Last night Bouygues announced a surprise change to tariffs and updated some of its guidance. The new tariffs revolve around discounts for multiple SIMs, and follow on from Iliad’s family plan announcement on 1 October. We give our take on the new plans and the impact to the market in this short piece.
In this iteration of “Broadband Trends” we explore whether fiber builds are accelerating and how it will impact Cable’s subscriber growth. We also reprise our work on the competitive positioning of the various operators based on relative NPS scores.
This report covers changes to our model to incorporate recent management commentary at investor conferences. We have increased broadband losses estimate. We also lowered revenue and EBITDA slightly. The company needs to stabilize EBITDA and reduce leverage. Progress on the first remains sluggish and the second won’t be easy. We remain on the sidelines.
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.
Sotheby’s has announced that it has sold a minority stake to ADQ, an Abu Dhabi-based investment and holding company for US$1bn. Under the terms of the agreement, “ADQ will acquire newly issued shares of Sotheby’s to reduce leverage and support the company’s growth and innovation plans” – details are thin, but in this short piece we look at how the proceeds might be used and how the price compares to our valaution.
Orange has reported a very solid set of results, with Telco EBITDA c+0.7% ahead of consensus. AME and Europe EBITDAaL guidance has been lifted, but Group EBITDAaL guidance has been left unchanged, as the delta in AME and Europe is not yet big enough to move the Group numbers.
Broadband industry growth has slowed over the last couple of quarters. For 2Q24, we expect reported broadband net adds below last year and pre-pandemic levels. We estimate that after adjusting for the one-time impact of ACP related disconnects, net adds were still below last year but were in-line with pre-pandemic levels. We think consensus expectations for the quarter are a little too negative, especially for Cable, and we expect reported adds to be slightly better than expectations.
European Telecoms has had a reasonable first half of 2024 – up 7% vs. the market up 9% - and is up 15% since January 2022 – bang in line with the EU market. The sector trades in line with the market on P/E for similar earnings growth, but we still see two major structural levers of upside:
We hosted a call with Orange IR to discuss the pricing environment. Watch a replay of the call HERE. We provide a summary of the call in this short piece. Interestingly, it looks as though SFR has lifted some of its back book prices for some of its customers.
Q1 was a solid quarter for the Sub-Saharan African operators, especially from a top line perspective. Airtel Africa continued to outperform peers overall. We continue to think that fundamentals for AAF and MTN are strong and deserve more attention. Valuations are compelling too.
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