Earnings call transcript: KPN’s Q3 2025 growth fueled by fiber expansion

KPN’s third-quarter earnings call revealed solid growth in both service revenues and EBITDA, driven by significant advancements in fiber network expansion. The Dutch telecom giant reported a 1.7% increase in group service revenues year-over-year, alongside an adjusted EBITDA growth of 4.4%. The company’s stock is trading near its 52-week high, with a remarkable year-to-date return of 20%. According to InvestingPro data, KPN has maintained dividend payments for 12 consecutive years, with a current dividend yield of 4.3%. Despite a competitive market, KPN maintained its leadership in the Dutch fiber market and announced strategic plans for future growth.

Key Takeaways

• Group service revenues rose by 1.7% year-over-year.
• Adjusted EBITDA increased by 4.4%.
• Free cash flow surged by 12% year-to-date.
• Expanded fiber network by 74,000 homes.

Company Performance

KPN demonstrated robust performance in Q3 2025, with a focus on expanding its fiber network and launching new products like the Combi4Del convergence offering. The company strengthened its market position by acquiring Youfone, targeting the lower-end market. InvestingPro analysis shows the company maintains strong profitability with a gross profit margin of 54% and a healthy return on equity of 22%. KPN’s operational efficiency improved with a workforce reduction of over 300 full-time equivalents, contributing to decreased indirect costs. Want deeper insights? InvestingPro offers 8 additional exclusive tips about KPN’s performance and outlook.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: Increased by 1.7% year-over-year.
• Adjusted EBITDA: Grew by 4.4% (2.3% on a comparable basis).
• Free cash flow: Up 12% year-to-date.
• Cash position: Ended Q3 with €373 million.
• Leverage ratio: 2.5x, expected to reduce to 2.4x by year-end.

Outlook & Guidance

KPN targets an average service revenue and EBITDA growth of 3%, with a 7% annual growth in free cash flow. The company anticipates a 2% service revenue growth in Q4 and plans to reduce CapEx to €1 billion by 2027. InvestingPro’s Financial Health Score of 2.86 (rated as "GOOD") supports these ambitious targets. The company’s low beta of 0.22 indicates relatively stable stock performance. A strategic update is scheduled for November 5th.

Executive Commentary

• "We lead the Dutch fiber market," stated Joost Farwerck, CEO, emphasizing KPN’s dominant position.
• Farwerck highlighted financial priorities by saying, "The seven, the cash, is the most important one of those three."
• On competitive strategy, Farwerck remarked, "We play our own game."

Risks and Challenges

• Market Competition: The Dutch telecom market remains highly competitive, with two fixed network providers in most areas.
• Price Pressures: Mobile price pressures in Large Corporate and Enterprise segments could impact margins.
• Technological Disruptions: Limited threat from fixed wireless access or satellite providers, but technological advancements could alter market dynamics.

KPN’s strategic focus on fiber expansion and operational efficiency positions it well for future growth, despite challenges in the competitive Dutch telecom landscape. Based on InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, the stock is currently fairly valued. For comprehensive analysis including valuation metrics, growth prospects, and peer comparisons, access the detailed Pro Research Report available exclusively on InvestingPro.

Full transcript - Koninklijke KPN NV (KPN) Q3 2025:

Conference Call Operator: Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to KPN’s third quarter earnings webcast and conference call. Please note that this event is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question-and-answer session towards the end of today’s prepared remarks. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star one on your telephone. I will now turn the call over to your host for today, Matthijs van Leijenhorst, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Matthijs van Leijenhorst, Head of Investor Relations, KPN: Yeah, thank you, operator. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today. Today, we published our Q3 results. With me today are Joost Farwerck, our CEO, and Chris Figee, our CFO. As usual, before we begin the presentation, I would like to remind you of the safe harbor on page two of the slides, which applies to any statements made during this presentation. In particular, today’s presentation may include forward-looking statements, including KPN’s expectations regarding its outlook and ambitions, which were also included in the press release published this morning. All such statements are subject to the safe harbor. Now, let me hand over to our CEO, Joost Farwerck.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Thank you, Matthijs, and welcome, everyone. Let’s start with the highlights of the last quarter, third quarter. Our group service revenues increased by 1.7% with growth across all the segments. In the mix, consumer was supported by ongoing commercial momentum, both in broadband and mobile. Business was driven by mainly SME and LC. As expected, growth slowed in the third quarter, mainly due to the tailored solutions parts. Wholesale continued to grow, mainly driven by sponsored roaming. Our EBITDA grew by 2.3% on a comparable basis. As expected, our free cash flow rebounded in the third quarter, up 12% year to date, driven by EBITDA growth. We further expanded our fiber footprint together with our joint venture, Glaspoort. Finally, we remain confident to deliver on the full year 2025 outlook and our 337 midterms ambition. As a reminder, our Connect, Activate, and Growth strategy is supported by three key pillars.

