Hellenic Telecommuns Org

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am your chorus call operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results. All participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Kostas Nebis, CEO of OTEG Group, Mr. Babis Mazarakis, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Panagiotis Avrilidis, Chief Marketing Officer, Consumer Segment, OTEG Group, and Mr. Evrikos Sarzentis, Head of IR and M&A. Mr. Nebis, you may proceed.

Thank you, and we welcome everyone. Thank you for joining OTEG's fourth quarter and full year 2025 results call. 2005 was another successful year for Rotet. We achieved solely the results that highlight the effectiveness of our strategy and the dedication of our teams. Revenues increased and profitability growth gathered pace, with positive momentum visible both in our fixed and mobile businesses. Throughout the year, our performance has accelerated, and in the final quarter of the year, this momentum became even more pronounced. In the fixed segment, we have seen a return to retail growth after four years, marking a significant inflection point. We accelerated the transition to fiber-to-the-home, leveraging on the ongoing expansion of our FTTH network. In 2025, we delivered record-high FTTH customer additions, and this strong momentum continued throughout the fourth quarter. We have also seen increased utilization of our fiber infrastructure, which is essential for maximizing the returns on our investments. Additionally, the introduction of the new regulatory framework, ending the sale of FTTC products in buildings already connected with FTTH, will further support the shift to fiber connections. This will bring increased customer satisfaction, lower churn, and meaningful cost savings. we remain by a long way the largest fiber network provider in Greece. And the recent strategic acquisition of Sterna Fiber for the USPB project will allow us to extend the F88 coverage in the coming years. At the same time, as the project becomes commercially available, we anticipate it will accelerate the fiber transition process of our customer base. We are particularly pleased that our fiber investments are delivering measurable national impact. In 2025, Greece improved its global fixed broadband ranking by 18 positions based on OUCLAS Speed Test Global Index, primarily driven by our accelerated rollout. This progress is fully aligned with our vision to elevate Greece to the forefront of digitization in Europe. Our RWA service, launched in 2025 to bridge fiber connectivity gaps, has gained strong momentum and is supporting our fixed retail policy trajectory. I would also like to highlight the outstanding performance of our pay-to-view business over the past year. We delivered robust double-digit growth, fueled by our strategic partnership for sports content sharing and the enhanced anti-piracy measures. Additionally, the recent removal of the 10% special tax starting this year supports our confidence for continued momentum as the product becomes even more affordable. Turning to our mobile segment, we continue to deliver outstanding results, further solidifying our market leadership. In the fourth quarter, our mobile business achieved particularly robust growth, accelerating further from the positive performance that we had achieved throughout the year. The ongoing transition from prepaid to postpaid plans, rising demand for high data allowances, and higher adoption of 5G-enabled devices have all contributed to this performance. We are especially proud to operate the only commercially available 5G standalone network in Greece, setting us apart from the competition. Through our 5G SA deployment, Greece now runs fourth globally and first in Europe in 5G standalone speeds. once again based on Ookla Global 5G standalone footprint, reinforcing a structural advantage in mobile. Our commitment to delivering top-quality network performance was further validated this year, as we once again received certifications from both Ookla and Umlaut. These recognitions underscore our ongoing dedication to providing the best network experience in the country. In B2B, OTEN played a pivotal role in advancing digitization. Our ITT business achieved robust double-digit growth and expanded to deliver international projects as well, further reinforcing our leadership in digital transformation and underscoring our commitment to Greece's digital future. We have expanded our services to private and international segments outside Greece to fill the gap once the EU RRF dries out next year. We continue to invest in our core competencies while strengthening at the same time our market differentiation and reinforcing the value that we deliver to our customers. Our non-com services continue to grow, and our energy partnership with Proteria brought new value-added benefits to our households. We introduced the Magenta AI platform, bringing the power of AI to the hands of our customers. a value-enhancing offering that fosters innovation, drives diversification, and further strengthens our commitment to customer satisfaction. Finally, I would like to say a few words about our shareholder remuneration. In 2025, we streamlined our portfolio by selling our Romanian operations, and this has significantly enhanced our annual cash flow generation and enabled us to deliver additional value to our shareholders. Today, we announced our new remuneration policy, which from now on will be based on the actual free cash flow of the previous year instead of the projected free cash flow, marking a significant step forward and towards enhancing visibility, transparency, and flexibility. We are proposing a 22% increase in the dividend and a 16% increase in our sell-by-back program. Our payout is virtually 100% of Africa's flow, clearly demonstrating our commitment to returning value to our shareholders. Beyond our financial performance in 2025, we continue to pursue responsibly our growth. Our strong commitment to sustainability continues to deliver positive results, as reflected in our sustainability statement. marked a major climate milestone since we achieved greenhouse gas neutrality in the group's own operation. Looking ahead, we remain steadfast in our ambition to accelerate growth, drive digital and AI-led transformation, leading gigabit networks with a clear aspiration to become Europe's top digital telco. We are committed to enhancing our operating and production model by leveraging innovative technologies, notably AI, to boost efficiency and performance. We are confident that we will meet the evolving needs of our customers, creating lasting value for all and position Greece among the leaders in digitization in Europe. It is a strong market positioning that gives us the confidence to target a further growth acceleration this year to approximately 3% in EBITDA, despite the challenges in the markets. I will let Babis provide the details for the last quarter of the previous year. Briefly, I would like to emphasize that we continue that growth acceleration, boosted from all angles of our key revenue streams. Babis, to you.

