Earnings call transcript: Elisa Oyj’s Q3 2025 earnings show EPS miss, stock drops

Elisa Oyj reported its Q3 2025 earnings with a slight miss on expected earnings per share (EPS), posting €0.64 against a forecast of €0.6537. Despite a revenue increase of €25 million, the market reacted negatively, resulting in an 8% drop in Elisa’s stock price, closing at approximately €40.48. According to InvestingPro analysis, Elisa maintains a "GOOD" overall financial health score, and the current price suggests the stock may be undervalued. This decline reflects investor concerns over competitive pressures and strategic cost-cutting measures.

Key Takeaways

• Elisa Oyj’s Q3 EPS was slightly below expectations at €0.64.
• Revenue grew by €25 million, marking a 4.6% increase.
• The stock price fell by 8% following the earnings report.
• The company is implementing a €40 million transformation program.
• Elisa maintains its market leadership despite competitive pressures.

Company Performance

Elisa Oyj demonstrated a resilient performance in Q3 2025, with a 4.6% increase in revenue and a 3.7% growth in EBITDA. The company’s innovative strides in launching private 5G networks and enhancing mobile service offerings have reinforced its market position. However, the competitive landscape, particularly in the 4G segment, remains challenging.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: Increased by €25 million (4.6% growth).
• EBITDA: €214 million (3.7% growth).
• EBITDA Margin: 38.1%.
• EPS: €0.64, a 2.3% growth year-over-year.
• Cash Flow: Grew 12% from Q2.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Elisa’s EPS of €0.64 slightly missed the forecast of €0.6537. Although the miss is minor, it contrasts with the company’s historical trend of meeting or exceeding expectations. This deviation may have contributed to the stock’s decline.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings report, Elisa’s stock price fell by 8%, settling at around €40.48. This movement places the stock near its 52-week low of €39.04, indicating a strong negative market reaction. Notably, InvestingPro data shows the stock historically trades with low price volatility (Beta: 0.46), making this decline particularly significant. The movement may reflect concerns over the competitive environment and the implications of the company’s transformation program.

Outlook & Guidance

Elisa Oyj maintains its full-year revenue and EBITDA guidance, anticipating 5-10% organic growth in International Software Services. The company expects the majority of its €40 million cost savings to materialize by Q1 2026, with potential fixed service revenue growth anticipated in late 2026 or 2027.

Executive Commentary

CEO Topi Manner emphasized the company’s commitment to market leadership and strategic simplicity, stating, "We will be a responsible market leader." He highlighted the transformation program’s focus on productivity, adding, "Simplicity and productivity are very much a fundament of that strategy."

Risks and Challenges

• Competitive pressures in the 4G market could impact growth.
• The €40 million transformation program involves significant job reductions, posing operational risks.
• Market saturation in high-speed segments may limit future expansion.
• Macroeconomic factors could affect consumer spending and service adoption.
• Project delays in International Software Services could hinder expected growth.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the competitive dynamics in the 4G market and the implementation of the transformation program. The management addressed concerns about churn rates and detailed strategies for cost savings and process optimization.

Full transcript - Elisa Oyj (ELISA) Q3 2025:

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Elisa Oyj’s third quarter 2025 analyst meeting and conference call. I’m Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, and here together with me is a very familiar team: CEO Topi Manner and now, for the last time, CFO Jari Kinnunen, who will leave us at the end of the year. We also have our incoming CFO, Kristian Pullola, here, but now he’s in the audience still. Next week, by the way, we are in a roadshow together with Kristian and Jari. Going to the agenda of the day, and following the normal practice, we start the presentation followed by Q&A. I give the word to Topi. Please go ahead.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Thank you, thank you, Vesa, and good day, everybody here in the room and those of you who are joining remotely. Welcome to this earnings call also on my behalf. I understand that there are quite many quarterly reports today in the Nordics as well as throughout Europe, so let’s jump right into business and try to be relatively condensed with the presentation so that there will be time for Q&A. In terms of the highlights of the quarter, the revenue of Elisa increased with 4.6%. That was very much driven by the International Software Services as well as mobile service revenue. The mobile service revenue landed at 3.3%. That was supported very much by the 5G upselling and also the introduction of security features to our mobile plans. Pointing to another direction was especially the competition in the 4G category of mobile subscriptions.

