Earnings call transcript: ELISA’s Q2 2025 sees revenue rise, innovative launches

Published 14/10/2025, 16:54
 Earnings call transcript: ELISA’s Q2 2025 sees revenue rise, innovative launches

Elisa Oyj reported a 2% increase in revenue to €552 million for the second quarter of 2025, alongside a 4.3% rise in comparable EBITDA to €198 million. The company’s EBITDA margin improved by 0.7 percentage points, reaching 35.8%. Elisa’s stock experienced a modest increase of 0.95% following the earnings report, closing at €44.52. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company currently appears slightly undervalued, with a "GOOD" overall financial health score. The company’s strategic innovations and market expansion efforts were key highlights of the quarter, supported by a strong track record of maintaining dividend payments for 21 consecutive years.

Key Takeaways

  • Revenue increased by 2% to €552 million.
  • EBITDA grew by 4.3% to €198 million, improving the margin to 35.8%.
  • New product launches include mobile security features and home security solutions.
  • Mobile service revenue grew by 3.4%, with significant growth in international software services.
  • Elisa signed a deal with Nokia to extend its 5G network.

Company Performance

Elisa demonstrated solid performance in Q2 2025, with revenue and EBITDA showing positive growth compared to the previous year. The company is capitalizing on its competitive position in the 5G market and expanding its offerings in mobile and security solutions. The increase in postpaid subscriptions and reduced churn rate reflect strong customer engagement and retention.

Financial Highlights

  • Revenue: €552 million, up 2% year-over-year
  • Comparable EBITDA: €198 million, up 4.3% year-over-year
  • EBITDA margin: 35.8%, an improvement of 0.7 percentage points
  • Comparable cash flow: €130 million, up 20% year-over-year
  • Mobile service revenue growth: 3.4%
  • International Software Services revenue growth: 70%

Outlook & Guidance

Elisa expects revenue and EBITDA to remain stable or slightly higher for the full year. The company anticipates mid-single-digit growth in mobile service revenue and double-digit growth in its international software services business. Capital expenditures are projected to be a maximum of 12% of revenue, with continued rollout of new mobile offerings over the next 18 months. InvestingPro data shows that analysts maintain a moderate buy consensus, with two analysts recently revising their earnings estimates upward for the upcoming period. The company’s EPS is forecast to reach €2.82 for FY2025.

Executive Commentary

Topi Manner, CEO of Elisa, highlighted the company’s improving trends in mobile service revenue (MSR) and emphasized the competitive edge gained through new security features. "We are clearly competitive, we are winning market share," Manner stated, reflecting confidence in the company’s strategic direction and market positioning.

Risks and Challenges

  • Competitive 5G market pressures
  • Challenging macro environment for the B2B segment
  • Geopolitical and tariff uncertainties affecting corporate decisions
  • Potential market saturation in certain segments
  • Economic conditions impacting consumer confidence

Elisa’s Q2 2025 results underscore its strategic focus on innovation and market expansion, positioning the company for continued growth despite external challenges.

Full transcript - Elisa Oyj (ELISA) Q2 2025:

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa: Good morning everyone and welcome to Elisa’s second quarter 2025 conference call and analyst meeting. We have a very familiar team here. Again, I’m Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, and we have here also CEO Topi Manner and CFO Jari Kinnunen. We follow normal practice in this event. Before we start, I would like to say on behalf of our whole team to our Group Treasurer Juha Karvinen, thank you for your incredible work at Elisa. Juha will retire now after this summer holidays and Juha has also been working with IR since the company was listed. Juha has even more interim reports behind him than I have and that’s pretty much so. Thank you, Juha. It has been a pleasure and privilege working with you. Now we are going to the agenda of the day and we start with the presentation and I give a word to Topi.

Please go ahead.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa: Thank you. Thank you, Vesa, and good day, everybody. Welcome to this Elisa Q2 earnings call. First of all, I would just like to echo what Vesa said about Juha and your contribution to the company over the years. I mean, there will be many speeches coming your way soon, but thank you, thank you for all of your work during the many, many years. When we look at our Q2, I think a good quarter for us in many ways: strong EBITDA development, fully in line with our midterm targets being above 4%, new mobile offering introduced to the market and being well received by our customers. When we look at our cash flow, the cash flow development was strong. Actually, it was an all-time high quarter in terms of cash flow for us.