Thank you, Kostas, and welcome to everyone on the call from me as well. Before moving on to the details of the quarter, let me briefly walk you through our new shareholder policy. which we consider a significant step towards delivering attractive and sustainable returns to our shareholders. And this reflects our strengthened financial position and reinforces our clear commitment to delivering value to our shareholders. So, following the completion of Romania's disposal, we distributed an extraordinary dividend of 40 million euros in December 2025. And now, we adopt our new shareholder remuneration policy to usual market practice by basing it on the actual free cash flow generated in the previous year, we call it ex-post free cash flow, instead of the projected free cash flow, the extended free cash flow. This approach provides greater visibility and transparency on performance and remuneration while maintaining the flexibility required to ensure a smooth and sustainable remuneration trajectory. In 2026, we intend to distribute virtually 100% of the actual 2025 free cash flow, including the funds used to undertake the procession of the UNB2 project. Overall, this translates into total shareholder remuneration of €532 million, comprising €355 million in dividends, equivalent to 87.77 euros per share, and 177 million allocated to share buybacks. This represents a 22% year-on-year increase in dividends and a 16% increase in share buybacks compared to 2024. Now, turning on the quarterly analysis. In Greece, we achieved a robust 8.7% increase in revenues, supported by strong performance, efficient solutions, positive trajectory in fixed retail, and accelerated growth in mobile. Retail fixed service revenues increased by 2.6% this quarter, with higher FTTH uptake, the main engine of our fixed retail growth, alongside strong TV growth and rising fixed wireless access adoption. Turning to our FTTH, We had an excellent fourth quarter, adding a record of net 58,000 additions, bringing our total FETH customer base to 567,000. Retail FETH represents 34% of our total broadband base, compared to only 17% a year ago. This continued momentum, together with sustainable wholesale demand for our infrastructure, is driving higher network digitalization, which has increased to 34%, highlighting both the strong demand of our FTTH network and the resilience of our wholesale partnerships. Furthermore, the recently adopted regulatory framework allowing to stop selling FTTC in buildings already connected with FTTH is accelerating the transition to fiber and improving the monetization of our network investments. During the quarter, we continue to make strong progress in the deployment of our fiber to the home network, reaching 2.1 million home paths, in line with our plan and targeting 2.4 million homes paths by 2026. Our fixed retail trends continue to be supported by our FWUA fixed wireless access service, which continues to gain strong momentum with total subscribers reaching 55,000, highlighting the growing contribution of FWA to our broadband business. Our TV segment delivered another robust quarter, with revenue growth maintaining its double-digit momentum. Our customer base continued to expand, increasing by 7.1%, with 19,000 net additions in quarter 4 of 2025, exceeding the same quarter last year, a nice achievement more than a year after the agreement's implementation. We have now reached the anniversary of the benefit from the art to increase. However, the anti-piracy legislation in place and the recent removal of the 10% special tax on pay TV as of January 2026 gives us confidence in further adoption for legitimate platforms. During cloud mobile operations, service revenues grew by 5.2%, accelerating further and delivering the strongest quarterly performance of the year. Our prospect segment continues its cloud growth trajectory, with the customer base expanding by 7.2%, making the ninth consecutive year of growth. This performance was supported by ongoing pre-to-post migrations, and record postpaid customer additions of 60,000 in the quarter. Postpaid customers account for 43% of the total mobile base, compared to 40% a year ago. We are also seeing convenient progress in the adoption of unlimited packages, while 5G device penetration has now increased to 42.2%, compared to only 33.5% in 2024. The slow growth in our mobile operations is underpinned by our network literacy, which continues to be a key one of our competitive strengths. As Jose mentioned, this was once again validated this year by our performance across key metrics. 