Orange Polska Sa

I have a pleasure to introduce the larger group of speakers. Today starting from Julien Ducaron, our CEO. Left to him Bożena Leśniewska, the deputy CEO in charge of business market and Jacek Kunicki, our CFO. Let me now hand the floor to Julien to begin the presentation.

Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome everyone on our conference summarizing fourth quarter and full year 2020. We will also quickly summarize our Orange.1 strategy that has ended at the end of the last quarter. As usually, as it was said, we will take the opportunity to zoom on one of our key strategic activities around B2B. and at the end we will take the answer so let's move on the next slide summarizing our financial performance so in 2020 as you can see we have delivered fully our financial commitment we guided for growth of ebidal and it was almost three percent year on year Please note as well this is the third consecutive year that we have been growing our operating profitability. Thanks to a very strong Q4, we managed to achieve small growth of revenue as well, almost 1%. I'm very pleased with this because you might remember that at the beginning of the pandemic, we revised our outlook on the revenue, given the uncertain outlook and environment, and despite this, we have been able to deliver this growth of almost 1%. On the CAPEX side, We are exactly in the middle of the range despite significant difficulty to sell our real estate due to the slowdown in this market. So we have been able to adjust our spending on the technical side. So having said that, I will move to the next slide. which summarize, I will say, the environment and what we have been doing. So obviously, 2020 was not what we expected at the beginning. But I think despite those unprecedented challenges, we did good. So if I look back, when we were in March, we immediately revised our priorities. giving top focus to our employee, to our customer, and as well to the business continuity. So we had to adapt very quickly. Almost 85% of our employee went to work remotely. But we didn't stop only on those three points. We participate and answer the call of the CIO city to provide different means and support to different organizations. Let me name some of it. So we supported the hospital with better connectivity, as well as providing smartphones and data bundles for people to stay in touch with their family. We supported, as well, teacher and student with a special offer on Orange Flex. And we provided, as well, modem and tablet for those to continue and not stop education. Orange Foundation has, as well, delivered a lot of seminar to help teacher to adapt to this new environment and provide tools and techniques to keep education online. For the elderly customer, we have as well provided facilities to delay payment and as well the free delivery at home of material. So I think, you know, We did a good job for our employees, which was very important as well to continue the business, but as well to support the scarcity with all the assets that Orange Poland has. If I look now on the core subscription services, which you know this is our main margin contributor, we can say that our business has been very resilient during this period. We are as well very satisfied with the commercial performance, especially in H2, and I will come back on this one. But we have as well to mention that this crisis has put pressure on our business, and I will name some of the areas that have been affected. So obviously the reduction of mobility, whether it was internal or international, has impacted the roaming, but as well the prepaid business. One of the areas that I think was the most impacted for us, as you know, we have a plan to dispose our real estate. And this was obviously slowed down. It is not a canceled plan, but this is a postponement. And we are currently working in remodeling our offer. and we do expect that the market as soon as the crisis will go away that the market will pick up again So we had as well, given those plus and minus, do some exceptional measure. You might remember some that we named last year on the OPEX and as well on the CAPEX in order to compensate for this real estate shortfall. I think as we are still in the crisis obviously we are looking cautiously about the future evolution economically but as well in terms of customer payment. Going on the next slide showing a more deep dive on the commercial performance. Obviously this crisis has created an acceleration of the demand for fixed and fast and high quality connectivity, which we have been extremely well positioned to answer this high demand. So you can see on the graph the growth, and if I look at Q4, we had obviously a very strong quarter, both in volume, but as well on value, as you see the evolution of the ARPO. We recorded 40,000 net addition, which is the highest in the last three years. This is obviously driven by fiber where we added 63,000 customers in Q4 and we can see that our base has increased by 10% in a single quarter. The driver, as I said, is high demand, and as we commented in Q3, are still the same in the sense of we became very efficient in deployment plan, so choosing the right new household, but as well our sales is becoming more and more efficient, and we are able to increase utilization rate of our network. So this is confirming for me that our bet of investing in fiber was the right one and what we have been working on the fiber core is the right direction for the company. So we have reached an important milestone of 5 million household reach in Poland in more than 150 cities. And within this 5 million, we can say that we have already 15% utilized by the customer, which is bringing us around 750,000 fiber customer. Important to notice and you see that on the graph that in terms of value we follow this increase of volume as we have a strong increase of 5% and this is obviously driven by the technology mix inside the broadband where fiber has a higher output than the other technology. Going on the next slide where we have tried to illustrate the main driver that is delivering this good growth of EBITDA of almost 3%. So, as I said, the two main top-line drivers are conversions and mobile. So we commented on the convergence, so very strong growth of volume, but as well on ARPO for those two business segments. So for convergence, it was as well a record quarter, the best in the last two years with the underlying growth of the fiber. We are as well monetizing quite well this convergence in terms of value. And what we can say is that the total trend in revenue are sustained by those two pillars, and Jacek will comment more on it. On the lower box on this chart, you can see two of the main reasons we are able to deliver the transformation we aim for. so the first one is related you see the decrease of the headcount or the labor cost which has been consistent over the last years thanks to social plan negotiated with our partner and this is clearly as well helping us to transform and we will come back on the dot one strategy as it was an important factor for this transformation. We see as well that indirect costs are going down by 4% in 2020 versus 2019. And as well, we have to mention that that was supported with an exceptional mitigation measure that we cannot expect to see back this year. So if I look at this graph, the message for me is that we have a successful combination of growing value from the core business, thanks to volume and value, so ARPO of the customer. And at the same time, we continue to transform our cost structure. which those two result in this good growth of EBITDA. So let me now hand the floor to Jacek to go more in detail of the financial.