Looking into the highlights of the quarter, the revenue increased by 2%, very much driven by International Software Services and the increase in mobile service revenue. When analyzing the revenue development, it is worthwhile to note that the equipment sales decreased €12 million in comparison to the same quarter last year. In the comparison quarter last year, we had a one-time deal of €7 million in Estonia. The mobile service revenue increased 3.4%, and it is good to see that in terms of the growth rate of MSR, we are now back on an improving trend following the new offering that we introduced to the market in May. International Software Services revenue increased by 70%, supported by the bolt-on acquisitions.

If we look at the organic growth piece of that, that organic growth amounted to 9.6% to be exact, very much in line with our ambitions of achieving 10% or more organic growth for the year on a quarterly basis. Comparable EBITDA stated was up 4.3%. Comparable cash flow grew with dimension plus 20%. In terms of net adds, the postpaid subscriptions increased by approximately 43,000. This was basically on the back of improving net add trends in consumer business and also customer wins in corporate business, for example. In public sector, the competitive intensity has been relatively tight. In 4G market during the quarter, we took a step toward the right direction and the churn decreased to 17%. I think that this is noteworthy because during the quarter we also introduced this new offering, increasing the prices respectively.

Clearly, the churn development goes to show that the offering introduction to the market has been successful and the value provided by the offering has been well received by customers. On the fixed broadband side, the subscriptions increased with 4,400. The number of subscriptions both on the mobile side and on the fixed side are on an improving trend. Looking into the numbers a little bit more deeply, the revenue landed at €552 million. As mentioned, EBITDA was €198 million. If we compare the EBITDA percentage to the comparison quarter last year, we took a step up in the EBITDA percentage. EBITDA is pretty much driven by the mobile services, also the international software services, cyber security services. We start to see an increase in revenue coming from the fiber business.

Clearly, the efficiency improvements, the continuous improvement in terms of efficiency, is contributing positively to the EBITDA and to the operating leverage. In terms of MSR development, I think that the most important development is really that we are back on an improving trend with respect to MSR on the back of the offering changes that we introduced on the market. When we look forward, I think that the offering changes will be offering clear support to the MSR development going into the second half of the year and further into 2026. Our expectation for the full calendar year in terms of MSR is that we will be seeing mid single digit growth. We reiterate that guidance. ARPU improved during the quarter and, as stated, churn decreased to 17.11%. The market with respect to 5G is competitive.

As stated, customers are also tuned to the value that we are creating with the 5G offering. In 5G, we see that customers are more satisfied with the 5G subscriptions than they are with the sort of traditional 5G subscriptions. The security features are clearly valuable to customers in the 4G space. We see some tight competition still out there in the marketplace. When we look at our business segment by segment, I think consumer business is fully robust at this point of time. Revenue plus 2.4%, EBITDA plus 3.6%. In corporate customers, the revenue decreased a bit, but here we need to adjust for the €7 million one-time deal in Estonia during the comparison quarter. Having said that, it is clear that the macro environment is creating some challenges to the corporate business. Customers have delayed their decision making related to IT services and cyber.

Also in fixed services, in equipment sales the macro situation is somewhat visible. At the same time, we do see improving trends in corporate segment toward the end of the year. Not that much driven by macro, but driven by micro developments, namely us winning new customers during the course of the spring, and clearly those customer wins are showcases of our competitiveness in this challenging market related to IT services and cyber related to corporate networks. We are clearly competitive, we are winning market share, we are winning new customers, and once we get those new customers and their services fully transferred to us, we will see support in revenue and we will be seeing support in profitability. Toward the end of the year in corporate segment, International Software Services revenue increased with 71% supported by acquisitions, and as stated, the comparable growth, the organic growth amounted to 10%.

