Quebecor Inc.

Good day, everyone, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Quebecor, Inc.' 's financial results for the 2024 first quarter conference call. I would like to introduce Hugues Simard, Chief Financial Officer of Quebecor, Inc. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this Quebecor conference call. I am the CFO and joining me to discuss our financial and operating results for the first quarter of 2024 is Pierre-Claude Piradeau, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Anyone unable to attend the conference call will be able to listen to a recording by telephone or webcast. Access details are available on Quebecor's website at www.quebecor.com. The recording will be available until August the 9th of this year. As usual, I want to inform you that certain statements made on this call today may be considered forward-looking, and we would refer you to the risk factors outlined in today's press release and reports filed by the corporation with the regulatory authorities. I will now turn the floor to Pierre-Claude.

Sorry. Thank you. Sorry. Take some water here. And good afternoon, everyone.

So I'll quickly time slide, does it not? Especially it seems in the telecom world, a little more than a year ago already, we closed one of the largest and most strategic transactions for chemical, the acquisition of Freedom Mobile, propelling us as the fourth national wireless carrier and telecom operator in Canada. And perhaps more importantly, establishing us as the one true alternative to the big three incumbents for the benefits of all Canadians. The first quarter of 2024 will mark the end of the first cycle of integration of Freedom Mobile's operation and financial results, and thus provides the last clear image of the impressive leverage impact of that historical acquisition. On a consolidated basis in the first quarter of 2024, Quebec will increase its revenue by 22% to $1.36 billion, its EBITDA by 26% to $560 million, and its cash flow from operation by 21% to $419. We reduce our debt by $145 million and thus improve our debt to EBITDA ratio to 3.3 times while investing more than $140 million in CapEx to continue to improve our networks and invest in growth projects. Specifically in telecom, we are once again very proud to report the strong operational and financial performance. On a last 12-month basis, wireless revenues increased by 104%, wireless EBITDA increased by 80%, and wireless free cash flows also increased by 80% to $681 million. On the regulatory front, we are disappointed by the CRTC last arbitration decision for the access rate on TELUS wireless network. The MVNO rates set by the CRTC and the regulated domestic roaming rates, which are among the highest in the world, are far from reflecting current industry reality. Since this decision will increase our costs considerably, we're forced to reconsider our pricing in some regions, most notably Manitoba, where we do not currently have a network but one to build, and focus on offers that are profitable. Moreover, this decision is not in sync with the Government of Canada desire, as stated in its policy, to enable Canadians to enjoy better prices for their wireless services. Sadly, this will increase two classes of Canadians, those who live in areas covered by Freedom and Digital Network, who will enjoy healthy competition, and those who will be denied the benefits of full presence as Canada affords mobile carriers. While on the regulatory front, I would like to repeat that access to STTP on an aggregated basis could be mandated quickly all across Canada and not only in Ontario and Quebec. In addition, the Commission needs to approve rates that are just and reasonable and also take into consideration the predatory retail prices offered by Bell for its fiber network and its 1.5 gigabyte speed. On that note, it is interesting to see in Bell's latest financial disclosure an increase of more than 300,000 wireline RGUs over the last 12 months, but with barely 11 million of added revenue to show for, unless I am mistaken, the underlying ARPU seems much lower than the CRTC-mandated rates. Turning to our operational results, starting with our telecom segment. I am proud to report that our 100% digital brand, Fizz, finalized its beta phase in early April and is now currently offering its services to more than 26 million Canadians in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, and British Columbia. The reach of the service is expected to increase in the coming months as Fizz will become available in new cities and regions within these provinces under the MDNO framework. In addition, adding to Freedom's growing suite of affordable services, we just launched new affordable home internet and TV services, making Freedom a free product player and giving Canadians better telecommunication options to foster healthy competition in more markets. technological capability was made available to us due to our acquisition of V-Media two years ago. For example, we are offering a very attractive TV sports package at $29 a month, which compared to similar offers from the incumbent at $70 a month. Eligible Freedom Mobile customers in select areas within Ontario are the first to experience both services before they are rolled out to other markets in the coming weeks. We might be fourth in size, but we are undoubtedly number one for customer experience, as we have been for many years. The latest mid-year report of the Commission for Complaints for Telecom Television Services, the CCTS, is a tribute to the exceptional quality of service provided by Vidiotron and Freedom to its customer and the care it takes to resolve issues promptly. While the volume of the complaints identified by the CCTS and the telecommunication industry as a whole increased by a whopping 43%, Vidéotron stood out from the other major competitors with a significant decrease of 11%. Already at the lowest level of complaints among the top five providers, Freedom saw a complaint decrease from 6.5% to 4.7% of the industry, while others saw their numbers of complaints double. This clearly demonstrates the failure of their tactics to acquire customers with low price in the short term, but ultimately frustrating them with deals only available to new customers, unfair price increases surprises, and confusing terms and conditions leading to contract disputes and invoice mistakes. Beware of the small print and press releases footnotes. As further evidence to our unique approach to customer experience, Videotron received several awards during the first quarter of 2024. First, Videotron remains the telecommunication company most admired by Quebecers for the 18 years in a row since 2006, according to L'IGI 2024 reputation study. In addition, according to L'IGI 2024 WOW index study, Les Deux Troncs offered the best in-store experience in Quebec, while Fizz ranked first in Canada for the best online experience for the fifth consecutive year. From a customer standpoint, continuing to build on the success of Freedom, we recorded

