Freenet Ag Unsp/Adr

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q3 earnings call. I'm very pleased with the development of our last quarter and with the opportunities ahead of us both in mobile and with Weibo TV. In mobile, we see strong opportunities for efficient customer growth through optimized marketing mix, through optimized webshops, through a reduction in churn and through the acquisition of mobile zone. And with Whitewood TV, we also believe that there is huge potential for further customer growth and even more profitability. I'm very excited about the final sprint of the year and an initiative reached 26. which will mark our transformation into an AI first cycle. There's a lot to do and we are on it and looking forward to it. I would like to thank our entire team for their hard work and their courage to discover new paths. I'm truly enjoying this and we're just getting started. I also want to thank our CFO, Ingo Arnold. Working with him is a real pleasure. We have rolled up our sleeves, and he has been a tremendous support. Let's dive into the presentation and our key messages. We can confirm our 25 guidance. We are on track. We can show strong key financials. Our most important postpaid and TV service revenues are growing. And our adjusted EBTA grew nicely, 1.6% for the first nine months and for the last quarter, even 4%. Byfuse Default ATV has been a driver in our EBTA, contributes nicely. It's a fantastic product, not only growing in terms of customers, but also getting more and more profitable. Free cash flow in the first nine months is growing nicely with 2.8%. And yeah, so we are on track in Q3, impacted by the communicated tax one off, but fully on track. We are also very pleased with our customer growth. Post-pandemic has even exceeded our expectations. Baipu TV grows and recovers, and we are here on a strong path and we will continue. FreeNet TV is declining, but this was also expected. We are focusing on WIPO TV by continuing to monetize our user base at FreeNet TV. We can confirm our 25 guidance. And when you look into our strategic initiatives in the mobile segment for our organic growth, we are focusing on three pillars. It's optimization of our marketing mix and optimization of our webshops and reducing churn. In terms of marketing mix, we are shifting budgets. We look at the return on ad spend. We don't do just fuel brand marketing. We always connect it with direct performance impact, clear messages. And yeah, so we... improved the transparency of our campaigns. We improved the reporting. We really put the money where we see in direct impact. Conversion rates, I mentioned it last time. The conversion rates on our webshops, they are not there yet where we want to have them. They are not great yet, but we are getting better and better, and we see strong improvements in the last quarter. The page speed improved drastically. We have a better user experience. We create kind of urgencies on our website. All of this helps, and there's still a lot of stuff to do, but we can already see that it's working. And the third pillar is that we are working on churn reduction. If you look at the top two reasons why users change their the mobile provider is either they get a better offer somewhere or because they are not happy about the network connection. And so this does not make sense when you look at pre-net because we are really offering great deals. We are able to match the most aggressive offers and we provide all networks. So there's obviously no real reason for users to leave us. And so therefore, We are working on it. We see huge potential in reducing our churn. We have created more than or developed more than 50 initiatives to reduce the churn, to bring it down, and we are working on it. And yeah, so this is, I think, one of our drivers, success drivers also for next year. When we look into our customer value management, we also try to use AI wherever we can use it. So whether you look at the customer service, if you look at key list sales, if you look at smart pricing, so we try to apply it everywhere to smart health, don't do crazy things, but we believe there's huge potential and we are on it. And besides all of these three pillars, of course, we are also constantly trying to improve our other channels. We are very happy about our stable retail business and with our almost 500 stores, our strong online and offline partners, and we are optimizing this as well. In September, we started our first performance-based brand marketing campaign with Clarmobile. So, we produced a new TV spot, we changed the website, improved the UX, and there was a clear message. When you look at the TV spot, you can see that there was a clear branding, but also a clear messaging, a clear offer. And this was reflected in the successful numbers. We could increase the visits significantly and also the conversions and sales. This was a very successful campaign. We have the next campaign in October. We see and also the team see that it's working. It's driving sales. On one hand, and on the other hand, it will also create more brand awareness. And Clarmobile is one of our top brands. Together with Freenet, it's important that we increase the unaided brand awareness and performance-based marketing campaigns will help to reach its goals. We are very happy about the mobile subscriber growth in the first nine months and also the last quarter. Within the first nine months, we could increase our customer base, 190,000 postpaid customers. If you look at our historic data numbers, you can see that this is quite a lot. Also the last quarter, very successful. Also when you compare it to last year. So we can see that the initiatives, the things that we change, that they are working. We also are very happy about the renewal of our, about the five-year renewal of our strong partnership with EAMark.org, an important channel for us. And, yeah, next steps. So, we will keep doing what we have started in the last quarter. Looks promising. And besides this, there's also one big thing that's coming at the moment when you look at our, I mean, the strongest brand that we have is Freenet. And we do advertising with Freenet. So there you can see our strongest products, mobile phones, mobile plans. But at the moment, it's on the domain freenet-mobilephone.de. And if you, for example, go to freenet.de, you can find the news and email portal. And this is not ideal. So you cannot do marketing efficiently with Freenet if people or if users then search on Google and end up on Freenet.de where they don't find the offers that you do advertising for. So this is something that we changed. We made the decision to change it. And this will be in place beginning of next year. And then we will do advertising for mobile phones and mobile plans on Freenet DE. And then we will also start marketing campaigns, performance-based marketing campaigns for Freenet DE. So this will increase the conversion. This will be much more efficient than in the past. And so then we believe that this will be a nice potential for the next year to really increase and numbers for Freenet and increase the unaided brand events for Freenet as well. And besides this, one big thing is, you heard about it, we already disclosed it. We bought a mobile zone. This is a strategic acquisition mobile zone. It's a really strong company. It's a sales machine. So they, every year, they generate over, they close over 1 million contracts. It's one of our strongest competitors. They are very successful, have many nice brands like Spa Handy, Dine Handy. And, yeah, so we acquired them. Yesterday, there was also news that the antitrust approved the acquisition. So, we are in the process of closing the deal. And this will bring, this will give us much more, even more sales power. So, consolidation in the market, I think it's healthy, makes a lot of sense if you look at allocating resources about the offerings. Yeah, so it makes us even stronger. And I think it's also good for the entire industry, for our partners. We have really had relationships to Vodafone, Telefonica, Telecom, also to 1&1. And we believe that this makes us even stronger and that it will enable us to further support them. WiproTV, I mentioned it. We believe it's a fantastic company. We could show in Q3 subscriber growth again, and also nice profitability. It's important that we have a company that's not only growing, but also getting more and more profitable. I think we proved both of this with Waipu TV. Were we happy about it? It's It's developing as expected. And so, and we also believe that Q4 we will see even stronger growth and that we are on track to reach our guidance for 25 years. Baipu TV has started, has just started a new campaign, which is promising. is they offer a startup package with a TV stick and a no fritz product for just not so much money. It's an entry product and which will help to for people to experience IPTV and this great product. And so afterwards, we believe that there will be upselling opportunities. And besides this, we also started to do marketing with bundles, where we bundle mobile plans together with the Y group. And all of this, we believe, is really... will make a lot of sense and will bring us or lead us into the right direction. Yeah, with this, I hand over to Ingo.

