Earnings call transcript: Entel Q1 2025 results show missed forecasts

Entel, a leading telecommunications provider, reported its first-quarter 2025 earnings, missing Wall Street expectations. The company posted earnings per share (EPS) of 89.19, falling short of the forecasted 149.34. Revenue also missed estimates, coming in at 714.2 billion compared to the anticipated 722.39 billion. Following the announcement, Entel’s stock price dropped by 0.6%, reflecting investor disappointment. According to InvestingPro analysis, the stock currently trades at an attractive P/E ratio of 12.4x and appears undervalued based on their proprietary Fair Value model.

Key Takeaways

• Entel’s Q1 2025 EPS and revenue both fell short of analyst expectations.
• The stock price declined by 0.6% after the earnings release.
• Despite revenue growth, restructuring costs impacted EBITDA margins.
• The company continues to expand its fiber network and forge strategic partnerships.
• Competitive pressures in Chile and Peru remain significant challenges.

Company Performance

In Q1 2025, Entel achieved a 9% year-on-year revenue growth, driven by its strong market presence in Chile and Peru. However, restructuring costs and intense competition have pressured its margins. The company’s net income remained stable at 23,000 million, mirroring the previous year, while positive cash flow of 1,200 million marked a significant improvement from a negative 32,000 million last year.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: 714.2 billion, up 9% year-on-year
• Earnings per share: 89.19, below the forecast of 149.34
• Consolidated EBITDA growth: 1%, impacted by restructuring

Earnings vs. Forecast

Entel’s actual EPS of 89.19 missed the forecast of 149.34 by 60.15. Revenue of 714.2 billion also fell short of the expected 722.39 billion, a difference of 8.19 billion. This significant miss contrasts with past performance, where Entel typically met or exceeded forecasts.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Entel’s stock fell by 0.6%, closing at 2780. This decline places the stock closer to its 52-week low of 2475, suggesting investor concerns over the missed earnings and competitive landscape. Despite market volatility, InvestingPro data shows Entel maintains relatively low price volatility with a beta of 0.2, making it potentially attractive for stability-focused investors.

Outlook & Guidance

Entel aims to maintain its market leadership through continued investment in its mobile and fiber networks. The company plans to reduce its CapEx to 18-19% of revenues in 2025, slightly below initial guidance. Entel also targets an 8-10% dividend yield in the medium term. For deeper insights into Entel’s valuation and growth prospects, InvestingPro offers comprehensive analysis through their Pro Research Report, part of their coverage of over 1,400 stocks.

Executive Commentary

CFO Marcelo Versmoues emphasized the company’s commitment to growth and financial stability, stating, "We are increasing our customer base. We added almost 1,000,000 subscribers, almost 9% growth year on year." He also highlighted the strategic importance of maintaining investment grade status and leadership in mobile services in Chile and Peru.

Risks and Challenges

• Competitive pressures in Chile and Peru could impact market share and profitability.
• Restructuring costs may continue to affect margins in the short term.
• Macroeconomic uncertainties could influence consumer spending and operational costs.
• Dependence on successful network expansion and partnerships for growth.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts questioned Entel’s approach to managing competitive pressures and potential price increases to offset inflation. The company reiterated its focus on cost control and operational efficiency, with a CapEx outlook for 2026 expected to be similar to 2025. InvestingPro has identified multiple strengths for Entel, including its high shareholder yield and impressive profit margins, with additional insights available to subscribers.

Full transcript - Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones SA (ENTEL) Q1 2025:

Paula Raventos, Head of Investor Relations, Entel: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Entel First Quarter twenty twenty five Results Conference Call. I’m Paula Raventos, Head of Investor Relations at Entel, and joining me today is Marcelo Versmoues, Entel’s CFO. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded, and all participants will be in listen mode during the company’s presentation. After the company’s remarks, will be a Q and A section. Those who are connected from webcast should send their questions through the chat, please.

Please advance. The company’s disclaimer. Now we will start with our agenda. First of all, we will start with Entel Group results, and then we will move on results of Chile and Peru. Finally, we will end with our ESG highlights and with final remark and Q and A session.

Please, Marcelo, go ahead.

Marcelo Versmoues, CFO, Entel: Thank you, Paola. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone, depending on the time of your year. Actually, it was pretty good news for the first quarter, the starting of the year. We’re going to go through that in a few minutes. But I wanted to start with the some latest events that are positive news.

As you might have known already, we finally approved the by the local authority, the partnership with Starlink in terms that would allow us to deploy during the second half of twenty twenty five, the satellite connection direct to sell for our customer base. So this is a very positive news. Also highlight that we got the first place in the IZO, Best Customer Experience ranking in 2024. This is the ninth year that we got this recognition. So we’re very proud of it.