EBITDA still slightly negative for the quarter, but here we will need to remember that typically Q2 in software business is the weakest quarter. When we look at the full year in terms of International Software Services, we do expect double digit organic growth for that business, and we do expect that business to be in positive territory in terms of full year EBITDA. Back in March, we communicated our new strategy, updated strategy in the Capital Markets Day in London, and as stated in terms of EBITDA, we are now fully in line with the midterm targets going for faster profitable growth. The four growth areas of our strategy being 5G and fiber home services, corporate IT and cyber, and International Software Services. In all of these, we have been making steady progress during the quarter.

When we look into the mobile business and the fiber business, as stated, the clear success for the quarter was the new mobile offering, and the whole upsell to 5G continues intact as shown on the orange trend line on the right hand side of the page. What is also worthwhile to notice is that while the new security features and embedding those to our mobile offering will be offering support to mobile service revenue development during the remainder of this year and during the next year, we also do see the next chapter of mobile service revenue growth coming with 5.5G technology development as we communicated in our Capital Markets Day presentations.

To create that competitive advantage in terms of our network capabilities, in terms of our commercial capabilities, we have now signed a deal with Nokia to extend our 5G network during the coming period in Finland and in Estonia. In Estonia, it is also worthwhile to note that our 5G network with Nokia equipment has now been rated the fastest on the market, and that certainly is already visible in our customer satisfaction numbers. During the quarter, an intriguing development was related to MoonTalk. MoonTalk IRI was launched, and MoonTalk IRI is effectively an AI agent, an app that enables customers to make summaries of their calls, list the action points out of the calls, and with APIs those action points are possible to be transported to the CRM systems of customers, improving the quality, for example, of sales personnel and improving the productivity of sales personnel.

These kinds of solutions are examples of what we could use to leverage in other parts of our customer base going forward with AI type solutions and with that strengthen our offering and provide more value for larger parts of our customer base. We also enjoy good momentum in fiber business, clearly strong revenue growth there, accelerated network construction, and also a new offering for multi-dwelling units improving our competitiveness. When we look at the rest of our growth areas in terms of strategy in home services, during the quarter we launched new Elisa Koti Turva new home security solutions in collaboration with Awarn Security, a Finnish provider of security services.

As per our strategy, we have been launching the Home Energy Solutions home battery to the market, home security solution, and will start gradually to penetrate the market with these solutions providing good value for our customers in corporate and IT and cyber. As mentioned, several large customer wins typically with some AI-enhanced service angle in those competitive biddings, and for example, our digital workplace solutions are quite competitive in the marketplace at this point of time. During the course of this year the number of workstations that we are managing with our AI-enhanced service will increase by 40%, so clearly an indication of the value that that service brings to our customers. Strong growth, strong demand for our cybersecurity services continues in ISS. As stated, we do expect double-digit organic growth for the full year and especially in the telco vertical.

That being a stable, somewhat defensive sector, we are making good strides and have now signed several sizable multi-year contracts with our customers. Of course, this part of the business is not immune to the global geopolitical uncertainties and to the tariff-related uncertainties, and we see some impact of that in the form of slower decision-making with customers in certain verticals of that business, for example in the semicond vertical of our industry business. One of the highlights for the quarter really was that TIME magazine once again, together with Statista, listed the most sustainable companies in the world. This was now the second time around. Last year we were number 66 in the world and now we improved our position and ranking to number 55. Good progress in that one and definitely great to get this kind of an acknowledgement.

We also were selected to the Financial Times list of best employers in Europe. Important acknowledgment related to our employee brand and well-being of employees in the company. This brings me to the end of the presentation. We are reiterating our outlook and guidance for the full year. Revenue we expect to stay on the same level or slightly higher, and EBITDA likewise at same level or slightly higher. CapEx will be max 12% of revenue, and we are heading toward that number for the full year. I think that completes my presentation of Q2 and now I will hand over to Jari. Thank you.