In International Software Services, our revenue increased with 53% roughly. The comparable organic growth was 3%, impacted by some project delays related to the tariff-related uncertainties in the global market. EBITDA was up with 3.7%, solid as such. What was very, very good to see is that the comparable cash flow grew with more than 12% from the Q2 level, which was already an all-time high level. This was on the back of the increasing EBITDA, strict CapEx discipline, and also the networking capital management. In Finland, the postpaid churn increased to 22%, a bit more than 22%, indicating that the competition was quite intense during the quarter. Postpaid subscriptions decreased by 20,000, a bit more. Of that, close to 6,000 were related to machine-to-machine and IoT subscriptions. There is some quarterly fluctuation in this one.

In Q2, we won quite a bit of postpaid subscriptions, especially in the corporate side of the business, and therefore it is useful to take a little bit longer perspective on this. The fixed broadband subscription base increased by close to 5,000, and the fiber-related revenue starts gradually to pick up. If we look at our revenue in total, it was indeed supported by the International Software Services and mobile service revenue. What was also good to see is that the fixed service revenue turned to growth during the quarter. That was impacted by some customer wins in the corporate networks in that side of the business. Also, the fiber-related revenue is starting to pick up and then being visible this quarter. EBITDA landed at €214 million. Mobile service revenue, as mentioned, was 3.3% in terms of growth, supported by the introduction of the mentioned security features.

That particular change, that offering change, has been well received by customers. We have now enrolled something like 600,000 customers to this offering, and that was supporting the MSR growth. The churn number was especially, as mentioned, impacted by the competition in the 4G category, especially in the low-speed tiers of the 4G category. We saw some campaigning basically throughout the quarter in this one. Looking into the various business areas that we are having, the consumer business was impacted by the mentioned mobile competition. Revenue up 0.9%, EBITDA up 0.4%. Corporate business, on its turn, had a strong quarter. Revenue increased with 5.6%, especially boosted by the price increases in the corporate side of the mobile business. The mentioned fixed service revenue contributed positively, also interconnection and roaming. EBITDA grew with 3.6% in the corporate business. A good quarter for that segment.

In International Software Services, our EBITDA during the quarter improved with €5 million. If we look at the first nine months of the year, profitability-wise, we are now effectively in break-even for the first nine months in that business in terms of EBITDA. That is ahead of the fourth quarter that typically is the strongest quarter in software business in terms of revenue and in terms of EBITDA. This morning, we announced that we are introducing a transformation program to accelerate the implementation of our faster, profitable growth strategy. Coming back to our strategy, the one that we communicated in our Capital Markets Day in March, simplicity and productivity are very much a fundament of that strategy. Simplicity and productivity are enabling the growth in our four growth pillars, namely 5G and fiber, home services, corporate IT and cyber, and International Software Services.

We have been working with simplicity and productivity with continuous improvement measures in the past, and now we are accelerating the implementation of that with the aim to simplify our operations, improve agility and speed of decision-making in the company, and with that enable growth. At the same time, we are taking swift action to improve the cost competitiveness of our business in the current market environment. With the transformation program, we are aiming for €40 million of annual cost savings during the calendar year of 2026. With these measures, we ensure that we will achieve our midterm revenue and EBITDA targets, the ones that we set for ourselves in the CMD. When we look at what the transformation program includes, it will be about organizational streamlining, delayering the organization. It will be very much about process simplification, process optimization, also cross-functionally within the organization.

It will also be about scrutinizing our outsourced services, most notably the use of IT consultants in the organization, renewing our software development model. We are resetting our procurement effectively and finding efficiencies in the procurement space of the company. In the organizational streamlining, in the changes related to the way of working, we will be utilizing more and more automation and AI, and that is an element that is embedded in the transformation program. As stated, the bottom line is that this is in line with our communicated strategy, accelerating the implementation of the strategy. When we look at the mobile business in a bit more detail, the 5G upselling continues with the trend that we have seen in the past. The mentioned upgrades related to security features are supportive of the mobile service revenue.

As stated, we have now enrolled something like 600,000 customers, and that enrollment rollout process will continue in phases, in cohorts, during the course of this year, especially going into 2026. We have also been launching new types of security features, scam call blocking for foreign numbers being one of the examples, and that has now been well received by customers. The initial take-up rate is encouraging. We also had a nice opening with private 5G standalone networks with slicing technology in one of the ports in Finland, where we are able to serve our customers with the kind of standalone slicing technology that our local competitors do not have at this point in time. This is a good reference case for similar opportunities in the future.