And I think it also is a landmark in terms of the efforts we do to have the best experience for our customers. Also noting that we recently issued the 2024 integrated annual report, was presented also as part of our shareholders meeting. You can download it in our web page, and it will provide a more comprehensive view of both the operational performance and all the initiatives we’re doing in terms of sustainability for the year. So I invite you to download that report, which is very interesting. Also, we recently ended the placement of million euros UF local bond, which is roughly $80,000,000 This was a very successful issue.

We ended up issuing basically two series, one up to five years and the second one close to ten years, very competitive rates, inflation plus 3.39% and inflation 3.69% for the longer one. We got a very good market reception for this issue in a very complicated context in terms of the financial markets in the day we issued these bonds. And also being in a very challenged industry. So we’re very proud that we allowed it was possible to get this issue in a successful manner. And as I already mentioned, throughout the road show, this the use of proceeds will be mainly debt repayment as minor portion for general corporate purposes.

So it was a very interesting placement. And this is part of the initiatives we’re taking to refinance our debt. So I hope that sooner than later, we will go to the market. We’re analyzing different alternatives, different costs and tenors of the different alternatives we have. So we are really hopefully in the next couple of months having some news in terms of the refinancing.

Both of the installment we have in August this year and the in August of the next year, which in total is roughly $580,000,000 So we’re working on that. Those are the main news recent events, and we might go straight to more details on our shareholders’ meeting. I just want to emphasize that we distributed already 179 per share against $20.24 net profits that was already paid at the April. And these dividends total allow us to reach dividend yield of close to 7%, six point eight % in the period. Also, we announced in the shareholder meeting our investment plan for 2025, which was roughly, say, ARS 600,000,000,000, which is in the range of $725,000,000 to $130,000,000 Mostly, I would point that as of today, once we have finished the first quarter and updated the most probable scenarios in terms of deployment of the fiber network during the rest of the year and typical postponements of certain CapEx related to the fixed fiber deployment.

We might be seeing during the year a figure a little bit below this ARS $610,000,000,000. I would expect an adjustment in CapEx, we’ll see as in the next page more detail on this. This is basically the disclosure of the ARS $618,000,000,000 in Chile and Peru. So as I was mentioning, if you can see in the consolidated figure in the right hand side, we were aiming at 20.2 CapEx to total revenues for the year. I will guess that, that figure will be more in the range of 19% once we adjust it by the lower CapEx that is expected in the deployment of fixed, some and some other postponements in CapEx in terms of mobile that will also add to this figure.

So the guidance I want to make at this point is that it will be below the figure we mentioned a couple of weeks ago in the latest shareholders meeting. So we are revising this figure. In terms of Entel’s shareholder structure, you’ll see that basically the same. We have some more adds on in terms of foreign investors as part of our shareholders’ distribution. The stock, as you can see in the right hand side, it has been really flat in the recent month, although below the performance of the Chilean Ipsa is I would say that it’s more structural given the four players we are operating both in Chile and Peru, which is we believe is something more than industry structural concern.

And as long as that is still in place, the performance of the stock will be really subject to any changes in this industry composition. Otherwise, we believe that we’ll be in the future improving our margins, but the stock price has this burden and we have to take charge of that and try to boost our margins basically. We can see also that the volume trade of the stock has been improving. There’s some more interest, I was already said, about the foreign investors. And hopefully, that continue in the coming quarters of the year.

If we take a look at the consolidated figures, basically, we can see in terms of revenues for the first quarter, we have a very strong quarter in terms of general revenues, growing quarter to quarter and also year on year. You see, in general, we’re growing 9% year on year with a strong still a strong growth in mobile. You can see 8.7% growth and also growing in fixed, almost 12% growth. So top line, good growth for the quarter, even comparing to the fourth quarter twenty twenty four, which is typically a strong quarter because of Christmas revenues related to handsets. And in terms of EBITDA and EBITDA margin, we still see a decline in the first quarter margin that is lower compared to the previous quarters.

But still, they’re basically relevant one off impacts in the quarter, basically related to onetime events. The biggest one is severance provisions because of a restructuring process we performed in the first quarter was quite a relevant one, more than 150 people were part of that restructuring. This is a process that we normally do every year, but this time was focused in the first in March, basically. So that’s what is impacting our EBITDA and EBITDA margin for the year. If we adjust that impact and provide in the box we have at the right hand side, we did the pro form a analysis or the adjustment for that.