Yeah, thank you, Robin. So I start as normal with the group financials. I think we are, and Robin already commented, I think from my side, There's nothing to add. We are really, really happy with what we generated during the first nine months of the year 2025. We are totally on track to reach our guidance. So in terms of revenues, you see in the quarter a slight decrease of revenues. I think main reason, and I think you will hear the name of the company, The Cloud, more often than in the years when we owned the company today. But I think it is important to show the deviations that we do have on the group level, but also on the mobile level. I think what we lost here in revenues with the sale of the cloud is something like 10 million euros. So without it, also in Q3, there would be a small increase of revenues. So all in, it's a confirmation of the guidance where we promised moderate growth for the gross profit. much more positive than the revenue development. We see an increase of the gross profit in the quarter by even 7% on a nine year base, 4.3%. It is definitely driven by the IPTV. I think we are so happy that this is the first year where we do not only generate growth in the base of Baipu TV, but where it is also possible to make the business much, much more profitable. And you see the effects here even on a group level. Moving to the adjusted EBITDA. strong quarter, nearly 138 million euros, which brings us to 395 million up to the end of September. And I think I did the calculation in August. I do the calculation again, what is necessary to reach the four-year guidance. I think it is relatively clear that from 395, you need a quarter and you need an EBITDA of something between 125 and 145 million to reach the guidance. And compared to the performance in the third quarter, I think this looks totally doable. And I'm even more convinced now than I was in August to reach it. So moving to the mobile business, I think, yes, definitely the revenue looks a little bit disappointing, but on the one hand, again, here, there's the reason from the missing revenues of the cloud in the full quarter. And if you would add the 10.3 million, the difference would be much smaller. On the other hand, And this is something what we already commented in after Q2. We had some no frills, some prepaid revenues where we could not generate any profit. And to make administration easier, we cut some and we terminated some of these contracts. This makes a lot of sense from our side. It has a few negative effects on revenue. But as you see, moving to gross profit, this does not have any profit effects. The gross profit in 2003, slightly decreasing. Also here, it was something like 3.5 million, which was missing from the cloud, if you would add it. I would say it is something like a stable development Q3 and the Q3 24 was a strong one. So all in, there is an increase in gross profit. to 500 and nearly 27 million. Moving to the adjusted EBITDA, also here we are near to what we had last year. It's a stable development and making the same math what I did on the group level. What we can see here is that we need an EBITDA of something like between 100 to 120 million in the fourth quarter. and then we would reach the guidance. Maybe a small comment to marketing spendings because we discussed it intensively after the second quarter. And the good news is that even with all the campaigns what Robin was talking about and all the action and the big growth in the customer base, it was possible to decrease the marketing spendings So I think in the first half of the year, we spent something like 6 million more in 25 than in 24. But in Q3, we spent less than last year. I think we have some long running contract with some brand marketing partners, which does not make that much sense. But I think it is not easy to terminate these contracts. Some of them are still running. So I think there will be a full saving effect from stopping these contracts in 2026. But also in Q3 and in Q4, we will see something comparable. Marketing spendings are down. And I think the results are still effected from the negative first half spendings, what we saw. Moving to some KPIs in the mobile business. Yeah, Robin already commented. I'm really surprised how strong we are in terms of post-paid net ads. I think we discussed during the year to reach something like 200,000 net ads for the full year time. I think definitely it will be far above 200,000 what we will reach. I think it is still a surprising quarter as ever, the fourth quarter, because of Black Week and so on. But I think we are more than on track here to grow the post-paid customer base. Well, we are not that good on track, but I think this is a market problem. What the whole market does have is still that the RPU is decreasing. So what we see at the moment with the growth, what we generate, it is possible to overcompensate the RPU effect. positive and optimistic that this will also continue in the next quarter. But I think it is, yeah, it is a pity and it is market driven. I think we discussed it already in the other quarters. It's not a free net problem. The market is slightly aggressive still. We hope we can come back