Operator
Welcome to Telia Company Q3 2026 report presentation. I will now hand over to Head of Investor Relations, Erik Strandin Pers.
Please go ahead.
Erik Strandin Pers
Thank you, and welcome everyone to the call. We have as usual CEO Patrik Hofbauer and CFO Eric Hageman here, and we will do the presentation and then Q&A.
We'll try to finish this call in 50 minutes today, 5-0 minutes. Let's try to be extra fast and efficient today.
Think about that, an efficient question for the Q&A when we come to that. Patrik, please go ahead.
Patrik Hofbauer
Thank you, Erik. Good morning, everyone.
I'm glad to see that we have maintained good momentum in the third quarter, both operationally and financially. We are growing our core business, customer trends remain healthy, and we continue to simplify Telia and move responsibility closer to our customers.
Let me start with the progress we made during the quarter. First, regarding our customers.
Customer satisfaction develops positively, and we continue to see net growth in our customer bases. In Sweden, we have been selected as the main supplier for the Swedish emergency communication network, which further demonstrates Telia's relevance in secure and mission-critical connectivity.
Second, regarding simplification and strategic development. We are on a journey to move towards a more localized company with greater accountability and decision-making closer to our customers.
In Q3, we have taken another step in that direction, which I will come back to later in the presentation. We were also very proud to be the first telco ever to reach the best score, 10 out of 10, in the Global Child Forum benchmark as protection of children in our digital environments is a key focus area for us.
Third, regarding portfolio management, we continue to sharpen the asset portfolio to drive growth in our core business. We make small bolt-on acquisitions like the 6,000 fiber households that we agreed to acquire in Norway this quarter and by making selected divestments to simplify the business.
In the quarter, we announced the divestment in our communication-as-a-service platform, ACE, to a specialist partner who is better equipped to develop the platform going forward. Then fourth, regarding technology, which is important for secure and resilient services.
During the quarter, we launched an enhanced caller ID service in Finland and a mobile DNS firewall service in several countries. We are also expanding commercial 5G Standalone capabilities across our footprint for safer and more reliable connectivity, better protection against digital threats, and as a platform for new services that can take advantages of the full potential of 5G.
We continue to simplify our technology environment by modernizing and closing legacy systems, implementing new consolidated ways of working with partners and vendors, and improving delivery accuracy for new functions and features for customers. Turning to the financial highlights.
Service revenue growth accelerated to 3.3%, supported by strength in TV, mission-critical, and non-connectivity project revenue. Sweden and Lithuania both remained solid.
EBITDA increased by 2.9%. This was somewhat stronger than we have anticipated, mainly due to lower cost.
As flagged in connection to Q2, Sweden slowed temporarily in the quarter, and we expect growth there to reaccelerate again in Q4. CAPEX remains well controlled at 12.6 billion on a rolling 12-months basis, below our full-year outlook of less than 13 billion.
Free cash flow was at 3.7 billion in the quarter, taking us to 7.8 billion year-to-date. The leverage was at 2x, at the very bottom end of our targeted range.
Based on the performance in the first nine months, we can now upgrade our full-year outlook for adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. Moving to Sweden, and where commercial performance remained healthy.
We continued to grow our consumer business having added more than 100,000 mobile customers and more than 150,000 TV customers since the start of last year. Consumer ARPUs are also growing in both mobile and TV.
Broadband ARPU remains lower than last year, but as you saw in the numbers this morning, it has started to tick up again in absolute terms. This month, we are proud that Telia, Enterprise, and Fello were named by SKI, Swedish Quality Index, as the mobile operators with the highest customer satisfaction in Sweden, and to have been selected as the main supplier for the Swedish emergency communication networks, as I mentioned.
Service revenue growth accelerated to 4.7%, supported by elevated project and non-connectivity revenue. Even adjusting for this and for copper legacy revenue, the business is growing by a healthy 4%.