5G now covers over 99% of the population, while 5G+, nearly 78%. Data usage continues its strong growth, with average monthly consumption per user rising to 18.3 gigabytes, representing a 30% decrease year-on-year. In our wholesale segment, revenue declined by 5% in the quarter, reflecting the natural drop in national streams and the anticipated drop in almost zero margin in the national wholesale activities, which began phasing out and are expected to decline significantly over the next few years with an estimated impact of approximately 170 million euros in 26 and a further 130 million euros in 27 in revenues with no impact in EBITDA. On the national wholesale front, we continue to see a steady decline while at the same time experiencing increasing volumes on our infrastructure as a result of wholesale agreements. Indicatively, we added 135,000 wholesale net additions in 2025 compared to 60,000 a year ago. Our revenues grew by 26.7% during the quarter, driven by solid performance across our ICT portfolio. In particular, our system solution segment delivered an exceptional performance, recording a 57.5% year-on-year increase, reflecting strong demand and continued execution momentum in this area. As the Recovery and Resilience Facility, RRF, gradually reaches its conclusion, its direct contribution is expected to taper off. However, nationally funded projects are anticipating to continue supporting activity levels, while our strategic focus has increasingly shifted towards the private sector and our EU presence. Total operating expenses, excluding depreciation and amortization in one of the items, increased by €65 million in the quarter, driven solely by costs directly linked to top-line growth, most notably higher third-party fees recorded within other operating expenses, reflecting the strong momentum in our ICT. We are also continuing to incur operating expenses related to the expanding FETH adoption particularly costs associated with the final phase of customer connections. At the same time, we remain firmly focused on our cost discipline across the organization with savings most visible in personnel expenses supported by the ongoing benefits of our voluntary exit programs. In parallel, as part of our transformation of our model, we selectively deploy AI-driven automation to structurally improve efficiency supporting a fair improvement in our indirect cost-to-service revenue ratio. As a result, adjusted EBITDA asset leases increased by 2.3% in the quarter 4 of 2025, marking our strongest quarterly growth rate of the year. This performance provides a solid foundation as we look ahead to 2036, where we expect to accelerate EBITDA growth to approximately 3%. Now let's have a look at the capex and cash flow. Firstly, capex in the fourth quarter amounted to $174.5 million, bringing full-year capex to $612 million up, nearly 9% compared to 2024. The increase primarily reflects the continued expansion of our FTPH footprint, as well as the ongoing rollout of our 5G standard loan network, further supporting our FWA growth. For 2026, we expect capex to be around 600 million euros. Precast low after leases from continuing operations reached 168 million euros in the quarter, up from 145 million in the same period last year. The increase was mainly driven by a higher EBITDA in the quarter and improved working capital performance, which more than offset higher capex. For the full year, of 2025, free cash flow stood at 543 million. Turning now to our outlook for 2026, we expect free cash flow to amount to approximately 750 million. This estimate is based on the assumption that the upcoming Spectrum Auction takes place in 2027. As we know, a public consultation process is currently underway, and the final timing and costs have not yet been confirmed. Excluding the one-off tax benefits, which are coming from the Romanian disposal and the resulting lower tax repayments, the underlying organic forecast flow for 2026 is estimated to be in the range between 570 and 580 million euros. With that, we conclude our speech, and we are happy to take your questions. Thank you, operator.

