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I'd like to turn the conference over to Dominic Grossman. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our Q1 2022 analyst and investor conference call. My name is Dominic Grossman. And here with me today, I have our CFO, Martin Mildner; and my colleague, Stephan Gramkow.
Martin Mildner will first take you through our presentation with the business development Afterwards, we will be happy to answer your questions. Martin, the floor is yours. Go ahead.
Thank you, Dominic. It's also a pleasure for me to welcome all of you to our 3 months results analyst and investor webcast for the first quarter 2022.
And before I will start with the details of our financial results, I'd like to highlight already at the beginning of this presentation that we look back to successful first 3 months in 2022, not only on the stock market but even more in the economy. There is at least -- since the beginning of the war in the Ukraine, a great uncertainty, which influenced a lot of business in mostly all industries. In this context, we could say that this was not only a solid quarter for us, but a really good quarter for our group. Moreover, we are also able to confirm our guidance from December 2021, and also -- which we confirmed in March 2022 on this year, not only with respect to our full year revenue expectations, but also with regard to the expected EBITDA for the year 2022, but I will come to this later on.
As always, before I will go into each segment of our group, let me start on Slide 2 of our presentation with an overview of the most important KPIs on the United Internet Group as of 31st of March 2022, which means the figures for the first 3 months of our financial year. We were able to increase our customer contract basis in the first 3 months by 170,000 contracts, which leads to a total number of 26.85 million customer contracts. Our revenue for the first 3 months reached EUR 1.4347 billion, which leads to an increase of 3.7% compared to the first 3 months in 2021. Before I will come to the earnings of our group, I'd like to remember you, and you can read this also in footnote 1 on Page 2 of our presentation, that we had not only in the first 3 months in 2021, but also in the first quarter of this year, some positive nonoperating earnings, which we excluded from the earnings figures shown to you on Page 2. So our operative EBITDA for the first 3 months amounts to EUR 329.2 million. And therefore, our EBITDA is 5.5% above the operative EBITDA for the first month of last year. Our operative EBIT for the first 3 months in 2022 amounts to EUR 209.4 million, and therefore, it is 6.8% above the operative EBITDA for the first 3 months of last year.
Our operative EBT for the first 3 months amounts to EUR 192.4 million compared to EUR 195.7 million in the first 3 months of last year. This represents a reduction of 1.7%. As you can see from the footnote 2, from Page 2 of the presentation, this reduction in the EBT is mainly driven by 2 effects in our financial income and our results from associated companies. Firstly, the EBT is affected by a reevaluation of financial derivatives in the total amount of approximately EUR 8 million in connection with outstanding claim against Warburg Pincus in connection with the acquisition of the shares in IONOS in the year 2017. The second negative effect on the EBIT is also with an amount of approximately EUR 8 million, is related to our participation in to Tele Columbus. In this first quarter -- in the first quarter of 2021, this participation in Tele Columbus was reflected in our accounts as so-called an asset for sale. In accordance with the rules of IFRS 5, the allocated financial results of an asset for sale will not be shown anymore in the results from associated companies. So that's the EBT for the first quarter in 2021, was shown without the proportional results of Tele Columbus. And then due to the successful takeover of Tele Columbus by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and our own reinvestment in Tele Columbus through the Kublai GmbH as a holding company, we now have to show this negative result of Tele Columbus again in our results from associated companies and therefore, reduced our EBT compared to the last year.
Consequently, also our EPS, so the earnings per share decreased by 5.2% from EUR 0.58 in the first 3 months in 2021 to EUR 0.55 per share in this quarter. The EPS before the purchase price allocations amounts to EUR 0.56 per share, which represents a decrease of 4.4% compared to EUR 0.68 per share in the last -- first quarter of 2021. We would also like to highlight that our EBITDA and our EBIT includes not only EUR 8.3 million cost in connection with the rollout of the 1&1 mobile network, but also the marketing investments in the total amount of EUR 6 million in IONOS for the brand awareness. Both investments are fully in line with our announcement in December 2021, and where we stated that 1&1 will spend in total EUR 70 million in 2022 for the 1&1 mobile network rollout, and that IONOS will spend additional EUR 30 million for the brand awareness.