EBITDA grew 2.1%. As expected, this was a temporary slowdown compared with recent quarters, and we expect growth to reaccelerate in Q4.
Cash generation is strong with EBITDA-less-CAPEX continued to move higher on a rolling 12-months basis. Let me spend a moment on convergence because it remains central to our consumer strategy in Sweden.
As you can see, the convergence ratio is on a consistent upward trajectory, and we now have about 1.2 million converged consumer customers, equal to around 55% of the base. This provides a lot of stickiness and every additional services added reduces churn by about 50%.
At the same time, average revenue per household continues to increase by around 3%. The underlying economics remain compelling.
Household churn falls materially as customers add more Telia services. We continue to see convergence as an important way to deepen the customer relationship, improve loyalty, and create additional value from the households over time.
Moving to Finland, where the competitive environment in mobile remains challenging and our focus continued to be on customer retention, loyalty, and profitability rather than chasing volume. Service revenue was flat as lower mobile revenue was compensated for by growth in fixed, where both the consumer and the business segments contributed to the increase.
The latter largely due to non-connectivity revenue. At the same time, EBITDA remained in growth territory, supported by good cost control.
This shows that the work to simplify the business and improve its cost structure continues to have an effect even in a difficult revenue environment. We have also completed the non-core ICT divestment, further sharpening Finland's focus.
There is more work that needs to be done to improve the top line, particularly in mobile, but we continue to take the right structural actions. Moving west to Norway, where the mobile customer momentum improved further.
ARPU growth remained solid, supported by pricing, and fixed revenue continued to perform strongly. We expect trends to continue in the right direction, helped by our new product portfolio just announced.
Furthermore, we have continued to improve our NPS and our mobile brand, OneCall, was ranked number one by EPSI in terms of consumer mobile customer satisfaction. Service revenue remained in a positive territory at 1.8%, while EBITDA returned to a slight growth.
This marks the first EBITDA growth in nine quarters following the negative impact from the lost wholesale contract. Importantly, the operational cash flow trend also improved.
While there is much more to do, the business has made meaningful progress compared with where we were a year ago. In Norway, we're also building a stronger mobile network, which I will touch on briefly on the next page.
The rationale for this remains compelling. We are creating an efficient and future-proof mobile network.
Coverage will improve in rural areas and urban areas alike, along roads and railways and where the cabins are located. Network capacity will increase.
It will increase competition and consumer choice and make Norway's digital infrastructure even more resilient. As you remember, Telia and Ice will continue to operate our independent core networks and compete in the market.
The radio network will be run by a joint operation with its own organization, which will create substantially cost and CAPEX synergies. Regulatory discussions are still ongoing, we can't give you an exact timeline.
Operations are planned to start at the beginning of 2027 with traffic migration expected to be completed before the end of that year. The network buildout will continue through 2030.
We will consolidate 50% of the joint operations P&L, cash flow, and balance sheet in our accounts. The near-term service revenue and EBITDA impact is expected to be limited, while over time, we expect significant cost and CAPEX synergies.
The current estimate is for annual benefits to Telia of around 300 to 400 million NOK from 2029 onwards. Now moving on to Lithuania, which continues to deliver consistent results, including positive ARPU development across the main products.
Mobile customer growth remained healthy, and service revenue grew 6.4% with good development across both mobile and fixed. The broadband customer base saw a slight decline, but we expect new fiber regulation, which we believe can help creating better momentum in 2027.
Telia Lithuania has furthermore been selected to provide critical communications, connectivity, and cyber security infrastructure for Lithuania's presidency of the Council of the European Union. EBITDA grew 7.9%, showing continued healthy conversions to top-line growth into earnings.
Finally, Estonia, where financial trends remained stable with service revenue growth of 2.8% and EBITDA increase of 4.3%. ARPU development remained positive across mobile, broadband, and TV, and the mobile postpaid base increased during the quarter.
We have launched new security packages, one for both mobile and home services this year and see strong demand. This quarter, we also launched a new AI assistant in our customer service and it has successfully reduced responding times and received positive customer feedback.