You.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa: Yes, thank you. I will start continuing and echoing Vesa and Topi, thanking big thanks for you have excellent years and high contribution to the company over the years. I think the whole team really appreciates and appreciates your professional work but also appreciate you as very valued colleague and definitely you will be missed after you retire. All the best for that when that time comes. Now, second quarter continued a good development after Q1, especially EBITDA growth more than 4% so in line with the medium term targets as well. Let’s first look at the revenue chain. Sales million increased 2% compared to last year. There was negative impact from equipment sales, €12 million, and that includes this €7 million one-time deal. In comparison, ISS strong growth, €16 million acquisition, first consolidation impact is approximately €3 million. Comparable organic growth at 2.9%.6.

Domestic digital services growth was €1 million. Corporate IT services growing in fixed services, inside that minus €2 million, there are different trends. Voice, traditional voice, continuing to decline. Also, corporate network services, they’re declining compared to previous year. However, fixed broadband services are growing, very much driven by fiber. Mobile service revenue growth trend improved from Q1 from 2.6% to 3.4%, and in euros, €9 million increase. Total service revenue growth altogether was at 5%, and that together with continuing cost efficiency and productivity improvement measures led to EBITDA 4.3% growth, €198 million. Also, margin improved 0.7% points to 35.8%. EBIT growth was somewhat lower than EBITDA, impacted by depreciation increase, €5 million compared to last year. The same change was also in Q1.

Now, going to second half of the year, depreciation change, year-on-year depreciation change will be less negative, so there will be improvement in that change for that line. EBIT margin was 22.5%. Final expenses net, including also share of associated company profits, change was negative €2.9 million. This comparison includes comparison year temporary good share of associated company profit and therefore year-on-year negative change €1.8 million, which again going to the second half is something that is not going to repeat. Net interest expense change in Q2 was approximately €1 million. Moving to Estonia, in revenue already a couple of times mentioned, one-time deal in comparison year impacted the revenue. Excluding the €7 million revenue increase, it was 2%. Mobile service revenue was developing and continuing to develop positively and continued to grow, and together with MSR growth and cost efficiency measures, EBITDA increased 4%.

In subscription base in Estonia, positive postpaid increased 3,800, prepaid was negative 4,100. Churn reduced from previous quarter to 8.6%. CapEx in Q2 was reported CapEx €89 million. Guided CapEx excluding licenses, lease agreements, and acquisitions was €76 million, so that is €5 million lower than a year ago. All in all, guidance for the full year 12% from revenues is unchanged and intact. Main investments continue in mobile networks, 5G coverage increase, in fixed side fiber and other networks. IT investments in Q2, cash flow was strong. Comparable cash flow €130 million, 20% increase against previous year. Positive contribution from higher EBITDA and lower CapEx as well as networking capital change, which was more positive than a year ago, and accounts payable contributing as well as continuous improvement in inventory efficiencies. Negative change, slight negative change in paid interest as well as paid taxes.

First half comparable cash flow is €196 million, €16 million higher than a year ago and 9% increase against last year, and higher EBITDA and networking capital change contributing. Negative impact from financial expenses, interest expenses, and CapEx operating cash flow. EBITDA operating cash flow conversion was improving from last year, was 60%. Looking at the balance sheet and capital structure, solid capital structure continuing in line regarding net debt/EBITDA in line with targets, 1.9 times. Equity ratio slightly below the medium-term target at 32.7%. Both of these impacted by the dividend in the second quarter, and going forward net debt will reduce as well as equity ratio will increase. Return ratios continue at good level, return on equity 30.4% and return on investments 18.7%. In the second quarter, we did liability management transaction, issued €300 million five-year bond.

Order book was more than three times subscribed and we were able to reach good terms, coupon 2.875% for the loan. As part of the transaction, we also purchased back part of €300 million debt due next year, €115 million out of that was purchased back, and average interest for the interest-bearing debt currently, also after this transaction, is 2.5%. I will give a word to Vesa, please.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa: Thank you, Jari. Now we move on to Q and A part. Do we have a question from the audience? Yes, we have Artem, please.