I would now switch over to our segment Access, and we'll start with Consumer Access, which is, as you know, related to the business of 1&1. And the fact that Markus Huhn, the CFO from 1&1, had webcast already this morning, I'd like to focus only on some key elements for 1&1. On Page 4, we will start with the development of the customer contract. During the first 3 months, there were an increase of 60,000 customer contracts coming from 15.43 million at the end of 2021, up to 15.49 million customer contracts at the end of March 2020. 11.28 million customer contracts are linked to mobile Internet contracts, which mean an increase of 90,000 contracts in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the end of last year 2021. On the other hand, we saw a small decrease of 30,000 broadband connection contracts in the first 3 months, coming from 4.24 million at the end of 2021 and 4.1 million contracts at the end of March 2022. If we have a look on Page 5 of our presentation, as the revenues of the segment Consumer Access for the first 3 months in 2022. We can consider that the most relevant service revenues increased by 3.5% to EUR 789.1 million, and are therefore in line with the announcement outlook of 1&1. The low margin hardware revenue decreased in the first 9 months by 11.5% to a total number of EUR 180.3 million.
On Slide 6, you can see that the operative EBITDA of Consumer Access increased in the first 3 months by 11.6% to a total number of EUR 186.4 million, which represents an EBITDA margin of 19.4% compared to 17.4% in the prior year. I'd like to state again that the EBITDA also includes cost of EUR 8.3 million for the rollout of the mobile network infrastructure.
Page 7 shows the EBITDA of 1&1 separated into the 2 reported segments of 1&1. On the one hand, the segment Consumer Access. And on the other hand, the new segment, 1&1 Mobilfunknetz, which means the mobile network. In fact, that the mobile network segment includes so far only the cost for the network rollout in the amount of the EUR 8.3 million. The pure Consumer Access segment shows even a better operative EBITDA for the 3 months of EUR 196.2 million, which represents an increase of 11.7% compared to 2021.
I'm now coming to the segment Business Access, which is related to the business of 1&1 Versatel. In the first 3 months of '22, you can see only a slight increase of the revenues by 0.1% to EUR 128.4 million compared to EUR 128.3 million in '21. As you can maybe remember, the first quarter of '21 was driven by very high revenues due to higher voice traffic connections with the lockdown -- which are linked to the lockdown due to the COVID pandemic. And this was leading to a high growth rate of more than 8% compared with the quarter -- the first quarter in 2020. So therefore, we are comparing here really strong quarter in '21 with our current quarter in '22. On Page 9, you can see that the EBITDA of the segment Business Access was decreased by 4.2% to EUR 36.6 million with an EBITDA margin of 28.5%. Also here, we have to explain that there's not only an effect of EUR 1.6 million due to the high voice traffic in the past year, but also on the 1&1 Versatel business, initial start-up costs in the amount of EUR 1.8 million for the construction of the infrastructure for the 1&1 mobile network, particularly for the creation of data centers as well as fiber connections. If you compare these effects with the earnings of the previous year, you have a positive development on the earnings. Furthermore, keeping this in mind and having an entire year perspective, we stated clearly in our quarterly results report that we assume that there will be a visible growth in the Business Access segment over the entire year related not only to revenues but also to the EBITDA.
We are now coming to our second segment, which we call Applications. We will start, as always, with the subsegment Consumer Applications, which represents our Mail & Media business, especially with the strong brands, WEB.DE and GMX. Within Consumer Applications, we count more than 42.64 million consumer accounts, with approximately 40.15 million of free account and 2.49 million are pay accounts. Of these 42.64 million accounts, more than 27.7 million accounts are linked to mobile usage accounts. The cloud usage accounts could be increased by 200,000 accounts so that now 22 million accounts are linked to the cloud storage. The revenues of Mail & Media increased by 7.5% to EUR 70.2 million in the first 3 months of 22 million. Furthermore, with respect to the EBITDA, we increased by -- which was increased by 3.9% from EUR 25.7 million in '21 to EUR 26.7 million in '22, which results in a strong EBITDA margin of 38%. We like to note again that a positive noncash valuation effect from derivatives in the amount of EUR 0.8 million are excluded from the before said numbers.
Let us now come to our last segment, Business Applications, which now represent a business of IONOS. On Page 14, you can see the that IONOS increased its customer contracts in the first 3 months by 90,000 contracts. They have now 8.87 million contracts in total, nearly half of it comes from the domestic business, so 4.29 million contracts, and a little bit more than the half is coming from a abroad business, 4.58 million contracts.