60,000 net addition in the first quarter, compared to 26,000 in the same period last year.

This gain is not only attributable to freedom, but also to a strong performance by our cost-efficient brand, Fizz, with its fully digital experience. In Quebec, wireless was the star of the show. With Videotron and Fizz, capturing 21% of gross ads, 31, I'm sorry, 31% of gross ads. Once again, the largest combined share according to the new ads quarterly tracking by Leji. As expected, wireless R2 decreased by $2.97 to $35.94 as compared to Q1 last year. Without any creative accounting, I might add, which is largely attributable to the dilutive impact of freedom prepaid services and FIS, and also due to the market's higher promotional intensity benefiting all Canadian consumers. I would like to point out that, contrary to the incumbents, we do not adjust our ARPU calculation to exclude lower-priced customers in a didn't disingenuous attempt as disguising a very real ARPU drop. Speaking of promotional intensity, a lot has been said regarding wireless pricing in the first quarter. In fact, the situation that prevailed in Q1 started last fall when the incumbents lowered their price substantially and started copying Freedom's strategy. One should not forget that we are the latest in trend in the wireless market, the fourth player still building market share and establishing itself against the big three. We have been at this for multiple decades. Our progress at increasing our network footprint has been huge, and we're extremely proud of the improved quality and performance of our network. But the reality is that we still need a price differentiation. to keep the momentum as we continue to improve and gradually change the customer's perception of freedom in terms of network quality, performance, and client experience. The incumbents clearly resisted this in the first quarter, immediately matching our offers and retaliating with exclusive bottom price offers in Quebec. The irony is That is not despite our success, and even though we are continuing to build market share in Quebec, their tactics are still more detrimental to them than they are to us. In any case, however, this highly competitive environment evolves over time. We are uniquely positioned as the lowest cost operator to continue to generate decent margins and significant cash flows. Consolidated churn rates on post-paid customers were remarkably stable this quarter, unlike our competitors, investing the challenging trend in the market, demonstrating the strong performance of our two brands, Fizz and Bidotron, in the Quebec market, as well as major improvements on the Freedom side, where our efforts on network and customer experience improvements are paying off. On the wireline front, It is obvious that we're facing a desperate competitor in Quebec. Despite all the investments made in the past, our competitors' only way to lure new customers seems to be by offering prices that are lower than anywhere else in Canada using the tried-but-dangerous bait-and-switch strategy where they attract customers with low prices just to raise them a few months later and sometimes even twice. in the first year. While this has a direct impact on our customer base, we choose a much more disciplined strategy, differentiating ourselves with our trusted customer service, along with great network experience, translating into an increase in our pool for our three wireline products.

Turning to the media segment.

