Telekom Austria Ag (TKMAF) Q2 2023 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Thank you very much and a wonderful good morning from a sunny Vienna. We look back to, I think, the second quarter, but the details will now be presented by Thomas Arnoldner, our CEO, Siegfried Mayhofer, our CFO, and Alexander Platter, our Chief Operating Officer. I hand over to start with Thomas, who will go through the highlights of the second quarter. Thomas, please. Thank you, Hans, and hello. Hello. everyone on the call, whether you're in an office or on a beach. As you have seen, we have again posted solid results for the second quarter. We were again able to grow our revenues. They increased by 7% to approximately 1.3 billion euros. This increase was mainly driven by value-protecting pricing measures, or read them also as inflation, linked price increases, and the continuation of our upselling activities. Based on The better than expected first half of this year, we also decided to raise our revenue guidance from around 4% to now around 5% growth for the full year 2023. This positive revenue development led to an EBITDA increase of 6% to 486 million euros, despite higher operating expenses. However, these operating gains were fully offset by the lower financial result. Higher interest rates compared to the second quarter of last year resulted in higher interest expenses. In addition, the financial result was negatively impacted by exchange rate effects, mainly by the Belarusian ruble devaluation against the euro. Our capital expenditures increased by 148 million euros to 359 million euros. Of this amount, however, approximately 110 million euros was invested to secure our spectrum in Croatia for another 15 years. In addition, investments in the broadband roller, particularly in Austria, were higher than in the prior year. As a result of the higher capex and ch...