First of all, we continue to invest in our leading networks. Second, we continue to grow and protect our customer base. Third, we further modernize and simplify our operating model. Together, these priorities support our ambition to grow our service revenues and adjusted EBITDA by approximately 3% on average and our free cash flow by approximately 7% over the entire strategic period. Given that we are now nearly halfway through our strategic period, we look forward to sharing a strategy update with you next week, November 5. We hope you will join us online for the webcast. Let me now walk you through the business details. We lead the Dutch fiber market. In the third quarter, we expanded our fiber footprint by adding 74,000 homes passed together with Glaspoort. We connected 82,000 homes, bringing us close to an 80% homes connected within the fiber footprint.

The rollout pace slowed compared to previous quarters due to timing. We stick to our ambition to cover 80% of Dutch households with fiber. During our strategy update next week, we’ll share how we will get there within our financial framework. Let’s now have a look at the consumer segments. Consumer service revenues continue to grow, driven by consistent fiber and mobile service revenue growth. Customer satisfaction remains a priority. Thanks to our Combi4Del offer supported by SuperWiFi, our Net Promoter Score rose to plus 15 year to date. Net Promoter Score even reached plus 17 during the quarter, showing how these improvements are making a real difference for our customers. Let’s take a closer look at our third quarter KPIs. We saw another quarter of double-digit broadband-based growth despite a challenging competitive environment.

Thanks to a steady and healthy inflow of new fiber customers, combined with a growing ARPU, our fixed service revenues continue to grow. In mobile, we maintained a strong commercial momentum, adding 47,000 subscribers. This was partly offset by ARPU decline, driven by ongoing promotional activity in the no-frills segment. Overall, our mobile service revenue grew by 1%. Let’s now turn to the B2B segments. Business service revenues increased by 1.4% year on year, driven by SME and LCE and good commercial momentum. Net Promoter Score rose to plus 5 in the third quarter, reflecting customer appreciation for stability, reliability, and the quality of our networks and services. SME service revenues increased by 3.3% year on year, driven by growth in cloud and workspace, broadband, and mobile. LCE service revenues increased by 1% year on year, supported by growth in mainly IoT, unified communications, and CPaaS.

Mobile service revenues were impacted by ongoing price pressure, though this was partly offset by a growing customer base. Finally, as expected, I must say, tailored solutions service revenues decreased by 2.5%, reflecting a further focus on value sharing. Wholesale service revenues continue to grow, mainly due to a strong performance in mobile, driven by the continued growth in international sponsored roaming. Broadband service revenues increased despite a decline in copper-based, driven by fiber. Other service revenues increased, mainly due to an update in faster roaming. Now, let me hand over to Chris to give you more details on the financials.

Chris Figee, CFO, KPN: Thank you, Joost. Let me now take you to our financial performance. First, let me summarize some key figures for the third quarter. First, adjusted revenues increased 2.4% year on year in the third quarter, driven by service revenue growth across all segments and higher non-service revenues. Second, our adjusted EBITDA after leases grew by 4.4% compared to last year, supported by higher service revenues, the IPR benefits, and contributions from the Tower Company LTO. This is partly offset by the holiday provision effect. As a reminder, starting this year, most employees no longer register holiday leave, resulting in a lower provision release in Q3 compared to last year, impacting, therefore, the distribution of EBITDA growth over the year, with a specific negative accounting impact in the third quarter. Finally, as anticipated, our free cash flow rebounded in Q3 and is now up 12% year to date.

I’ll share more details on the underlying cash developments later in this presentation. Group service revenues grew by 1.7% year on year, supported by all segments. Within this mix, consumer revenues increased by 1.1%, driven by, as Joost said, continued solid momentum in both fixed and mobile. Business service revenue growth favored off somewhat in the third quarter compared to previous quarters, mainly due to developments in tailored solutions and timing effects. Finally, wholesale service revenues increased by 5.2% year on year, driven by ongoing growth in our international sponsored roaming business. Our adjusted EBITDA grew 4.4% year on year in Q3, or 2.3% on a comparable basis if we adjust for the IPR benefits, the LTO contribution, and the holiday provisioning effects.