to a more rational behavior in the mobile market here. So we are not that unhappy that there will be a CEO change at Telefonica because we saw them very aggressive in the last quarter. So I think this could help to repair the market here. So we are basically optimistic for the following quarters, and this is clearly shown on this chart here. At the moment, the negative trend for the RPU is continuing, but clear message, service revenues are slightly increasing, so it's possible for us to compensate it. Digital lifestyle revenues, the last picture here on this chart, I think you all know that we were behind plans at the beginning of the year. We could close the gap now, so we are totally on track compared to last year. And yeah, I'm even positive for the fourth quarter to see a slight increase here. Moving to the successful TV business. revenues and all financials are mainly driven by the positive WIPO developments. What we do see in revenues is in the quarter and even an increase by 10% for the full year, an increase by 7.5%. I think the fourth quarter was, yeah, a little bit influenced by a media barter deal. What is a media barter deal? It is that we have these deals, these contracts with the private channels and therefore we get, at the end of the day, we get some marketing plays, some channel plays there for free. But we have to show it in our figures. So on the one hand, you see it on the revenue. But on the other hand, you see it on the marketing cost. So at the end of the day, these marketing campaigns are for free. But you show it on every level here. And so therefore, we made it clear or we tried to make it clear and we wanted to make it clear because especially the development in revenues and in gross profit is slightly exaggerated from these deals. And we want to have positive figures, but we want to have honest figures. And therefore, we mentioned it here that there's an effect of 5 million even in revenues and in gross profit. On the adjusted EBITDA level, you see that we, We have an increase compared to last year. WIPO EBITDA year-to-date is something like 25 million. So it's a perfect confirmation that the business can not only grow, but that the business can also generate EBITDA. I think we discussed it earlier times that we expect something between 30 and 35 million of EBITDA from the business. Yeah, and I think we are totally on track here. We have lower marketing spending. This is something what we discussed earlier together. This definitely helps in the fourth quarter. Yeah, I think we need some marketing campaigns. We need and we want to generate some growth in the fourth quarter. But I think we are also on a EBITDR level. We are very optimistic to reach the goal with what we do have. Last page from my side is the free cash flow bridge. Most of you should not be surprised that we have the negative tax effect. I think we, to be honest, we expected for years and now we really got it. So we had to pay something like 20 million for the period 2015 to 2018. I think we are not at the end of the road here because we also took legal action. Because I think we built the provision years ago, but we took legal action now. But the legal proceedings will take years to find an end. But we paid the 20 million now because we have high interest rates to pay here in the meantime. And I think there are good chances to win the case. But for now, we paid the 20 million. And I think let's wait and see. I think I do not expect a decision as long as I am here CFO, so be quite open. But there's a good chance to get the money back. But for now, the tax expenses are higher as expected. On the other hand, change in networking capital, It is a negative of 32 million. I think those of you who are familiar with our working capital figures know that 26 million out of it is a liability or a reduction of a liability where we have to pay a monthly fee to MediaSaturan. So out of it, it is more or less stable. then the capex figure 26.8 it's near to what we saw last year lease payments it's easy to calculate 45 million now so no surprises and interest payments 15 million so so i'm quite quite fine here. I'm also fine with the free cash flow for the guidance for the full year, because what do I expect from change in networking capital? Maybe some more investments in the fourth quarter into the business. So I expect something like 45 million for the full year. I expect 60 million for taxes, 35 million for capex. lease is easy to calculate something like 60 million and the interest payment nearly 220. So this is also in the sum is the same what we what we expected or what we forecasted at the beginning of the year. And so I think at the end of the day, no surprises for all of us. And therefore I think the guidance could be could be reached. So therefore, the the overview from my side for the financials, so I would hand over to the operator again to start the Q&A session.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press 9 and star on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to withdraw your question, press 3 and star on your telephone keypad. And the first question comes from . Please guide with the question.