Our performance, while improved in all sectors, remains greatly affected by the decline in revenues affecting the industry as a whole and as evidenced by negative adjusted EBITDA of $17 million for the first quarter of 2024. That being said, our digital newspaper, magazine, and out-of-home businesses all improve their profitability despite the ongoing difficult revenue environment. For GROUP TVA, 2024 is a transitional year during which we will continue to implement our major reorganization plan announced in November to refocus and optimize our activities around our emissions as Quebec's leading broadcaster and provider of the quality news and entertainment. We will continue to generate significant cost reductions during the next quarters as our initiatives come on stream. In this context, we're pleased to have reached agreement on the renewal of labor agreements for our employees in Montreal and Quebec City, and also with the regions. Despite the many ongoing challenges facing the media and broadcasting industries, L'Octovia continued to hold the highest market share in Quebec, with very close to 41% for the first quarter in terms of market share. This winter, TVA Network remains the most popular channel every day of the week, with seven of the ten shows in Quebec. This success is due to its main original productions, eight of which reached the one million viewer mark. The reality show Saut de Moine C, which is Get Me Out of Here, ranked first with an average audience of more than 1.6 million viewers. La Voix, which is The Voice, stood out with 1.5 million viewers and was a regular program most watched live. Our daily script show, Indépendable, had 1.4 million viewers and the police drama, Alerte, attracted more than 1.1 million viewers. In terms of news, TBR Nouvelle remains the leader in all time slots with 4.1 million viewers on a weekly basis. Our sports and entertainment division had an excellent performance this quarter, with revenue in EBITDA of $47 million and $4 million, respectively. Junior hockey attendance remained high throughout the quarter, and major shows at the Vidéotron Center, including Pantera, City in Color, and Disney on Ice, were a great success. I will now let Hugues review our detailed financial results.

Merci, Pierre-Calme. On a consolidated basis in the first quarter of 2024, Quebecor recorded revenues of $1.4 billion, up 22%, EBITDA of $560 million, up 26%, and adjusted cash flows from operations of $419 million, up 21% from the same period last year. In our telecom segment, total revenues grew by $255 million, or 28%, EBITDA increased by $101 million, or 21%, and adjusted cash flows from operations improved $63 million, or 17%. Our wireless EBITDA reached $241 million, a 78% growth in the quarter, and wireless revenues increased by 95% at $544 million, reflecting the addition of freedom mobile revenues as well as increases in service revenues and equipment sales. As we continue to increase our margins, we're also making significant investments to develop our brands for the long term, such as taking on additional domestic and international roaming costs, investing more in advertising and branding, as well as reducing handset profit margins and forfeiting some overage revenues. On the wireline front, despite the previously described hostile competitive landscape, we continue to generate growth in our wireline service revenues, and gross margin. In terms of UPEX, the 32% increase this quarter is due, of course, to the consolidation of Freedom Mobile, as the cost containment initiatives at Videoton and FIS continue to pay off, as evidenced by a 2.4% decrease in our operating costs, excluding Freedom. Telecom CapEx quarterly spending, excluding the acquisition of Spectrum licenses, is up $38 million, as compared to the same period last year, which is essentially due to the integration of Freedom Mobile as we continue to invest in the network, as well as LTE Advanced, 5G network expansions, and revenue growth opportunities in targeted areas. Our media segment recorded revenues of $169 million, a 1% decrease, and a negative EBITDA of $17 million, a $10 million improvement. compared to the same quarter last year. Our sports and entertainment segment revenues decreased 4% to $47 million, and EBITDA grew 15% to $4 million in the quarter. Quebecor reported a net income attributable to shareholders of $173 million in the quarter, or 75 cents per share, compared to a net income of $121 million, or 52 cents per share, reported in the same quarter last year. Adjusted income from operating activities, excluding unusual items and losses on valuation of financial instruments, came in at $163 million, or $0.71 per share, compared to $136 million last year, or $0.59 per share. As of the end of the quarter, Quebecor's net debt-to-EBITDA ratio decreased to 3.31 times, the lowest of all of our telecom competitors and peers. In the first quarter alone, we reduced our debt by $145 million, whereas our main competitor increased theirs by the tidy sum of $1.6 billion. Since the closing of Freedom Mobile, we have repaid more than $500 million in net debt and already brought down our leverage ratio from 3.6 times at the time of the acquisition to 3.3 times now. Finally, I'm proud to report that Standard & Poor's announced a few days ago our long-awaited upgrade to investment-grade status. We are very proud of this important achievement, a tribute to our long-standing operational excellence, financial discipline, and very strong balance sheet. We thank you for your attention, and we'll now open the lines for your questions.