Our fiber rollout program continued with contributed to a 1,000 growth to our fiber subscriber base, partly offsetting of the decline in copper connections. With that, I hand over to Eric, who will take you through the financial development in more detail.
Eric Hageman
Thank you, Patrik. Let me take you through the financial development in the quarter, starting as usual with service revenue and EBITDA.
Starting with service revenue on the left, growth accelerated further to 3.3% in Q3 compared to 2.8% in the second quarter. The strongest contribution came again from Sweden that continued to see a solid consumer segment development and a somewhat elevated level of non-connectivity-based revenues.
This was also the case for Finland this quarter. This type of revenue is quite lumpy by nature, and some of the deliveries we made this quarter were originally expected to be delivered in Q4, but came a bit earlier than anticipated.
As a result, we expect lower service revenue growth in Q4 compared to our year-to-date growth of 2.8%. As such, we keep our full-year guidance unchanged at around 2%.
Turning now to EBITDA, which grew 2.9% in the third quarter. This was, as we flagged three months ago, a slight slowdown from the level of growth we saw in the previous quarters.
Having noted that, we actually did came out somewhat stronger compared to what we originally expected, mainly driven by lower costs. Year-to-date, EBITDA growth is 3.5%, and as previously communicated, we expect this to reaccelerate in Q4.
Therefore, we are today upgrading our full-year EBITDA growth guidance from around 3% to between 3% and 4%. Moving now to OPEX and CAPEX.
Starting on the left, OPEX declined 2.6% on the back of relatively stable resource cost, lower costs for marketing, and less spend on other, which includes, for example, better than expected levels of bad debt across the group. OPEX as a percentage of service revenue continued to decline, coming down to 26.6% compared to 28.2% in the corresponding quarter last year.
Moving to the middle graph, you can see that CAPEX in absolute terms was pretty much flat at 12.6 billion on a rolling 12-month basis, comfortably below our full-year outlook of less than 13 billion. EBITDA-less-CAPEX, as a simple proxy for cash flow generation, was up again, now at 20.3 billion SEK.
Rolling 12-month cash conversion was up 20 basis points to around 62%. Finally, on the far right, our return on capital employed reached 10.3%, up 100 basis points compared to 9.3% a year ago, supported by a profitable growth and continued discipline on our capital allocation.
Turning to free cash flow. Free cash flow in the third quarter amounted to 3.7 billion SEK compared to 2.9 billion in the same quarter last year, taking free cash flow to 7.8 billion for the first nine months of the year.
The first major contribution to this, circa 900 year-hun- year- 900 million year-on-year increase, comes from profitable growth with EBITDA up seve- 400 million. CAPEX had an equally positive impact of circa 400 million, as last year we saw some higher cash CAPEX.
Working capital also made a minor positive contribution in Q- Q3 compared to last year. Finally, we also saw a timing effect between quarters regarding dividends related to our telco ownership in Latvia, which helped a little bit this quarter.
Overall, free cash flow again developed very well in Q3. In combination with a strong start to the year, we have nudged our free cash flow outlook for the year slightly up to at least 9 billion.
Moving now to the balance sheet. With net debt down 1.4 billion and a rolling 12-month EBITDA up 500 million in the quarter versus Q2 of this year, leverage decreased from 2.06x at the end of Q2 to 2x at the end of Q3, putting us at the very bottom end of our target range of 2 to 2.5x.
Our free cash flow of 3.7 billion SEK more than covered the dividend of 2 billion we paid this quarter. Overall, our balance sheet remains strong and provides us with good financial flexibility.
Finally, let me put the quarter into context of our value creation agenda. First, rolling 12-month free cash flow per share has reached 2.61 SEK, more than covering our current yearly dividend of 2.05 per share.