Hi. Good morning, everyone. I have three questions, please. The first one is on the guidance. What are the main 4Q drivers that could push results to the low or high end of the guided range? The second one is on mobile. Can you please give us more color on your net ads mix? How many come from the lower end of market and how do you perceive quality of your customer base in general? And the last one is on the marketing. So I'm just wondering, can you compete effectively in 4Q without a big marketing increase for both WIPO TV and mobile because we are heading towards Black Friday and Christmas. Thank you.

Good morning, Sophia. Thanks for your questions. From my side for the guidance, I think If I would have a clear plan where we would end, I would already have told you. I think there's good chances to end on an EBITDA level between 520 and 540. I think it is correct that we have to look, and I think the question to the guidance is linked to your last question about the marketing spending. I think we want to grow the business. And therefore, if we see chances, especially during Black Week, to increase our customer base in both segments, then we have to decide what we would like to invest. So it's difficult to say from today's point of view. So I cannot, and this is something I think we have not published yet, a guidance which narrow a band because it is still open. I think we will watch the market and if there will be chances to grow and to have a profitable growth, we will use the chances. But I think this is the main reason why we are not more concrete on the guidance now because as typical during Black Week and during Christmas business, there could be so many chances and we do not want to miss chances and opportunities and therefore I think it is still open but basically I would not expect a big increase in marketing expenses compared to last year because also last year we had the Black Week and we had a Christmas business where we were and last year we were very aggressive so I would even expect that Even with a strong and growth-oriented philosophy in the fourth quarter, I would expect marketing expenses to be lower than last year.