When we look at the fiber business, as mentioned, we are starting to see strong revenue momentum in that part of the business, and our accelerated network construction is being continued as we speak, all within the 12% CapEx to sales envelope that we are having. Quickly looking into the digital services, in the home services space, we introduced a new Elisa original service called Icebreaker, and the international distribution for that one has started well in a number of European countries. In terms of home services, in energy solutions for households, our home battery solution now has a coverage of 70% in Finland. We are in very initial stages of the rollout, but we have clearly proven the product-market fit, and therefore an encouraging outlook for this solution for 2026 and onwards.

In corporate IT and cyber, we are clearly very competitive on the market in terms of our cyber offering, and one of the examples is that in cybersecurity, one of the biggest retailers in Nordics, Kesko, chose us as their cybersecurity provider in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Baltic countries, as well as Poland. Yet again, a good reference case for the future. In International Software Services, in that side of the business, our aim has been to grow more than 10% organically. The tariff-related concerns have resulted in some delays of customer projects that have been impacting especially the license and service revenue part of the business. Therefore, when we look into Q4, when we look into the likely realization of the project, we expect for a full year an organic comparable growth between 5% and 10% in this part of the business.

However, an important indicator in the software business, of course, is the recurring revenue, and the recurring revenue during the quarter grew with 13%, double digits, and the year-to-date number is 15%. The share of recurring revenue is increasing all the time in the total revenue of ISS. An interesting individual reference point is in our energy flexibility solution called CRIDL, previously called Distributed Energy Storage, and there we signed a first CRID scale battery solution with the energy company of the city of Vantaa for 10 megawatts. An interesting reference point, opportunity to scale for the future. Finally, when we look at our outlook and guidance for this year, we will keep our guidance in terms of revenue and EBITDA intact. The bottom line being that with the transformation program, we will be accelerating the implementation of our strategy. With that, I will be handing over to Jari.

Thank you, Topi. Let’s first look at the profit and loss. Q3 continued with good trends, growth trends, solid growth in revenue as well as in EBITDA. Revenue €25 million increase, 4.6% growth in Q3. If we look at behind the revenue growth levers, overall good development in service revenues, 5.8% growth in service revenues. Mobile services increasing with €9 million, both consumer and corporate customer segment growing, 5G customer base increasing, and changes in the service offering, security features, and price changes in that change all contributing to that 3.3% mobile service revenue in Q3. Fixed services growing €3 million, fixed broadband, especially fiber broadband connections growing, also in corporate segment, corporate networks, and related security services contributing to growth. Negative impact in traditional fixed voice services. Domestic digital increase was €2 million. IT services in corporate segment contributing slight decline in consumer segment digital services.

International Software Services increased with €12 million acquisitions and setup. First consolidation impacting approximately €11 million. Acquisitions impact and comparable growth at 3%. Equipment sales flat, like was the interconnection and roaming and other. All in all, organic growth totally was at 3%. EBITDA 3.7% growth to €213.5 million. EBITDA margin was strong 38.1%. EBIT 1.9% growth to €138.6 million. EBIT margin was 24.7%. EPS was growing 2.3% to €0.64. In Estonia, improvement both in revenue growth as well as in profitability, and revenue was growing 2%. Mobile and fixed services developing positively and negative impact in equipment sales. EBITDA increase was strong 9% driven by service revenue growth as well as cost efficiency measures. In mobile, postpaid subscriptions slight decline, 1,200 prepaid base minus 200. Churn came slightly up from Q2, still relatively low at 9.4%.

CapEx, reported CapEx was €81 million, excluding licenses, lease agreements, and acquisitions, the guided CapEx at €65 million. In line both Q3 and year-to-date guided CapEx in line with 12% from sales. Main investments continue in 5G network as well as fiber network and IT investments. In Q3, cash flow continued good development like has been in the previous quarters. Comparable cash flow was growing 12% as a result of higher EBITDA, lower CapEx, as well as lower paid interest. Networking capital change was positive, however, slightly less positive than a year ago. Year-to-date cash flow, comparable cash flow growth is at 10% through higher EBITDA, positive networking capital change, and lower investments and negative impact through financial expenses. Cash flow conversion was improving, and EBITDA cash flow conversion at 70% in Q3.