Thank you Julien. Good morning everyone. Let's start the financial review on slide 11 where we present the highlights of our performance. We're pleased with the solid financial results for 2020. We delivered on our goals. Our revenues expanded strongly in Q4, with rebound driven by the ICT business. This allowed us to finally report a small top-line increase for the full year. Our EBITDA for 2020 increased by almost 3% year-on-year, thanks to an exceptional effort on the cost side. Q4 standalone was down 4% due to around 35 million impact of claims and litigations accrued in the fourth quarter of the year. Economic capex in 2020 increased slightly year over year, reflecting much lower real estate disposals due to a very challenging market environment. In order to mitigate this, we adjusted our capex spending accordingly. Lower real estate sales also marked the year-on-year dynamics of cash flows. We should note, however, that these were relatively strong with the exception of this item. Let's review the top line on slide 12. So as mentioned, our Q4 revenues expanded by 2.8%. in Q4 year-on-year, driving the full year dynamics into the positive. The key factor behind it were IT and IS revenues, which grew by 27% year-on-year in the fourth quarter. Towards the year-end, we benefited from a surge of demand for software licenses and solutions to digitalize our business customers. We're pleased with the ICT performance in Q4. However, it's not a repetitive subscription-based service, so please do not extrapolate this growth rate directly into the future. What is even more important is the performance of our core telco services, so convergence, mobile, and fixed broadband, as these build the vast majority of our profits. These continue to increase, and they have even accelerated their growth rate. They were up 3.6% year-on-year in Q4 as compared to an annual growth rate of 2.3% in Q3 or 1.4% registered one year ago. Going forward, we expect to further benefit from customers' appetite for fibre and for mobile connectivity. Mobile prepaid revenues will, however, be slightly affected by new regulation in 2021. It allows prepaid users to claim unused top-ups when they churn, which will decrease the revenue recognition for us. Switching now to EBDA performance on slide 13. Our Q4 EBDA contracted by 4% year-over-year. This was driven by 35 million of provisions for claims and litigations. These type of provisions are not new for us. However, they do influence the growth rate of this particular quarter. So that's why we are mentioning them separately. The evolution of indirect costs also reflects a very low comparable base in Q4 of 2019, which was then boosted by a backward correction. What's particularly important in a Q4 performance is that dynamic of the direct margin. So the effect of our commercial activity on our profits. In Q4, It expanded by 2% year on year, thanks to the growth of core telco services and despite COVID impact on roaming. This is a very positive sign for the future. We are progressively transforming the way in which we achieve EBDA growth, striving to grow through profitable increase of revenues. Achieving this will make our EBDA growth much more sustainable. Our full year EBITDA increased by 3% year-on-year and we are pleased with this performance. It was achieved thanks to a solid 4% year-on-year drop of indirect costs. This reflects the underlying business transformation, but also an exceptional effort made in 2020 in the face of the COVID crisis. It included some non-recurrent items, such as the curtailment of employee benefits in the second quarter. So further extrapolation should be made with caution. Finally, throughout 2020, we've closely monitored the quality of our accounts receivable. As of today, cash collection continues to be solid. Nonetheless, we're all aware that the COVID crisis is far from over. So this area remains one of our key concern and risk areas for the future. Let's now look at the bottom line at slide 14. We posted a 46 million net profit in 2020, which was 36 million down versus the previous year. There were two reasons for this. First of all, much lower gains from real estate disposal. As in 2019, we sold a very valuable real estate complex in Warsaw, which enabled us to generate record high results. While in 2020, obviously, this activity was hampered by the pandemic. Secondly, our finance costs were 34 million up year over year. This was due to non-cash foreign exchange losses on long-term lease liabilities for rental of our offices. Now over to CAPEX on slide 15. Our economic capex amounted to 1.8 billion in 2020, roughly 100 million more than in 2019. It was pushed up by less proceeds from real estate sales. In order to mitigate this, we've been more selective in our capex spending. and as a result our gross capex spend was around 250 million lower than in the previous year. That affected most areas of spending, including mobile, where 5G rollout was obviously postponed versus the original plans, also including fibre, albeit this was made without slowing down the expansion of our reach. We have invested slightly less into our backbone for new cities and relied more on expanding our reach through access to third-party networks. Let's now look at cash flows on the next slide. Slide 16. We generated 640 million of organic cash flow in 2020. This was 95 million less than in 2019 due to less sales from real estate. Excluding this factor, cash generation would have been higher than the year before. This resulted from two items. Firstly, the growth of our EBITDA and lower working capital requirements translated into 147 million higher cash from operating activities. Secondly, cash out for capital expenses was 260 million lower than a year ago due to less investments. Growing EBITDA and solid cash generation translated into a decrease of our financial leverage, with net debt now standing at two times the EBITDA. Finally, just as a reminder, in January, we've concluded an agreement to refinance 2.7 billion loan of our debt. And in consequence, our average cost of debt will fall to around 2.8% from Q2 of 2021. Thank you very much. That's all for me for the financial review. And I hand the floor back to Julien.