And related to your question regarding the mix, we have different brands. We have brands like Mega Zim or Dr. Zim, Happy Zim, where we have aggressive offers. Then we have Clarmobile, it's something in between. And then we have our premium brand, which is Freenet. And at the moment, Freenet is not ready yet. I mentioned this. It does not make so much sense to do advertising with Freenet if it's not on the Freenet.de domain. So therefore, we don't invest into brand marketing campaigns. We rather focus our activities on the other brands. like LaMobile and the other brands where we have better conversions. So this is what we are doing at the moment. And so therefore, it will be, I think, relatively similar to the last quarter. But if we look into the next year, I mentioned that we want to scale the performance base brand marketing investments for Freenet as well. And this is an opportunity for us because with Freenet, this is our premium brand, we will be able to also sell for healthier prices with higher upuse. We will focus on mobile phones. We will position Freenet as a premium brand. And I think this is a nice opportunity for us next year. And then ideally we have and Freenet as our premium brand for mobile phones with nice brand marketing campaigns, but based on performance, so we want to sell. And then we have Clarmobile, our brand for mobile plans for good prices that make a lot of sense. And then we still have our very more aggressive brands like Dr. Zim, Happy Zim, Mega Zim, where we try to get users in a more aggressive environment and compete against those brands who think they can be more aggressive.

Thank you. And the next question is from Bernstein. Please go ahead with your question.

Yeah, thanks very much. I have two questions, please, if I may. The first one is on the service revenue situation. I think you highlighted that this is owing to the market backdrop at this point in time, and that is not necessarily a big concern from a managerial perspective at this point. Could you talk about how you see this unfolding? I mean, what's your base case here for the market backdrop and the service revenue situation? performance in 2026, and related to that, this sort of compression on the service revenues, how does this affect your gross margin? I mean, that's ultimately a question how the, you know, how the cost to the M&O hosts scales with service revenue performance. And my second question is, on the Medias Auton renewal economics. That's more a technicality, I suppose, but you talked about this $5 million incremental barter deal in the third quarter. Is that related to the renewal? Should we add that to the renewal? And have you agreed to a different cost compared to the prior? contract with media multi-year contract with medias are torn in the current, which explain the economics of that now the 5 million sort of fits into this. Thank you.

Hi, this is Robin. Thanks for the question. Regarding the service revenue, and if you, I mean, when you look into the Q3 numbers, you can see the ARPU, but you can also see strong mobile growth over all the effect of both is positive and we expect that also if we look into the future. As I just said, we want to do also more marketing with Freenet. We believe there's a fair chance to sell products with higher prices to increase the RPU, this might have a positive effect as well. Yeah, that's it. I mean, the market, the competition in the market was tough in the last month. I think it was driven by Telefonica. So there are some changes. They announced that there will be some changes. Hopefully this will be healthy for the market, for the industry. But, yeah, we are prepared. We have many opportunities to grow our subscribers, our marketing channels, through our website, through performance marketing, through performance-based marketing to not lose so many users by optimizing our chain at churn. So there's really a lot of potential for us to grow. And so therefore it also, it will put us in a situation that we will hopefully also be able to sell for better prices, which are more healthy for us. And so therefore we are quite confident.

Yeah, from my side, good morning Ulrich. I think you also asked what effect does the service revenue has on our M&O contract. And yeah, definitely this is very relevant. I think in earlier times when I started in the business, all were only focused on growth of customers, but this changed during the years. So the contract, what we do have with the MNOs are mainly based on revenue, on service revenue. Yeah, it is important to generate service revenues, but I can only confirm what Robin said. I think that there are, and I work in this company for a long time, I never saw so many initiatives here to increase the number of customers. And therefore, if we could combine it with a stabilization of the ARPU, I think, and you asked about 26, I have no, I'm not afraid of 26. I think I'm more afraid of the fourth quarter now because this will be difficult to, and this is what we saw during the year. But with all the initiatives, what we saw, what we see and what we have here, we are much, much more optimistic for 26 in terms of service revenue than based on 25. Then you asked about the media Saturn, one of 5 million euros. I think this is, is it linked to the contract or is it not linked to the contract? My official answer is it's not linked to the contract. But I think it's definitely only a one, it's only a one-off. It is not by accident that the one-off happens in the same year when we renew the contract. But this is something that will not happen again in the next years and what have not happened again in the last years. So, therefore, it's a typical one-off. It is not typical. I think we have other payments where we do pay or we do grant to Medias Aton, but this is definitely a one-off.