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Razios Samadis with Europe Bank Equities. Please go ahead.

Yes, hello. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Three quick ones, if I may, please. Firstly, on mobile growth in Q4, which, as you mentioned, accelerated materially to 5.2%. Could you just tell us to what extent this reflected... pricing actions, i.e. what the impact of pricing was in isolation. Secondly, on the outlook for next year, the acceleration of EBITDA growth to 3% stems from what exactly, as per your budget, I mean, I know there are many things that you've considered, but what is the main driver? Is it the stronger mobile setup? Is it cost savings? And lastly, on the cash returns, just to clarify, you guided for this $575 million, $80 million underlying free cash flow generation in 26. Given you will have basically already re-infenced the spectrum-related amounts, Is it fair to interpret this as the likely envelope for total shareholder remuneration next year, obviously subject to board decisions? Thank you.

Thank you, Stamatis, for the questions. Let me start with the first two. As far as the mobile growth is concerned, I mean, we are really pleased that throughout the year we have seen mobile growing in a healthy manner with a positive momentum across all quarters. It is true that in the last quarter of the year, we have seen a slightly higher growth rate. To a certain extent, this is also due to a stronger December. Also, part of it coming from the CPI implementation. Also, the fact that the Christmas offerings of this year have had a slightly lower effect versus last year. So these are the two things. Now, going forward, I mean, when it comes to the mobile performance, we expect more or less similar trends, like in 2025, and I'm referring to the annual trends. The growth levers are more or less the same. We are relying a lot on pre-to-post migration. We still have a big chunk of our customers still on prepaid. This is helping us drive ARCO up by providing extra value to our customers. This is one thing. The second one is, also Babis commented, We are trying to push customers to high-value tariffs, including the unlimited. We still have a big part of our customer base who have not yet migrated to unlimited. And at the same time, we are facilitating that by penetrating deeper into our customer base, the 5G devices. So these are the key levers based on which we have been growing our mobile service in 2025, and we expect a similar trend in 2026 as well. Now, when it comes to our EVDA growth and moving from 2.1 that we managed to deliver this year to 3, I think that the biggest difference is going to be on the IDC front, on our costs, because top-line driven growth, we expect more or less similar numbers as in 2025. But as a result of us running a couple of IDC-focused initiatives like a massive waste load reduction program in our front line, this in conjunction with our operating slash production model transformation using technology, digital technologies, including AR, will help us also deliver an incremental boost to our EBITDA by rationalizing our costs. So this is the biggest difference comparing the two years.

Yes, regarding the forecast, our guidance for this year's organic or underlying forecast flow, as you said, it's made to be between 570 and 580 million euros. And that will be the base. which will conclude and decide in 2027 what will be the shareholder regulation policy. Obviously, the payout and the speech will be decided in early 2027.

That's clear. If I can just follow up on this, I know it's early days, but is there any reason why this amount will be lower. I'm just, you know, trying to think because could there be anything else other than spectrum, I mean, you know, of significant size? Or is there anything that could swing this number or actually, you know, drag it lower?

Well, the results of the experimental mock show can be predicted, of course. That's one thing. Also, what we also take into consideration, as it was mentioned in the staff on the enumeration policy, is the fact that only one of items which these years were deposited tax break and the fee payments that are associated with that one. Obviously, this will be repeated, it will go the other way around in 2027. So, our, our, uh, our vision here is to ensure that these one-offs are smoothed out in order to have a proper trajectory in our shareholder immigration law. So, we take this into consideration when the time comes to decide the shareholder policy for 2027. However, I want to be very clear that the organic base to decide upon is the range between 570 and 580 million euros.

That's great. Thank you so much. Thank you.

The next question is from the line of Sonia J. with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi guys, thanks for taking my question. I've got two. The first is around your fixed growth of 2.6% this quarter. So you stated FTTH is a key driver, TV is growing double digit. I just want to understand the building blocks to get to the 2.6% between the growth within FTTH, TV, fixed wireless access, and then maybe some of the headwinds which could be from copper or FTTC. So that's the first question. The second one was just a follow up on you talking about pushing clients to unlimited data bundles. So I'm just trying to understand the size of the opportunity for you guys. So maybe a few questions within this, but it'd be good to know what portion of your base is not on unlimited data bundles. And what's the ARPU uplift when you push them to the unlimited data bundle? And then also, sorry, within this is maybe an understanding of how this trend has evolved this year. You know, what have you been able to do so far this year on this initiative? Thank you.