If you look at the balance sheet and capital structure, in line with the medium-term targets, net debt to EBITDA decreased from Q2 to 1.7 times, equity ratio increased from Q2 to 35.7%, and return ratios continued to improve. Return on equity was at 30.7%, return on investments improved to 18.6%. In terms of financing, average interest for interest-bearing debt continues at the same level as was in the previous quarter at 2.5%. Now I give word to Vesa, please.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj: Thank you, Jari. Now we move on to the Q&A part, and first we ask if there is any question from the audience. No, we don’t have, so we go to the conference call lines and ask first question from the lines, please.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa Oyj: If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. I had two questions. The first one was just on your adjustments in guidance on the cost cutting side of things. Two incremental things you said today are, one, that you’re raising your cost cutting expectations to offset mobile service revenue growth weakness and also macro uncertainty or weakness. At the same time, I think what you’re saying is that you’re seeing a macro improvement in your fixed business. With your cost savings to offset macro weakness, are you being conservative in your outlook on macro weakness, i.e., if you mean it gets worse again or doesn’t continue to improve, or is there something else going on there? Just a little bit of help in terms of what’s changing versus where you’re adopting a conservative approach would be helpful.

The second question is just on your mobile service revenue growth, which is, I guess, the big negative surprise today. Could you just give us a bit of a sense of the mobile service revenue growth trend in Q4 just so we can get a sense as to how badly things have deteriorated in terms of the competitive environment versus what you were saying by sticking to the guidance at Q2? Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Thank you, Andrew. If I start on the first one, yes, the transformation program that we introduced aims to have €40 million of annual savings during the calendar year of 2026. When we come back to the macro and especially the impact of macro to fixed service revenue, during the quarter in the corporate business, we had a handful of very good customer wins that contributed to the fixed service revenue growth. Also, the fiber pickup starts to be visible there. I think that these are more micro examples in a sense that they are telling about our competitiveness in terms of fixed service revenue. If I look at the sort of near term for the next couple of quarters in fixed service revenue, I think that we will be seeing some quarterly fluctuation still. I wouldn’t yet say that there has been a macro trend change in this one.

When we look further to late 2026 and 2027, we do see that in the fixed service business, there is a possibility for additional growth, revenue, and profitability growth in terms of data center connectivity, data center fiber connectivity. I just want to check whether that addresses at least part of your question or did you have something else on mind?

Thanks, Topi. That was great. Can I just, as a follow-up, check that €40 million, is that a net benefit that we can just add on to the EBITDA line, or is that a gross benefit?

Yeah, related to the cost.

Exactly, yeah.

The bottom line with the transformation program and with the annual cost savings is that with this transformation program, given all the changes in our business, we aim to achieve our midterm targets, the ones that we communicated in CMD last March.

Okay. I thought you said that you’re accelerating it earlier on in the call. Maybe I misunderstood that.

Yes, we aim to achieve the midterm targets. Like stated, we are accelerating the implementation of the strategy, accelerating the implementation of the enablers for growth.

Okay. Understood. Thanks.

The second part of your question, I guess, was related to the mobile service revenue and the competitive landscape that we are seeing on the market. On that one, the outlook that we have for mobile service revenue development as of now is that during this calendar year, it will be low to mid-single-digit MSR growth. As stated, what we have seen now lately is intense competition, more intense competition, especially in the 4G category of things. At the same time, when we look at the total market, the 5G upselling continues. Our bundled offering related to security features has been well received on the market, and we will continue that rollout and that will be supportive of mobile service revenue. You need to look at both high-end and the low-end of the market in order to understand the full dynamic.

How should that play out in Q4? Should we see any kind of material difference to the growth trend you saw in Q3 and Q4?

When we look at now the competitive situation, Q4 is a bit more challenging before the cost savings kick in at the start of the year from Q1 onwards.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa Oyj: The next question comes from Owen McGivron from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning. It’s Owen McGivron from Bank of America here. On the elevated postpaid churn in Finland, could you just give us a few more details on the moving parts there? How much has hard bundling contributed to the churn, and is it all or the majority from this more competition in the 4G offerings? Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: I think that what we are seeing is that the market is more diverse than it has been in the past. If we look at the high end of the market, you know, 5G category of business, and especially if we look at those cohorts of customers to whom we have been rolling out the new offering with the security features, I think that has proceeded well. As stated, we have now rolled out approximately 600,000 customers to the new offering. When we look at the churn of those customers isolated, that has met our expectations or actually has been a little bit below our expectations. That means that we do see that customers understand the value and there’s a possibility for us to continue expanding that offering.