Yes, thank you. So after this 2020 financial review, we wanted as well to spend a bit of time today on presenting a summary and probably as well a conclusion that will help us to to uh to guide you through our next strategy that we intend to present in q2 so we would we wanted to summarize um the dot one program so on slide 18 um We just have put back what were the main areas that we had announced at the moment in 2017 when the program started and you might remember that one of the ambitions was obviously a turnaround in the key segment and as well to become a more efficient operator, we can probably say that to move from a legacy operator to a modern telco. We have met all our goals, and we will review this. You know that we were on a multi-year negative trend, and it was very important to reverse, hence, the creation of this DOT1 program. So on the slide, if we look at the five different areas and objectives we have set, obviously, the very important one was around the decision to invest on fiber network. because the fiber has been the bedrock for our growth and our, I would say, commercial success. And obviously, as we commented in the past, the current crisis has only amplified this need and, I would say, confirmed the right choice we made in 2017 to go on an ambitious program of deploying fiber. We changed as well our approach on the commercial, and that was one of the objectives. That was to be much more focused on value, what we call in marketing the more for more strategy. and as well contribute to the market repair with some price increase that we did over the year and that we see now materializing on the ARPO of the customer. One other very important point, which I think was central in this strategy, was around the customer obsession, that we turned the company much more attentive toward customer satisfaction. And for this, we are measuring the NPS, which is a net promoter score. And I remind you that we were number three. in 2017 and we are very pleased to report that in 2020 we have been number one sometime ex aequo but we have been number one so significant progress have been made in this area As well, another very important and I think reason of the success is the change of the culture that has been implemented in the company because those results are obviously the contribution of the employee and we have been able to change the mindset and the culture so to be much more customer-focused and as well to be more cost-effective. discipline-driven as a company, and I think this is what we have already demonstrated in terms of cost base and as well NPS. But nevertheless, I will as well conclude this part at the end by highlighting some of the areas that we failed. in this program or let's say we could have done more and we will certainly embark them in our next strategy. So let's a bit deep dive on next slide on some of those topics to illustrate in more detail to which extent we have delivered those results. So starting with The fiber, so remember in 2015, a bit before the .1 strategy, we made a decision to invest in fiber, which was basically at that point a decision whether we wanted or not to stay in the broadband market. because legacy technology was being, I will say, challenged by cable operators. So we made this bet and in 2017 we had a very ambitious target of going to 5 million households and as I commented about 2020 results, we did this target so that was This we have achieved and we have seen that it was a clear support for the current commercial performance and as well amplified by the current crisis. So now we are the clear leader in this fiber infrastructure on the market. You probably know the number for the rest but we are by far the number one and I think this is an asset that will stay for a few generations as obviously fiber is is very competitive for the future, and the technology is scalable. And we are very happy with this achievement compared to the rest, and we will not stop there. That's why we are as well contemplating the fiber core, which will allow us to continue this direction of keeping advantage of infrastructure. You see the numbers. So we have increased by 3.4 times since 2017 in terms of customer base on the fiber. We have increased obviously the utilization. As we commented in the past, we are becoming more and more efficient. So this is translated in obviously utilization of this 5 million that we have 750,000 at the end of 2020. In the total base of broadband, so including legacy technology, we have recorded 11% growth, which is as well quite impressive over this .1 period, 17 to 20. And as well, what is important is that fiber is not by far a migration from copper to fiber. So when we look at where the fiber customers are coming from, 70 to 80% of our new fiber customers are coming from the market and not from legacy. So this is complementary. Over the time, obviously, we want to accelerate as well the migration in order to step by step decommission the copper. So obviously, fiber is a technology enabler for what we call convergence for the customer. So if you move to slide 20, we have a recap of the convergence. The convergence is more the customer proposition that we have put under an umbrella called Orange Love. You might remember that in the beginning of 2017, we were the first on the market. to come with a hard conversion bundle, which is basically putting multiple services of a telco under one package that we called, and we still call, Orange Love, which has been and is still very successful. We can say as well that the majority of our broadband base and client are acquired under conversions. that the convergence penetration on our base is around 65%, which is, if I compare to other peers in Europe, showing that we are getting more and more mature, but there is still room for growth in this area. What we see as well is that convergence, and this is one of the principle, are more loyal customer. So we have better or less churn in convergence than in other type of product, which is very important for us. And as well, we have been able throughout this period to increase the ARPU of this convergence customer thanks to more upsell but as well a change of technology mix which has helped us to grow the convergence ARPU. So moving to slide 21, focusing on mobile. And we can say as well that the DOT1 strategy has been successful for our mobile business. We have recorded 11 percent growth over the period, which is an average of 3 to 4 percent every year of growth of the mobile base. This has been achieved thanks to our rich value proposition for the customer that is going from a single SIM, SIM free and as well multi-SIM family and complemented with a rich portfolio of devices. Behind this, we have discussed before, but we have implemented the value management, this more-for-more strategy, which has helped us to improve the value. As well, the churn went down, and that was a focus of .1, and the reduction of the churn, I think, is a lot due to this customer obsession that the company has put since three, four years, illustrated by the number one position on NPS. So basically it is proven that when you have more a happier customer, then they become more loyal to you. And this is proven in our numbers because the churn has been decreasing by almost a quarter if I compare to 2017. The ARPO as well, we have stopped the decline. It was declining double digit in 2017 and if I look at 2020, obviously still declining but if we remove the impact of covid which is impacting us in roaming we will be much lower and it will be only one percent decline so a clear stop of erosion of value on mobile going to slide 22 where we have highlighted some of the area that I do, and with the management team, we do consider we could have done more or more remains to be done, if I may say so. So obviously on digital, we have done some good progress. It was one of the strategy direction for DOT1. You see on the chart that we grew from 8% to 14% share of online commercial act. But we have a higher ambition than that. We have seen, for example, that during the lockdown, this share went to 20%. obviously helped by the closing of the shop or some of the shop but nevertheless showing as well the willingness of the customer to buy and this will help us to be more efficient because an increase of digital will allow us to reach a customer base that today might only buy online but as well will help us to restructure our cost in terms of distribution that we could foresee to optimize our point of sales both in numbers but as well in format. Then we had as well plan in this dot one to go on adjacent business so we have to be humble and recognize that our tentative on orange finance was not successful and we decided to close this operation that was the wrong setup in terms of partnership parameters We will reconsider in the short term whether and how we could still go. We know from other markets that there is opportunity and there is synergies and capillarity between telecom and banking. And this is something we will come back to you when we review the strategy for the coming three years. There has been other less successful in terms of revenue or margin, but still that need to be further developed. I'm thinking about Orange Energy, where we have stepped in, still not to a big scale that is worth to report. I'm dedicated on it, but I do see, and we will have the opportunity to talk in the strategy, that there is a bright future, I believe, for energy as well when we combine that with the green angle. We want to have more now in Orange Polska. On devices, as well, we have been able to grow by specifically launching some innovative proposition like installment that has helped us to compete on the device market. But again, this is an area that I do consider we can do more, and not only on devices, but as well on connected object and accessories we had a good result but i think we we need to go further around what we called orange smart care which is a suit or portfolio of product that allow you as a customer to be protected and protected physically but virtually as well. So this is about insurance and security. And we have some good revenue and we aim to go further. So as you can see, we did some successful and some I think still remain to be done. Now let me pass to Bojena to look more in detail on one of our key priority on B2B.