Okay, so let me start with the first question around fixed. Yes, indeed, I mean Q4 was a very strong quarter. I mean, on the back of Boston, our fixed broadband performance as well as our pay-to-eat performance. The main drivers is for sure the FTTH penetration, so we recorded another record quarter, and we had a record year when it comes to FTTH metals moving customers from copper to CTH. is always coming with a plus when it comes to the ARPU. This is one lever. The second lever is, of course, fixed wireless access. That was an important addition to our fixed portfolio line-up because this allowed us to be more competitive in parts of the country where we were suffering from stalling, especially the poor copper-surfed parts of the country. With us positioning ourselves with a fixed wireless access product, we manage to first of all defend our customers while at the same time generating some upward boost moving in from corporate to fixed wireless access services. And pay TV, I mean, we still believe that there is a lot more to come. The legitimate pay TV penetration in Greece is still south of 35% when on average in Europe it is ranging between 50 and 60. So what we experience now is all the benefits from the stricter anti-piracy measures that the government has pushed through. This in combination with the fact that we have the elimination of The special tax levy that was effectively making the legitimate PTV prices 10% more expensive. This is out of the 1st of January. These all three are contributing to the growth that we have seen for the first time after four years in the fixed retail revenues. And this is more or less what we expect to see also stepping into 2026. Of course, taking into consideration the challenges in the competitive environment. But we believe, I mean, we feel confident that when it comes to the fixed retail revenues, we are going to stay on the positive territory during the course of 2026. Now, when it comes to mobile, I mean, As I said, there are two key levers which are driving the mobile service revenue growth, and these key levers have been behind this roughly 3% full-year service revenue growth that we have experienced during 2025. As I said before, we are expecting a similar kind of growth trajectory in 2026 by moving customers from prepaid to postpaid. This is delivering roughly 3 to 4 euro uplift out of every transaction, but also moving customers from within the post-paid segment from lower value bundles to higher value bundles and cleaning unlimited. Now, in particular to your question with what is the Percentage of our base who are still not migrated to Unlimited is roughly 60 to 65%. And by moving customers not only to Unlimited, it's not only one tariff. We are trying to progressively step up the customers from lower bundled tariffs, data tariffs, to higher data tariffs, including the Unlimited. We are generating roughly 1 to 2 euro out of every of these migration transactions, just to give you some indicative numbers.

Great. And what's that trend been? So what have you managed to move the unlimited base from and to during this year?

The unlimited base grew by 7 to 8 percentage points this year. This compares to roughly 10 percentage points last year. So this is the pace. But we still have 65-ish percent of the base still not migrated to unlimited. So a lot of room to grow further. Great. Thank you.

The next question is from the line of with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, everyone. I have three questions. The first one is, what are the key risks that you currently see in the Greek market and your execution with it? And also, overall, what are the key risks to your 2026 guidance? The second question is, you have implemented price increases on mobile, but how are you thinking about price increases in fixed, including both fiber and TV? Could you do more in 2026 and beyond? And lastly, could this rising fiber demand drive incremental CapEx beyond your current plans? And how do you expect for it to impact OpEx going into 2026? Thank you.

Okay, let me take the second question first about in price increase. I mean, when it comes to pricing, you need to understand we are constantly monitoring the market developments. We are operating in a very competitive market, and we are adjusting our prices accordingly, aiming to always provide the best value to our customers. So I don't have anything particular to comment on this point in time. I'm just sharing our thinking and our attitude when it comes to pricing. When it comes to the FTTH and CAPEX, I think that we have already guided for roughly 600 million. This is what we have included in our envelope to support all our investment needs, with FTTH for sure being one of the most important ones, but not the only one. And your last question, I mean, or your first question, when it comes to risk, I would not call them risk, I would call them challenges. As I said, we are operating in a very competitive environment, so what we're trying to do is to stay focused on our priorities, on our strategic priorities, on our investment plan, and play on our strengths. And these are, you know, good enough and strong enough in order to allow us to defend a relative position in the market, but also to grow going forward.

Papis, I do not know whether you would like to add something. Just to add that the CAPEX level notes that we experienced in 2025, but also our guidance in 2026, include already the rollout in the FETH network that is necessary to support the growth that are supporting our guidance. So, and as we, I think, repeatedly said in previous calls, is that these levels of 600 million euros is the peak that we see already as we are implementing the networks.

Ms. Rikki Teretika, are you finished with your questions?