If we first take a look on the revenues of IONOS, we see on Page 15, again, a very strong growth rate of 17.1% and total revenues of EUR 300.1 million for the first 3 months in '22. As Mr. Dommermuth and myself said already in our last webcast for the year-end results of '21, there is, of course, a strong performance of the aftermarket business, which is mainly related to the domain parking platform and the domain parking business of Sedo. Even if we see this strong performance for the aftermarket business in the first quarter '22, again, we have also a strong performance coming from the cloud hosting and cloud business of IONOS, which was growing by 8.2% without taking the aftermarket business into account.
With respect to the EBITDA of IONOS. We see an increase of the EBITDA by 4.9% to EUR 83.1 million in the first 3 months compared to the first 3 months of '21, where the EBITDA was EUR 97.2 million. As I already said earlier, this EBITDA is affected by EUR 6 million for the additional marketing expenses for the brand awareness of IONOS. Even with this kind of additional growth initiatives, IONOS will still remain with a very high attractive EBITDA margin of above 27.7%. So I'm now coming to the key financials of our group. On Slide 17, we summarized a few more KPIs as of 31st March of 2022. On this slide, on Slide 17, you can see again our KPIs for our group revenues, our EBITDA and the development of our customer contracts. Furthermore, and not mentioned so far, I'd like to drive your attention to the CapEx, which amounts to EUR 82.3 million for the first 3 months of '22, which is roughly 30% higher than in '21. Secondly, I'd like to mention our free cash flow in the first 3 months of '22. You will see that we did not only show in the free cash flow after leasing, which was in the first quarter '22 negative with an amount of EUR 49.4 million, but we've shown also the operative free cash flow after leasing, which resides to an amount of EUR 47.8 million and which is 8.9% better than the free cash flow of the last year. The reason for the negative free cash flow results in a pure phasing effect due to a payment obligation in the amount of EUR 97.2 million. This payment obligation is linked to a so-called [indiscernible], and was sent to us at the end of '21 with an payment target obligation at the end of year, January 22. So that means that the payment obligation from this invoice had to be booked as an expense already in '21, but the cash out had been deferred in '22. Last but not least, you can see that we increased our bank liabilities from EUR 1.7126 billion at the end of December '21 by roughly EUR 50 million to a total net liabilities of EUR 1.7625 million at the end of March '22. Our equity ratio increased by 1.4 percentage points from 50.9% at the end of '21 to 52.3% at the end of the first quarter in '22. Last but not least, on Page 18, you can see again the bridge from our EBITDA to our operator-free cash flow, where you can find again the phasing wholesale payment in the amount of EUR 97.2 million.
Last but not least, on Page 19, we are coming to our outlook for the financials of the entire year '22. As I already stated at the beginning, we are still convinced that the guidance from December '21 is still valid. And therefore, we are pleased to be able to confirm this guidance, again, not only with respect to our guidance of the total revenues of our group of approximately EUR 5.85 billion, but also with respect to the EBITDA, where we stated that we expect the EBITDA on the same level as of the last year 2021. However, the already mentioned investments of 1&1 in the amount of EUR 70 million, for the 1&1 mobile network rollout as well as the additional marketing activities of IONOS in the amount of EUR 30 million for the increase of the brand awareness are, of course, already reflected in this guidance.
With respect to our investments, we can also confirm our guidance of a CapEx in the range of EUR 800 million up to EUR 1 billion, particularly for the construction of the 1&1 mobile network as well as for the expansion of the fiber optic network of 1&1 Versatel to supply additional expansion areas and connect the 5G antennas for 1&1.
So thank you very much again for your time to join our 9 months -- to join our 3-month call, and I'm now looking forward to your questions during our Q&A session.
Operator, will you take over the lead again, please?
[Operator Instructions]
Our first question comes from Ulrich Rathe from Jefferies.
I have 2 questions, please. The first one is on the inflation exposure. Could you comment a little bit on what you are seeing with regards to energy cost and wage cost, also in the context of how this looked at the time of the presentation of the 4Q results versus now? And how this affects your outlook on the guidance, internally? Second question is on IONOS. I mean it sounds like the IPO is a little bit in the waiting loop now. That's fair enough. But businesses like that often get managed for a particular profile according to what would be valued in the market, which may not always be exactly how management would manage it if it weren't a public market story. So could you -- in this case, obviously, a bit more focus on top line at the expense of margin. Would you consider changing the way you manage IONOS for the time being? Or do you think this is simply, also from an internal point of view, the right way of managing this company at this point in time? And then maybe just one quick clarification. Could you just comment on the nature of these derivatives in Consumer Applications? Why are they there?