And the growth in EBITDA, if we adjust for that, would have been year on year 11% instead of the 3.1%. And the EBITDA margin would have been 28.5%, which is still higher than the previous quarter are and very in line with the first quarter of twenty twenty four. So that’s more the organic and this is the normal margin we should have got in first quarter, putting aside all the severance payments and onetime effects. So still, we are keeping a strong margin, not in the range of the 30s or 30 something, but strongly with a strong foot in the range of twenty eight percent and twenty eight point five that we’d expect to continue for the future. So EBIT still doing the same adjustment.

You see we got 51,000 million for the first quarter, excluding the onetime effect that would have grown 26% year on year. So it’s still an expansion of the EBIT compared to the first quarter of the last year if we adjust for those effects. And in terms of net income, basically, we posted a pretty good result, 23,000 million. We provided the small box that is in the right hand side an adjustment compared to last year. Last year, we had all the impacts of the exchange rate in our investment in Peru, which impacted our taxes in the P and L.

If we adjust for that effect, which was an actual effect, but if we adjust for that trying to calculate more organic normal performance, the year twenty first quarter twenty twenty four would have been twenty two point six billion profit, very similar to what we got in the first quarter of twenty twenty five. So what I’m trying to say is that compared to last year, same quarter, we are organically in a very similar level in terms of net profit, similar margins and even with an expansion in EBITDA and EBIT. If we do the as it was mentioned in the quarter to quarter analysis, organic adjusting by the onetime impacts in both periods, this is basically the result of that. Very positive results business wise with MXN 28,000 positive. When we started ducting the onetime impacts, the inflation effect because of our cost in UF, plus the increases in leases mainly related to the on net fiber expenses and higher energy cost that those effects offset partially the better business performance, but still, we’re growing from $187,000,000 to $2.00 7,000,000 in terms of organic EBITDA compared to the first quarter of both years.

So I would say this is positive results in terms of the expectation we have for the remainder of the year. In terms of cash flow, first quarter of twenty twenty five posted a although it’s very small, it still is a positive cash flow from operations. You can see 1,200,000,000 for the quarter compared to the last year same period posted a negative ARS 32,000 million, influenced by the payment of the VAT related to the sale of OnNet, which was paid in January 2024. So it was more like a working capital issue last year. The rest of the businesses were growing in EBITDA.

CapEx are pretty much similar, so it was more like an adjustment, a lower working capital impact for this quarter. Still positive in the margin cash flow. And we are using a little bit of the cash. You can see that the cash, we started the year with 2 and 73,000 million in cash. We used MXN 5,000 million of those in the normal operation of the business.

We should continue to use that part of the cash as long as we accelerate the deployment of fiber to the home during the rest of the year. But at a lower pace, as I already mentioned, we’re going to talk about that later when we analyze the fiber business. Mainly in terms of gross and net debt plus the main leverage indicators, steady compared to the end of the year, although net debt to EBITDA is a little bit higher than the first quarter of twenty twenty four, basically because the use of cash we have been doing during the big part, larger part of the 2024 and the first quarter of this year, mainly oriented to investment in infrastructure and mobile and fixed. But still, we have very good and healthy indicators, keeping our credit and risk rating in terms of local and international ratings. And also, we wanted to depict a little bit in the right hand side, the organic dividend yield we have been posting in the last years.

This is excluding sales of assets and both in 2021, ’20 ’20 ’2 and 2023. So we put that aside, and this is just to show a little bit the trend in the yield we have been performing. We mentioned at some point that we were aiming as a company for the coming years to provide dividend yields in the range of 8% to 10% in the medium term. So hopefully, in the next three years, we should be aiming to that those kind of levels. In terms of Chile specifically, very good results in terms of mobile user.

You can see we’re growing in postpaid both quarter on quarter and year on year, 7.5% year on year growth. And the prepaid base decrease mainly is an adjustment of the base with all this cleanup every once in a while. So the decline in the total overall mobile base is mainly driven by this cleanup in the prepaid base. But postpaid, which is the most relevant in terms of margin contribution, is growing still in both measure that we are figuring. And also fixed is growing.

You can see very strong growth, 41% year on year and 4% quarter on quarter. I mentioned already that last year, we accelerated the deployment of fiber. We have been more cautious in the growth in the first quarter. That’s why the growth is close to 5%. We should be expecting for the rest of the year still grow in fiber, but it’s a growth that is expected to be healthy growth, healthy in the terms of really connecting customer that provide a good revenue stream for the future, for the rest of the year.