Second, we remain active in the market as we continue to see opportunities to further optimize our portfolio. In this quarter, through transactions in Sweden and Finland, where we have divested part of operations to become more efficient, and Norway, where we signed an agreement to acquire 6,000 fiber customers from GlobalConnect.
Third, leverage is at the lower end of our target range, as I just explained. Finally, we paid another quarterly dividend of just over 50 SEK per share.
Overall, we continue to make good progress across all our pillars of our value creation agenda in terms of cash generation, portfolio management, balance sheet strength, and shareholder returns. With that, I hand back to Patrik.
Patrik Hofbauer
Thank you, Eric. Let me now turn to an important next step in our simplification journey, which we announced on October 12th.
Over the last couple of years, we have progressively moved Telia towards a customer-focused operating model. We now intend to take that model further.
The principle is simple: put more responsibility and resources closer to our customers, reduce unnecessary coordination, and make it easier to take decision quickly. Subject to union negotiations, we therefore intend to shift further resources from group to our countries and simplify the group structure.
At the same time, we intend to reduce approximately 900 positions across Telia. The target is approximately 1 billion of annual gross savings with actions expected to have a positive impact on free cash flow in 2027 and reach the full run-rate benefit from 2028.
This is not a simplification for its own sake. It's about creating a company with clearer accountability, fewer interfaces, and greater speed of execution.
Let me now finish by summarizing the quarter. Overall, we continue to make good progress.
Customer trends remain healthy, service revenue growth was strong, and we continue to execute on our simplification and portfolio management. Financially, we are tracking well against our plan.
After nine months, both service revenue and EBITDA growth are ahead of the respectively full-year outlook levels, while capital discipline and free cash flow generation remains strong. Given this, we are comfortable in upgrading our full-year outlooks for EBITDA and free cash flow.
At the same time, we remain focused on the longer term. The actions we are taking will support sustainable growth in revenue and cash flow, while enabling us to continue creating value for our customers and meeting their evolving needs.
We are well on track on our mid-term ambitions, including free cash flow of more than 10 billion SEK in 2027. With that, we will open up for questions.
Thank you.
Operator
To ask a question, press star five on your telephone to enter the queue. When it's your turn to speak, press star six to unmute your microphone.
The first question comes from Ondrej Cabejsek at UBS. Please go ahead.
Ondrej Cabejsek
Hello. Can you hear me?
Operator
Yes. Good morning.
Ondrej Cabejsek
Yes, good morning. Thank you for the presentation.
I wanted to focus on the RAN sharing slide that you have, please. Thank you for providing more clarity.
I guess, one straightforward question is that given that there's regulatory discussion ongoing, does this mean that you as probably the new largest network in Norway expect to be somehow regulated with some kind of wholesale obligations the same way that, I guess, Telenor is today? That's question number one.
Then question number two, on the free cash flow effects, are we correct to assume that there are some equalization payments from the smaller partner in '27, '28, which look pretty material, the the whole thing is free cash flow accretive from '20 '27 already, despite some of these kind of, I guess, integration or CAPEX going into this initially? Then what do you mean by short-term impact on service revenue and EBITDA if you could please clarify?
Thank you very much.
Patrik Hofbauer
Good morning. It's Patrik, I can take the first question.
We are now in dialogue with the regulatory environment in Norway. We cannot specifically say what it is, it's too early.
We are in good dialogue, and we still think that it will be possible for us and Ice to move on with this one, because, again, we are building a stronger network in Norway, which improve the digital environment overall, and the infrastructure in Norway. It's a bit early to say what it will be about.
Thank you.
Eric Hageman
On the impact, or the financial impact, if you will, we, as you can see on the slide, we're not going into details of exactly what those blue arrows are, greenish-blueish arrows are, because that's part of a non-public business agreement that we have. I think the orange ones are clearly indicating what it will do for us in the short and medium term.
In essence, negative in '27 and to a small extent in '28 because you have implementation cost and then starting to reap the benefits from '29 onwards to the tune of, at the moment, we've said circa 300 to 400 million NOK.