Direct costs remain broadly in line with last year, reflecting shifts in the revenue mix, particularly within tailored solutions, where a continued focus on value and margin steering is shaping direct cost dynamics. On a comparable basis, our indirect cost base decreased by €500, driven by lower energy and billing costs. We further scaled down our workforce, resulting in a reduction of over 300 FTEs compared to the previous year. Our year-to-date operational free cash flow increased by 12% compared to last year, or 8.6%, excluding the IPR benefit and LTO, driven, therefore, by EBITDA growth. As expected and communicated to you, free cash flow generation rebounded in the third quarter, mainly due to improved working capital and lower interest payments.

Year to date, our free cash flow is up 12% compared to the first nine months of last year, again, supported by EBITDA growth and partly offset by higher interest payments and cash taxes paid in this year. Finally, we ended the quarter with a cash position of €373 million, absorbing the impact of the interim dividend over 2025 and share buyback payments. We continue to run with a strong balance sheet. At the end of Q3, we had a leverage ratio of 2.5 times, in line with our self-imposed ceiling and remained stable compared to the previous quarter. We expect our leverage ratio to return to 2.4 times by the end of the year, supported by increased free cash flow generation. Our interest coverage ratio was sequentially a bit lower at 9.5 times, and our cost of senior debt decreased slightly, mainly driven by lower floating interest rates.

Our exposure to floating rates, by the way, remains limited at only 16%. Our liquidity position of around €1.4 billion remains strong, covering debt maturities until the end of 2028. We are on track to deliver the 2025 outlook we shared with you in July. On the 25th of July, we completed our €250 million share buyback program for the year. A cancellation of about 60 million treasury shares will be finalized in Q4. On August 1, we paid out an interim dividend of €0.73 per share in respect of 2025. Finally, we reiterate our midterm, also known as our 337 targets, as presented at our previous capital market day.

As I outlined back then, both service revenues and EBITDA are expected to grow 3% per year on average over the planned periods, and our free cash flow plus 7% per annum on average, with growth in cash back-end loaded due to our CapEx plans. Until 2026, our free cash flow growth is expected to grow at a low single-digit rate per year since we face increasing cash taxes year on year. Now, let me briefly wrap up with the key takeaways. We continue to see service revenue growth across all segments. While revenue growth moderated somewhat in Q3, we anticipate a recovery in the fourth quarter. Our commercial momentum remains solid, and we continue to lead the Dutch fiber market. Our net add developments in both fixed and mobile, and both in consumer and business, were quite satisfactory in Q3.

As expected and planned for, EBITDA growth was relatively substantive in Q3, but is set to recover in Q4. Cash flow generation was strong, up more than 10% year to date. Overall, we’re on track this year and continue to make good progress towards our annual and midterm targets. We reiterate our guidance for the year. Finally, as we approach the halfway point of our strategy, we can’t wait to look forward to providing you with an update of our strategy next week, next week on November 5. Thanks for listening, and turn to your questions.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Yeah, thanks, Chris. Operator, please open the line for the Q&A. Please limit your questions to two.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will start the question-and-answer session now. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star one on your telephone. Our first question is from Polo Tang of UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking the questions. I have two. The first one is, is there any update in terms of the Glaspoort acquisition of parts of the Delta Fiber footprint? My second question is, we have a general election in the Netherlands this week. Is this having any impact on public sector spending in terms of your B2B segment? Thanks.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Yeah, Polo, thanks for your questions. The Glaspoort acquisition, it takes our regulator a very long time to come to a final opinion. As you know, Glaspoort intends to acquire a rural fiber footprint of approximately 200,000 homes passed from Delta Fiber, and it’s still under ACM review. We expect something within one, two months because it takes really too long. We think it’s still no reason to refuse it. This could reduce overbuild risks for both parties and support healthy market development. Elections are coming up in the Netherlands. That’s tomorrow, by the way. On the midterm, we see limited impact on KPN. Major topics in the elections are immigration, healthcare, housing markets. The government wants to build more houses, and we think that’s a good plan because now we can take them into the homes passed footprint.