Ulrich, thank you very much for your questions. Regarding the first question whether how we see the inflation, and whether the price is already in our guidance. Of course, nobody is, at the moment, able to see what's happening in the next months, in the next days, in the next weeks. But of course, we are looking carefully at this kind of -- I think the wage costs, of course, are clearly influenced by the inflation. But if you if you would -- how should I say it, if you look at the inflation, I think you have to differentiate between the energy part and the normal inflation. And we think we have to look carefully how this will develop. And some of the impacts are clearly already considered for our guidance. But if the circumstances will change in the future, nobody can see how this will have a positive or negative impact. So therefore, Currently, we are feeling good. But I think you have to look from day-to-day at the moment due to the really uncertainties in the market.
On your second question regarding IONOS. I think you know exactly that we are running IONOS in a way where we would say they are at the moment already half listed, in fact, that we are reporting quarter-by-quarter about IONOS. Yes. So from my point of view, there will be not a game-changer if IONOS would be listed for themselves. We are managing IONOS in the same way as before. And I think you can see this clearly from what we did over the past years that we clearly said we do not manage the company a way that we're showing really attractive revenues or margins or whatever. We're always really clear to you, to the market, to the investors and the analysts that -- we think that this is a strong business, and that we'd like to stay in the company for a long time, even it would be listed and that we are not looking for a great exit through an IPO but that we are really for a long-term perspective of the company. And therefore, this is exactly how we manage IONOS and this is exactly why we also said last year, but also this year that we are also keeping a decrease in the EBITDA to have on the long run, a better company with a much better brand awareness, and therefore, I do not think that the IPO will drive us in any different way how we will manage the company.
Your third question, I think, was regarding the Consumer Applications side, what was the reason for the derivatives. This is mainly driven, as you know, that they are selling also contracts, the energy. And in fact, that we are having a long-term perspective on this contract. And in fact, that we are always buying energy without having the risk to make losses on it, that we are buying energy for lower prices. And then the auditors have to see what is the market price. And the problem is if the market price for energy is higher than the buying price from us, there is a positive effect, in which they are showing in this derivatives.
Our next question comes from Titus Krahn from Bank of America.
I have a couple of questions on Versatel, maybe then a quick 1 on the Business Applications segment. So on your investments and the Business Access segment and the contracts with the Consumer Access segment. At the moment, you're investing quite heavily in infrastructure with a goal to pay off the long-term contracts, particularly with your Consumer Access segment. How does inflation impact the economics of those contracts? And have you've actually safeguarded them through specific mechanism? And then maybe more for 2022. On your current network rollout in the Business Access segment, how do you see the availability of labor and equipment for your investments? And as CapEx for the [ labor ] is still quite limited in Q1, will they increase similarly to the Consumer Access segment in the second half of the year? And to what extent do you already have visibility on the supply chains to indicate where within the EUR 800 million to EUR 1 billion guidance range you would expect to end up?
And then maybe quickly related, given it's also an inflationary topic on the Business Access segment. Do you see any impact on the demand for those services from customers facing higher costs elsewhere? And generally, can you comment maybe on the global market trends? Is it a similar focus on marketing and expansion from your competitors?
Titus, thank you also for your questions. I hope I was getting all of the questions. First of all, the first question was regarding Versatel investments and the question how we are calculating inflations, and so on. Of course, this is always a big topic for every company in the world, I would say, at the moment. We are looking carefully to it. We have, in general, also price inflation clauses in our contracts. So therefore, we are really confident that this is all priced in our guidance. And so therefore, we are not seeing any issues so far at this point of time. Regarding the question of the investments and whether we will increase the investments on the Versatel side, but also on the 1&1 side over the next quarters. Of course, we will do it. I think this is clearly what also Mr. Huhn explained that we are now coming into the investment phase. And as I said, the guidance of our investments from EUR 800 million to EUR 1 billion is still valid. We confirm this and, therefore, you could imagine that we can only confirm it if we are believing that we are able to invest even if the -- market condition from the supply chain, of course, difficult at the moment, but we are really confident that we can stay with our plans. I think the last question was regarding...
Regarding the Business Applications segment and any impact from -- on customer demand.
