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Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. (TKC)

Q4 2022 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 9, 2023

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Maria, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Turkcell's conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Ali Serdar Yağcı, Investor Relations and Corporate Finance Director. Mr. Yağcı, you may now proceed. Ali Serdar Yağcı: Thank you, Maria. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Turkcell's fourth quarter and full year 2022 results call. Today, our CEO, Mr. Murat Erkan; and acting CFO, Mr. Kamil Kalyon will deliver a brief presentation covering operational and financial results and afterwards we will be doing Q&A. Before we start, I would like to remind you of our safe harbor statement at the end of the presentation. Now handing over to Mr. Erkan.

Murat Erkan

Management

Thank you, Serdar. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We are devastated by the earthquake that struck Southeastern Turkey on February 6th. We offer heartfelt condolences to families of those who lost their lives at this catastrophic event. We trust in the solidity of the nation to overcome this massive tragedy. The past year presented many challenges and opportunities not only the Turkish economy, but also to the global. The war in Ukraine drove up food and energy prices. Also, elevated supply chain disruption further worsened pricing behavior across all markets. Easing inflation towards the year-end provides some relief to the markets, yet it will continue to impact this year's economic growth. In Turkey, inflation was a major concern during the year despite cooling off in the year-end. On the other hand, strong domestic demand and robust tourist inflow reaching pre-pandemic levels supported overall economic activity. As telcos, we saw continued mobile and fixed broadband demand, enabling us to make more frequent price adjustment to beat inflationary pressures. Our revenue growth continued to accelerate in Turkey, but mainly with the impact of Ukrainian operation, group top line growth in the fourth quarter was just over 57%, slightly above third quarter growth. This Q4 performance brought our 2022 revenue growth to 50%, enlarging subscriber base by 2.3 million, and accelerating ARPU growth were the main drivers of this performance. Solid demand for digital business and techfin services were also supported. Despite the heavy inflationary pressure on the cost base, our EBITDA grew by 46% to TRY22 billion, bringing the margin to 40.8%, implying just 1% contraction year-on-year, thanks to the disciplined cost management. At the bottom line level, we registered TRY11 billion net income, TRY4.6 billion of which comes as a net deferred tax income from…

Kamil Kalyon

Management

Thank you, Murat. Nice to meet you all. Now, let's take a closer look at the financial performance. In Q4, our group revenues reached TRY 16 billion, rising 57% year-on-year, and corresponding to an incremental TRY 5.9 billion. As we have underlined in the past, the gap between top line growth and inflation will be tightening if the downward trend in inflation continues. Of this increase, TRY 4.8 billion came from Turkcell Turkey, 62% top line growth. Growth came mainly from accelerated ARPU growth, thanks to the dedicated price adjustments and to the strong subscriber net addition performance throughout the year. Turkcell International revenues rose 41%, contributing TRY 526 million in Q4. Excluding the FX impact, the organic growth was 13%. Lifecell Ukraine continued its positive performance in this quarter two. Undertaking side, the contribution was TRY 253 million, where the main contributor was Paycell as its growth performance almost doubled. Traction in pay rate and cost solutions, accelerating revenue contribution thanks to higher transaction volumes were the major verticals of this performance. The other segment contribution of TRY 340 million was driven mainly by the rise in sales for all digital channels. Next slide, please. Now some highlights on EBITDA development. In the fourth quarter, group EBITDA was 58% year-on-year to TRY 6.7 billion, driven by a strong top line performance as well as pivotal cost management. Despite the increases in radio and employee expenses due to higher energy prices and two rate adjustments in 2022, our EBITDA margin improved by 30 basis points in Q4. This was thanks to lower growth of interconnection expenses and cost of goods sold. It's also worth mentioning that Turkcell International EBITDA margin improved by 2.1% on an annual basis. The main reason for this performance put a lower increase in interconnection costs…

Operator

Operator

The first question is from the line of Mandaci Ece with Unlu Securities. Please go ahead.