Thank you. Ingo, can I just sort of follow on this comment which you put into a sub-clause? that maybe you're afraid of Q4. Could you just for clarity explain what you meant by you're afraid of Q4? Thank you.

Yeah, I think what we see at the moment is that the service revenues are growing, and we are happy that they are growing, but they are only growing by small euro effect. Can I be 100% sure that in the fourth quarter it is plus 3 million or minus 3 million? No, I cannot be 100% sure because the effect, the positive effect is not that big that I do have a lot of headroom. So, and this is the, I do expect a stable service revenue for the fourth quarter to make it very clear here and to clarify it. So, thanks for your question. But what I do expect for 26 is that we are not only see a stable service revenue, but a growing service revenue.

Very clear. Thank you very much.

And the next question is from . Please go ahead with your question.

Hello. Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I just have a question on this redefinition that you put through on the adjusted EBITDA. I think now you are just EBITDA is including the IP sales and restructuring. I'm wondering if you can talk us through the thinking behind that. And also it seems as the adjustment led to around the 10 million uplift on your 2014 EBITDA. but you decided not change the four-year guidance 25. I want to understand the thinking behind that as well. And finally, just on the free cash flow breach, you have kept the free cash flow guidance when she unchanged, but it seems that the CAPEX guidance is now reduced from 55 million to 35 million. I want to check if that is a sustainable reduction on CAPEX. Thank you.

Yeah, so thanks for your questions. I think the, what is the reason why we started to report an adjusted EBITDA at the beginning of 25 or in 24? What we saw were from the sale of the IP addresses, we saw a very positive effect And it was the idea to show an adjusted EBITDA, which is really based on the ongoing business. So then this year, we had a similar effect from the sale of these IP accounts. And in addition, we had the sale of the cloud. So this was also a positive effect in the EBTA, which we wanted to correct. So I think we were very open here, and we were very transparent and corrected the 25 million of positive effects this year. On the other hand, What we saw were that, and you all know, that we reduced the number of board members here, and we saw the restructuring, the amount of 6 million is more or less only the payments, the severance payments, what we had to do to the leaving board members here. So this is definitely also a one-off. And in the thinking, what I was describing before, to only show the ongoing business, therefore we decided that we use the adjusted EBITDA to correct the EBITDA by the effect in both directions. And so therefore I think we changed it. Then you had a question about the, the full year guidance, and yes, you are correct that there was a, that with starting putting all the effects in the, on the adjustment list, we had also to adjust the year 2024. And you asked if, therefore, the guidance should be increased. My answer is that we do not guide a delta to the year before. What we guide is an absolute EBITDA amount for the year, and we calculated the EBITDA for the year, which was from the beginning something between 520 and 540. So with a change of 24, we do not change our guidance. Your question to the cash flow bridge, yes, you are correct. To reach the full amount of the bridge and to have a comparable amount to what we forecasted at the beginning of the year, we had to reduce the capex compared to what we forecasted at the beginning of the year. I think we expected, especially from the radio business, from the digital radio business, we expected more spending during the year. This has not happened. It was not necessary during the year. And it will not be possible to catch up here in the fourth quarter. So from my point of view, the 35 million, what I expect, I think this is a strong figure, and I do not see any big risks here.

Thank you very much. The next question is from Florian . Please go ahead with your question.

Good morning, gentlemen. I have two questions. The first one is for Robin. In the Q2 call, you made very clear that you want to change the marketing strategy, the customer journey. I mean, this is what you have underpinned today with the presentation. So my question would be a bit, when do you really expect the first tangible impact? I mean, you mentioned in the presentation that there are first positive signs, but to really make a difference, is it fair to assume that this will only happen over the course of 26, and how relevant is the closing of the mobile zone transaction to support that journey? The second question is on WIPO2 file. I mean, you have seen an improving momentum in Q3, so the first question would be how much of that is driven by lower headwinds from the O2 shift, and you flagged high confidence and a good finish to the year. Can you also quantify your expectations here, and do you expect this momentum to stay as strong, I think, before entering 2026? Thank you.