Topics that could affect KPN on the longer term are about investments in defense, and we’re in a good position to own that. We are selected as the main technical digital provider for the Ministry of Defense. The discussions around fiscal affairs, for instance, the innovation box facility and the share buyback taxation, but that’s a vague and faraway remark somewhere from one of the left-wing parties. All in all, I don’t expect that much impact for KPN.

Just on public sector, can I clarify if there’s any freezing of public sector spend into an election or out of an election? Because we see that sometimes in other markets.

No, not really. We have some kind of a framework. When elections are coming up and when a cabinet falls in the Netherlands, they select a couple of topics that they have to continue to run. We are all convinced in the Netherlands that we should keep on investing in the themes I just mentioned. Also, when it comes to cybersecurity and digital, there’s no slowing down there from the government. We are heavily involved in there.

Thanks.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Molly Whitcomb of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. My first question is on B2B. You have said that you’ve seen some price pressure in mobile and B2B. Could you give us a little bit more color on this? Are you seeing this dynamic both in LC and in SMEs? To what extent should we consider this when we’re looking at longer-term trends going into 2026? My second question is just on the B2C competitive environment. What are you seeing in terms of competition, and have there been any incremental differences versus last quarter? Thank you.

Chris Figee, CFO, KPN: Yeah, Molly, on your question on mobile, price pressure is mostly in LCE and larger corporate tickets. There is some price pressure going on. I think that I would say from our point of view, there’s still some of the decline, but the decline is declining. Technically, you say the second derivative is positive, but that’s a bit of an early view. I would say expect in LCE some repricing of our base into next year, but probably we have good hope it’s going to be bottoming out, at least. There is some price decline that’s getting a bit better. We saw something similar in SME, but in SME, we’ve especially been able to counter that with value-added services by selling more security solutions to customers, so keeping our ARPU up. There is some price pressure, most notable in LCE, but gradually abating.

We’ll wait until next year, but I think somewhere during the course of this year, that effect we hopefully should pan out. In SME, it’s much less prevalent. There we see and have experienced good opportunities to counter that with additional value-added services, like additional bondings, but mostly security services around SME to keep your ARPU stable there.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Yeah, and on the competitive environment, like in Q2, the market remains competitive in consumer markets. ODIDO and Florian Maag especially. Florian Maag launched a new proposition, broadband fixed on their cable network, a 2 gig proposition recently announced. It is interesting to see how they will do there. The impact on KPN is expected to be limited because our first proposition is 1 gig, and we also offer 4 gig. Most of the new customers land in 1 or 4 gig via our fiber network. For us, it’s very important to play our own game. We focus on base management, for instance, on convergence households via Combi4Del, resulting in lower copper and fiber churn and 11,000 net adds. We also are very happy with the acquisition of Youfone because on the lower end of the market, to call it that way, there’s true competition going on. Youfone covers that.

Currently, more than already two-thirds of our broadband base is on fiber, and that’s leading to lower churn and higher NPS. That’s how we position ourselves in this competitive environment.

Very clear. Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Paul Whitney of Berenberg. Please go ahead.

New growth. It’s slow into Q3 at the group level. There’s obviously lots of moving parts.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Can you hear me?

We couldn’t hear the first part. Could you start over again? Thanks.

Sure. Can you hear me now okay?

Yep.

Okay. Perfect.

Okay. Great. Yeah, just the first question on service revenue growth. We did see it slow into the quarter at the group level. There’s lots of moving parts, and you’ve given some great granularity in terms of the drivers of that. As we head into Q4, how confident are you that we can see an acceleration in that service revenue growth trend? Secondly, just looking at the bigger picture, your reports are very comprehensive KPIs, very detailed guidance. There’s net adds, service revenue growth, NPS scores, free cash flow, and returns guidance. I was just wondering, if we take a step back, which of those is most important to KPN as a business in terms of what really is sort of driving the business? Maybe we get more detail on next week, but just I’m really interested to hear your views on that.

Yeah, Paul, let me give you some more granularity on how we see service revenue growth developing. I’m going to just walk you through a business. I think the second question is a difficult CEO question.

