full coverage. We provide a better service to our customers and we increase the appeal of our positioning for the market. So this is the idea on the consumer space. The storytelling is 5G is better than 4G. This is proved in terms of quality of service. We are leading 5G, so it will become more attractive for high value customers. And we materialize this, for example, in big events like Rock in Rio last year, like the Maracana today, like the Carnival, and all the events that we are doing were generally customer experience support services. And now we think we got a very good service. So, this is more of a positioning approach on the consumer space. And, of course, this is supported by a deployment of 5G, which is faster versus our competitors. The more economic benefit of it in the short term is related to the 4G offload. So what does it mean? That when we put like, for example, in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Recife, we are deploying new capitals in new metropolitan areas as we speak, we move traffic from 4G versus 5G. That means that we can stop investing in these crowded markets, 4G, and move the investment with 5G. By doing this short shift of investment from 4G to 5G in these key capitals, we become more efficient in CapEx. So this is more tangible in terms of economic impact. at this pace. Then we have also the business segment where we are using 5G again as a differentiation lever in key verticals like agribusiness or the logistics like the partnership that we have with San Martino which is the 5G innovation center or the coverage of the central harbor with BTP, which is again a way to monetize it. But at this point in time, is it the first industrial project that we are running on it? So it's more. Going forward, as coverage expand, as we move customers to 5G, The first opportunity to monetize 5G will be the data monetization itself. And plus, as you probably know, we are putting services in our 5G packages like cloud gaming. As soon as the mass of customers are on 5G, we can start to monetize. Today is more of an educational approach in terms of giving our customers 5G experience and for them to decide that it's worth or not worth paying for. On the CAPEX guidance, I will pass it to Andrea.

speaker
Andrea Viegas
Chief Financial Officer, Team SA

Hi, Luca. Regarding to CAPEX, we are on track. This first quarter, we have higher CAPEX is a functionality point, but we are achieving our guidance that is CAPEX over revenue lower than 20%.

speaker
Luca Brindin
Analyst, Bank of America

Very clear. Thank you for taking my questions.

speaker
Operator
Q&A Moderator

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Our next question comes from Daniel Federle with Credit Suisse.

speaker
Daniel Federle
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one, we have seen mobile services revenue growth slowing down a little bit, quarter after quarter. My question is if you expect this trend to continue the second quarter this year, especially because the second quarter last year was a very strong one, so very hard comps. So first question is when do you expect to see growth stabilizing? or re-accelerating. And the second question, Anatel has just published a few weeks ago, actually, the annual quality survey. It seems that the team still ranks in third. So my question is whether this is a point of concern for the company and if you have any expectation in terms of time to close the gap. Thank you very much.

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

Okay, Daniel, let me get the two. So in terms of revenue dynamic, what you're saying is sort of correct. So if you look at the service revenue dynamics, there we go, 44.22, now 21.1. So there is a slowdown. A lot of this is also related to the fact that price movement, there are two main factors here. The effect of our customer base, as you probably know, we bought 40% of it. So there is some cancellation, which is without revenue. So let's put this way. So there is no revenue impact in reclassification and customer cancellation. But there is also a leakage, a net leakage of customers that happen throughout the migration process. I think that the intensity of this migration of leakage of revenues is slowing down as people who didn't want to stay with him already left. On the other side, you have, let's put it this way, organic dynamics, which is positive and in line with previous trends. and so today when you look at for example the 21.1 percent in the next quarter is going to be lower because we won't have oil in it and so you will have just a month of oil in it so you will go down on a sort of organic performance and then moving from the third quarter and the fourth quarter it's just going to be organic so you will see a revenue deceleration because we're going to lose the inorganic drive that we had on the last quarters. So the guidance that we're giving is that we're going to grow above inflation. So this is a big change versus previous years when as a sector we couldn't grow above inflation. So our expectation is to grow above inflation and this will result in a high single digit growth this year. So it's correct that you're going to see a revenue slowdown in next quarter, but it's more of the fact that we're going to lose a bit of the inorganic on a year on year basis. and that you will see the real uh performance of the new organic team that is going to be in our expectation above inflation that clear uh daniela that's dynamics yes totally clear totally clear okay so the next quarter is going to be good for this because you're going to have a pretty good sense in terms of what is organic and what was the oil element of it When it comes to the Anatel survey, I would say the following. I see this as a big opportunity on our side. So it's not an element of concern, but it's a big opportunity. It's a matter of fact that we are third. And if you look at the difference between us and our competitors in prepaid, it's almost sort of very small. It's a bit higher in postpaid. And that's exactly where we want to improve our position. So there are a number of initiatives within the company to address customer experience. So this is a key element of our strategic plans and a key area where we are putting a lot of efforts. So, when you look at the two main elements are generally the customer care quality and the network quality. And we got plans on both sides to improve our relative positioning, especially in the high value customers. and if you look at the progress that we are having at anatel for example if you look at another complaints april i think they're already public we went 50 down year on year if you look at our resolubility index at proconce we are the best performing among our operators at a certain point this will will translate in customer experience so i would say that we have already a lot of hard elements with us. Now this will translate in customer's perspective as well. So this is an opportunity where we can close the gap with our competitors. So it's not an element of concern, but it's more of an opportunity.