Good morning, everyone. Now we are on the slide 23. Well, whenever I think over achievements of B2B over the last three years, I see a long journey that we went, or even flew when we take into consideration the speed, from the pure telco provider to partner in digital transformation for business. Overall, we achieved 6% growth of revenue. In 2017, the situation seemed rather bleak. Almost 90% of our revenue was derived from telco services that were declining, just to mention the few. Mobile voice-based ARPO was constantly declining. Fixed broadband revenue decreased yearly by 5%. Over the three years, we succeeded in not only fixing our legacy, but growing the new businesses, meaning ICT, which now represents 26% of our top line. How did we do it? First of all, we capitalized on the investment in fiber network. Over the time, we more than tripled the number of the fiber accesses among our network. Thanks to this, we could escape the battlefield of copper-based services and capture potential for high-speed, high-reliability internet and vans. The most vivid example is the rebound on the data transmission market. After long years of continuous decline, we started to grow whilst keeping our undisputable leadership position on the market. It's worth to underline that fiber is not only the ultimate access type for business customers, but it's also an important foundation for ICT services. Starting from security, through cloud, towards software, all making and comprehensive positioning for the digital world. From 2017, we more than doubled in ICT area, reaching revenue of almost very close to 1 billion in 2020, exceeding by far my personal ambitions. Let's now look at ICT area more closely on the next page. Over time, we developed this area considerably. Back in 2017, we were already privileged by having a separate entity, Integrated Solutions, to provide our customers with the first class solutions based on networking, security, and integration. Over the time, we expanded competence of integrated services, which secured a solid organic growth. Integrated Solutions is nowadays the third integrator on Polish market. But we didn't stop here. We decided to capture the immense growth of software and applications domain and acquire, first in 2019, leading business systems integrator Bluesoft, and then in 2020, December 2020, the company Kraftware, an expert in connected CRM. Craftware has been on the market since 2009 and has the status of the Platinum Salesforce Partner. Among its clients are large companies from the pharmaceutical, FMCG, retail and finance industries. The CRM Salesforce competence of Craftware perfectly complements the ICT offer of both Bluesoft and All Orange ICT. Thanks to that our ICT revenues come from not only the fast growing but also high margin services like cyber security, horizontal and industrial specific software as a service solutions and application related services. ICT coupled with some more emerging domains like big data and AI will be the important line of our business in the future and the part of our future strategy. That's all from me and I hand the floor to Jacek.

Thank you, Bożena. Let's look at slide 25. This slide shows a table with our financial recovery ambitions exactly as we have presented them during the strategy announcement in 2017. It's worth to underline that we have delivered on all of these promises in each of the years. In some cases, We've even exceeded the initial expectations. Our revenues have been growing for the past two years and EBITDA for the past three years. We have kept capex within limits and we have significantly progressed with debt reduction. Let's look on the details of this on the next slide, slide 26. While executing the Orange.One strategy, we broke a long-term negative trend of our financial performance. Both EBITDA and revenues are now growing after more than a decade of constant decline. It has been achieved through the combination of progressive commercial turnaround coupled with a great cost optimization effort. We've successfully implemented our convergence strategy. It was possible thanks to dynamic growth of fibre, as monetisation of our considerable investments in this area has begun. We have also paid particular attention to value in our commercial activities, including more for more price increases in mobile, convergence and fixed broadband. Simultaneously, we've achieved a very high rate of cost savings. Since 2017, we've optimized indirect costs by almost 600 million or 15%. This was done in spite of inflationary pressures in areas such as labor or electricity costs. So the effort to achieve this savings was even greater. We had a particular focus on automation. give you the magnitude of our efforts. We decreased our workforce, so both permanent and outsourced staff, by almost one-third during this period. Summing up, this turnaround has put us in a much better position than we were in in 2017, with growing revenues, growing EBITDA, as well as a much safer balance sheet. Thank you very much, and I hand the floor back to Julien for the conclusions.