All right. So first question comes from Meyer Yagi from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Oui, bonjour. Merci d'avoir pris mes questions. And again, congratulations on your rating increase, rating upgrade on the credit side. I wanted to first ask you about your internet loading in the quarter, which saw a sequential decline. It's obvious that you are trying to balance subscriber loading and profitability. Can you discuss how you see the market moving forward in Quebec and how we should expect your cable business revenue, but more importantly, profitability to behave given the current competitive environment? And as a second question on wireless, close to 30% of net additions, all payments, competitors included nationally, a very strong number, hard not to like it. But I would like you to talk about the quality of the loading that you're seeing. Do you feel that you're pushing too much? It's a weird question, but 30% in a Q1, are you happy with the quality of the loading that you're having And do you think maybe stepping back a little bit and getting a better pricing for the whole market in general might be a better option?

Thank you.

I will answer the last part of your first question regarding the competitive environment. I guess that we should repeat the fact that Quebec has been always competitive. Is it more competitive than ever? Probably. We should say yes. Should we consider that as a consequence of us being more involved in the wireless business and now in bundle services and the rest in other provinces of Canada? One should say probably. It's tough for us to know what future is all about. But again, I will repeat the fact that, you know, we're a low-cost operator. We've been running our business always, you know, with tight tension about, you know, how we spend our money. And we will continue to do this. And then, therefore, whatever, you know, the situation went or goes, you know, we will remain in a good position, you know, to generate profitability. And more importantly than anything else, you know, positive cash flow.

So for the other part of the question, since it's... Yeah, on wireless, yeah, I think you're referring to our 60,000 being 30% of net additions, right, of the industry, right? You know, we're, I mean, we're happy with it. We've said, you know, we've said a number of times that, you know, we keep striving for a good equilibrium between growth and profitability, right? And we feel that we're actually performing pretty well on that front. If you look at our churn, our churn is stable, whereas our competition is increasing. I think that's very important. It continues. You will remember it was the case last quarter as well. So I think that continues to be a very encouraging KPI. So, you know, is 60,000 the right number? You know, we feel that it is the right balance right now. When you look at our profitability and our momentum going forward, you know, it's not... Our prices continue, as we've said in our remarks, as Pierre-Claude said in his remarks. You know, we believe we still, as we are changing the perception, and that takes some time, you know, we feel that we still need a price advantage. And we feel that we've probably struck the right balance between, as I said, that price advantage and the momentum that we're getting from it.

Great. Thank you.

All right. Next question comes from Jerome Dubreuil from Desjardins. Please go ahead.

Oui, bonjour. Thanks for taking my question.

The first one is on the investment grade rating from S&P. We'll see about the other agencies. But if you get the total upgrade, does that change anything in terms of your strategy for your ways of operating or say as she goes?

Thanks, Jerome.

No, we'll continue to perform as we've been performing. And this is certainly something that we've been working on for many, many years. And when we took over Deautron, well, that's now 22 years ago, even more than that, I was saying that we will reduce our debt and we will continue to invest on our network. Fortunately, you know, I guess that, you know, we took a right decision, you know, to to enter the wireless business early as a cable company, you know, late in the process in 2006. And today is certainly for us, you know, a significant flow of growth for revenues and cash flow. I think that, you know, with the Freedom Acquisition, we've been able to realize and close. You know, we're basically showing that, you know, this transaction was fruitful for our shareholders and for our balance sheet. We always focus on cash flows. I know you guys sometimes, you know, look on EBITDA. Yeah, this is certainly something that we should look at also. But at the end of the day, you know, what the kind of cash that you're bringing back to the bank, you know, to reduce your debt compared to the kind of money or the payout that you're giving away or seeing your debt increase instead of reduce. So in a nutshell, no, it's not going to change it. Our perspective, you know, we will continue to work, but we can't ignore the fact that, you know, we're happy of adding the status given that for future issues, the cost of funding will be lower than historically took place.

Great. And speaking of the difference between EBITDA and free cash flow, you also announced recently that you partner with the government to deploy TOWERS. and the Laurentians and the great region of Abitibi. So I'm just wondering if that was already included in the CAPEX guidance that you provided, saying that it's going to be approximately stable or a bit higher in 2024.

Just, you know, I should mention that, you know, as we've been doing with the Région de Rancher in many areas in Quebec where we've been able, you know, thousand homes and we did it with the government of quebec and government of canada help and therefore it's the same for for the uh the new wireless network so uh yeah so they have a clear answer i don't think it's it's no it is not in there because it's going to be almost a zero sum equation okay thank you

All right. Next question comes from Matthew Griffiths from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

All right. Thanks for taking the question.