Yeah, thanks for your question. Regarding the impact, so we could already experience the impact in Q3. So far in Q3, we only did one campaign. It was a short campaign. It was two weeks brand campaign. So, I mean, it's just like one month out of three months, so therefore the impact is not so big, but if you just isolate this campaign and if you look at the visit upload, it was very strong. The conversion rates were very strong. We improved the user experience on the website for Clamobile and also the sales numbers. This was a very successful campaign and we just started The second test in October, also, again, a small test. That's how we do it. First, we shoot with bullets and then with cannonballs. At the moment, we are still in the stage of shooting with bullets, so we do small tests, but they are already very promising. And, yeah, so also for the plan for next year, we then scale the investments. but they are performance-based. That means that it's not that we are burning money. If we scale the investment, this will also lead directly to more sales, so positive impact. And at the moment, we just do the first test with KlarMobile. As I mentioned, we are preparing the freenet.de domain. It will be done beginning of next year, and then we will also scale freenet. So, most of the impact will come next year and also this year, but also for Q4. And we are, I mean, if you improve the conversion rates on the website, you'll see directly positive impact because visits are rather going up. End of the year, we have some nice campaigns. At the moment, it's a little bit, but most of it you will see over the course of next year. This was your first question, and then you asked for mobile zone. I mean, mobile zone, it's still not closed. I haven't checked their conversion rates. return on ad spend, how they do it. If you look at top line numbers, you can see that they are very successful. They have strong brands. Spahendi is a strong brand. Dynandy is a strong brand. I think they do a very good job. They have good performance. And yes, after closing, we will look into how we can benefit from it. I'm sure that there are synergies. If you look at allocating resources, if you look at positioning of brands and all that stuff, this will be, I think, healthy for us and for the market. Regarding Waipu TV, there was still impacted by the end of the partnership with O2. O2, old O2 users are churning, but even though we are growing and if you look into Q4, this we anticipate that there will be much stronger growth than in Q3. This will, I think, a strong quarter. There is, I mentioned it, they just started a campaign for the strong starter package. Then we have some campaigns where we bundle it together with mobile plans. This also makes a lot of sense. Then there's a black week. We're quite confident that we will see a nice subscriber uplift in Q4.

Great. Thank you very much.

And for the moment the last question is from Simon Stibbing, Warburg Research. Please go ahead with your question.

Hi, good morning, Kim. Thank you very much for an opportunity to ask questions. First one would be I wonder about your long-term guidance 2028 or your long-term aspiration 2028 because certainly by your accusation of mobile zone and Germany segment you should get a bump in growth. And you also mentioned the marketing contracts longer term, you could cancel in 2026, as I understood it. And then additionally, you expect from your campaigns, some growth in the next year and beyond, hopefully. But on your presentation, you kept your longer-term aspiration 2028 unchanged. So can we deduct anything from that, or will you review that in due course? And then secondly, tied to that is the financing of the transaction. You mentioned you will debt finance it. You have a rich loan in place, but then You will receive around 150 million in H1 2026 from the economy sale of your stake. And will you then lever up a little bit from your 0.5 times net debt to EBITDA currently? Or do you intend to use that cash for financing the transaction? And lastly, I saw until the end of October you bought back 60 million in shares. Will you continue to buy back shares until the end of the year and then you stop or will you continue to purchase back shares until you have fulfilled the full volume of your 100 million?