So on slide 28, I wanted to share with you our outlook and specifically our direction and priorities as a business. And I will conclude with our guidance for 2021. so related to priorities obviously i hope you understood that we we have a strong commercial momentum that we have built over h2 2020 and we aim to sustain this good momentum that we have both on consumer on the convergence and on mobile, but as well on B2B and ICT, as we have just heard from Bojena. And the second one is obviously the pandemic is not yet over, which obviously as well is putting some cautious view for us regarding what we can expect in 2021. So we remain obviously cautious in terms of outlook and especially when it comes to payment and as well related to our customer on the B2B side. But I think as well for us, it's an opportunity not only on the fiber demand, but as well to review our ways of working and as well our premises, real estate that we are today occupying and we do foresee that once the condition will allow us to come back to the office, we will certainly come back in different ways of working and we are going to adopt very soon an hybrid working model. which will certainly create some opportunity in terms of cost related to building. We will obviously continue our transformation, so we have largely shared with you today what we did up to now, and some of the topics are not finished. They have delivered results, but they will continue to deliver results. And here I'm thinking about automatization and much more digital processes inside the company. An area that you heard probably that we start to talk more and more and we will come back in the next strategy with commitment and target, but obviously the green is a very important part of our company now and it will be one of the core elements of the next strategy. So it's about reducing our carbon footprint but as well helping our customers to manage this challenge and transition toward a greener economy. And just to mention and to remind you that we have already purchased 10% of our energy needs coming from green energy. We have two big topics in front of us that will be structural for the future of the company. The first one is FiberCo. So we are not going to go too much in detail on this one as we are as you know, in the middle of it. And we do expect to come to a conclusion during H1 or before H1, as we are already in H1, but before H1 on this topic. And the second topic that will be very important for the future is related with the 5G auction that, as you know, today we don't have yet full clarity regarding to condition We know that it should happen very soon, but we don't have the full visibility on the detail and in which conditions. So those two are very important for us financially, but as well as strategically. And I hope we will certainly have the opportunity to talk about it in our next result presentation. So that's for the direction. So as I said, we plan to announce our strategy in Q2, which will be as well a good timing, hopefully, in relation with these two major strategic topics. So going to the slide 29 on the 2021 guidance. So to start with... We want to achieve growth on both EBITDA and revenue. This is clear. The revenue driver, I'm not going to comment too much because I think we have explained to you how we did in 2020. And basically, we aim to do the same in 2021. As I said, we have a good momentum. We want to keep this momentum from fiber, mobile, and B2B growth coming as well from ICT and the integration of craftware and BlueSoft. We should not forget, as Yacek commented, that there is some regulatory headwinds in 2021, namely around the prepay and the new cashback regulation that was already implemented in January. And the second one will be on wholesale as a cut in MTR and FTR that will start in May, that will have a significant impact on the revenue, less obviously on margin, but still will impact our ambition regarding the revenue. What is important to notice on EBITDA, while the guidance is obviously growth, it will be the first year in 2021 where this growth will come from direct margin. And I think this is very important because this is showing that our core business is growing, And this is healthy and I think helping us to have more kind of sustainable forecast when it comes to our profitability. So we are counting on growth of the core business to deliver growth of Epidal. And not only just by optimizing cost, but we do expect for 2021 to be, I will call it, a healthy growth of our profitability. We will continue obviously to optimize as well on the standalone basis the cost, but we have as well to be aware that it will not be at the size of 2020 where we did some exceptional measure that Yacek commented previously. On the guidance for economic capex, we assume more or less the same range as last year. And let me maybe a bit explain in light of the fiber code that we do expect to happen in our forecast. Even if the fiber core will take over our CAPEX in H2, we still have a lot of deployment coming from POPC. I think we commented in the past, but this is the European fund program where we are covering difficult area, white zone, cold, so-called, and we are arriving at the peak of this POPC. We are a bit delayed, but because it's a difficult condition as well, the pandemic has not helped us to accelerate in this area, but we are very confident in this area because the first one that we have deployed are obviously bearing very high utilization because this is on a high demand so we are very confident that this capex will be well spent and therefore as well we have a high ambition on real estate because we believe that hopefully the the environment will be better than 2020 and what we have not been able to sell in 2020 will materialize in 2021 We have as well the construction of a new data center that will as well mobilize some of our capex which is a result of the sales of Novogorsk real estate complex in 2019 for which now we need to migrate our data center and we will open this new data center. So that concludes my part and we are now open for your questions.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for the presentation. We'll now be moving to the question and answer session of the call. If you have a question, please press star 2 on your telephone pad and wait for your name to be called. That's star 2 on the keypad. If you are dialed in via the web, you may also ask a voice or a text question. We will now give a minute or so for the questions to come in. Thank you. Our first question comes from Mr. Titus Khan from Barclays. Please go ahead, Sir. Your line is open.