At the same time, at the other end of the market where consumers are more price sensitive and more prone to be attracted by 4G offerings, there we see a price competition and campaigning. That has been one of the drivers or the main driver behind the increased churn number from Q2.

Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. Just a very quick one on the hard bundling cohort rollout. In a seasonally more competitive Q4, should we expect a slowdown in the rollout of your security offerings to customers, or do you think you can continue at a steady pace?

If we look at the rollout schedule for the remainder of the year, the original plan was already that Q4 will be calmer in terms of that rollout. The rollout pace will pick up in 2026.

Okay, thank you.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa Oyj: The next question comes from Andreas Jolson from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning or good day rather. Just two questions from my side as well. First of all, the delayed projects in the International Software Services business, how should we view that? Is it more cancellations of orders, or do we expect that to come back in the near term?

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Yeah.

The cost reduction program usually comes with a cost. What kind of restructuring costs should we expect from that and when?

Yes, thank you. Absolutely. If I take the first one and Jari, you take the second one. On the first one, in International Software Services, this is really a delay, not a cancellation of projects. It is a timing issue as such. Typically, in a customer project, when a project starts, there’s a license element in terms of revenue, then there’s a certain service revenue element related to installing the software, configuring the software, and then there’s a significant recurring revenue element on this one. We are proceeding according to plans in terms of the recurring revenue part in ISS, but the delay of some projects is impacting the license and especially the service revenue part of these projects.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj: The program and cost reduction program and restructuring charge question. At the moment, we estimate that there will be a restructuring charge, approximately €20 million, and that will be booked in Q4.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Perfect, thank you.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa Oyj: The next question comes from Paul Sydney from Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Two questions as well, please. Firstly, on Finnish Mobile, if we take a step back and look at what you said three months ago, you said the Q2 core price increases had landed well. Customers had valued the offering of the new services. What’s really happened in the past two to three months to change the competitive dynamics so quickly? Just get a better understanding for that, please. Secondly, given the competition is mainly at the bottom end, you mentioned 4G, are there any measures you can take to accelerate the migration to 5G? Also, are you confident that this elevated competition level won’t spill over into the 5G market as well? Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Yes, so I mean, if we look at what we said about the introduction of the bundled offering with the security features, not that much has changed between Q2 and Q3 on that category of the offering. We have been moving forward with our original rollout schedule, and customers understand the value. We see that the take-up rate of those individual security features is increasing among our clientele. As stated, that whole initiative is supportive of our mobile service revenue growth at this point of time. What we are seeing in the market is that, especially in the lower end of the market, speaking of predominantly 4G subscriptions, the competition has been tighter, as the churn figure indicates. During Q3, there has been campaigning ongoing. When we sort of slice and dice that a bit, one new mobile virtual network operator started during the quarter, Giga Mobile, in September.

That individual player has not impacted the market that much. The competition in the 4G category is very much between the traditional three big players on the market. For us, our stance in this one is very, very clear. We will keep our market number one position. We will keep our market share in mobile subscriptions. With the transformation program, we are improving our cost competitiveness on the market.

That’s great, thank you. Can I have a quick follow-up, Topi? Would you consider cutting price at any stage looking forward if these competition levels remain?

Sorry, Paul, I missed some of it, so could you please repeat?

No, apologies. It was just a follow-up. Would you potentially consider cutting price looking forward, or is that not an option? You want to continue to compete on quality?

We will be a responsible market leader. We are not fueling the price competition on the market. We will be a responsible market leader. At the same time, we will keep our market share. I repeat, we will keep our market share. We will be responding to the price competition if needs be.

