Sustained financial performance despite macro-economic context and competitive environment nationwide

Orange Belgium

Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 11:00 PM 4 min read

The commercial performance remained positive especially in postpaid, despite the limited growth of the market compared with last year and a competitive environment nationwide.
Thanks to the success of the Go portfolio and the effectiveness of the “Go Extreme Special Edition” promotion, as well as the hey! Portfolio, 33k new mobile postpaid were added bringing total subscribers to 2.8m (+3.5% yoy)
Cable customer base increased by 22k, with an ending base of 417k customers (+13.9% yoy) within a context of the end of the Covid boost.
B2C convergent ARPO decreased by 0.6% yoy to €73.2, mainly because of the discounts provided in the mobile tariffs, as well as the growing Love Duo customer base.
Mobile only postpaid ARPO increased by 1.5% yoy to €19.9 mainly explained by the increase in customer roaming.

Orange Belgium: key operating figures
	H1 2021	H1 2022	change
Mobile postpaid customer base (in ‘000)	2 681	2 775	3.5%
Net adds (in ‘000)	41	33	-19.7%
Mobile only postpaid ARPO (€ per month)	19.6	19.9	1.5%
Cable customer base (in ‘000)	366	417	13.9%
Net adds (in ‘000)	41	22	-44.9%
B2C convergent ARPO (€ per month)	73.6	73.2	-0.6%

H1 Financial Highlights

Revenues reached 677.3 million euros, increasing by 3.3%, despite the loss of Mobile Vikings revenues as from Q2 2022. Retail service revenues continued to grow by 6.4%, mainly thanks to higher convergent service revenues (+13.0% yoy)
EBITDAaL increased by 3.5% yoy to 166.8 million euros, mainly driven by higher retail service revenues, supported by effective cost management despite the growing pressure linked to the macro-economic context. Stable EBITDAaL margin at 24.6%
eCapex grew by 5.8% yoy to 86.0 million euros, mainly explained by the acceleration of the implementation of the network sharing with Proximus and the deployment of 5G

Orange Belgium Group: key financial figures

in €m	H1 2021	H1 2022	change
Revenues	655.9	677.3	3.3%
Retail service revenues	460.8	490.5	6.4%

EBITDAaL	161.2	166.8	3.5%
margin as % of revenues	24.6%	24.6%	6 bp
eCapex¹	-81.3	-86.0	5.8%
Operating cash flow²	79.9	80.8	1.2%

Net financial debt	124.4	65.3

eCapex excluding licence fees. In H1 2021 Orange Belgium paid 10.9 million euros on licence fees. In H1 2022 Orange Belgium paid 10.9 million euros on licence fees.
Operating cash flow defined as EBITDAaL – eCapex excluding licence fees

Xavier Pichon, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

The events in the world during the first half of this year have had major impact on the macro-economic situation with unprecedented inflation and rising energy costs. In addition, we notice that the market has been slowing down with fewer market movements in a competitive environment nationwide. Nevertheless, Orange Belgium has been able to provide positive commercial results, consolidating our position in mobile and improving our market share in broadband. Proof of the company’s strong resilience.

Following the spectrum auction in June, we were able to obtain the maximum of key 5G spectrum available. This spectrum will allow us to deploy a multi-gigabit 5G network with outstanding coverage and capacity. In combination with the switch-off of 3G and later 2G, this will allow optimum usage of the spectrum providing the optimal services for the customer. In addition, during the first half of this year, we already made the 5G network available to our postpaid customers and we announced the opening of a second 5G Lab in the heart of Liège. True to our commitment to act as an engaged and responsible operator, we opened the Orange Digital Center in Brussels, free and open to all to promote learning.

Antoine Chouc, Chief Financial Officer, stated:

As last year, we have been able to deliver solid financial results, both in revenues as well as in EBITDAaL. Despite the loss of Mobile Vikings, our revenues have improved over the first half of the year. The growth comes mainly from the positive commercial performance and the review of our fixed and mobile tariff plans.

In a context of macro-economic uncertainties with rising inflation and increasing energy costs we have been able to control our costs successfully. Indirect costs have grown at a slower pace than inflation over the same period. Consequently, we were able to increase our EBITDAaL by 3.5% compared with the same period of last year.

We remain cautiously optimistic and confirm our guidance for the year 2022, with low single-digit revenue growth, EBITDAaL between 350 million euros and 370 million euros, and eCapex between 210 million euros and 230 million euros.

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