speaker
Daniel Federle
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Perfect, Alberto. Thank you very much.

speaker
Operator
Q&A Moderator

The next question comes from Philippe Chang with Santander.

speaker
Philippe Chang
Analyst, Santander

Hi, thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two on my side. The first question is related to dividends. If you could provide us an update for dividend distribution in 2023. It seems like you're on track to generate a lot of cash right in 2023, probably at a much faster pace than the 2.3 billion dividend guidance for this year. So just wanted to understand if there is room for potential upside here in terms of the distribution. So this would be my first question. And my second question is related to ultra broadband. If you could provide us an update how the partnership with Vital has been evolving, if there is, in your view, a significant upside risk here regarding ultra broadband growth for the upcoming years. Thank you very much.

speaker
Andrea Viegas
Chief Financial Officer, Team SA

Hi, Philippe. I confirm we are on tracking in our dividends and we still with the 2.2 that we put in our guidance. For now, we have no further update in this information.

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

And Filipe, for the broadband, as we say, if you look at the competitive environment, it's tough. So there is a lot of competition in all key markets. And so what we are aiming in terms of our broadband expansion is to grow, maintaining our, let's say, with coherence between volume and value. And this translates in a certain growth speed, which is in line with what we are looking at today, which is high single digit. We're probably going to accelerate a bit versus towards the year as the effect of increased net additions. But always looking at a good balance between growth in terms of volume and value. So we are very careful not to dilute our ARPU. We've been an ARPU growing for 17 quarters now. We've got the highest FTTH output in the market. And so we are happy at this point in time with the speed of our growth in broadband. So basically, that's this balance that we're striking every quarter.

speaker
Philippe Chang
Analyst, Santander

Perfect.

speaker
Operator
Q&A Moderator

Very clear. Thank you. The next question comes from Carlos Sequeira with BTG Part 2.

speaker
Carlos Sequeira
Analyst, BTG Pactual

Hi, good morning. Good morning, Alberto and team. Thank you very much for the call. My question is really a follow-up question on a few questions that were addressed on exploring Vital's Neutron network to grow the fiber business. I was just wondering if you can give us some more color on how the project is is performing in the South, and what is the next step? I mean, if you are going to explore the agreement in the South of the country, where Chin has a very strong brand, and maybe then move to other regions, how you are seeing the project moving and how it is performing today, please?

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

Okay, so the pilot in the south is proceeding well. So if you look at the net additions in those regions, you will see that we moved up quite fast versus our competitors. So the expansion that we are having in the south, the pilot so far is good. What are the elements that we still need to prove? Generally speaking, when you enter a new area, especially in an area that we selected because we got a strong brand, a lot of credibility, it's quite positive in terms of net addition because you don't have churn. So you'll have gross addition without the churn impact. So what we are really looking down there, and it takes some time to get the final conclusion if it's positive or not positive. So far it's positive in terms of net. I think we got the leadership in Curitiba in February already. The point is that we need to look at the quality of these acquisitions. And so that's the reason we need another couple of months to wrap it up in terms of finally positive, because That's quite an important aspect of the value balance. So putting inside customers that stay with us without impacting churn or our collection rates. And this process takes a few months because people enter and then you receive the first bill after a few months and then the time to pay. And so far it's good. We still need some time to look at this other aspect, which is related to the quality of the acquisition. The response from the market has been quite positive in terms of gross addition sales. This translates in a good net performance. And we just need to check the quality of these gross additions. So far, good. And from there, when we finalize this, we're going to disclose the next step.

speaker
Carlos Sequeira
Analyst, BTG Pactual

Okay, perfect, Roberto. Thank you very much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Without any more questions from analysts, we will now start the public Q&A session from the webcast platform. And the questions will be read. Please, Mr. Vicente, you may proceed.

speaker
Operator
Webcast Moderator

Good morning, everyone. So the first question comes from Tristan from GAMCO. It's a buy side. So his question is, how big is of an opportunity is agro coverage? What is the total amount of farmland to cover? Will satellite coverage be needed to supplement