Thanks, Titus for remember me. I think you see that it was -- let me start again, what I said before, it was already a really good and high year in 2021. And we are now seeing, again, a really good year. And with revenue growth of 70%, I think we are really we are really good in the market. I think we are much better than the competitors at the moment. We think that the investment in the brand awareness is really necessary to stabilize this over the long run. But at the moment, we see a strong demand by our customers. We see really good products which are fitting to our customers. WordPress, I think, is the right product for our customers. So therefore, we think that we are in a really good position in the market, and we do not see any issues for the next months or quarters, which are going in a different direction than as it is at the moment.
Our next question comes from Stéphane Beyazian from ODDO.
Two questions on IONOS, if I can. The first one is how long -- and I understand that's a volatile business, but how long do you think that the Sedo performance can continue? Or do you still consider that it's quite volatile and hence, it's more likely that it will return to possibly lower levels than where we are today? And my second question is, with the U.S. web hosters valuation coming down, are you increasingly seeing M&A opportunities, not just in the U.S. but overall in general? And if you were to look at some mergers, where do you mostly see the potential for synergies? How significant can that be?
Stéphane, thanks. I think the -- we explained over the last quarter, I think over the last 1.5 years, clearly, that we have path going with IONOS, which -- they are coming from a, I would say, revenue in their core business from below 5%. And we said that we are looking in the long run for the core business. So that means the hosting business and the cloud business that we are coming close to a double-digit number in the revenue growth, maybe slightly below but close to a double-digit number. This is what we said for a long run of I would say -- I said over 3 to 4 years. And what you are seeing currently over the last quarter that we are increasing our core revenues step-by-step. And as we highlighted here, we are now at 8.2%, and we are not seeing any signs that this will change again, and that this will decrease. So of course, the company is always affected, but this is the same for the competitors by this aftermarket business.
So from our business, especially from the Sedo business. But we've shown always in our reports, the differentiation what is related to Sedo and what is related to the other business, which is really more the core business of the company. And you can see the good increase. And as I said, we do not have any signs at the moment that this will change and that we are really on our way to -- which we announced over the last, I would say, 18 months. Regarding your second question of the M&A opportunities. So if you're looking at IONOS, I think the question was related to IONOS. We were always looking for companies to acquire. And there were some bigger transactions like the acquisition of STRATO, but there was also some smaller acquisitions like in the last year WE22 where we are looking for companies which can bring value to our portfolio by product. And this is, of course, always our DNA to look whether they are companies in the market, which are suitable to our business. And of course, if there are opportunities to get companies now also due to lower valuations. Of course, we would have some appetite, but it has to be the right company, it has to be the right fit, especially from the product side. And so therefore, I would say there is something we will always look for it. Whether we will do it or not, this is always depending on the asset itself.
[Operator Instructions]
And our next question comes from Usman Ghazi from Berenberg.
Two questions from my side, please. First question is just on the cloud business within IONOS. Could you kind of give some color on how that's doing? I know it was a -- can't recall number, was it 15% of revenues in the past, and it was growing double digits. So any kind of update on that part of the pie in IONOS, would be great to get. And then the second question was the -- I guess, going back to Versatel, and going back to one of your earlier comments, Martin, from one of the calls where you mentioned that, look, it would be stupid for United Internet not to explore partnership with an infra fund to deepen the FTTH build that Versatel is doing potentially going to consumer areas rather than stick to business box. I was just wondering if there was any additional discussions that you have had over the last months on this, particularly because, obviously, we're getting into the 1&1 network build now. So if there were going to be any synergies in deploying fiber closer to homes with that build, I guess, this is the time to be considering it.
Usman, always really good questions. First of all, regarding the cloud business, I think the cloud business is developing quite well. And it's not only growing in the double digits. So double-digit could be 10%, it could be -- or 99%, close to 100%, I would say the cloud business is still small, of course, but it's growing much more than 10%. Obviously, less than 99%, but I would say somewhere in the middle. And we are really believing that this business has a strong, strong future for -- to becoming a much more relevant part of the IONOS revenues over the time. And what we are clearly seeing is the demand of the customers. Of course, we are looking for the B2C customers on the small, medium enterprises, but what we are also facing more and more demand from authorities and public sector. So therefore, it is coming from both. So from the typical and from the heritage of the B2C business.
But as I said, we are clearly seeing also -- and this is mostly driven by the differentiation that we are an European hosting company with a clear DNA on European data protection, European servers. And this is something which authorities are more and more looking for. And as I already told you in different cohorts, also schools, platforms and so on, are asking us more and more for services. But clearly, the heritage and the focus will always be on the small and medium enterprises and private customers. But it's a growing business. It's a good business. And it's becoming more important. On the Versatel side...