Ondrej Cabejsek
Thank you, Eric. Can you please explain the impact on service revenues and EBITDA, what is happening there?
Eric Hageman
We will come back to that at a later stage. As Patrik just said, let's make sure we get through the conversations with the competition authority, which we hope to bring to a good conclusion, and then after that, we are able to tell you a little bit more where we have landed.
We felt that something that we announced last year, it was important to give a bit more detail, detail that we have, that we've agreed also with our partner. We thought it was important to give you a bit of clarity, also because we're starting to get closer to '27 and as you can see on this page, this has an impact on that '27 free cash flow number.
Ondrej Cabejsek
Great. Thank you both.
Operator
The next question comes from Derek Laliberté at ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Derek Laliberté
Yes, good morning, and thank you. First a question on, I have two questions.
First on Sweden, service revenue growth accelerated to 4.7%. Here you mentioned it was helped by business solutions and other services.
Just wondering how much of that strength was sort of simply Q4 revenue being pulled into Q3 and what the underlying growth would have looked like excluding that timing effect?
Patrik Hofbauer
I can start first. Good morning, Patrik, it's Patrik here.
As we said, we were a bit surprised, the Q3 one was a bit better than expected and one of the reason is that we got some orders in of businesses in mainly non-connectivity related. If we exclude those non-connectivity related, we would be at around 4% in the quarter.
That is basically it.
Derek Laliberté
Perfect. That's very clear.
Then on the free cash flow here, obviously, very strong at 3.7 billion. You mentioned it was supported by working capital and lower cash CAPEX.
How much of that would you say is expected to reverse in Q4 and what should we assume for sort of year-end working capital here?
Eric Hageman
We're obviously not guiding on a quarter-by-quarter basis, but I think you should see in a positive light that we've not stopped that free cash flow outlook to at least or above 9 billion. There is a bit of phasing, there always is, but if you look at the rolling 12 months in terms of CAPEX, we feel very confident where this is heading.
I think that gave us also the confidence to upgrade our free cash flow today. I think if you look at versus last year or the expectations we had for the year, there's various elements that contributed: paying less tax, paying less interest, a bit better working capital inflow, but it starts with a much stronger EBITDA that we've seen and our expectations for Q4.
I think we feel comfortable with this upgrade that we've done today on the back of a strong start to the year at 7.8.
Derek Laliberté
All right. That's very clear.
Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Maurice Patrick at Barclays. Please go ahead.
Maurice Patrick
Yeah. Hi, guys.
Maurice here. Thanks for taking the call and taking the questions.
Just one question really, Eric, on the balance sheet and shareholder returns, if I may. I ask it because you mentioned it twice in the call actually that you were at the very very low end of your target leverage range.
You also highlighted free cash flow more than the dividend. I think you mentioned that twice as well.
It's interesting talking to Tele2 yesterday. They sort of were asked about special dividends and shareholder returns and they talked about wanting to maintain a cautious balance sheet given the financing environment.
You're clearly at a point where you're below your mid-term guidance range on leverage. You'll have a CMD, I think, next year to talk about the outlook to 2030.
It's probably premature to talk about your total shareholder return strategy for the next three years. Very curious to hear your thoughts in terms of longer-term balance sheet positioning, use of cash flow, and how you think about that for the years ahead.
Thank you.
Eric Hageman
Very good question. I'm sure in the coming days when we're on the road, we will get it quite regularly, and I think it's part of the hard work that we've put in, right?
It's the consequence of the strong results. I think working backwards, you're absolutely right.
There is a CMD that we're planning to have in H1 next year, and I think this is when we will set out our stall on all these elements, because that's also what we did in September '24. We feel that we are getting in a good position, both from a balance sheet perspective, of course.
Our colleagues here in Sweden are right given the current macro climate, increasing interest rates, being at the lower end has its advantages, because one will pay more interest, right? Being at the lower end is a good thing.