Thanks a lot for your questions. I think, yeah, I think maybe in all levels, the long-term guidance could be different. And this is normal during the years. But I think what is important for us at the moment is that we stick to the whole amounts to the 600 million of EBITDA, for example. So we stick to the guidance 2028. I think we earlier or later, yeah, we have to recalculate the levels and have to decide if it could be even more than 600 or if there could be changes between the levels and between the effects. But from our point of view, the most important thing is at the moment that we stick to the guidance. And yeah, definitely we will recalculate it during 2026. And then we Maybe I think we have not decided when we give an update to the guidance 2028, but I do expect it for 2026, whenever in 2026. And then I think all your points are correct, but I think this does not change the big picture for now, or this does not make it less probable that we reach the guidance. It makes it even more easier to reach the guidance. So therefore, I think during 2026, we have to think about it internally. We have to have our discussions, and then we will come back to you and to the market definitely. Then you asked about financing of the transaction. We use a bridge loan. which has a duration of 12 plus 6 plus 6 months. So we are not in the hurry to refinance it at the moment. But we do also have some promissory notes due in November. So what I would expect for the first quarter is a transaction with promissory notes where we refinance our debt. And yeah, there is the chance that we partly repay the debt by the 150 million, what we could get from the economy, and we hope that we will get it during the first half of the year. And this will only change the volume of promissory notes, what we would do. So at the end of the day, there will be a slight up on the leverage. This is what I would expect. If we spend 230 million on the one hand, and if we do get 150 million on the other, there is a slight increase. But I think this will not change the world. Concerning the share buyback, yes, you are correct. We spend something like 59 million at the moment, so nearly 60. we announced during the year that we will pay at least the 60 million, which was the cash overhang from 2024. So we spend it now, I think we will, then we will look into the cash flow development during until the end of the year. If there will be some room, then we would invest more. If there is no room, then we would stop the program at 60 million. But I think this is not clear. We have no final decision. We will decide based on the cash development in the fourth quarter, but I think We have done the 60 million, so from today's point of view, I would not expect any additional share buybacks during the year.

Okay, great. Thank you. And maybe, if I can, one follow-up on the bridge loan. Could you tell me the conditions of the bridge loan, like what you're paying there and interest costs?

I think they are relatively low, lower than what we pay in other instruments at the moment, but it is difficult to say what the margin on a bridge loan is, because I think this is typical for a bridge loan, that in the first six months you pay much lower rates than an average market rate, and if you use it for longer, then it's getting more expensive. The main information is that at the moment it's much cheaper than what we pay on our outstanding promissory notes.

Okay, good. Thank you very much.

And the last question is from . Please go ahead with your question.

Hi, thanks very much for taking the questions. It's just a couple on Waipu TV. it's clear that you expect an acceleration into Q4 of around 180,000 net ads to meet the 2.2 million guidance for the end of the year. But one bigger picture question is just how do you see the competitive environment in the IPTV market? And then perhaps more specifically, if a large part of the growth you expect is going to be driven by the lower ARPU entry-level products or the bundling with Clarmobile, How do you weigh up the balance between financials or ARPUs and volume in that unit going forward? Thanks very much.

Thanks for your question. The competitive environment, so we believe that the product is superior. So when you look into ratings, reviews, when you test the product, it's really a fantastic product that makes a lot of sense. And I think it's it's one of the best, maybe the best product in the market. Also, when you look at growth rates, I think it's outgrowing competition. It's really strong. So therefore, I'm not afraid of any competition in the German market. I believe if we do our job, so there is no reason why we should not grow. And in terms of The offers at the moment is a startup package, but there is also a clear path for upselling. That means that we want to make it easier for people to switch from the old world to the new world, to experience a product, make it easy, and so therefore it's also a product where you don't have or the channels is something where you can get to know the product. And then later, after a certain time, we will show you the like the entire world, the entire product, you can experience it. And if you like it, you would have to pay more. So, and I mean, I think it's normal for advertising for promotions that you go out with reduced pricing. That's the same in the mobile world, but then you need smart upselling. I think we are quite good in it. And there are also convincing arguments why you should do the upselling. So therefore, yeah, it's, And this is something that we have been doing throughout the year. There were always promotions and campaigns. Nevertheless, you can see that profitability went up quite nicely. And this is something that we believe will also happen during the course of next year. We will further grow the customer base. We will further grow profitability and generate more EBITDA. So there we are fully on track and absolutely convinced about the product and don't fear any competition in the market.

Thanks very much.

And if there are no further questions from the audience, I would like to hand back for closing remarks.

Yeah, thanks for attending our earnings call. So as we said, we are very pleased about the quarter. We are confident about the outlook for 25. We are excited about 26, many, many initiatives. We have a very motivated team, open mindset. They show a lot of courage. They want to explore new opportunities. It's really, it's a lot of fun. It's a really good vibe, good spirit here. And I'm very confident that we will keep delivering. So therefore, thanks for your time. And yeah, looking forward to the next course.