Service revenue slowed for the incumbents but stayed in the low-single digit band, with Softbank still ahead followed by NTT. Mobile divergence continues to play out with SB leading the pack and is likely to remain so in our view. Industry EBITDA improved as NTT inflected to growth and led to a strong EBIT beat this quarter.
Softbank printed a strong beat across its revenue and net profit, ahead by 5% and 6% respectively. Consequently, management raised its FY24 guidance by roughly 2% for Revenue, EBITDA and Net profit while EBIT was raised by 5.6%.
KT saw weaker service revenue but better headline EBIT and bottom-line growth from a lower base last year. Mobile kept steady and core B2B inflected to growth despite restructuring efforts, service revenue trend was impacted again by weakness in Content and BC Card.
Millicom has reported a solid set of results with improving service revenue trends, a nice reversal in Home Broadband nets adds (driven by Colombia) and strong EFCF this quarter. The company has lifted its FY24 guidance for EFCF to ~$650m from “more than $600m previously” – though consensus is close to this level for FY24.
Following SK Telecom’s plan to improve corporate value, KT has highlighted three priorities to further its corporate value yesterday. Building up to its 9-10% return on equity target by 2028, it aims to build up its AICT contribution and improve EBIT margin to 9%, optimise latent value from non-core assets and has also guided for an additional KRW 1tn (US$ 0.72bn) in buybacks/cancellations, in excess of its current 50% shareholder remuneration policy. Our thoughts below.
When the BoJ raised rates in March, it had been 17 years since it had last done so, though the world was very different then. While the July rate hike was unlikely to move the economic needle, the question now is what else might follow the subsequent financial market maelstrom. Pelham Smithers discusses the outlook for Japan’s macro environment, what new fiscal policies the new PM might introduce, how the BoJ might react and the all-important trend in corporate earnings. This then leads us to...
When was the last time we could write that the EU Telecoms sector has been the second best performing sector in the market YTD? As a result, this raises the question of whether the outperformance can continue. We believe regulation will ultimately determine the answer to this question.
Following similar efforts in Europe and LatAm we are launching coverage on the HY Telcos & Towers in EMEA & Africa. New names under coverage include Helios (also initiated on equity, pt GBp140), Axian Telecom and Liquid Intelligent. We also address IHS Towers (pt cut to US$ 6), VEON and Helios’ bonds.
Group service revenue and EBITDA trends were softer in Q2, beset by slower Enterprise growth and a one-off labour cost hike by KT. By contrast, mobile improved to 2.1% YoY, led by SKT and KT. Given the benign mobile landscape and the removal of Stage X’s mobile license, we expect trends to sustain at current levels. Capex spend is under control while quarterly dividends were unchanged. Separately, we have trimmed our target prices for SKT and LG Uplus; KT remains our preferred pick.
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