Taiwan Mobile Co Ltd

TWSE:3045

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Taiwan Mobile conference call. Our Chairperson today is Mr. Jamie Lin. Mr. Lin, please begin your call, and I'll be standing by for the question-and-answer session. Thank you.

[Zhichen Lin, executive]

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Taiwan Mobile's First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. Before I start our presentation, let's first go over our disclaimer as per usual. Disclaimer. The information contained in this presentation, including all forward-looking information, is subject to change without notice, whether as a result of new information, further events or otherwise. And Taiwan Mobile Company Limited or hereafter the company, undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained in this presentation. No representation or warranties that are expressed or implied is provided in relation to the accuracy, completeness or reliability of the information contained herein, nor is the information intended to be complete -- intend to be a complete statement of the company, markets or developments referred to in this presentation. All right. Now let's take a look at our business overview, please turn to Page 4 for highlights of the quarter. So as you are aware, Taiwan Mobile merged with Taiwan Star on the 1st of December last year. So 1Q '24 marked the inaugural complete reporting quarter after the combination. Coupled with organic growth from our existing customer base, mobile service revenue delivered a 27% Y-o-Y jump during the quarter. Meanwhile, momo's e-commerce revenue posted a 7% Y-o-Y growth, accelerating from a quarter ago. Our home broadband subscriber base also expanded at 4% Y-o-Y, driven mainly by effective cross-selling towards mobile and Pay-TV customers.

Underpinned by the merger and solid performances across our 3 core engines, that is 5G, e-commerce and home broadband, consolidated EBITDA rose by 22% Y-o-Y, surpassing the TWD 10 billion mark first time in company history. Despite incremental D&A associated with the merger, telecom operating income still grew Y-o-Y, thanks to our network consolidation efforts, which are exceeding our expectations. This shows that our team's excellent execution has already started to pay off. As a result, consolidated operating income reached a new high since 2Q '18 with a 9% Y-o-Y increase.

Next, let's turn to Page 5 for a closer look at our mobile business. The T Star merger has brought 2 million additional postpaid subs to our smartphone user base representing a significant 35% increase. As expected, this led to a dilution of our smartphone postpaid ARPU. That said, our mobile service revenue still demonstrated strong growth jumping 13% quarter-over-quarter and 27% Y-o-Y to reach almost TWD 16 billion. I wish that's U.S. dollars in 1Q '24. This growth was driven not only by the Taiwan Star contribution, but also a 7.1% Y-o-Y ARPU increase in Taiwan Mobile's existing smartphone postpaid users and a strong recovery in roaming revenues.

Further 5G conversion and benign 4G pricing environment continued to positively impact our smartphone ARPU. Contract renewals in 1Q '24 saw a 9% overall uplift in monthly tariffs with over 40% boosted specifically for 4G to 5G renewals. With 5G penetration in our smartphone postpaid user base currently at 37%, we anticipate substantial runway ahead for continued ARPU upside. Our unique bundles such as momobile and double play have proven to be effective in driving upsell and enhancing customer loyalty. The low postpaid churn rate in 1Q '24 reflects both a rational and competitive environment and the successful promotion of these bundles.

Next, let's turn to Page 6 for updates on our e-commerce business. In 1Q '24, our e-commerce revenue increase outpaced Taiwan's total retail sales growth. Its market share gain was driven by a 7% Y-o-Y rise in active users in the quarter. Other than our existing B2C 1P business, we will also scale up our 3P, advertising and live commerce businesses in 2024. Our e-commerce EBITDA margin remained resilient during the quarter as a result of ongoing cost optimization efforts.

Next, let's take a look at our broadband business on the next page. The Q-o-Q and Y-o-Y decline in overall CATV revenue was primarily related to content distribution reduction after Disney shut down its cable TV channels in Taiwan earlier this year. Broadband business on the other hand, continued to grow with subs rising by 4% on the back of steady demand for faster connectivity in our cross-selling bundles, which include cable TV, broadband and OTT services. Broadband subs, including double-play bundles -- including double-play bundle users who are on speeds of 300 megabits or higher, surged by 51% Y-o-Y during the quarter. Now let me pass the virtual mic to our -- let me pass the virtual mic to our CFO, George Chang, for financial overview.