That does not imply losing CapEx. Just remember that every time we connect a customer, we have to invest in the last mile, I would say, in the connection to the home, roughly $200 per connection, which is field operations and the cost of the equipment that goes into the house. So those $200 we’re very careful in really growing healthy and trying to avoid higher churn rates, trying to avoid discounts, aggressive discount that imply that after once the discount is discontinued, we lose that customer. So we’re being very good. That’s why we should expect still growth in fiber, but a more steady growth and organic growth, healthy growth in that area.

It’s always good to know that this is the competitive chart as of December 2024. If you can see the last quarter, was still very good in terms of the net share for Intel compared to the rest of the industry. For every quarter of 2024, we were capturing a significant chunk of the growth of the market, 60% for the first quarter twenty twenty four. We ended with 37% of the growth. And although the figures for the industry are not available yet, we have our growth for the first quarter twenty twenty five, which is 53,000 net growth for the first quarter twenty twenty five.

So still, we’re growing. We are being seeing a little bit more competition in the market. You know that one of our competitors has improving, which is basically Claro. He’s improving the network. They are growing in five gs.

So we’re seeing more activity, I would say, in the market basically from Claro, which is something that was expected. So it’s nothing new for the market. So but still, we’re growing. We’re growing healthy. So we wouldn’t expect for the first quarter having a net share compared to the last year.

Last year was kind of exceptional, but still we are posting a very strong position in terms of capturing a significant chunk of the market from the figures we have for the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Despite the more competitive environment, we’re still very confident that our strategy is working and we will continue to capture market and customers during the year 2025. You can see revenues in Chile grew 8% year on year. EBITDA margin, the same phenomenon already mentioned. If we adjust by this cost of restructuring, our EBITDA margin would have been almost 31%, which is still higher than any of the quarters of the last year.

So Chile is adjusting by the extraordinary impacts is still better in performance than the last several quarters. The same in EBIT, we’re still seeing some good results. And this is basically the result of higher customer base. We’re growing in terms of customer rate, but also when we compare to last year, we are seeing the effects of the price increase that we performed last year. So both customer market share and price increase are really sustaining a very strong market EBITDA margin for the first quarter of this year.

If you will see revenues in total, we analyze starting by mobile. Mobile, just to remember, is account for 72% of total revenues in Chile. The 29% is fixed. When we take a closer look to mobile revenues, we can see that the revenue that is coming from services, mobile services growing 8.4%. That’s a very interesting and healthy growth for services.

The lighter blue, which is handsets, is still growing. That’s also very good news. It’s a strong figure, higher than the last year, first quarter, second quarter and third quarter, everything that is without Christmas, so it’s a very good result. That means higher handset sales, but also higher revenues from very interesting margins we’re getting from the handset sale and with very controlled and normalized write offs in terms of bad debt of financing and selling of those handsets. So growth in the mobile business, both from equipments and both from services is I would say, it’s very positive and is a good news for the rest of the years as long as we can continue to capture and sustain this market.

The reason for this, we always mention that we are really having a keeping a strong brand power compared to the rest of the industry. We have kept our position. You can see both in NPS for postpaid with a significant gap against the rest of our competitors. And we have been able to maintain the leadership in the ECQ, which is basically a measure of a quality of and consistency of that quality in our network. Still far from our competitors, you can see that there are two competitors of the other three are improving a little bit in the last quarter, and that’s a result of higher investment that they are doing.

So the market is getting more competitive because of the deployment infrastructure of investments in infrastructure in both four gs and five gs. And this is relevant because that’s one of the reason why we always keep investing in improving our quality of the network. And the deployment of our network throughout Chile and also in Peru. We’ll see the same phenomenon in Peru. Paolo will mention that later.

In terms of revenue share, we’re keeping the leadership far away from the rest of our competition, 40% of revenue share for the Chilean market. With increasing ARPU, you can see with a significant gap compared to the rest of the industry. In first quarter, we posted 9,122 as ARPU. So that’s the result of basically the price adjustment we have made during the last year and before. And also keeping a very strong gap compared to the rest of the industry in terms of port out.

We are the blue line with a port out rate, which is kind of a portion of the churn rate of 0.95% and the rest of the industry is in 1.68%. So we are keeping and expanding the gap in port out compared to the rest of the industry. If when we see a little bit more details in the fixed business, which account of 29% of the revenues, you can see that basically, we have growth coming from fiber, which is the red box and it’s growing at 39% year on year, 7%. But still, the digital business, which is the more the green light is still growing and is that very interesting as part of our strategy, promoting the growth in digital services and digital connection for mainly corporation and small businesses. So that is growing 20%.