Artem Blesky, Analyst, SAB: Yes, Artem Blesky from SAB. Actually, three questions from my side. The first one is really relating to new offering in consumer mobile, and could you maybe provide some color how much of migration has been done by the end of Q2, and will it be basically completed by the year end of this year? The second question is relating to ISS, and could you maybe provide some further color on earnings seasonality? You mentioned that Q2 is clearly the weakest one of the year. Is it fair to assume that we will see some improvement in Q3, and Q4 is clearly the best quarter in terms of profitability? Maybe just around the business, if you could also comment on order intake and backlog situation, what you are seeing right now for this area. The last one is actually to Jari, housekeeping question when it comes to working capital.

You have made quite big progress in H1, so the impact has been more than €30 million positive. Is there something more structural happening, or is it just some type of seasonality or quarterly seasonality we are seeing there? Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa: Thank you, Artem. If I start with the mobile offering question, during the quarter we introduced new mobile offering, which means that we embedded mobile ID scam, site protection, and data leakage monitoring to our mobile plans. We have now introduced that to our new sales, and a big part of our new sales is going into the new offerings, including the security features. We have started to make back book changes and have carried out the back book changes to a few hundreds of thousands of customers. What is noteworthy is that those offering changes for the back book came into force in cohorts during Q2. The first cohort came into force in May, the second cohort came into force in June, and that means that already these will be providing quite a bit of support to MSR development in Q3 and onwards.

We will continue to roll out the new offering cohort by cohort to all of our consumer customers during the remainder of this year. That will go well into next year as well. Basically, we are looking at the rollout being conducted in the timeframe of 18 months or so. This means that the security features will be offering support to our MSR development in this timeframe, and then after that comes to 5.5G. As stated, coming back to our Capital Markets Day presentation, the short and the mid term outlook for MSR development basically follows that plan that we communicated to CMD, and then the ISS related development. Q2 typically is the weakest quarter. The profile during the year in the ISS business typically is that Q4 is the strongest. Q1 is also pretty, pretty strong typically. There is this kind of a yearly seasonality within that business.

With that, we reiterate our expectation that we will be seeing double digit organic revenue growth in ISS for the full calendar year. We also expect to be in positive numbers in terms of EBITDA for the full calendar year. Specifically to the question of the order book, the order book is quite good at this point of time. We have some visibility to the second half in terms of delivering the orders that we have already received in terms of order intake. Clearly, the telco vertical that we are serving as a stable industry is pretty much unaffected by the global uncertainties. In some of the other verticals, like the semicon vertical, we see some slowness in customer decision making on the back of the uncertainties also impacting the order intake a bit.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa: If I continue with networking capital, there are some seasonalities. Typically, the second and fourth quarter are better in terms of accounts payable, sorry, accounts receivable somewhat better. We continue also improving efficiency of networking capital, especially with the inventories. We have been reducing inventory levels now sometime, and there is still work to do. There is potential also going forward.

Artem Blesky, Analyst, SAB: Okay, that’s very clear. Thank you very much and Juha, wish you all the best.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa: Okay, thank you, Artem. Any other questions from the audience? No, we don’t have. Please, first question from conference call lines.

Conference Call Operator, Moderator: If you wish to ask a question, please dial on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Andrew Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Good afternoon everyone. I had two questions. One on the mobile service revenue growth phasing and the more for more commentary that you’ve given so far, and then a second just on the EBITDA growth, a clarification on the mobile service revenue growth and the more for.

More.

Price rises you’ve been putting through. I wonder if you could just comment on how well you think those have been going given we’ve seen a reduction on churn. More specifically, I know you mentioned around the cohort by cohort adoption of the price plans. Could you give us a bit more color please, in terms of how many customers actually went live with the higher pricing in May or June? What a lot of people have observed is that in the second quarter we didn’t see a rise in ARPU. Just trying to get an understanding of how much of an acceleration of mobile service revenue growth and inflection of ARPU we should be thinking about into Q3. Anything around that would be really helpful.