[George Chang, executive]

Thank you, Jamie. Good afternoon, everyone. Let's start with the performance by business. In the first quarter of 2024, consolidated revenue reached TWD 48.3 billion, with the help of T Star merger, telecom business contributed a majority of the Y-o-Y revenue growth and accounted for 43% of the consolidated revenue. Decent growth was seen even if we strip out the T Star impact. As for profitability, consolidated EBITDA reached a record high. The Y-o-Y increase was mainly driven by telecom while momo and cable TV also delivered Y-o-Y growth.

Let's go to the results summary. In addition to robust expansion in revenue and EBITDA, consolidated operating income rose by 9% Y-o-Y, a new high since 2Q '18. Despite the incremental D&A associated with the merger, telecom operating income grew Y-o-Y as the network consolidation is tracking ahead of our schedule. The Y-o-Y surge in nonoperating expenses was driven by higher financing costs as we took on T Star's debt and refinanced it, equipment write-off from the network consolidation as well as foreign exchange translation gains in the U.S. dollar appreciation. Even with the dilution from new share issuance, EPS still recorded a 2% increase Y-o-Y stronger than peers. On a Q-o-Q basis, the drop in revenue was within momo's seasonal patterns while the fall in net income stemmed from a one-off divestment gain in 4Q '23. Let's move on to the balance sheet. Receivable and contract assets rose Y-o-Y, driven by the growth in postpaid subscribers, including T Star users and monthly fee contribution from our mobile bundled plans. The Y-o-Y increase in inventory level was due to a faster turnover of mobile devices. Long-term investment climbed Y-o-Y, mainly on the back of additional TWD 1.3 billion investment in new economic business, including KKCompany in the past year. The Y-o-Y increase in PP&E primarily resulted from T Star's mobile equipment, concessions also rose as we added almost TWD 20 billion worth of spectrum holding specifically the 3.5 gigahertz band for 5G services from T Star.

Right-of-use assets grew Y-o-Y because of momo's warehouse addition and the merger with T Star, but failed Q-o-Q, thanks to the consolidation of our base stations and direct stores. Gross debt went up Y-o-Y to TWD 88.4 billion on to the borrowing inherited from T Star, but decreased Q-o-Q as we paid down some of our bank borrowings since the merger. Benefiting from improving free cash flow and the incremental EBITDA, net debt-to-EBITDA declined sequentially to 1.8 in 1Q '24.

Lastly, let's look at the cash flow. In 1Q '24, cash earnings surged by 22% Y-o-Y on the back of solid EBITDA growth across telecom, e-commerce and broadband business, along with the contribution from T Star. Operating cash flow also benefited from a favorable working capital change in contrast to a year ago when the payable balance was low. Despite the increase in our 2024 CapEx budget, an increasing 1Q '24 investment cash outflow reflected CapEx associated with network consolidation post T Star acquisition and momo's logistics capacity expansions. Our strong free cash flow generation enabled us to pay down more bank borrowings leading to a higher financing cash outflow in the quarter. 1Q '24 free cash flow calculated on a recurring pre-IFRS 16 basis reaching new high since 5G service launched in 2020, translating into an annualized free cash flow yield of 7.7%.

Let me turn the presentation back to Jamie for event updates and key message.

[Zhichen Lin, executive]

Thank you, George. On the awards and ESG recognitions page, I want to walk you through some of our ESG-related achievements during the quarter. Taiwan Mobile made it to the CDP's Climate Change A List for the fourth time. The best amongst Taiwanese telco. Only 17% of the participating companies globally received this top score. We've also been honored to -- honored with the highest grade of A for 3 conceive years in CDP's supplier engagement rating standing amongst the top 12% of evaluated companies. Moreover, our adoption of ISO 20400 sustainable procurement guidance was validated. And we've started to work with our 15 high carbon emitting suppliers in establishing science-based targets for carbon reduction, continuously driving positive change beyond our organization.