Just on the credit rating, I just had a quick follow-up. Is there any requirement to reach a certain, you know, leverage target over a certain amount of time? I noticed during the prepared remarks the amount of debt repayment since the acquisition clause was referenced a few times. So just curious if there's a level that you're aiming to achieve in relation to the upgrade. And then just as it relates to FIS, just kind of remembering the launch when it occurred in Quebec. And obviously it has a negative impact on ARPU, which is widely followed. But, you know, I thought maybe you could set some expectations on the positive side, perhaps, about what you expect, you know, the impact to be for subscriber growth and margins as this gets, you know, more widely rolled out and brand awareness kind of increases outside of Quebec. Thanks.

I will answer the FIS aspect and... I think we'll come for the first part of your question. I guess that we should repeat the office as a pretty good example of, you know, what we can consider being actions or operation that brings ourselves as a low-cost operator. The way that digital works, and this is, you know, the lowest price to deliver a service, once you're a BSS, I always say a BSS, you know, Our stack is established. Yes, obviously you need to maintain it and pay licenses on the different software that you operate. But compared to any other source of distribution sources, it's far from being very, very interesting. So we will continue to do this. And then, therefore, we look forward to experience the same success that we've been able to achieve in Quebec. And we've been able, you know, to do a pretty interesting and terrific job in, you know, what, a little bit more than three years, where you've been seeing our loading on the Internet side, you know, being also quite interesting for us and position ourselves pretty well in a certain market share, you know, where, you know, we can obviously face competition with interesting tools and great weapons.

On the present rating, no, there's no specific, to answer your question, there's no specific commitment to answer your question. I mean, we've said publicly last time and we, you know, we're continuing to say it that, you know, we have been de-levering and we intend to continue to operate uh, uh, in, in, in, in the low threes, uh, because, uh, you know, we're very proud of how far we've come, uh, for, for, uh, you know, since many years and, and more specifically since the acquisition of freedom, uh, having been through one of the most transformative acquisitions for us in our history and coming out of it in the, uh, you know, in the low threes, uh, in terms of, you know, net to EBITDA ratio. So we're very proud of what we've done, and we intend to, and we've said this, we intend to continue to operate in that sweet spot of, you know, of the low threes. But there's no specific commitment linked to the upgrade, no.

Yeah, we will continue to work on this. Always, you know, I'm happy to think about, you know, where we were in 2000, about seven times that From there, we bought 45% on by La Caisse de Depot. We built a network. We bought Spectrum, and we delivered growth, and here we are with the lowest debt-to-event ratio. I think it's quite an interesting accomplishment.

Any other question, Mathieu? No, thank you so much for the call. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mathieu.

All right. Next question comes from Stephanie Price from CIBC. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. I was hoping you could provide some color on the recent Freedom Internet announcement. just looking for timing in terms of a broader rollout and whether you expect growth to come from penetration in your mobile base or from subscriber acquisition after the broader rollout. And I guess related, how do you think about the expected ramp in subscribers from that Freedom Internet offer?

Well, in our given projections, as you probably know, Stephanie, it's not, you know, our cup of tea. But I guess that, you know, what we can say is bundling, and we mentioned it, you know, at the beginning of the Freedom Transaction, you know, as Fizz being a standalone product, but also a dual product, you know, with the internet, we believe that bundle is also, you know, an interesting proposal for our customers. So, we really have a full offer, you know, a standalone, we have bundles, And, you know, we'll continue to make sure that, you know, we negotiate the best prices to make this proposal to our customers viable, affordable, and interesting. So we know that, and you know this also, Stephanie, because we've been seeing, and we experienced it also, that, you know, once you've got a bundle of customers, you know, you have a much better price. possibility, you know, to reduce your churn.

And we experienced this in Quebec, and there's no reason we will not be able to share the same experience elsewhere.

Thanks for the color. And then just related, on your higher value offerings from Freedom, just curious if you're seeing, what kind of uptake you're seeing on the plans at the higher data allotments in roaming parks? You know, are you seeing good uptake, or are consumers more focused on the lower tier data plans at this point? And how do you think about that mix shifting over time?