Mandaci Ece

Analyst

Hi. Thanks so much for the presentation. I have a couple of questions. The first one is about your revenue. You have mentioned that the effect of the earthquake -- in the earthquake was included in your guidance. So with that effect, how should we think about the ARPU growth separately for mobile and fixed side and for subscriber additions? Because after a very high base, I mean, could you please elaborate more on your estimates? This is my first question. And secondly, I think you are keeping your EBITDA margin almost at a similar level in your guidance or you're expecting a very small margin deterioration. So what's the APRU for that? Is it due to continued price adjustments in the market? That's my second question. And thirdly, I haven't seen your IFRS financials. Will you report them also tonight? Is there a major difference in the net income level? And finally, is there -- will there be an announcement about your dividends tonight? Thank you very much.

Murat Erkan

Management

Okay. Thank you, Ece. First of all, we include earthquake effect and impact in our guidance. So regarding ARPU growth, mobile and fiber side, we will continue to inflation in the pricing. So based on inflation, we're going to follow the price increase. So ARPU growth, I think it should follow maybe a little bit higher to inflation. So in the net add side, obviously, this is not easy to comment on the net add. So we'll see what we can do. But regarding net add, our expectation will continue to increase number of subscribers as our plan, like adding another million or so. So we're going to focus on increased pricing and price adjustment during 2023 as well. Regarding EBITDA side, on full year EBITDA margin was 40.8% in 2022, just 1% below the last year. So, main reason behind the contraction was increasing energy and personnel costs. It was sort of offset by improved cost of goods solds, as part of sales and interconnection costs. This year, we expect rather flattish margin as implied by our revenue and EBITDA guidance, and price increase will take place. Inflationary cost pressure will continue. But as always, our prudent OpEx management, coupled with strong top line will help us to maintain similar margin level. Regarding IFRS, I think Kamil can take the question, and then I'll continue.

Kamil Kalyon

Management

Thank you, Ece. Our IFS financials are on the process of preparation. Most probably, we will be declaring IFS financial statements and financials on April, the 20-F report.

Murat Erkan

Management

Regarding dividend and dividend policy, yes, first of all, I would like to remind that our dividend distribution policy stays there as it is. As you know, a dividend proposal is initially made by the Board, and it is voted by the shareholders at the AGM. That has not been a proposal made by the Board yet for this year. If you recall from last year, our Board proposal came out with the AGM announcement. It was on the same day. So I wouldn't like to speculate on the Board potential proposal.

Mandaci Ece

Analyst

Thank you very much. Could you please also share your inflation forecast? Thank you very much.

Murat Erkan

Management

I'm not the economist. So our forecast will be around probably 40% level.

Mandaci Ece

Analyst

Okay.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of Annenkov Evgeny with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Annenkov Evgeny

Analyst

Hi. Good evening. Thank you so much for the presentation, and opportunity to ask questions. I have two, please. Can you please give some color on to potentially one-off items you might have this year? First of all, on TRY 3.5 billion contribution to the Turkey One Heart campaign is it included on EBITDA guidance partly? Do you expect to contribute everything in cash? Any color on this would be helpful. And the second one, on the renewal of spectrum in 900 megahertz, any color on potential price you can give? Thank you.

Murat Erkan

Management

Thank you, Evgeny. First of all, our donation is under the EBITDA, so it's not going to impact our EBITDA guidance. And regarding renewal of 900 megahertz, I mean, obviously, there are very limited time in front of us for the renewal. But I know that the Ministry and Regulation Authority working on this one, so I expect to announce this potential price soon. So I don't want to speculate it, because I hope it's going to be less than what we speculate, I think. So I don't want to speculate the price, but I believe it's going to be soon to be announced.

Annenkov Evgeny

Analyst

Thank you so much. But obviously, these are the two items that would impact your dividend recommendation as well. So you should have – you should keep it in mind these cash outflows

Murat Erkan

Management

Definitely. We are putting in the picture, these two things.

Annenkov Evgeny

Analyst

Thank you so much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Turkcell management for any closing comments. Thank you. Ali Serdar Yağcı: Thank you very much. Hope to see you in the next quarter.

Murat Erkan

Management

Thank you. Thank you, all.

Kamil Kalyon

Management

Thank you very much.