So we are confident that the fixed business will start contributing with revenue and also in time with positive EBITDA and EBITDA minus CapEx. As already mentioned, the expansion in fiber is resulting in growing and increasing market share. We already have 12.3% as of the end of the year, 2024. With when we see fiber, this is home and businesses is almost 400,000 RGU, which is similar to the total connections we have, but it’s measured in RGU. So we’re growing 5% or almost 6% compared to the end of twenty twenty four.

So we will continue to grow. I have mentioned before, very casually in terms of getting high value customers in that area. And this is the our Intel net share compared to the growth of the industry. For the first quarter, we got almost half of the growth of the industry in fiber. We have been, for sure, growing the last year, so this is not a surprise.

And this is the dynamic the competitive dynamic still really we’re pushing the training in growth for this industry. Although we are the most one of the newcomers in the industry, so that would be expected. And Paula, I’ll give you Peru.

Paula Raventos, Head of Investor Relations, Entel: Thank you, Marcelo. Well, moving to Peru results operation. We are as also we have mentioned over the last quarter, we are in a high competitive industry, both in mobile and fixed businesses, increasing mobile promotional discounts from January of twenty twenty five, including physical channels. Despite this, we have with the highest competition, we’ve been able to grow in our mobile customer base. As you can see, we reached more than 10,000,000 subscribers with 5,100,000 postpaid clients, with a growth of 2.1% quarter over quarter and 10.6% year over year.

This is explained by our good quality in sales with controller churn allows this base growth. In fixed services, we are actively exploring alternative for fixed business growth while maintaining our disciplined approach to market expansion. Here, we can see as also Marcelo mentioned in Chile, here in Peru. This is a chart where we see how is the net share growth of the postpaid voice connection. Despite this high competition, we have achieved continuous postpaid growth over the last month.

And the beginning of twenty twenty five, operators reacted with this important increase that we have over the last quarter of twenty twenty four with a lot of promotions or discounts. Starting in February Entelperu regained this portability with higher promotions with an important increase in promotions. Here, we can see the results of Entelperu during this first quarter. As you can see, our revenues reached $265,000,000,000 increasing 6.4%, driven by the mobile growth in 6%, explained mainly by the results from service and equipment revenues. The sales strategy in these new channels, Express Store, as we have already mentioned the last quarters, and the strength in our call center and physical channel explain these results.

Also in B2B, we are growing with good results at the level of contract with the public and government companies. Regarding EBITDA, we reached more than $67,000,000,000 growing at least 1% due to the improvement in service and equipment margins that was also offsetting the increase in cost explained by onetime cost effects that also we did in restructuring cost. And excluding this effect, our EBITDA grows 2.2% with an EBITDA margin of 25.8%. This is an important improvement if we compare with the margin EBITDA that we saw in the fourth quarter twenty twenty four, and we are maintaining our average EBITDA margin of 25%. Excluding this time effects, we as already mentioned, the EBITDA would have reached 26%.

Regarding a deep down on our revenues, as I mentioned, the service the mobile revenues increased 6%, mainly explained by the service mobile revenues. And this is mainly because of our growth driven by mobile service revenues year over year explained to the expansion of the Express stores and the strength of our call center and physical channels, generating a significant increase in mobile subscriber base of 10.6 despite this high level of competition with higher customer acquisition discounts. Regarding our mobile handset revenues, they grew 12%, mainly due to the higher number of equipment, especially from high value devices that we sold. We maintain our leadership satisfaction, and we are second in brand power. In NPS postpaid, Intel maintained the positive gap with the leader.

And in prepaid, we continue leading. We have been worked a lot in customer proximity, also with room to growth. We have a more the base with family plans, with benefits that generate more loyalty and Intel lovers. Brand power Intel maintains sorry. Brand Power and Tel maintains second place with significant growth in network and coverage attribute with recognitions such as in best mobile network experience in 2025.

Also, we reached the first place in the telco experience in Peru for the eleventh consecutive year by ESO. Also, we are in the first place in the telco sector reputation and digital reputation by market companies. And also, we are leaders in mobile service satisfaction in 2024 by Osiptel. Our focus, as also it is in Chile, is to have the best network in Peru. We have made progress improving in network capacity, coverage and five gs coverage.

We are working on improving coverage and present outside of Lima also, too. We have established ourselves as the second largest mobile operators in terms of revenue share. And since this quarter this first quarter, we are also second in market share. Despite this higher revolving, we have been achieving a lower port out rate. But now in the first quarter twenty twenty five, there will be a little bit higher port out rate due to these competitive reactions that we got in January from the other operators, where with Intel was improving in February and March.