Chris Figee, CFO, KPN: Yeah, for sure. I’ll leave that to you, Joost. Look, on consumer, fixed is showing 1% service revenue growth. We’ve had tailwinds from a price increase, some headwinds from migration from front to backbook, discounts, etc. I think overall, the good news is that churn is actually reducing. The churn is doing better than ever. I think one of the best churn quarters in fixed in some time to come. Also, please note, we have a Combi4Del product in which we give customers with multiple products additional discounts leading to lower churn. That additional discount feeds through the top line. That affects top line in fixed service revenue growth by almost 0.5% this quarter and even more in next quarter. For Q4, expect fixed service revenues to come in at a 0.4, 0.5%. That really is the accounting and the upfront payments on these additional discounts that lead to churn.

The discounts especially to multi-converged customers, and we’re seeing benefits of churn on that. We’ll give you more intel next week. That feeds into fixed. In mobile, you see a price increase coming in, has already come in, has landed pretty well. I would expect mobile consumer to be around 1.5% in the fourth quarter. Fixed below 1 and mobile well above 1. In B2B, I see SME recover. There were some technicalities in the SME numbers, but it’s also, I think, good base and ARPU developments, especially in the third quarter. A little bit easier comps, I would say, SME should be 4% to 5% again in the fourth quarter, and also in that into the next year. LCE hovering around 0. On the tailored solutions business, there’s always some volatility in this business that has to do with the timing of projects.

For example, if you go back to last year, we saw growth, service revenue growth in Q3, four, and then from five to two, back to five. There’s always a bit of volatility in this business due to the nature of these activities. In the third quarter, we saw the effects of KPN’s additional more steering on margins. We lost some business. Some of it we did actually mind because it was actually zero margin revenues. Underlying this, growth in defense spending. I’d expect the tailored solutions business to be back around 2% to 3% in the fourth quarter, which should bring B2B to around 3. Wholesale, I would say probably around 4% to 5%-ish in the fourth quarter. That means overall service revenues in Q4, I would say around 2%. Probably 2% or a bit up. That’s the moving parts. Some of it has to do with technicalities.

For example, as I said, fixed service revenues, the accounting for the common quarter cost shows up through revenues. It is showing up to churn, so it leads to real value. Short-term service revenues are a bit affected. Mobile should recover. SME should recover. The rest, I think I explained to you, for probably around 2%-ish service revenue growth in Q4.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Yeah, Paul. Your question on all the KPIs and the main targets. We try to keep things simple in our strategy. We’re a single-country operator. We’re healthy, and we build a plan for all stakeholders. We invest in the Netherlands, we invest in customers, we invest in our own people, and we want to reward our shareholders in a decent way. For that reason, you’re right. We give a lot of KPIs, which is about broadband base growth or base growth in broadband, mobile, SME, CAGRs on revenue, Net Promoter Score, you name it all. At the end, we simplified everything by saying it’s a 337 CAGR. That’s the top line, EBITDA, and cash. If I have to make a choice, I say the seven, the cash, is the most important one of those three. The rest is all leading it.

Sometimes you’re a bit behind on a subsegment, sometimes you’re a bit speeding up somewhere, sometimes the NPS is lower or higher. At the end, it’s very important that we get to that financial promise, and we’re on track. It depends a bit on the stakeholder when it comes to the KPIs we focus on.

Really appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from David Wise of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, guys. Just on VodafoneZiggo, they obviously announced their strategic shift earlier this year, pushing a little more into Q2. I’m sure we’ll get a similar message on Q3. Are you observing, how are you observing their sort of retail pushback now? They’ve obviously branded the 2 gigabit product. We’ve got a slightly keener pricing. Do you observe anything else? Is there a lot more marketing spend? You know, is the marketing different than it was before? Just any casual observations you might have on how they’ve changed tack. Thank you.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: The change we saw was the announcement on super fast internet. I think for the market, that’s not that bad. I mean, on mobile, we all three move to unlimited, which is a good development for the total market. If the total market moves to a higher speed broadband, it wouldn’t be that bad, I guess. We play our own game. Like I mentioned, customers come in on 1 or 4 gig, and that’s difficult to copy. So far, it’s more an announcement than I see real movements in the market. Chris, you have anything to add on?

Chris Figee, CFO, KPN: Yeah, I mean, when I look at, for example, our broadband add-ons and fiber add-ons, fiber add-ons have been steady. That will net add-ons, but if you exclude all the copper migrations, fiber, real new clients come in around 16,000 to 17,000 for quite some time now. Pretty steady. We’ve seen churn coming down. We’ve seen churn coming down in both fiber and copper. That churn reduction started in Q2 and continued in Q3. That’s actually positive. We don’t want to steer just by the month. When I look at just the simple October numbers, the order balances and the early indications of the month of October are fine. At this point, it feels that we are obviously cognizant that there’s a serious competitor out there. In terms of underlying performance, no change in recent trends from where we are in right now.