Give us some time to come back to that. No doubt, at the beginning of next year, we will talk about the dividend because that's when you prepare your documentation for the AGM, and then followed by the CMD where you should expect us to talk about capital allocation in general and shareholder remuneration specifically.
Maurice Patrick
Thanks, Eric.
Operator
The next question comes from Andrew Lee at Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Andrew Lee
Good morning, everyone. I had two questions, one on cost cutting and the announcement you made a couple of weeks ago, and then second on the top line.
Just on the cost cutting, I guess your share price response on the day of that announcement was muted because people were trying to gauge how much of that was incremental. Could you talk about how much of that cost-cutting program you've just announced is incremental versus what you expected to deliver when you set your 2027 guidance?
Any color on where it's coming from would be helpful given that if we look at the 2027 outlook now, you've got almost 1 billion of extra costs that you're taking on: 600 million of restructuring and 300, 400 million of RAN sharing costs. It looks like with an unchanged free cash flow guide, you've essentially raised your underlying free cash flow guidance by a billion in 2027.
Just a bit more color around kind of what's going on increment to be helpful there. Then just secondly, just as more simply on the top line, you've kept your top-line guidance of around 2% for the full year this year.
I think that implies basically flat to declining top line in the fourth quarter. Could you just explain why that is and what's getting materially worse given, I'm guessing, Finland should be getting better in the fourth quarter?
Thank you.
Patrik Hofbauer
Thank you, Andrew. I can start with the top line.
No, we don't expect a negative development. We normally not guide, as per quarter.
We see that there were some business that came in a bit earlier than expected, came in in Q3 instead of Q4. Then we also have tough comps in Q4 as well.
That's the reason why we maintain the outlook for 20 for the full 2026 full-year outlook. A bit softer expected, but not any dramatic.
Then on the cost cutting, remember now, this is a continuation of what we have started before, building a simple, faster, more efficient Telia. We see, of course, the big impact will come in '28.
We will have some impacts in '27, but the majority of the impact is in '28 and onwards. That's the reason why we're doing this change.
We want just to be sharper and simpler in the way we operate. Then maybe, Eric, you can say something about the impact for 20 2027 specifically
Eric Hageman
We obviously had a discussion on it, but, we set out a clear story of our free cash flow development in September '24 and you kind of don't want to change that. Obviously, for '26, it's slightly different because there are some put-and-takes.
We see that the negative impact of RAN sharing, there is restructuring costs for the project that we announced on the 12th of October, for which, as Patrik said, we will get the full benefit next year. We had a conversation as in, is this the moment to do it or not, and we felt not yet.
I think your conclusion is right. Does it underlying mean that it's a free cash flow upgrade?
I guess, in essence, it is.
Andrew Lee
Thank you. That's clear.
Operator
The next question comes from Andreas Joelsson at DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Andreas Joelsson
Good morning, everyone. Just a follow-up on the top line, and perhaps more specifically mobile in the Nordics.
You have some growth in the Swedish market, but you're still in decline in in Finland and Norway. Just interested to hear your thoughts on how to turn that trend, and maybe in connection to that also the convergence that you mentioned in Sweden.
Does that mean that you are more looking at the total service revenue package, to say, rather than looking at trends for various sub-products in in your various markets? Thanks.
Patrik Hofbauer
Morning, Andreas. I can start to answer.
Yes on the last comment or question, that we we see it from a household perspective much more, and the reason is very simple, you know. Around 50% of the Swedish household has at least one service from us, you know.
Adding more service to existing customers is the most important play for us in the consumer market. Correct, and we see that the household ARPU is growing by around 3%, it's very, very healthy numbers.
Then, of course, we also look into the different products and see how we can move them, because they are, of course, included in the packages. Let me say like that, we see some improvements in Sweden, but also in in Norway, we see growth in the customer base, which is the best for many years now in in mobile, especially on the consumer side.
We see some good movements overall trends there. Where we don't see the same good trends is in Finland, obviously, where we still have a lot to do and quite tough situation, especially on the consumer side.