Regarding our blended ARPU, it increased to $5.67 mainly due to the increase in prepaid ARPU. And postpaid ARPU, it has had small decrease during this quarter, mainly because of the promotions and discounts. Now I will move forward to explain the main highlights that we have in the first quarter in our sustainability strategy. We launched our fourth integrated report, which provides a very compressive overview of our operations, performance and sustainability initiatives of the year of 2024. We highlight Intel’s commitment to the technological advance to bring closer to everyone’s responsibility transforming society and the lives of people and businesses.

Also, for the second year, the Sustainability Yearbook 2025 by Standard and Poor’s Global included Intel as one of the best performing companies in the industry, achieving twelfth place worldwide. Also, Intel was ranked number one in our category and fifteenth overall in the prestigious Merco ESG ranking. It also reaffirms our position as the industry leader in ESG management. The Corporate Reputation Monitor, MERCO, revealed in 2024 ESG ranking in Chile and once again consolidated Entel as the leader in the telecommunications sector in terms of environmental, social and corporate governance responsibility. Now we will move forward to the final remarks on our strategic objective by Marcelo.

Please go ahead.

Marcelo Versmoues, CFO, Entel: Thank you, Paola. Well, final remarks, we already saw the very strong results for the first quarter, both in Chile and Peru. We are increasing our customer base. We added almost 1,000,000 subscribers, almost 9% growth year on year and delivering strong EBITDA and EBITDA margin even adjusting by this onetime effect. So the message here is that even the competitive environment in Chile is stiffer than what we saw the full 2024, We still are being able to sustain good margins.

This is helped by also price increase we performed last year. So we expect that to continue the rest of the year, knowing that we all face more competition from players that were kind of out of the market last year. And so and our brand position and portal gap is also supporting that strategy. And that again is result of the constant and well driven investment in CapEx we have been performing in our network. I want to be clear with that.

Although the good news, I would say that, is that the in terms of cash flow for this year, we are expecting more eased cash flow as long as we keep the top line and EBITDA for the year. We have some CapEx deferral, I already mentioned, given the some lower growth in fiber plus some normal deferrals we may have in the mobile CapEx for the year. So we will be a little bit below the initial figures we have in our budget, even the ones we mentioned in our shareholders’ meeting. So that’s good news for the cash flow, but still, we will maintain our growth in fiber not only this year, but on the coming three years at the end. So this is more like a slower velocity or speed of growth, which will benefit the CapEx and the cash flow for this year.

So those are the good news. Strong results in Chile, but also in Peru. In Peru, although we know that the at the level of EBITDA margins we are getting in the range of 25%, in that area, 26%, it really gets harder to get to the range of 2830% that which is our aim. We will do that by increasing in scale. We’re gaining traction in the market.

We are growing in the market. We are sure that the investment we do in the Peruvian market will end up pushing our customer base up and we’ll be in the coming years be able to reach those 28%, thirty % revenue share and EBITDA margin. But for as of now, twenty twenty five first quarter, we have been seeing some reaction from the rest of the market for sure, but we still believe we are in a very strong position to reach our goals in terms of EBITDA expansion in that market. And also, it’s worth mentioning the point number four, which is in the slide is basically we are committed to financial presence. We are really always part of our goal is to keep the investment grade.

We are managing the recent local bond issue was part of the strategy, was a small portion of the refinancing. Now we are analyzing, as I mentioned earlier, the how and when we’re going to the market to take care of two towers. We are we have amortizing one in August year and the other large one in the third quarter of twenty twenty six. So there will be some news pretty soon. So we’re focused on that and keeping our ratios pretty healthy.

And to finalize, I just want to make sure that the financial community is aware of the our main strategic objectives that we have for the medium term, so four, five years horizon. As I mentioned, we will continue to support our leadership in mobile, in Chile and Peru. In Chile, it’s basically supported with focused investment in supporting five gs and existing four gs, maintaining a return on assets 13 or more in that business. And in Peru, as I mentioned, gain scale. And that will imply gain profitability and reach the levels of EBITDA margin I already mentioned.

Fiber, still growing. We have set our goals of reaching 20%, twenty five % share in Chile in the coming years and in the range of 15% to 20% in Peru. And that will be done aggressively but healthy in terms of customers, in terms of revenue, in terms of churn and avoiding really burning cash in that business and also really managing the deployment of the CapEx in good customers. Connectivity, as I mentioned, B2B and digital are in the way to improve the return on assets in corporate and middle business segment and also expanding the digital solutions we provide to our customers, both in M2M connections and other services related to mainly large corporation and middle sized companies. So those are the focus, and we’re working on that.