I say, in fact, churn has come down and things have not fallen off a cliff in the month of October.

Okay, that’s useful. Thank you, guys.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Joshua Mills of BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. A couple of questions on my side. Firstly, it’s been about a year since ODIDO launched FWA services across the Netherlands. I wondered if you could give an update on how you think that’s impacted the competitive landscape and whether it is impacting on your wholesale line losses as well, or whether that’s due to other factors. Secondly, if I just build on that wholesale line loss question, trends look to be similar to the last couple of quarters. How would you expect that to develop over the next couple of years? Do some of the more aggressive promotions we’re seeing from your ISP partners go any way to help with that trend going forward, even if it’s painful on the retail side? Thanks.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Yeah, fixed wireless access from ODIDO. We see activations on fixed wireless access, but it’s also a different market than the broadband market in general in the Netherlands. It’s also a bit of a niche camp market for people camping, people on holiday, people in boats. Therefore, it’s useful. It’s also used as another option than hold by on our network or on Delta Fiber’s network. For ODIDO, their asset lies on fixed and they are asset-heavy on mobile. They try to clearly sell more customers fixed wireless access to leverage the asset and to avoid the wholesale payments. It’s not really impactful when it comes to total broadband market share. We use it as well, by the way, in super rural areas, but we always use it in combination with the fixed line. For us, convergence is, as you know, the strategy.

In copper areas, the speed of the internet connection can be supported by bonding via fixed wireless access. Probably we’re going to use that more frequently in the rural areas.

Chris Figee, CFO, KPN: Yeah. Joshua, on the wholesale side, if you look at the line losses in wholesale, that’s really only copper. Wholesale fiber is growing from our main customer and wholesale copper is declining. As we understand, that decline is mostly related to the switching of the tailored to brand. The switching of a brand and the switching of a brand leads to customer migration. That’s the main driver for losses in copper and wholesale. I expect that to continue in Q4 and possibly within Q1, but that’s probably then the light at the end of the tunnel. I think that’s the end in sight on that development. For example, broadband service revenues, I think we’re up to about 2% this year. I think broadband service revenues in mobile will be plus 2% this year.

Next year, around flat, it’s a combination of fiber growth, indexation, and the decline in that copper part. The way I look at it, it’s mostly a line loss in copper related to the switching off of a brand. That is a project that will come to an end. I would say the next somewhere mid to early Q1, I would expect that impact to really fade away.

Great. Thanks very much.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Keval Khiroya of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I’ve got two questions, please. You’ve done quite well on consumer broadband despite the competitive backdrop. How do you think about the gap between front and backbook pricing in broadband? Do you get many requests from customers to move to the current cheaper promos in the market? Secondly, hopefully, you commented on wholesale broadband. How do we think about the level of mobile wholesale growth next year? Obviously, sponsored roaming has been quite helpful. Does that continue? Any insights on the level of growth next year would be helpful.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Yeah. We shifted a bit on strategy as we announced last year, and that is invest more in existing customers instead of playing the acquisition game. We think it’s very important to make a difference against the more challengers in the market. Investing in the customer base also leads to backbook/frontbook migrations. That’s how revenues in broadband are impacted. That’s why you only see one point something on the service revenue growth while we do a price increase of 3%. Having said that, that’s part of our plan. When we move customers into what we call a combination because it’s Combi4Del, they have to sign up for two years. That’s leading to a backbook/frontbook migration. We made it part of our strategy.

Chris Figee, CFO, KPN: Yeah. Keval, on the wholesale side, we’ve been quite successful in mobile service revenue growth in wholesale. I expect that to continue. I don’t plan on this level of growth going forward, but we have a decent funnel of potential new counterparties signing up in these types of businesses. We have a number of these clients that we help win new business. We work for them to win new businesses, so I expect continued growth in this business going forward, perhaps not at the same pace. I think wholesale should be able to grow around 4% of our top line growth next year, all in with flattest broadband service revenue growth and the remainder is mobile. Continued growth, but let me be a bit conservative and not project the same level of growth. Wholesale, around 4% service revenue growth next year is definitely feasible with all of this.