Very helpful, thank you.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa Oyj: The next question comes from Ajay Soni from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys, thanks for taking my question. The first one is just around this 4G low-speed area where you’re seeing more competition. I was wondering if you could give us an indication of what portion of your customer base is within that. Obviously, you highlight within the slides it’s around 37%. I think that’s for the market, which is below 200 megabits. What about for you guys specifically within your customer base? The second question is just a quick clarification. The workforce reductions of all the €40 million saving that you expect in 2026, do you expect that full run rate to come from Q1 2026? Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Good. If Jari, you take the last one. When we look at the various segments of the markets, and now, of course, I’m simplifying quite a bit, we are not disclosing the number of 5G penetration. We are disclosing the number of high-speed penetration, more than 200 megabit penetration, where we have all of our 5G customers and then we have some 4G customers. If we look at the high end of the market and we include all of the 5G subscriptions to that one, we are closing in on 50% of the market in that one. The sort of most price-sensitive customer group is not half of the customer base. It’s less than that. We are probably talking about roughly 30% plus minus of the clientele.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj: Regarding €40 million cost savings, the majority of that comes through personnel reductions. There are other parts, however, on that. We estimate that from the beginning of the year in Q1, we have a majority of the savings already coming in.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Yeah. Still coming back to the mobile competition and the overall dynamics of the market, I think that it is worthwhile to say that we have been seeing times of a bit more intense competition also in the past. If you look at the past 10 years, there have been individual quarters when the churn has been on a 22% level like now. The competition comes and goes as such and is of volatile nature. I think that if we take sort of a mid to long-term perspective to our market, this is effectively a three-player market in terms of mobile services. We don’t think that the underlying rational nature of the market has changed.

Great, thank you.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa Oyj: The next question comes from Abelosh Mehapotra from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon and thanks for taking my question. Sorry to come back to the transformation program, please, but it’s just interesting that you’ve put a very explicit number around the cost saving of €40 million linked to the headcount reduction. Just trying to understand, is that, I mean, should we be reading something into that, that you know that’s the sort of headwind that you’re expecting in your business elsewhere due to a combination of all those things you talked about, like sort of mobile competition, macro pressures, and that’s why you’re looking to do this? Was this always a part of the Capital Markets Day sort of strategy and you’ve just now taken this moment to announce this program? How should we be thinking about that, please? Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: If I start on this one and Jari will continue, it’s more the latter of what you have stated. If you come back to our strategy in Capital Markets Day, simplicity and productivity has always been part of our plans. We have factored that into our midterm targets in terms of EBITDA. We have been working with simplicity and productivity for long with continuous improvement measures. If you look at what we did during 2024, there were some productivity measures visible during the calendar year of 2024. Since the Capital Markets Day, we have been working with issues like finding efficiencies from procurement. We have been looking into automation and AI possibilities, cross-functional synergies within our organization, possibilities to delayer in the organization. Now the time has come to accelerate the strategy implementation.

At the same time, there is an element of taking swift action to improve the cost competitiveness in the current market environment, but in this order.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj: Yeah, I can repeat the accelerated growth strategy that we presented. Besides the concrete growth levers for revenue, an important part of that strategy is, as we presented in the capital markets day, the productivity cost efficiency development. It’s an elemental part of that strategy, and we will continue also beyond this program to build productivity.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Absolutely.

That’s helpful, thank you.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa Oyj: The next question comes from Artem Beletsky from SEB. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, and thank you for taking my question. I joined the call a bit late, so maybe those have been answered, but still coming back to the competition situation and the increased intensity during Q3. Could you maybe comment on churn profile, what you have seen during this quarter? Has there been a gradual pickup or did it really increase during September months? How do you see the development in the early part of Q4? The second question is relating to the €40 million program. In the past, you have been doing this type of efficiency actions, but you haven’t really been quantifying those ones. Could you maybe provide some color how this €40 million program could be compared to what you have been doing over the past years?

In terms of cost inflation, could you maybe comment what you see on that front, just trying to extract what could be the net figure in terms of these actions? Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Okay. If I quickly start on the churn profile, looking into Q3, I think that we saw the 4G category competition pick up in July and basically continue throughout the quarter. There was some campaigning also in September, so basically something that was across the quarter as such. Now, looking into Q4, typically we see campaigning in Q4 during the Black Friday weeks of November and then a calmer period before that. If we look at sort of very tactically the short-term patterns in terms of churn, I think that is playing out as of now. It remains to be seen what happens in November related to Black Friday weeks.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj: To cost efficiency development and this program, yes, it’s true that we’ve been doing that also, of course, in the past, increasing productivity, cost efficiency. We did some reductions also last year in employee numbers. In different times, these opportunities mature, and there are several levers below that: automation, AI, among the others. Like mentioned already, this is part of the very central part of the strategy that we introduced earlier this year, and we will continue with productivity development also going forward and beyond this.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: If you look at this transformation program, I guess that in the nature of things that we will be implementing, if we look at the things that we did during 2024, we basically did continuous improvement within the verticals of the organization. In this transformation, there will be also horizontal end-to-end process optimizations and streamlining of those processes. Also, seeking synergies between business areas and the tech ops part of the organization. With that, there’s a bit more transformational element to what we are doing right now to give you a bit of flavor of the nature of things.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj: Yeah, that’s helpful. That’s all from me. Thank you, Topi and Jari.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Thank you, Artem.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa Oyj: The next question comes from Siyi He from Citi. Please go ahead.

Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first one is following up your comments on the cost cutting earlier. I think looking at the past, it’s probably one of the rare times we see that you announce a major staff reduction. Just wondering, could you comment on the current negotiation progress with the unions? If you could, in what areas, if mobile or International Software Services, we see most of the staff reduction from your program? The second question is if you could talk about the market condition in B2B. I think in mobile, you showed some decline in mobile ads in P2P, but I think last quarter you mentioned that you have won some contracts. Just wondering, how should we square your comments from last quarter and this quarter’s performance? Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Thank you for that. If I take the staff implications first and how they will be divided and distributed within the organization, the overall estimated number of job reductions within the company will be 450. Of that, 400 will be associated with our businesses and functions in Finland, namely Consumer Business, Corporate Business, Corporate Functions, and the Tech Ops part of the organization. That also means that in Finland, the union dialogue is important. That has been initiated. We have a good tradition for collaboration in that space, and we will be proceeding with that when we implement these changes during the weeks to come, during the remainder of this year.

Coming back to your other question about the P2P and the customer wins, yes, during Q2, we won significant new customers, especially for our IT business and all-around customers in P2P in a sense that they would be having connectivity services like corporate networks, cybersecurity, and IT services. The takeover of those services has partially commenced and will continue during Q4, but it is not in any material fashion impacting the Q3 numbers yet.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa Oyj: The next question comes from Terence Tsui from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks very much, and good day everyone as well. My question was just again on this cost-saving program. I’m just wondering why you haven’t been a bit more ambitious. I think some of your Nordic peers have been a bit more aggressive in taking out their headcount. From my calculation, it was roughly about 7% of their headcount. I’m just wondering, you know, why didn’t you see scope for maybe a bit more aggressive cost cutting, please? Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: If you look back a bit and include the sort of continuous improvement measures that we did during 2024, the calendar year of 2024, during that year, we reduced some 300 people in terms of staff. When you calculate the impact of the transformation program now into it, that total number is quite equivalent to what we have been seeing some of the other players doing. I think that there’s a difference in terms of how we have been doing it. We have been doing it predominantly with continuous improvement measures, and now also because of the cross-functional sense of this, or cross-functional nature of these initiatives, introducing this transformation program to accelerate the implementation of the strategy. We have been implementing it and designing it in a little bit different way.

Of course, there has been this strong culture of continuous improvement in the company for a long time, and therefore, we have been cost-efficient previously as well.

Okay, thank you so much, Topi, and Jari, wishing you the best for the future. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa Oyj: There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj: Thank you for your questions and participating in this call, and now I give the closing remarks to Topi, please.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Thank you for all of you for participating in this earnings call. Before we close, I would just like to acknowledge Jari and his great contributions to the company during the 25 years that you have been serving as the CFO. I don’t know whether it’s 100 quarters or even more than that, but many, many quarters. Your contribution has been invaluable, so thank you for that, and all the best for the future.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj: Thank you, Topi, for kind words and small correction. Of course, CFO knows the numbers, so it’s been 20 years as CFO.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Yeah, 25 years in the company.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj: 25 years in the company.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: That’s correct.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj: It’s been a great journey and, of course, a great development over the years, and I’m very privileged and grateful that I’ve been part of that journey and worked with great colleagues in the finance team, in the management team, all over Elisa, and of course with you, Topi, and before that long years with Veli-Matti. With this audience as well, there has been great cooperation and interactions over the years, and big thank you for all for that. I’m very pleased that I can hand over this responsibility to Kristian going forward, and the company is in a great position to continue value to customers and especially also to their shareholders going forward with the strategy in place, with the culture in place, and great people in the company. Thank you very much.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Thank you for participation.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa Oyj: Thank you, and until the next time. Next week we are on the road with Jari and Kristian, so we’ll meet you where we are. Until next week, thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa Oyj: Thank you.

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