Sir Titus Khan Good morning, everyone. And thank you very much for taking my question. So, it's just a couple from my side, if I may. And the first one would be on 5G. So, given that the auction process is probably still some time away, Can you maybe update us on your existing 5G offer? How has the traction been with customers so far, and to what extent do you have increased your coverage since the launch of the services? And also, what is the impact of the delay on mobile network capex spending, probably in 2021 and thereafter? And on the current regulatory environment, How do you view the plans to launch a state-owned telecom operator? What could be opportunities for you on the cost side from such a launch, but also what are potential risks, for example, for government services? And if I may, just a second. part of the questions on the ICT business. First, congratulations for turning this around after the decline in Q3. Do you believe the rebound was partly driven by pent-up demand after the uncertainty of Q3? And are the underlying trends now back at expected levels, or do you still see some hesitation to invest in risk into 2021?

I will take the question on 5G. So first of all, from a customer perspective, obviously you know that today we have a DSS technology where I would say it's good, but it's not 5G. However, I think what is promising for me is that we see quite a high, around 20% of the sales of handset being 5G capable, which I think is very promising for the future because the day when we will have the real C-band 5G, then we will not start from zero and we will deliver quite quickly to a number of customers, because this is the one we have been acquiring since last quarter, where we started to have a significant number of 5G devices. So I think on this side, it's quite promising. I cannot really comment on the DSS satisfaction. We do see customers using a bit more data on DSS than on LTE, but for me it's not yet the real 5G where we will be able to have more innovative services. Regarding CAPEX and impact, well, we have fully kind of embarked in our budget the fact that 5G will not be massive this year. We are clearly focusing on fiber, both via the fiber core from H2, but as well as I mentioned, POPC, that will still deliver quite a significant number of households, which we do expect to have a high return on them. And as well, we continue to have a continuous investment on the B2B when it comes to fiber. So I think, you know, the story of 5G is a story given the calendar given by the government. Not the calendar, but the delay for sure and what, you know, we could foresee at the moment. that will not have a significant impact on our CAPEX for this year. We will still be in a very fiber investment year. ICT, you want?

As far as ICT is concerned, I just want to emphasize that the ICT business is not comparable to the telco business at all. It's not the recurring business, so all the revenues and all the business comes from building the pipe along the year. And the hesitation and the slowdown, which we noticed in Q3, was exactly the result of delaying the decisions of the customers due to the COVID situation, due to the uncertainty. So just after the pandemic started in Q2, we noticed that customers postponed the decisions and it reflected the Q3 results, because there is some delay between the decision and the realization of the project, which comes from the delivery process timing. And in Q4 already we saw the result of the decisions of the customer made in Q3 and they were connected with few areas. First of all, with securing the business for the further months of the pandemic. So all the solutions around the security, around the workspace, around the software and applications that are necessary to digitize companies, the growth of the e-commerce, the growth of the internal digitization of the companies was very visible and it is reflected in our Q4 revenues. Additionally, the revenues of Q4 were supported by the big contract in the software area connected with the business related to the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement with Polish Post. I'm quite positive about the future. I see that still the companies are thinking about being prepared for the longer pandemic, so it means changing and digitizing the business. It's already reflected in the good beginning of the year. We also will integrate Kraftwerk our ICT business, and this is also very optimistic when I look at the performance of Kraftwerk in 2020. Thank you very much.

Thanks, it's super helpful. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr. Marcin Nowak from Ipopera. Please go ahead, sir, your line is open.

Good morning. I have a few questions, actually, so maybe I will go one by one. The first one is in regards to the comment regarding CAPEX in the second semester of 2021, because I understand that the standard FTTH CAPEX will be lowered due to FiberCo. Should we understand that your 21 guidance assumes the sale of Steg in FiberCo and it's the consolidation?

Thank you for your question. What we have mentioned as part of the guidance is that, and this was Julian's comment, is that we will continue to invest into fibre. It's not that fibre becomes automatically the capex of the fibre coal. What we have assumed is that we will still spend a considerable amount on fibre next year. you could say comparable to what we have spent this year. We will invest on our own in H1 in the first semester as we are doing right now. We will invest for the entire year for the capex for key accounts on which we have been investing systematically and we will continue to invest on our own even after we have concluded the Fiber Core transaction. We will obviously buy the CAPEX for the delivery and the customer premises equipment. We will have a peak this year of CAPEX for the POPC areas, for the wide zones, and this again in the entire year will be realized by us. What we are assuming is that starting from the second semester, FiberCo will take over the production and CapEx and FiberBuild for the individual clients. So it's not a full year impact and it's not the impact of the entire scope. We are assuming that FiberCo will take over. We are assuming that we will be successful in concluding this transaction. Still, signing is expected in the first semester. I hope that answers your question.

Well, it answers my question in regards to CAPEX, but it doesn't answer my question in regards to the EBITDA guidance, because if you are moving part of your customers to the FiberCo, then it should be deconsolidated if you are selling 50% stake. So, does your EBITDA guidance for 2021 assume the consolidation of FiberCo?