Finally, to wrap up our presentation for today, here is the key message we would like for you to take away with. Key message. In the first quarter of 2024, we delivered commendable financial results marked by healthy EPS growth and robust free cash flow. Our core mobile business continued its strong growth trajectory while our -- while we all execute merger integration against already aggressive plans. Looking ahead, we will relentlessly pursue the full potential of these flywheels by, number one, further accelerating the realization of merger synergies and number two, leveraging our expanded scale to seize more growth opportunities.

With that, let's open the floor up for questions. If you're participating online, you are more than welcome to send your questions via the chat box. We will begin by addressing the telephone line questions before we move on to the web. So operator, please go ahead.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Neale Anderson with HSBC.

[Neale Anderson, analyst]

I had a question on the merger synergy timing. And I imagine that a lot of it will be quite steady and stable such as the migration of T Star's customers to 5G. But are there any synergy costs or benefits that are more seasonal or might come through in a more sort of onetime rather than gradually over the rest of the year? If you could help us understand that, that would be much appreciated.

[Zhichen Lin, executive]

Thank you, Neale. When we look at the synergy, most of the synergies are not onetime, most of the synergies are quite recurring. So in terms of customer synergy, moving their 2 million postpaid subscribers to our network and continue to upsell them to a lot of it are unique bundles. Once we are upselling the monthly tariffs increase is quite recurring. In terms of our network, as we continue to consolidate the network and reduce the rental costs, also pretty recurring. We also shut down hundreds of their stores and the savings are also sort of pretty sort of repetitive. So if anything, we -- whenever we consolidate their base stations, we do incur some onetime write-off. So that's a negative -- onetime negative synergy, but the savings we're going to produce from network consolidation will more than pay for these onetime write-offs. I hope that answers your question, Neale.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]

[Zhichen Lin, executive]

Operator, if we don't have any more questions on the telephone line, we do have 1 question online, and we'll move on to address it.

[Operator]

Yes, there is no other question from telephone at the moment.

[Zhichen Lin, executive]

Okay. So we do have 1 question from the online chat box from [ MoneyDJ, Rob Loa ] question is, Jamie and George, the EBITDA growth rate for Q1 is very impressive. How could we expect the momentum to continue throughout the year? How about the EBITDA growth rate guidance for 2025 as the network consolidation moves between Taiwan Mobile and Taiwan Star? How would ceasing services for 3G at the end of June affect positively potential -- positively potentially? The financial figures. Thanks, [ Rob ].

All right. Thanks, [ Rob ]. I think as we continue to consolidate the network, you can expect that to trickle down to our EBITDA. So if you look at Taiwan Star before the merger, they spent around TWD 2 billion per year on base station rentals and associated costs. And so if you -- if we took a year to -- if we take a year to consolidate the network even then you can think about a $1 billion savings from over 2024 from this network consolidation, and it's tilted on the rear end. And now we're ahead of schedule.

We're about at 30% progress, and we're looking to accelerate the pace. So we do expect to deliver -- continue to deliver healthy EBITDA growth throughout the rest of 2024. And 2025, we're not giving guidance yet, but I think you can expect the positive momentum to continue. In terms of 3G shutdown, it will save around another 17 million -- I'm sorry, 17 million-kilowatt hour of electricity, decrease of electricity and yes, so that's the positive sort of recurring EBITDA savings from the shutdown. So it really depends on how the Taipower is going to price the electricity going forward. I hope those answers your question.

Operator, do we have any more questions from the telephone line?

[Operator]

Not at the moment, sir. [Operator Instructions]

[Zhichen Lin, executive]

So if we don't have more questions on the telephone line, we also are not seeing more questions online. I think we can call it a day.

[Operator]

Mr. Lin, there is no further questions at this point in time.

[Zhichen Lin, executive]

All right. Thank you, everyone. We look forward to seeing you at our next edition of the result conference.

[Operator]

Thank you. Thank you for your participation. This concludes the conference. You may now disconnect. Good bye.