Secondly, on the EBITDA growth, you mentioned on the call that your EBITDA growth this quarter is in line with your mid term guide, but I think you highlighted or commented at the Capital Markets Day that your EBITDA growth guide is an organic guide as well. I think your EBITDA, your organic EBITDA growth delivery this quarter was sub 4%. Just wanted to check we’re right in thinking that EBITDA growth should be organically above 4% and how you think about that through the rest of the year. Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Andrew, if I start with the latter one, just briefly. Yes, the EBITDA kite from the CMD is an organic EBITDA growth target. You are absolutely right on that one. Also, applying that definition, we are in line with midterm targets in terms of EBITDA growth. I hope that addresses the latter question and then related to the mobile offerings. First of all, I think that you mentioned an important thing and that is related to churn. I’m actually quite happy in terms of how we have carried out the new offering and how that has been received by customers. Clearly, the value that we are providing to customers is concrete and the customers perceive that even with the price increase they get good value. That is clearly witnessed in the churn number.

The churn number decreased to 17% even though we do see some campaigning going on in the 4G space. Being able to conduct this kind of an offering change, a more for more change as you alluded to, while decreasing churn in a situation where we have campaigning going on in the marketplace, I think that is a showcase of a successful offering change that clearly brings value to customers. Of course, that is a great platform and effectively a springboard to continued favorable MSR development during the second half of the year. With this offering change we do reiterate our view that during the full calendar year we will be experiencing mid single digit mobile service revenue growth and clearly the confidence level has increased. On that note, so far during Q2 we rolled out the new offering to few hundreds of thousands of customers in cohorts.

First one in May, second one in June and now we have already rolled out further customers into the offering during the course of July and we will be going to do so cohort by cohort during the remainder of the year and going into 2026. As stated, this is strengthening the prospect of the MSR development going forward.

Thanks Toby.

Andrew Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Can I just ask one or two clarifications. One, in terms of that process of rolling out to the cohorts, what exactly is the process? Our understanding is that you tell the customer their price is going to go up and then the price goes up a month or two later. Just trying to understand that, to understand whether the churn this quarter is a better guide to how customers are weathering the price rises versus Yahoo, which is obviously not going up this quarter. Just on that EBITDA question, isn’t sedApta a €1 to €2 million contribution to EBITDA? If you strip that out of your EBITDA, actually the EBITDA growth is less than 4% and not in line with your mid-term guidance. Or am I getting something wrong there?

Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa: Yeah, I mean, Jari, if you take the latter question related to sedApta, but on the first one, the way we are rolling out the new offering in mobile is that of course we are slicing and dicing our customer base in granular fashion. We have several different types of contracts with customers related to their mobile subscriptions. Some of them are of continuous nature, some of them are fixed term contracts, and various contracts and their terms and conditions allow for various types of price changes. This is something that we will need to factor into our rollout schedule and to our rollout plan, and we are moving forward with that one. Hopefully, that gives you a bit of idea of how the sort of cohort by cohort rollout plan is being put together.

In terms of the churn development, as stated, our first experiences with few hundreds of thousands of customers during Q2 in terms of churn are good, and clearly the sample size starts to be already quite significant. That gives us confidence that customers do see and experience the value, and thereby we enhance our competitiveness on the market when moving forward with the rollout.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa: To EBITDA growth, the acquisition first consolidation impacts to EBITDA are very minor. Organic EBITDA growth is above 4%.

Andrew Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Okay, thanks very much.

Thank you.

Conference Call Operator, Moderator: The next question comes from Andreas Jolson from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Thanks a lot, and good afternoon, everyone. I would like to turn to the corporate segment and just a follow-up.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa: On your comment.

Andrew Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: That you see.

Taking market share and that profitability should improve going forward. Can you give some more color on those comments? Secondly, on the price increases again and the value added services that you add, is there a difference in profitability on that type of revenue, so to say, versus the rest of the mobile business? Thanks.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa: If I start with the last one, the difference in terms of profitability, the gross margin of these security features that we have been embedding to our mobile subscription plans is effectively the same as with the rest of the mobile connectivity services. So gross margin profile the same in that respect. Coming back to your first question related to B2B, I stated the B2B market is somewhat challenging on the back of the macro for all players on the market. We are clearly competitive, we are winning market share, we are growing faster than the market. During the course of the last three months, we have been winning several large customer deals with large publicly listed Finnish companies and also with some large public sector entities.