That’s clear. Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Ajay Soni of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Mine’s just around the FTE reduction. I think you were 300 lower year over year, which seems to be around 3% of your employee base. My first question is just around, you know, why is this not being reflected maybe more obviously within your EBITDA outreach? Are there any other headwinds which are, which means it isn’t reflected? I think you’re looking further ahead. Can you accelerate this FTE reduction over the next year so they are more meaningful in 2026? Thank you.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Yeah. Thanks for the question. Next week, we will update you on what we are doing on transformation programs and how we look at the company in a couple of years from now and what kind of operating model we’re building. As a result of that, yes, we expect more FTE reduction. Why don’t you see the minus 300 already impacting our EBITDA? First of all, we have a CLA increase, other increases of pension costs. We have to cover up for, I don’t know, Chris, 6% something of increasing wage costs. Secondly, it’s also about the timing in the year. The 300 will kick in on a higher scale next year than this quarter. Moving the company to a lower FTE base as a result of quality improvements and digitalization is very important also to cover costs and to make a step down.

Great. Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Siyi He of Citi. Please go ahead.

Hello. Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first one is really on the comments of your Q4 service revenue growth of 2%. Just trying to think about the trends for next year. I think you mentioned that the B2B and wholesale trend probably is going to be a similar level to Q4. I’m just wondering if you can comment what kind of tailwinds that you would expect to basically help the service revenue growth to accelerate from the 2% to the midterm guidance of 3%. My second question is basically on our fiber rollout. I’m sure that you will cover it next week.

I’m just wondering if you can give us some colors of how should we think about the fiber CapEx considering that there seems going to be a decent acceleration needs to be done to meet the above 80% coverage target. Thank you.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: On the fiber CapEx, we clearly guided the market that we will make a step down in 2027. We still plan for that. We expect a step down of at least €250 million. That’s in our guidance, and we stick to the guidance. Chris?

Chris Figee, CFO, KPN: Yeah. I mean, look, on the service revenue growth, we’ll give you a lot more details next week in our capital market strategy update. Not a full capital market, but a strategy update will give you more details. Think of consumer to be growing about 1.5%, B2B north of 3%, B2B around 4%. That should make for top line growth. More in details next week.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Yeah, wholesale for B2B three, wholesale four. Yeah.

Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from David Vagman of ING. Please go ahead.

David Vagman, Analyst, ING: Yes, thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. The first one, coming back on the competitive environment in broadband, if you can comment on your view, on your expectation, rather, on the potential ARPU evolution, everything in mind, you know, speed tiering, but also competition, you know, the announcement of VodafoneZiggo and the tweaking of offers by ODIDO yesterday. A second question on the broadband wholesale market in the Netherlands, also your expectation on the ARPU side for KPN. Thank you.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Yeah. On the, I mean, the market is competitive. It will stay competitive, and I don’t expect that to change. The difference between the Netherlands and most other markets is that we have a fully fiberized country already, almost. We’re in, 90% of the households already are covered by fiber networks. All households are connected to at least two fixed networks. What I want to say is our digital infrastructure, fixed, is of a super high level compared to other countries. There is competition between the fixed players, but I don’t expect much competition coming in from fixed wireless access or satellite or other things you see in countries covering more rural areas as well. The competition will be firm, but we positioned ourselves, and I’m glad we did, by the way. We built a fiber footprint of almost 70%, more or less clean.

There’s not that much appetite to overbuild us there. It will be more competitive in the new areas for us. There we can say to overbuild. We’re waiting for our regulator to see what they do with that Glaspoort deal. Compared to other countries, I would say, yes, it is competitive. It is challenging, but we build a strong fiber footprint in the core of our strategy.

Chris Figee, CFO, KPN: Yeah. To your point on wholesale ARPUs in broadband, a couple of things at play. Of course, every year we have indexation. There’s a schedule approved and agreed with the regulator. Effectively, it’s around 2% indexation every year. Our ARPU is supported by, in the mix, shift from copper to fiber. We see a decline in copper and increase in fiber. That is supportive. Any ARPU actions that we do to support our wholesale broadband partners tend to be linked to retention, tend to be for specific higher speeds, or tend to be linked to volume commitments. Basically, I would say ARPUs in wholesale broadband are pretty well sustained and often linked to a combination of mix, price increases, and/or specific agreements on retention and volume.

David Vagman, Analyst, ING: Thanks very much.