There we haven't seen the turnaround yet, even though we saw some softer activities in the market in September, but let's see now into Q4. I think still we think we have a way to go there in in Finland to turn the the needle there, turn it around.
Andreas Joelsson
Perfect. Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Fredrik Lithell at Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Fredrik Lithell
Yes. Thank you for taking my questions as well then.
Could we stay with Finland a little bit and if you could talk a little bit more about the market picture and how the competitive pressure is is developing through Q3? Also then if you could add into that on the corporate side what you see there?
Thank you.
Patrik Hofbauer
If you look at Finland overall, it's quite tough GDP development overall in Finland. Then you look into the different areas.
In consumer side, I think you all know what happened last year in Q4 with the intense competition. It's eased up a little bit, but some MNOs are still quite aggressive in the market with gift vouchers, etc.
We have seen some a bit maybe softness of that one towards the end of the quarter in Q3, and and let's see how the market will react. For us, it's very important.
We focus on our customer base, and to make sure that we get more value out of the base, and continue to improve the customer experience, you know. That is our short-term focus in in Finland.
Of course, we we are demanded, of course, and we need to rely that the market is improving and repairing itself, going forward from where we are coming from. Far we haven't seen any big trend shifts apart from a bit softer in in towards the end of Q3.
Let's let's let's hope and see that the market is improving. In the B2B side, I think it's fairly unchanged.
It's quite tough. We have some good wins there, but overall it's quite tough market situation.
That is the same for for all markets. I think all the public tenders, they tend to be quite aggressive overall.
That is the overall picture for the for the market. What we see some good development is in SME side, which we have been very clear on for many years that we want to grow our share in the SME side, and that that growth we see is coming in, so that's very good for us.
That is valid both for for Finland and for and for Sweden. I hope you answered your questions, Andreas.
Thank you.
Fredrik Lithell
Yes, absolutely. Can I just follow up there on on the B2B in Finland?
Do you participate sort of on on the data center side that is developing there and also on the mission-critical type of services? Could you just put a word on that?
Thanks.
Patrik Hofbauer
Yes. Yes, we are, yes on both.
We're of course looking into all opportunities. There are many now potential data centers builds in in in Finland, and of course we are looking into that, and we are participating in those.
Then on the mission-critical side, it's given for us to be there also in Finland as we are in Sweden. We haven't seen the big growth coming in from mission-critical yet in Finland as we have seen in Sweden, but we are of course well positioned to deliver to to the the all the mission-critical society parts in in Finland.
Fredrik Lithell
Clear. Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Ajay Soni at J.P. Morgan.
Please go ahead.
Ajay Soni
Hi, guys. Hope you can hear me.
The first question I've got is on Sweden and the no-frills segment, which has been called out as being a bit aggressive, and you see that mobile ARPUs for yourselves are -1% this quarter, pretty similar to Q2. Are you seeing a drag on mobile ARPUs from the no-frills segment, and how are you positioning yourself here?
The second one was just a clarification on the cost cutting for 2027. I get the gross annual saving of around 1 billion.
Do you think these mostly fall within your 2027 EBITDA numbers? If so, would you expect an acceleration in 2027 EBITDA versus 2026?
Thank you.
Patrik Hofbauer
Yes, I can start answer the question first question on ARPU. When it comes to ARPU in Sweden, we we actually in the consumer side, we are actually performing quite well.
It's majority-driven of B2B where we have these big tenders from enterprises and also governmental bodies that do public tenders, and and then the price tend to go very aggressive. We have decided not to participate in those aggressive tenders, you know.
We have stepped out from many of the potential businesses, because we just think the prices are just too low. That we don't, and that is of course impacting the ARPU, also reflecting in the ARPU for for for that side.
In B2C actually, we are increasing slightly, so that's positive. Then and then also on the SME side, also on the SME side, I mentioned SME in the previous question, but also on the SME, we see an in increase, but there we can compensate also by volume, we taking shares that is positive.