Yes, thank you very much.

The next question is from the line of Patrick Morris with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. This is Matthew Morris. I'm Patrick at Barclays. I've got a few questions, please. The first one really relates to competitive fiber dynamics. We don't get a huge amount of details from PPC Group, although looking at your fiber numbers, it would suggest that really there isn't much disruption taking place in the fiber market from competing companies. Maybe I'll ask the questions one by one, but if you could comment on the disruption from PPC and how you're seeing that impacting your business would be helpful. Thank you.

Okay. I mean, when it comes to PPC, first of all, what we have seen out of them is that their activities have been limited to the introduction of broadband-only products. in a relatively small footprint, at least compared to our footprint. I mean, to have to be honest here, we have not yet felt any material pressure or effect on our numbers. So we'll see. how this is going to develop. So we are managing to defend our broadband markets, as you can tell from our broadband numbers. And what we are leveraging is, first of all, our FTD8 footprint, the one that we have already completed, the one that we are already building, as well as our wholesale agreements with our partner center. To repeat one more time, that we have the most comprehensive and differentiated portfolio at this point in time in the market. So these are the things that are helping us defend our LED position. Now, does this cover your question of

Yep, that's it. So I was going to ask a follow-up, and the next question really was about wholesale. I missed some of the points you made about the revenue, lower wholesale, high infrastructure point. I caught the point where you talked about 125,000 wholesale ads this year versus 6,000. But clearly you have reciprocal arrangements with, you know, Vodafone and Wynn regarding fiber, where they sell on your footprint, and likely you on theirs. So it would be helpful if you could maybe repeat those points wholesale revenue numbers that you gave. I think in the presentation I missed them.

Okay, let me start with the wholesale numbers, the wholesale finder numbers from the back of the wholesale agreement. What we have seen in 2025 is as effectively doubling the net additions onto our fiber infrastructure coming out of us serving both Portofone as well as NOVA. So just to give you some numbers back in 2024, we have had 60,000 net adds on our infrastructure, on the wholesale level. This 60,000 has grown to 135,000 during the course of 2025. So more than doubled during the course of the year. And when it comes to the wholesale revenues, is this what you are asking for?

I think you made in your prepared remarks a few comments about the wholesale revenue direction. I just didn't catch them.

So the wholesale revenues for this year, as we also had guided in the previous calls, declined. The national wholesale revenues by roughly 15 million euros And we expect something similar lines also in 2026. So no change in the trend there.

Well, I don't understand. As we are rolling out, also Vodafone and Nova are rolling out in their part of Greece. And once they roll out, they are also migrating their retail customers to their own infrastructure. This has pressure on our wholesale revenue.

Super clear. And then if I could ask a follow-up question to AJ's about FWA. So you've reported the FWA customer base. You seem to suggest in your remarks that it's really a defensive mechanism against Starlink as opposed to, an alternative to OTA broadband. It would be very helpful if you could maybe expand it more in terms of what data uses do you see from the FWA customers? Is it typically in areas where you don't have FIDA, where you're targeting them? Those sort of dynamics would be very helpful. Thank you.

Good question. It is entirely in areas where we don't have fiber. So we have the right policies in place in order to make sure that this product is only sold in areas where we don't have fiber. And we call it more of a bridge technology, in a sense that we are leveraging on our 5G network capabilities, in particular the 3.5 GHz and our standalone network, which allow us to allocate a slice of our network to these customers. in order to provide faster speeds until we get there with RFTH allowed, which takes more time in order to expand and reach every corner of the country. Now, when it comes to traffic, what we see is, I would say, very similar to fixed broadband usages. in the range of 300-400 gigs. This is what customers normally do and this is the result of us providing a very competitive product to the one that they would get from Starlink. So this has helped us a lot, kind of slowed down a bit at least the amount of customers that we were losing to Starlink until we launched the service at the beginning of the year. And the traction has been extremely positive. We closed the year with slightly more than 55,000 customers now. We have exceeded the 65,000 customers. Very good reception from our customers, both as a defensive tool, but also in some cases also as a slightly offensive one in areas where customers have chosen to take starting or some FMS solutions who are not delivering on their expectations. But predominantly a defense and a bridge technology until the CTA gets there. That's very clear. Thank you very much indeed.