Yes, it does. I think regarding the EBITDA guidance, what we can say is we've given a range and this range, it shows the level of our ambition and our uncertainty. So on one hand, you have seen that we've grown the EBITDA by almost 3% this year. Our hopes and plans and ambitions would be to try and grow it even faster in 2021. We are, however, obviously aware of all the risks and uncertainties that are ahead of us. First of all, linked with the pace of economic recovery, the risk of debt, with the risk of customer pipeline in the B2B, also linked with this recovery. So this is where you get your your, I would say, range of the EBDA guidance. But as I mentioned, we are really progressing and trying to make sure that we can grow as fast as we can. Regarding the impact of the FiberCo itself, yes, on one hand, we will transfer, we will not transfer customers, we will buy wholesale access for about 150,000 of our retail fiber customers from the FiberCo since it will be a deconsolidated structure that will result in costs being recorded on our P&L. However, it will not be a one-sided affair. On the other hand, we will be also rendering services towards the FiberCo. we will be rendering the services for network maintenance, for connecting the FiberCore last mile network to the global internet, for rent of some critical infrastructure. Finally, we will be also rendering the service of network build to this FiberCore. So the overall impact of the FiberCore on the 2021 EBDA It's much more balanced than you would think just by multiplying the 150,000 customers times six times whatever rate you might imagine we will finally negotiate. It's not possible for us to comment on this more precisely right now because we haven't concluded the transaction, so obviously terms and conditions are not final, but it's not a one-sided affair only. Yes, it is included in the guidance that we have issued.

Assuming that you indeed will sell staking Fiberco, this effect, maybe, let me rephrase. If you are not sell your Fiberco stake, then your bid-dial guidance for 21 should be also the low single-digit growth.

Yes.

Okay, great. And with regards to FiberCon, as you are still in the analysis process, I assume that you maybe already decided in which areas new deployments will be made and how large share of those new deployments will be in places when you already have infrastructure and you already have clients and how large share of it will be in the new areas.

Well, as we've mentioned in the communication that we've already issued, FiberCo should build within the next five years around 1.7 million new households connectable. It should be focused around medium and low competition areas as this is those are the areas suitable for such structure. Obviously, I will not and I can't comment in detail on where exactly we are going to build because that may also slightly evolve over time. But you may expect that this is medium and low competition areas. And I would not want to get into too many more details right now.

Understood. And with regards to your current network, could you comment or provide updates on the size of third-party connections within your 5 million household network as of now? And over the last year or two, how much of new FEPH customers' production was made on third-party networks?

Okay, thank you for your question. Regarding the third-party production or the third-party connections, it is, I believe, slightly in excess of 700,000 and it has grown by about, no, sorry, it's almost a million. It's almost a million and it has grown by about 300,000 within last year.

Okay, and out of new customers?

I would need to get back to you on that offline.

Okay. My last question is in regard to the recent government's comments about plans for 700 MHz band. Will Orange be interested in participating in a wholesale operator on 700 MHz?

Well, regarding the 700, then probably you refer to the national operator. As you know, we have been commenting directly or via association our position and surprise in light of the first draft that we saw. Since then, we had interaction as an industry with the authorities and I think it was as well confirmed in the press in the last days that the focus of or the idea, the intention is obviously to have something that answers the security concern of public infrastructure. So the scope is obviously limited compared to the first draft. And obviously to the question of are we interested in the 700, the answer is yes. After, we have to see whether it will be in the form that the government is today looking at or whether there will be a different form at the end. I think you know that the discussions are ongoing. So it will be a bit dangerous to speculate on what they will end up. But we are having constructive discussion with the authorities and together with the industry and the other competitor.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mr. Nikhil Mishra from HSBC. Please go ahead. The line is open.

Yes. Thank you for the presentation. A couple of my questions have already been asked. Just one small question on adjacent areas. So can you just guide us on what kind of growth you are looking at in those areas, the vanity growth, and also what kind of margins those particular areas generate? Thank you.

Nikhil, could you please repeat your question? Which areas do your question refer to?

Regarding the adjacent areas of finance and energy and devices and self-care business.

Okay, thank you.

Regarding the adjacent areas, you've seen that we've posted quite a nice growth and a nice revenue figure for those. In terms of the major values for those revenues, we've achieved revenues in excess of 200 million for orange energy, in excess of 150 million for the SIM-free devices and around 40 million for the devices such as SmartCare. Obviously, the margin is a bit different. And to be honest, the margins coming from all three of those areas are quite similar when you measure them in the millions of zlotys. So Orange SmartCare will have the largest percentage margin, with Orange Energy having the lowest percentage margin. Well, Orange Energy is specifically also due to the turbulence that we've seen on the market since the product and the concept was launched, but we believe we are now on a good path to continue to grow the revenues and to continue to grow margins on a more substantial level. I hope that answers your question. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll do a very short reminder for any additional voice questions. Just once again, star 2 on your keypad if you have a voice question.

If there are no voice questions, let me... We received some questions online. Let me start with the questions from Mr. Wiktor Barczycki. First question on 21, CAPEX guidance. This was already partly... us maybe repeat the question is with the five million homes passed the FTTH ambition achieved what are the reasons for the 21 guidance to be at the 2020 level what will plus spend on FTTH

So as I have mentioned, our guidance for 2021 includes an assumption that we will spend a comparable amount of capex on fiber in 2021 as in 2020. We are finalizing the POPC program. We obviously continue to spend capex on customer premises equipment and delivery, and that is a good thing because that means we're connecting more and more customers to our network at a faster and faster pace. We will continue to invest for the key accounts. And as I've mentioned, we are going to continue with our own build of fibre in H1. We've reached the ambition of 5 million home posts and this is a good thing. We're happy with the progress so far. We believe there is still a substantial opportunity to build fibre in Poland in areas that are profitable, in areas that are with high demand. We see the confirmation of this in the very good uptake that we have when we build fibres to the single-family homes, where the penetration curve is much steeper than for the existing build. We see the confirmation of this in steep penetration uptake when we build in POPC areas, and that's one of the reasons why we would We would like to continue building fibers and this is one of the reasons why we have designed this concept of the Fiber Co. and we are pursuing this concept of the Fiber Co. Please remember that the main goal of the Fiber Co. is to continue to build and to build additional at least 1.7 million of homes passed, which are not in the 5 million figure today. So that's why we continue to build. 2021 is a transition year. 21 capex for Fiverr will be on comparable level as in 2020. And that's one of the reasons why the overall guidance for CAPEX for 2021 is also in a similar magnitude. Thank you.