Well, I think that, you know, we will continue to offer the widest possibility. Yes, you know, we should mention and I will repeat that we should not be shy of saying the truth. You know, Freedom was not probably, you know, the company where investment was a priority for the last two, three years. We know that. We knew that, you know, this is the kind of experience that we will face. And then, therefore, you know, we have our CAPEX plan for the coming years. We should say that, you know, fortunately, you know, all the regulatory fronts that we mentioned and for which, you know, obviously we made a lot of representations saying, if the new government of Canada would like to have competition, if new government of Canada would like to see prices going down, then certain things need to be done. And the MVNO and the auction or the auction conditions for the spectrum are considering this and then therefore is offering for company of our perspective an interesting frame. Is it perfect? Certainly not. but it's certainly something that we will use and continue to use, again, to make sure that at the end of the day we'll be able to offer the best proposal at the largest scale as possible and continue to build and improve our network.

Great, thank you.

I think the next question is from Vince. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Still there, Vince?

Yeah. Sorry, here he comes.

Okay. I was afraid that you didn't have a sound problem and we're not listening to you.

Good. You can hear me now?

Yeah.

Great. Sorry. So I just want to start to clarify a couple things. Hugh, in your opening remarks, you referred to telecom capex up $38 million. which I'm pretty sure relates to $132.9 million that was in the press release. And in your supplemental, you show $161 million. I just want to understand the difference there. Is that the government subsidies for Abitibi and any other rural projects?

No, I just said it was up $38 million. So we're up to $161 million.

That is what I meant in my remarks. So the total capex was 161 from the disclosure, correct?

161 is in the supplemental. In the press release, in the statements there and in a couple of places, it's 132.9. No, the number is 161. That is the total capex. Okay, so when you're thinking of no more than $600,000 for the full year, that relates to the $161,000 in the first quarter? It does, absolutely, yeah.

It's in the ballpark.

Yeah. And is there any other adjustments, or is there any nets off of that for government subsidy money in the $161,000?

No, no, no, no.

There's no adjustment for that. Okay. That was clarification number one. Number two... If your post-pay term is 1.1, your prepay term obviously had to be higher than that. If we make some kind of estimate, it seems like your gross ads in wireless in the first quarter, somewhere 200,000, 210,000 range. Does that sound reasonable?

It does sound reasonable. You're certainly in the ballpark. I don't have the exact number in front of me, but, yeah, it does sound reasonable, Vince.

Great. So when you're thinking about market share gains and how well Freedom is doing, would you be looking at that gross ad number, which is about 13% of the total industry ads in the first quarter? Or are you thinking of the net number, even though churn is a much bigger number for your three competitors because their base is so much bigger?

Well, Vince, I would say, you know, all your answers are right. I mean, you know, growth and ads is certainly something that we look. We know, you know, what the churn costs, you know, and we will continue to work our own costs. We know where we can, you know, improve our operation and we're working on. And again, you know, I know that you would like to have probably, you know, more more outcome from our side. But first of all, you know, projections, again, it's not something that we're strong for. And secondly, you know, I think it would not be appropriate to mention to our competitors, you know, where are we going. But the thing is, and I guess that, you know, we've been working all the way in this direction, is to improve our operation, to grow our customer base, and to offer them the best network and the best quality. This is no doubt where we will continue to work.

Thank you for that. Try to clarify something else, Hugh. The subscribers in wireless increased 7.4% year over year. We should be able to get that exactly because we have your numbers from last year and we can just back out. the Q2 sub-ads to get what the pro forma number was at the end of March last year. And now at the end of March this year, it's up 7.4%. You've reported ARPU down 7.6%, but I don't think that's organic because some of that is the distortion. So it may seem on the surface like your revenue actually declined on an organic basis, but what do you actually see if you pro forma Q1 last year? Is your service revenue in wireless up 2% or 3%?

Well, first of all, the one thing you have to understand, Vince, is that in your numbers, what you're taking is the total net ads from last year. I think you're using 35,000. And you have to recognize that only 6,000 of those were from Freedom. 29,000 were Shaw Mobile, which we never got. And even within the 6,000 of Freedom, to be honest, um it was actually more uh prepaids were up and uh and the postpades were actually down and i'm referring of course to q1 2023 now um so um you know that that i think that's the first um difference that we have i think between your analysis and and and and our analysis um you know of the of the 60 000 of this year is 60 000 You were saying, well, it probably compares to 61 last year. It does not compare to 61 last year. If we include the prepaids, it would compare to 32,000 and not 61.