Some of them are public references and some of them are not public references, and they typically are sort of full suite competitive biddings including elements of corporate networks, including elements of IT services like hybrid cloud, digital workplace solutions, even some AI services, and certainly also including cyber security where we are competitive. Given the magnitude of these competitive biddings and given the size of these customers, the transfer process of these services from old service provider to us typically takes several months. That means that toward the end of the year we will be seeing support from these customer wins to our revenue and with that to our profitability. Perfect, very good, thank you.

Conference Call Operator, Moderator: The next question comes from Paul Sydney from Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much for taking my question. I have two questions please. Firstly, on free cash flow, clearly free cash flow growth was extremely strong in the quarter. You’ve given mid-term targets around EBITDA growth, capex, sales. You’ve commented on working capital already on the call, but putting it all together, what do you think is a sustainable level of free cash flow growth over the next few years for Elisa? The second question, just coming back to mobile service revenue growth, given the rollout plan is taking place over the next 18 months, does that mean that we can do mid-single digit growth in both 2026 and 2027 given the staggered pace of the rollout? Thank you.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa: If I take the first one.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa: So.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa: Free cash flow as we have in our medium term targets, we have EBITDA growth target, we have capital allocation policies and capex at 12%. We have interest rate changes priced in our debt so there’s no major negative changes there. Taking all those together, growing EBITDA, maintaining 12% capex, maintaining less negative changes in interest compared to last year. Outlook for growing cash flow and outlook for growing free cash flow is good.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa: Related to your question about the mobile service revenue development during the next couple of years, to start with, let me once again reiterate the comment that we are very happy in terms of how the new mobile offering has been received by customers, and that certainly gives confidence for MSR development going forward. We are not giving specific MSR guidance for the next couple of years, let me be clear on that. I would phrase myself so that, coming back to our CMD presentation, we do see a path forward for favorable MSR development along the lines that we expect to see this year also during the coming years.

That comes back to us rolling out the new offering with the security features during the next 18 months, cohort by cohort, and soon enough in 18 months or so we would expect to see tangible support to MSR development coming from the 5G and 1.2G developments. This is fully in line with the communication that we presented in our Capital Markets Day in London.

That’s very clear. Thank you. Jari, could I just push a little bit harder on the free cash flow? Just mechanically, could it be high single digit, maybe even double digit? Sorry, just in terms of just mechanically working through all the moving parts.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa: We do not have specific guidance for cash flow, but what I tried to elaborate and what we also in the capital markets day try to elaborate is that there is accelerated increased growth ambition both in revenue and EBITDA, and we are maintaining the capital allocation policies, CapEx to sales. We are maintaining our acquisition policies in place. There is less negative impact to cash flow from interest rates and interest expenses change compared to what the situation was last year. Taking all that together, I’m repeating myself. Outlook is good for the cash flow. Unfortunately, we don’t give any specific % for that, but this should be the ingredients for you to make your adjustment.

Thank you.

Conference Call Operator, Moderator: The next question comes from Ulrich Rathe from Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. I have two questions, please. The first one is on the macro environment. I mean you’re referring several times to the difficult macro environment. In Finland, looked it up, the GDP is now in growth. It has exited recession two quarters ago and you’re still talking about very difficult macro pretty much in the same language that you used while your whole market was in recession. I’m just wondering what do you need in terms of the macro environment for not talking about that as a negative item in the corporate segment? My second question is on the ISS business. You have talked in the past about bolt on acquisitions. Will there be or is there likely bolt on acquisitions in the second half of this year?

Or is this year essentially sort of a quieter one while you’re adjusting the relatively large acquisition you made last year? Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa: Okay, so when it comes to the first question, you are right that there is some small growth in terms of GDP now taking place from one quarter to another in our home market. We do see some impact of that, some small impact of that, especially in our consumer business. The consumer confidence in the market is still sluggish, but some sort of cautious improvement in that one. The challenges on the macro that I refer to related to B2B business are more related to the general uncertainty. Geopolitical uncertainties and tariff uncertainties clearly have had the impact that some companies, especially in the cyclical industries, are safeguarding their cash flow. That is impacting the B2B business, especially when we talk about the large and medium accounts. The second question was related to Bolton. Do you want to.