The second question is, what is the company's long-term target for leverage?

I'll take this one and I don't believe we have been communicating long-term leverage targets as part of the strategy. We always are striving and we will continue to strive to have a safe and sound balance sheet. So to that extent, it does not only imply a certain net debt to EBITDA or a certain gearing level, but it needs to take into account our future plans, both for cash flow generation, major capex spending, as well as the EBDA prospects and free cash flow generation prospects. So we will address all of it in a more complex and holistic way in the strategy that we are planning to disclose to you in the second quarter of the year.

Next question is from Trigon Analyst. Could you please comment on trends in mobile ARPO? In Q420 mobile handset ARPO X roaming fell by 1% while in the previous quarter it grew by 1%. What is the reason behind lower dynamics? Do you see price pressure in some client groups in mobile?

I can take this. I think, first of all, the differences between Q3 growth and Q4 growth that we mentioned are very small, excluding roaming. The year-on-year increase in Q3 was somewhere around 20 Polish cents. and the year-on-year decrease in quarter four was around 20 Polish cents, so 20 grosz, which is really, I would say, insignificant when we look on the overall trends. What we do see in the mobile mono ARPO are Two contrasting trends. On one hand, we continue to monetize and we continue to pursue the value strategy. And as you have even seen, the 5G options were available in the high-end tariff plans. This is the way that we structure offers. We make sure that we motivate customers to take higher data bundles, higher options of handsets, and therefore staying on higher tariff plans with us. So that is the force which is driving ARPO up. On the other hand, the mono ARPO is being driven down by a few factors. First of all, by the mix. So within a mono customer base for mobile, we have a higher and higher share of business clients, and especially key accounts clients are achieved at a output which is below average. Also, we have a changing mix or changing share of different client groups within the B2C customer base with High value customers often choosing our love product and migrating from mobile mono to convergence and with a larger share of the clients in the B2C mono customer base comprising of lower ARPU customers in our offers of flex and new mobile. So I believe those are the forces that are at play and the differences between Q3, Q4, this is really 20 gros each year. So what is important is that the overall trend is tending towards the positive and we do believe we will start to grow the ARPO.

Next, a few questions from Piotr Ciborski from Wooden Coal. We'll take them one by one. When do you plan to announce a dividend policy?

We plan to come back in Q2 on this point. As we mentioned in Q3, our equation to return to dividend will be driven by the 5G condition. And I would say prerequisite and the parameters that will be hopefully announced soon will depend on the FiberCo outcome. and will depend as well on our forecast and outlook for the year to come, which is linked with obviously our strategy. So we will come back on those points in Q2 around the same period as the strategy announcement.

The next question is on capex guidance again. Does your capex guidance for 2021 include any capex for 5G network rollout?

Yes, it does.

And the next question is, how do you plan to support Orange Polska customers in switching to green energy? Does the company plan to start selling photovoltaic systems?

Thank you for the idea. We are going to come back on this topic in more detail in strategy, but let's say you have looked in the right direction.

Ok, two more questions overall, one from Erste Analyst about the commercial costs. We saw stable commercial costs despite the material decline in equipment sales in Q4 2020. Is it due to the higher share of expensive devices?

I'll take this one. When you look on a commercial cost that includes both the customer equipments, the sales commissions, also our advertising. So the mix is linked with very high customer volumes that we've been able to achieve in Q4 and especially during Christmas. That includes advertising, which was phased differently than a year ago because we did not spend in Q2 when we were under the full lockdown. We've spent more in Q4. That includes higher commissions and that does include higher cost of customer equipment. So all three of those and it's basically linked with very good sales in Q4.

And the last question is from, I believe, an individual investor. Why with having 12 billion revenues, you're not producing any net profit, whereas your competitors do?

Thank you very much for this question. Our net profit indeed is not very high in comparison to the revenues. Neither the trends, as you have seen, are not as we would wish them to be. I think when we look on our recovery, it is a sequential improvement that one can expect. We improve the revenue evolution, then we drive EBITDA growth through this. and then we can expect an increase of net profits, so it shouldn't be a surprise that this is something that we are aiming and striving for to improve. It does have a link, so the low net income in comparison to our revenues does have a link with high depreciation charge. because we have been significantly investing in our networks, in the fiber infrastructure, in buying adequate spectrum. And this is producing quite high depreciation costs, which are there. We can expect those to progressively decline. As you will have seen, the fibre production will be taken over progressively by the fibre coal, so that will result in less depreciation charges. We've reduced net debt and we do expect financial costs to go down. This year, the net profit was particularly, I would say, reflecting also the shortage of the gain on sale of real estate that we have not really achieved this year in comparison to the previous periods as the market was quite frozen. We do plan to come back to the market, to come back to selling those properties. We do believe that they present a sizable value and we will continue to fuel our net income in the future with a positive gain on sale of our real estate. So we do expect this indicator to improve.

Thank you. EPS, we have no further questions. So thank you very much to all of you who listened to us and watched us on the video. If you have any follow-ups, then you know how to reach us. Thank you, and see you back in a couple of months.

Thank you very much. Thank you.