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

Roberto, please. The opportunity is quite huge in terms of coverage because today we basically cover 14.4 million hectares. And this accounts for something like 20% of that specific big farmers that we are aiming at. So we just covered 20% of the addressable market. And so the opportunity in terms of coverage is quite high. um the satellite can certainly be a complementary technology to provide the coverage in those areas it depends a lot on technical requirements for the customers So to give you an example, we use our self-satellite as backhauling in some of our solutions. But it depends on the requirements, especially in terms of latency, of our customer base. So if they want a good responsiveness, then satellite doesn't work, at least geostationary satellite. If they look for something where latency can be allowed for, then it works. But I think that given the nature of Brazil as a continental market, there is opportunity for mobile and for satellite as complementary technology. Just a recap on the business model on our side. We make money by buying the infrastructure for our customers. So our customers pay for it, plus a markup. And then we monetize the services in terms of connectivity and solutions on top of it. There is also an ESG implication, because generally, when we provide this coverage, we provide digital coverage to a lot of people that live there, work in the farms. So, if you look at our current coverage of 14.4 million hectares, we have more than 1 million customers living in those areas, they didn't have access to telecommunication services. And when we go there, we get, let's put it this way, some consumers, some incremental consumer revenues from those customers as well, besides providing connectivities for them and including them digitally.

speaker
Operator
Webcast Moderator

Thank you, Alberto. Now we'll move to the next question that comes from Michael Hodel, analyst from Morningstar. And his question is, can you comment on consolidation opportunities in the broadband and fiber infrastructure market?

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

So when you look at Brazil and you look at a number of operators there, You certainly see a lot of consolidation opportunities because there are too many players in generally where there are a couple of them. So when we look at this, you see that you got a lot of ISP. And so the first wave of consolidation that is already happening is among themselves. So there are larger ISP buying a smaller ISP. uh i would say that i would envisage a way where isp will consolidate among themselves that we could be a first wave of consolidation and then there would be a second wave of consolidation where big players will potentially or possibly or eventually consolidate isp some of them are probably be part of this process some of them are going to be out of the market and The same consolidation process may happen also on the infrastructure, on the neutral networks. As you know, there are several neutral networks there. So ours, Vivo's, Vital, and it doesn't make sense to overbuild or to have two infrastructures there. So there might be some consolidation happening also at the neutral level, neutral network level.

speaker
Operator
Webcast Moderator

Thank you, Roberto. The next question comes from Fanny Canumuri, analyst from HSBC. And his first question goes, can you talk about the net edge trends with regard to why Tim lost subscribers this quarter and when we can see an inflection point on the total net edge? I think. Obert already commented on this, but if you have an addition to that, Obert, please.

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

Stefani, this first quarter was more difficult to read because of all the cleanup and the leakage of our customer base together with our performance. You will see an inflection point in the second quarter. So in second quarter, we should be able to to have a much less effect of the customer base and the performance will be more in line with our organic performance on the on the TFF.

speaker
Operator
Webcast Moderator

Let me make the second question because the audience hasn't seen that yet. uh sorry alberto um funny's a second question is is there any update on the tff which is the fistel maintenance fistel payment that was suspended since kovid do you expect the payments to be in a single installment or will it be a staggered andrea please related to the payment of tff the

speaker
Andrea Viegas
Chief Financial Officer, Team SA

The payment was, the discussion about this is in the court, a federal court, and now it's under analysis. We don't have any updates about the date of the payments.

speaker
Operator
Webcast Moderator

So, thank you, Andrea. The next question comes from Hudson Cabral. He's an individual investor. And his question is, how is going the installation process of the massive MIMO on team antennas? In this question, I'll ask the help of Leonardo Capdevila, our CTIO, please.

speaker
Leonardo Capdevila
Chief Technology & Information Officer

Good morning, Hudson. We consider the massive MIMO as a native technology for the 5G, which means that 100% of our 5G antennas already include this technology. But we have to remember that we innovated and we anticipated the usage of the massive MIMO on 4G. So we installed the massive MIMO on 4G. We started that almost three years ago. And you can see a very difference in terms of capacity, quality, when we are using this kind of technology. So again, in 5G, 100%. And in 4G, we are using massive MIMO in a place that makes sense for the reason for capacity or quality. So it's going very well.

speaker
Operator
Webcast Moderator

Thank you, Leo. I think with this, we finish our questions and answers. So operator, please.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, without any more questions, I am returning to Mr. Alberto Criseli for his final remarks. Please, Mr. Alberto, you may proceed.

speaker
Alberto Griselli
CEO, Team SA

Thank you everybody for attending today's conference call. I want to thank again our management team and all our team listening our result this quarter. We are in track in terms of delivering what we promised to the market in terms of guidance, remembering growth of the top line above inflation, expanding a bit the margin, increased capital efficiency, and a plan to double our cash flow in the plan 2023-25. Thanks again to the team, and I look forward to meeting some of you in the next interaction. Cheers.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thus we conclude the first quarter of 2023 conference call of Team SA. For further information and details of the company, please access our website, team.com.br.ir. You may disconnect from now on. Thank you once again.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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