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa: Yes, sorry, yeah. If comparing to previous year, we had approximately €100 million last year in acquisitions. Like we said in Capital Markets Day, the outlook is that this year there will be less, and overall bolt-on acquisitions is something we are looking also in ISS going forward. For this year, the expectation is lower level compared to last year.

Thank you very much.

Conference Call Operator, Moderator: The next question comes from Sami Sarkamies from Danske Bank Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi. I have three questions. The first one is on positive net add development in Finland. You’ve been losing postpaid customers for the past three quarters. Just trying to understand what has changed. You mentioned several large corporate and public deals that you have been winning lately. Do those explain the change? Secondly, on corporate EBITDA growth, this has been discussed during the call, but just wanted to check if you still expect muted growth in the third quarter and then you’re seeing growth again going into Q4 next year on the back of deals that you’ve been winning. Thirdly, related to one-off costs, can you give some guidance on what the number could be for the full year? You had €17 million last year and you’ve had €6 million now in the first half of the year. Thanks.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa: Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Sami. If I start with the question related to the net adds, first of all I think that it’s good to note that related to the consumer side of net adds, we do see improving trend. That’s one aspect. If you take last couple of years in the grand scheme of things, our market share has been stable and we are certainly very determined to keep it. Also, going forward on the B2B side we have been winning. When you look at the net adds during the quarter Q2, certainly the customer wins in public sector, including the city of Helsinki, contributed to the net adds. Generally speaking, it’s good to see an improving trend and then related to the B2B business and you know, how are things looking for Q3 and Q4?

I stated on the back of the customer wins that we have now gotten during the last couple of months, we do see some improving trends toward the end of the year. They won’t materialize to any large extent in Q3, it will be more the end of the year. Do you want to take the line?

Jari Kinnunen, CFO, Elisa: Yes, one of cost. Indeed. There has been approximately €6 million restructuring costs, first half relating to personnel reductions compared to last year, which was for the whole year, €16-17 million. We are constantly looking for opportunities to build and improve productivity. From time to time it might include also reduction of employees and that happens as these developments mature. We will continue to improve productivity. That might include also employee reductions going forward.

Okay, thanks.

Conference Call Operator, Moderator: The next question comes from Felix Henriksson from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Hi guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I have a couple. The first is a continuation on the mobile net adds. I think in prior quarters when you were still losing net adds, you referred to consumers shifting from mobile broadband to fiber. Looking under the hood in the second quarter, did you see this trend continuing? Just a bit of color on that would be appreciated. Secondly, we’ve talked quite a bit about the consumer mobile price hikes that you’ve implemented. Can you also touch on price increases that you’ve perhaps implemented in the B2B side of things in mobile and fixed? Correct me if I’m wrong, you’ve also done some actions during the summer on that front. Thank you.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa: Yeah, thanks Felix. Related to the last one, indeed also in the B2B side of the mobile business we have been conducting some price changes, also introducing some new security features, a little bit different security features to the mobile plans on the corporate side. Those have been conducted during Q2 and the full impact will be seen in MSR from Q3 onwards. Related to the net adds and to the mobile broadband, I think that the sort of decreasing customer base of mobile broadband customers is something that is impacting the whole market and is visible in all players in the market are experiencing the same. During the quarter we did see some shift from mobile broadband to fiber connections, but not to the extent that we saw during Q1.

There is a seasonality impact in that one and typically during the summertime people are more on the move and that also means that there’s a demand for mobile broadband services during the course of the summer.

Thank you.

Conference Call Operator, Moderator: There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers.

Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, Elisa: Thank you. Thank you for all your questions, and before we conclude this event, just to mention that we are starting our summer holidays now, but Juha and also Juha’s successor, our new Group Treasurer, Juha Saarinen, are available this week for your questions and discussions. With those words, we wish you a very good reporting season.

Topi Manner, CEO, Elisa: Thank you very much for participating. Thank you.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

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