Before we go to Versatel, I kind of want to have this follow-up, sir. I mean is there anything you can do to scale that part of the business quicker than in an organic fashion? I mean are there any kind of significant targets out there that -- I mean -- let me ask it another way. Would acquisitions in that segment be something you'd be looking at? Or would you like to just grow this organically?
I think it's tricky question, of course. If you like to grow through M&A and you're looking for buying revenues, this is easy to do. But on the other hand, this is really more from a platform perspective. It has to be -- it has to be suitable also from your systems from the entire backbone, yes. So therefore, it is easier to acquire products, I would say, which you can add and which you can put to the product portfolio for your customers to acquire companies in the cloud segment. Then it has to fit to your own backbone. And so therefore, I think it is not really that you're growing only from this one. Then you have to look for companies with customers, but then you have to transfer these customers on your own infrastructure.
So therefore, if there are companies outside, I can only state again what I said to the other question, that if there's a company which suits to us, we are clearly looking for these kind of opportunities. But it has to be really to fit into our portfolio strategy, and we would not end up with 10 companies with different kind of backbones or different kind of systems, yes? So that's how we are believing in 1 platform and 1 backbone. And so therefore, if there's something interesting in the market, of course, we will look at it, but this depends really on the asset. On your second question of Versatel, and we have to be stupid if we are not looking or thinking about partnerships. This is clearly what I said, and it's clearly what I just believing in. But we also said we are not looking only for, I would say, dump or stupid money like a telecom, which are only looking for deconsolidation and to have the debt out of the balance sheet. I think our leverage structure is totally different. And what we clearly said is if we have to -- if we will think about this, this should be really a partnership with a partner who brings not only money, but real expertise, real -- on top expertise to our business where we are afterwards, better, faster and more, maybe, intelligent on the rollout of the businesses of Versatel.
And of course, this is our obligation as a Board always to think about strategic opportunities. And I clearly can say that we are always looking at it, but there is nothing which we can say at the moment that there's any development into it. So we are really focusing currently on their business. They have now a big task also towards 1&1 to drive their mobile network rollout, and we are really focusing on it. And of course, we are also focusing on strategic options, but we are really now on the business side at the moment.
And our next question comes from Jonas Blum from Warburg Research.
Just a small one on Versatel, given that you are now reporting also the dedicated cost towards constructing the 1&1 network. Could you give us a guidance here for what sort of OpEx you're expecting for the full year '22? And then just following up on the M&A part towards IONOS, do you see enough leeway to move within the current financial setup for additional M&A? Or have you perhaps talked to [indiscernible] about potential capital increase pre-IPO?
Jonas, this is Dominic speaking. Firstly, to the costs for 1&1 mobile network on the Versatel. So at the moment, we are expecting for 2022, a single-digit -- the higher single-digit amount for the full year. So there's no real guidance for the market, but it's more or less what we have seen in Q1, and maybe this will also follow in the next quarters.
On the OpEx side, yes, so not on the CapEx side. So we are talking about the OpEx. Only to clarify, the CapEx is a different story. But on your second question, Jonas, regarding the IONOS M&A activities, and whether they have enough, I would say, power to make M&A acquisitions. I think it's depending really, is it a bigger or a smaller transaction, yes? And during the past months and years, we're really looking more for smaller transactions, for smaller companies, which have products, which brings us forward on our product side.
So of course, if we would look more for bigger transactions like taking over a hosting company which has a relevant revenue, then of course, we have to think how we would like to finance it. But I think they have really strong and solid numbers. We have a really strong leverage basis. And so therefore, I would not say that the financial situation of our group or even of IONOS would hinder us to do everything. I think it's really always depending, as I said before, more in the strategic perspective, whether there is some company or there are some companies outside which bring -- could bring us forward. I think it's -- from our point of view, clearly not that we have to acquire a company only for increasing our revenues. So we are really strong. We are really big. We have a big earnings. We are not really hindered by having a great company, having a great business without further acquisitions. So therefore, if there's something -- some companies outside, we will carefully look at it, but there's no -- really no need for us to do it. And if there's an opportunity. And as one of your colleagues said before, the prices are good at the moment due to the down rounds of companies, maybe yes, but currently, we are not really looking for these kind of things.
As there are no further questions in the queue would like to hand the call back over to our speakers for any additional or closing remarks.
Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for attending our call today. Please don't hesitate to contact us for any follow-up questions. We wish you a nice day. Stay safe and goodbye.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.