You know what? That is not the question to ask, but that's extremely helpful, Hugh. Thank you for that extra disclosure. We'll definitely fix that going forward. I do have two other quick ones. Just the billion dollars, I'm surprised we've asked yet, but the billion dollars in free cash flow that you talked about on the last call, I assume that is still your, you don't give guidance, but that's your ambition, let's call it, for the year?

As you know, we don't give guidance, but I'll call it an ambition. I like the term. That's fine. and I'm sure you will agree that the numbers that we are releasing today are, if anything, strengthening our, you know, our, how would I say that, our optimism towards achieving our ambition.

Okay, and last thing, look, you take this as a comment if you don't want to talk to your competitors on a call, I understand that, but in the month of March, you mean the flanker brands for Fido, Kudo, Virgin, were all at $34. And you at Freedom were at $29. You had a $5 price cap and you achieved respectable subscriber growth. You're now at a $10 gap because they've all moved up to $39 and you're still at $29. So I just don't quite understand how you think that that is sustainable. $10 is too much. You're going to get more share, but it probably doesn't last. They're probably going to go back to If you don't go up, they're going to go down. So I'm hoping that that is a message that resonates, that your ARPU growth, I think, could be better and not necessarily impact your subscriber growth much. But I'll leave it with that.

Thank you. Thank you, Vince. We listened. We listened to you.

Just on the ARPU, you're making me realize I wanted to say something on the ARPU as well, which I failed to mention to you. Yes, on the 297 decrease of ARPU, two-thirds of it, two bucks basically out of the 297 is due to the dilutive effect of freedom. I think you were mentioning that was maybe one of your questions I did not answer, but just wanted you to have that number. That's helpful, too. And we've... And we've heard your comments. I'm looking at Pierre-Karl, so he's heard your comments on pricing. But we're not surprised of your comments. You have been, if anything, determined in your approach. As always.

Thanks, guys. Next question, please.

All right. Next question comes from David McFadgen from Cormark. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi.

A couple of questions. Just following on the ARPU discussion, is there a certain point in time that you expect ARPU to sort of stabilize anytime soon? I was just wondering on that.

Well, David, I think, you know, just the mathematical effect of dilution. As you know, we are in the midst of launch. We just launched Fizz. We are growing. Our growth is in good part happening through Freedom, which has a lower RPU. So, It would be difficult to say at this point when stabilization, if stabilization happens, just as a first answer on the basis of that mathematical dilution effect. Where will prices go? Nobody has a crystal ball. As we've said, we believe that we are reaching that balance, that good balance, that good equilibrium between momentum and profitability. um we are comfortable with uh the environment as it is today um we feel that as a low cost as mentioned earlier we are have been for many many years the lower cost operator uh in this business and we feel that gives us an advantage and that allows us to continue to strive and to uh generate the cash flows, even in an environment where the top line is still pressured. So, I mean, who knows what will happen, but, you know, we're very happy. You know, we feel very comfortable in this environment.

And, you know, ARPA is an average, as you know, and

You know, we believe that Fizz will be a great success in Canada. And mathematically, you know, Fizz have been, you know, dropping our poo. And there's no reason they will not. It will be a different effect than the one we experienced for the last three years with Fizz. And again, I will repeat that we can afford that because Fizz is a low-cost, operator and it runs on a digital base with costs associated with it much lower. The thing is right now, we just launched. Freedom is an established brand. Freedom has been there, as you know, for many, many years in Ontario and not as much years in Alberta and BC, but Fizz is new. Fizz is launching his advertising campaign Fizz is in a mode of letting know to people that, you know, it's existing. And, again, you know, we consider that we're running for great success with that rent, too.

Okay. So then just on the wireless business, should we assume that you're – focused on maintaining the EBITDA margin, say 40, low 40% then? That's kind of a primary metric you want to maintain. Is that true?