Our next question is from the line of Karidis John with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you very much. Firstly, can I ask about ICT revenue? It's really difficult from our side of the fence to forecast this going forward. So anything you can say to help us would be useful. And in particular on ICT revenue, With regard to business that you do outside Greece, how significant is that overall versus the total ICT revenue that you generate? Who do you compete against and why do you win versus your competitors? Secondly, I just wanted to confirm that essentially in any one period with regard to wholesale cost to access NOVA's premium sports content, if you both have the same number of ads, then your net costs are nothing. But if in any particular period you add more customers than they do, then you actually have an incremental cost. Do I understand this correctly, please? And then very lastly, in terms of energy costs, yes. I'm trying to understand how we should think about these going forward, both in terms of Autair becoming more efficient and therefore using less of it, or maybe growing less fast, the usage, but also what's happening to unit prices, the ones that you incur.

Thank you. Okay John, thanks for the question. So let me start with the ICT. I understand the struggle. It is a multifaceted kind of initiative which goes across both Greece, including public sector, private sector, but also our efforts in the European Commission. So first of all, if we could provide some guidance, I would say we are expecting 2026 to be in double digits growth. I would say in between 10 and 20%. This is what we see out of the pipeline that we have already kind of lined up. This is one information that could possibly provide. Now, with regards to the questions that what makes us different is, first of all, credibility. We have a strong track record of delivering on time. This is the biggest challenge. that all projects are facing. One thing is to assign, another thing is to deliver them. So we have managed to build credibility both in the Greek market as well as outside Greece, being very reliable, we have the right people, the right skill set, but also the right track record that makes everybody feel confident that once they assign the project to us, it will be delivered on time. When it comes to the contribution of our European business, it is not immaterial. It is progressively growing. It is, I would say, something around 15% and 20% of our total system solution business. Now, your second question was about pay TV. I think that you have picked it up rightly. So, yes, if we outgrow NOVA when it comes to the way we scale our base, yes, there is some extra cost which are already factored into our P&L. So, whatever you see reported also includes this cost element.

Yes. And the recovery guarantee, I think you explained it very well. We have... Quite a few programs for energy saving around the network. So while we are expanding our network in terms of base stations and also the fixed infrastructure, we believe that for 2026 we will manage to have a stable consumption. So therefore, whatever increase comes from the expansion of the network is offset by the post-saving programs. Now, regarding the pricing, given the turbulence in the previous years, we are now having a good percentage of our total energy consumption under PPA agreements, so we are having a bit more high visibility for the costs. Therefore, overall, we expect 2026 costs of energy to be broadly in line with 2025. After the reduction, 2025 versus 2024, thanks to the PPA that we signed.

That's very kind. Thank you both very much and congratulations to the entire team for a great set of numbers. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no audio questions at this moment, so we will now proceed with our webcast participant questions, the written questions. The next question is from with Wood and Co., and I quote, what is the exact value of the one-off tax item related to telecom Romania sale? What, apart from the tax item, causes the difference between FCF and adjusted FCF?

So, as we explained in the poll, the difference between the, let's say, the top-line expected free cash flow of 750 million euros and the organic, which is between the 5.7 and 5.80 is a dilitude to tax items. This comprises two things. One is the direct tax break we have from the state of Romania. This is in the area of 130 plus million euros. And the remaining is the fact that because of the lower tax payments this year, we are also called to pay less of the prepayment of the tax for the next year because this is the structure of the Greek tax system. of a difference around 4 to 50 million euros. Now, the latter part, the prepayment, will be reversed next year because the tax break will not be present in 2027. Therefore, this prepayment that we say this year will be paid next year. In order to normalize all these work of effects, we have, I think, correctly guided for the organic part of the free cash flow, which will be the base for the forecast.

Thank you. The next question is from our webcast participant, Katikas George, with Banking News, and I quote, could you tell us what plans you have for the 500 million bond that matures in September?

The plan is obviously to refinance it, and at the time of the process to this date, will become more explicit about how this is going to be refinanced.

Thank you. For our audio participants, once again, to register for a question, please press star and 1 on your telephone. As a final reminder, to register for a question, please press star and 1 on your telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.

So thanks a lot for your attention, questions, and for your interest in OTEL. We will meet again in May to discuss the first quarter results. Until then, have a nice day.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a good evening.