And I would say that the first quarter of this year is really showing that we have a consistent strategy, and we will keep that hopefully for the rest of the year and the coming years. We will be facing competition. We knew that. We always have faced a lot of competition in the four operator markets in each one of the market in Chile, Peru, but we have the capabilities to perform and to lead the growth of the industry. So I would say that’s it, Paolo.

Paula Raventos, Head of Investor Relations, Entel: Okay. Thank you very much, Marcelo. Now we will move to the Q and A section. Please, you can send your questions through the chat that you saw in the platform. We will wait a couple of minutes.

Thank you. We have one question from Carlos De La Gareta. Can you talk about competitive conditions in the postpaid market in both Chile and Peru?

Marcelo Versmoues, CFO, Entel: Yes. Okay. So there’s two questions there. One is the market both in Chile and Peru and there’s are Intel’s thoughts on M and A as an acquirer? So well, the as I said, the four operators in each market is always hunting us.

I mean, we know that every quarter, the market how aggressive are certain players that might vary quarter to quarter, how aggressive are the strategies in terms of discounts on promotions. But normally, promotion are short lived. So we as Intel are trying to be very cautious on really although defending our market position, that’s for sure, being very clear that we want to have good margins, be profitable. So we always look forward to have healthy growth in both market. Although it’s difficult, we know the competition is always providing discounts.

Also, have seen Vital in Peru with a strong network, improving their share in the market in a different market segment than the one we have, but still with a strong performance. We know the position in Telefonica of Telefonica in both markets. Peru is a different story at this point, but there’s still a strong competition. And for sure, Claro is present in both market, leading Peru, always providing very strong competition as a leader in Peru and growing its presence in Chile. They have been investing.

They have the five gs bandwidth that they can really take advantage of that. So we are really seeing the impacts of having good for players and operators in each market. Although also one is back in the market. The only concerns that is that the tactics that are being used will depend on the cash availability of the different players. We are in a much sound financial position.

We can continue to grow, continue to invest. So that might affect the aggressiveness in each one of the markets depending on the financial position of the rest of the industry. But in general, that’s my view. In terms of acquire, which is a question that we always get, We’re always looking at different alternatives, both in Chile and Peru. The market shares and the revenue share we have make pretty difficult that we might take relevant positions, especially in Chile because of our leading position.

Peru, we always are looking at growing with different alternatives. We’re still looking to grow with different kind of agreements in the fixed business in Peru. So there we always are one interested party, but we have to see what’s really the situation of Telefonica in Peru evolves in the coming month with a new owner and how the market and this industry will evolve in Chile. We don’t have any position at this point to comment.

Paula Raventos, Head of Investor Relations, Entel: Yes. Thank you, Marcelo. There’s another question. Thanks for the presentation. Could you provide discuss the potential for further price increase in Chile during 2025?

Marcelo Versmoues, CFO, Entel: Yes. Basically, we have been considering price increase both to new customer and a portion of the customer base, always looking to offset the impact of inflation mainly, which we have seen has relevant stake in our cost. So we might be performing depending on the trend of the on inflation for the rest of the year. At this point, we haven’t done anything relevant in Chile. In Peru, we have done some minor adjustments.

So it’s something that we are always monitoring. But at this point, I cannot really put any specific figure and timing on that.

Paula Raventos, Head of Investor Relations, Entel: Okay. There’s another question. Could you provide an outlook for CapEx 2026?

Marcelo Versmoues, CFO, Entel: ’20 ’20 ’6, yes. What we should see in as I mentioned, 2024, the we have two phenomenas. In 2024, we postponed we have a low CapEx because we postponed CapEx in Chile. So in Chile, normally, we were in the range of above 20%, twenty one % even. And in the year 2024, we ended up with a seventeen point five percent of our seventeen point 5%.

So that’s why we accelerated the CapEx in Chile for 2020 Yes. So normally, you will see in 2025 figures in Chile in the range of 18%. Twenty twenty six should be similar because in Chile, we’re not besides the expansion in fiber, which is relevant, but it’s not that relevant compared to the mobile CapEx. So you will see normally a figure close to what we are having this year 2025, which is more like a normal year. 2024 was a little bit below normal because of the market dynamics and that allow us to postpone our investment.