Conference Call Operator: The final question is from.

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Yes, sorry.

Conference Call Operator: The final question is from Octavio Aderrasio of Bernstein. Please go ahead.

All right. Good afternoon, gentlemen. A couple of follow-up questions. On slide eight, you exactly state that you expect a bottoming up on the mobile. During the call, effectively, you highlighted the price increases. When someone looks at the chart, you can see that revenue trends bottomed up already in Q4 and deteriorated afterwards. My question is what makes you confident that the price increase will stick this time around and we don’t go to promotion later on and the revenue trends deteriorate again? The second one is on the broadband. The churn for corporate for your couple of customers is stable, you state that one. Looking at the numbers, look at the migration from copper to fiber to be the lowest this quarter over the past two years. My question is that there is any plan to encourage migration by reducing the price gap between copper and fiber? Thanks.

Chris Figee, CFO, KPN: On the first question, what happened? What will happen from Q3 to Q4? What happened last year? Q4 last year was a very particular quarter where a few things happened. We saw a temporary drop, actually, an accounting drop with roaming that actually reversed in the first quarter. You can see in the first quarter, service revenue growth in mobile going up. It had to do with the accounting and booking of some roaming revenues. Second, we had an iPhone credit. If you recall well, last year, we had some iPhone disturbances for which we gave some of our customers specific credits to compensate for that. I mean, the iPhone disturbance was not our fault, but it ended our customers. Thirdly, we had a special offer in the market in that very fourth quarter.

A couple of particular trends took down growth in the fourth quarter to a low level after we rebounded in Q1 last year. Those were particular impacts on that third quarter or fourth quarter. I don’t expect them to repeat. That gives me some comfort that that blip that you saw last year will not come again this year. The second question on copper upgrades to fiber. We really tried to upgrade customers to fiber. It’s a function of network rollout. It’s a function of planning. It’s a function of access to customers that fluctuates a bit over time. There’s no strategic or tactical retreat in this part, if you see what I mean. It has to do with timing and operation execution. We will continue to migrate customers to copper to fiber.

We might actually, at the point in the midterms, try to accelerate that to enable the switch off of our copper network to accelerate. Josh, do you want to add?

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: The unique thing of our fiber footprint is that we’re building a fiber footprint with 80% of the households connected. That’s first of all to migrate all existing customers of KPN to the fiber network. That’s the copper churn or the copper migration. We want to connect a lot of new customers, and we want to connect as well a lot of wholesale connections. There’s more room on the network of households already prepared for an activation from a distance. The copper migration is something that’s really in our system to finalize to a switch off the copper network as well.

Chris Figee, CFO, KPN: Okay. One final question.

Conference Call Operator: Our final question comes from Joshua Mills from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Sorry, possibly a pedantic one here. If I look at slide number six in the presentation where you have homes passed as a % of Dutch households, you have the target of 80%. I don’t see a year associated with that. I think in previous presentations, you were highlighting that you would reach 80% homes passed coverage by the end of 2026. Can you just confirm that that’s still the guidance and there’s no change there just so I’m clear?

Joost Farwerck, CEO, KPN: Yes, we are expanding our fiber footprint this year, next year, and the years after. 74,000 homes passed, 82,000 homes connected this quarter. We stick to 66 because if you read it as well as you did, then last quarter we also recorded 66, but that’s because of an annual addition of households by CBS, the Central Bureau of Statistics in the Netherlands. We stick to our ambition of 80% of Dutch households on fiber. Next week, during our strategy update, we’ll share how we will get there within our financial framework. We aim for 80% and we confirm our midterm ambition of 337 targets, including the CapEx step down to €1 billion in 2027.

Okay. Just so it’s clear, the explicit target previously of reaching 80% by the end of 2026 is not there.

I’ve said in previous calls as well that there’s a lot of KPIs like we just discussed out there. Sometimes we meet, we’re getting faster. Sometimes we’re slowing down. The 80% is also a target, which is a very important one for us, and we will meet it for sure. On the timing part, we will get back to you next week. At the end, it’s for us very important that the overall total strategy works and that’s working.

Understood. Thank you.

Chris Figee, CFO, KPN: Okay. That concludes today’s session. Obviously, we will see each other. We’ll meet online next week during our strategy event next Wednesday on the 5th of November. See you then. Speak to you then. Cheers.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s presentation. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your line. Have a nice day.

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