Well, I'll answer that. David, I think we've been talking, you and I, with all the analysts for many, many years of our EBITDA, of our industry-leading EBITDA margin. Of course, again, I'll I'll give you the same answer with respect to the EBITDA margin as I gave a few minutes ago with respect to ARPU. Of course, freedom having a lower EBITDA margin, it had a dilutive effect on our global margin, but we will continue to improve. We have generated and will continue to generate synergies and We feel that this is something we are particularly good at, and I think we will continue to perform better than our competitors on that front. And then we will continue to generate the highest margin going forward. And the cash flows that come with it and that allowed us to deliver over the years, as before, even though we're continuing to invest in our networks and continuing to invest in revenue-generating projects.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, David.

All right. And the last question comes from Drew McReynolds from RBC. Please go ahead. Hi, Drew.

Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks for fitting in here.

First, just a clarification. I think I missed it. The wireless EBITDA, was that $241 on the quarter?

Yes, that's correct. $241 million, yes.

Okay, thank you. I guess just following up on kind of the recent questions around wireless and maybe to Vince's point on the $29, I fully appreciate a lower cost to operate here. But, you know, the big question in the investment community is can you make money down at those price points on a per unit basis? I mean, I'm assuming the answer is yes. But if you want to kind of comment on that, the bigger picture is just trying to understand that the 12% CapEx intensity that you're running at within the context of still presumably wanting to be facilities-based three, five, seven years from now. And so the question is, you know, I think, Hugh, you've talked about, you know, a gradual increase or an eventual kind of increase in that 12% CI. I'm assuming that will be success-based decided, you know, as you kind of go forward, just because you're figuring out all the things you need to do on wireless outside of Quebec. So the question is, how do you determine success in terms of investing behind that success? So hopefully that's clear.

If not, let me know. Well, yeah, you're right, Drew.

We're not going to do business if we're not able to make money. I will use an example, but I don't know if it's comparable, you know, to the Canadian landscape, but, you know, when you look at the competitive environment, and you compare this with other countries, and I think of France, you know, there was a company called Free. They came in with a two-euro service, you know, many years ago. And now Free is coming from nowhere. became an incumbent in the wireless market in France. From nowhere, they became an incumbent. I'm not saying that we're going to do this, but certainly, you know, as a low-cost operator, they were. As a low-cost operator, we are. Definitively, you know, we're not going to do an inflation. We're not here to record our use. We are here to make money out of our customers. And we're going to continue to do this because we can operate at a low-cost structure.

Looks simple, eh? But I guess at the end of the day, it's simple.

We're not spending money that we do not need. And we have discipline. We'll continue to have it. I'm not saying other companies do not have it. But this is certainly something that we've been focusing on.

And as of today, we're seeing, you know, debt reduced, cash flow increasing, revenues going up, customers, you know, happy. There's not too many of the things that we can do or we can expect, you know, realizing.

not challenges, but I would say opportunities, which is the bundling, the bundling, you know, with the freedom, Internet, and television.

This market, Drew, has been very expensive. When we compare, you know, market prices for Internet and for television, compare with the one we experienced throughout decades and decades and decades

We've been competing against satellites, and now we're competing against fiber. We still are the lowest television package proposer. So we see great opportunity moving forward in the bundling service. Do we have objectives? Our objectives will be, you know, adding the best proposal to our customers.

But we feel that, you know, we have good reason to think that we will be successful.

And just on your second question, the second part of your question, absolutely success-based. I mean, we've said this in the past. Yes, we have a comparatively low, perhaps you can call it that, capital intensity. But as we said, right now, we are focusing on making our networks better, focusing on revenue-generating projects, and we'll, on success-based, it's absolutely success-based, as we continue our development, we will see where it makes sense for us to invest. And we know we have an investment cycle in front of us in terms of, you know, we've launched the MVNOs, and at some point, you know, building a network will be required. but we've always said that we will build on the basis of our success. We will first build market share in these areas and then it will make sense for us to invest because we will already be generating the cash flow that will fund the investments going forward. I think it's a good business, a good way to run a business and that's how we've We've always said we would do it. And I can tell you something, Drew.

We have a very tough CFO, and he's telling us, you know, where we should go and where we should not go. I have full confidence in his judgment, and so we're following his advice. Okay. All right. Thanks, Thibault, for the extra context. I appreciate it. Thanks. Because he's right beside me.

Oh, yes.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much, group. And thank you all for being with us this afternoon. We look forward to see you, to hear you again, you know, in the next quarter conference call.

Thanks.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Quebec Corps, Inc.' 's Financial Results 2024 First Quarter Conference Call. Thank you for your participation and have a nice day.