We are always looking at the market dynamics to postpone, defer or accelerate our investments. So that’s why I already mentioned that this year, 2025, for the coming quarters, we should be looking at some deferral given from mobile business and also from fixed. In terms of consolidated figures, 2024 ended up considering Chile and Peru and 17.3% of revenues. We I already mentioned, we should be in the range of 19%, nineteen point something this year, but below 20s given what I already mentioned, the deferral of fixed mainly. And for 2026, should be more or less in the same level, always in the range of 2019 up to 2020 in a consolidated level, right?

It will be in the middle of the range. So that’s the most guidance I could give you. We also have mentioned before that after we finish the fiber deployment, we’ll be going back to in the range of in a consolidated view of 17.5%, eighteen % at the most in a more normal after the deployment of fiber in terms of consolidated CapEx to revenues.

Paula Raventos, Head of Investor Relations, Entel: Thank you, Marcelo. There’s another question regarding adjusted EBITDA margin in Chile. With your comments on more cautious fiber growth approach in mind, Do you see current adjusted margin levels in Chile as sustainable? Or should we expect further pressure from fiber leases? From a strategic standpoint, do you see the possibility of complementing our net coverage with acquisitions

Marcelo Versmoues, CFO, Entel: or Will start by the last question. We don’t see complementing on net it might be a possibility, but it has to be in an area that the footprint of our net is not present. That it’s so it might be a case, but it’s not very obvious. But if there is a case, we’ll look at it.

The same in Peru. In Peru, we do our working to with different operators that are more like neutral networks. So that will be the case in Peru. And regarding the margins in that area, as I mentioned, we are seeing more competitions. I mean Peru is always a lot of competition, more competitive than Chile market.

But we are seeing increasing competition in the first quarter in Chile because of the reentering the market of WOM after Chapter 11 and also still Telefonica is working in market. And Claro, we know that is pushing a little bit the market given the new investment they have done. So we believe that there will be more pressure in Chile for the rest of the year, but that pressure already started in the first quarter of the year. So there’s no reason why if we keep cost control and we leverage our market position, why we shouldn’t keep similar margins adjusted I mean, pro form a margins for the rest of the year. I would say that as long as service sales continue the same way that we posted in the first quarter and handset equipment continues as healthier they were in the first quarter, there’s no reason to discount margins below the level the adjusted level we mentioned for the first quarter.

Paula Raventos, Head of Investor Relations, Entel: Thank you. There’s another question, a more conceptual question. Do you have a very large handset business in Peru? How much does that business hold your margins back? How much lower is the handset margin versus the telco service margin?

Marcelo Versmoues, CFO, Entel: Yes. Yes. I mean, in general, the both in Chile and Peru, the same phenomenon. The margins is in the range is that in Peru, it’s in the range of 13%, fourteen %. In Chile, it’s in the range of 13% to 12%.

It’s a little bit below that. But in total, if you combine both operations, it’s in the range of 12% to 14%. So it’s much lower than the margin for services. So as long as we grow in the sale of handset and the financing of handsets, that push our overall margin down because of this mix effect. But it still is a very profitable business in terms of ROI, And it also supports and is related to our growth in customer base.

Normally, we provide finance to a good customer base, and that’s really part of the business. Although it’s more volatile, it’s more sensitive to market fluctuations in terms of economic growth and etcetera.

Paula Raventos, Head of Investor Relations, Entel: Yes. There’s another question regarding, could you give more color on the restructuring initiatives you carried out and on whether the cost savings they generate were already reflected in adjusted margins this quarter? Or if instead the savings will became more visible in the second quarter?

Marcelo Versmoues, CFO, Entel: Yes. No, we that restructuring was performed in March. So the only the cost of the severance cost of that restructuring. Although the payback is not that fast, we’ll have some impact during the rest of the year, but it normally takes between twelve fifteen months to get the full impact of the payback. So we will have the impact starting from April until March.

The answer is yes. And the extent of that restructuring, normally, we have performed in 2023, there was a relevant restructuring. There was a minor restructuring in the first quarter and the last quarter of twenty twenty four was less aggressive. And this in March 2025 was a little bit more aggressive. Normally, we are reviewing our structures as part of normal business, the restructuring and focusing and implementing also measures to control our overall cost.

So it is relevant in terms of size, but it is part of the normal business and the impact will be seen in the rest of the year.

Paula Raventos, Head of Investor Relations, Entel: Okay. Thank you. I think we have more. There’s no more? So thank you.

I think there’s no more questions. Please, if you have any other questions, you can contact me, and we can arrange a call. Thank you so much for joining us today, and we will thank you for, your meetings and your participation. Thank you so much. Have a nice day.

Marcelo Versmoues, CFO, Entel: Have a nice day. Bye.

Paula Raventos, Head of Investor Relations, Entel: Bye bye.

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