Eric Hageman
On the on the cost cutting, it's quite simple. For a while, we guided for a CAGR of 4% EBITDA.
For this year specifically, we're now saying between 3% and 4%. If you would multiply that by our 30 billion-plus of EBITDA in any year, it's about a billion of EBITDA growth, give or take in a year.
I think that's also what we expect for next year. The best way to think about the program that we announced on the 12th of October is securing the the uplift of that in our EBITDA growth for next year, which obviously then also helps our free cash flow uplift.
Hence, the the answer to the previous question, it wasn't that we did an upgrade, but it secures the development for our profitable growth for '27, '28 and beyond.
Ajay Soni
Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Ulrich Rathe at Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Ulrich Rathe, please unmute your microphone via star six. The next question comes from Viktor Högberg at Danske Bank.
Please go ahead.
Viktor Högberg
Yes. Good morning.
On the Swedish Swedish broadband, could you just elaborate on your thoughts on the current market now ahead of the upcoming regulation and your plans that you can disclose how to mitigate when others might get access to your homes, to say, sometime next year? Thank you.
Patrik Hofbauer
Yes, thank you, Viktor. We are, as a reminder, we are already regulated.
We're already providing access to others who sell on our infrastructure. Once the regulation eventually sets in, we expect it to level the playing field so we can get more access to to other local networks.
It remains to be seen what effects that will have. We're we think at this point it will have a relatively neutral impact to us, but let's see.
It might be an opportunity.
Operator
The next question comes from Ulrich Rathe at Bernstein. Please go ahead.
The next question comes from Nick Lyall at Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Nick Lyall
Hello, guys. Hope you can hear me?
Patrik Hofbauer
Yes.
Nick Lyall
Great. Good.
It was just a quick one. On the broadband numbers, please, the the ARPU dilution is obviously quite big from the Bredband2 acquisition, Eric.
Could you maybe tell us what the underlying numbers look like? Because we're hearing a lot about very fierce competition in open networks.
Could you give us a bit of an update on what ARPUs are doing sort of on an underlying basis for broadband, please, in Sweden? Then just second, just on a couple of numbers.
Is it possible to give us the contribution of Bredband2 on revenue and EBITDA? Also, I think, Patrik, you gave us just now the contribution of the the extra revenue in Sweden as well of about 0.7%, but any costs associated with that you could give us as well so we can get back to some underlying numbers?
Patrik Hofbauer
I can start with the first question you had regarding the broadband ARPU. It's rightly as you said, roughly roughly half of it is dilution of the Bredband2 customers coming in.
Then the the rest is driven by a combination of we have higher share of customers in binding, i.e., we can minimize, of course, the price adjustments on those customers. We see also growth in more collective agreements, which is normally lower in the ARPU.
The third one is that also that you said, the market is more competitive now, especially in the open network side, as you say. Again, we are also in a price in a phase where we do less pricing on broadband on average.
We are more focused on on the TV side at the moment. Those are the the main reasons.
It's not a single one like competition, it's it's a combination of several. Thank you.
The next one was?
Eric Hageman
Bredband2 just those numbers for you, Nick, but just to be clear, right, the growth figures are like-for-like, right, it
Nick Lyall
has no no
Eric Hageman
impact there. The absolute numbers are as follows: so 466 million gross service revenue, 381 net, because the delta being our wholesale revenues that we had, you eliminate those, and EBITDA contribution in Q3 from BB2 was 71 million.
Nick Lyall
That's great. Thanks very much, Eric.
Cheers, Patrik.
Operator
The next question comes from Abhilash Mohapatra at BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Abhilash Mohapatra
Hi, morning there. Thanks for taking my questions.
A couple of things, please. First, just coming back to the the the success of no-frills brands, I mean you've called out the the recognition for One for OneCall in Norway, and obviously Fello is also sort of doing quite well in Sweden.
How just just going forward, how do you sort of think about the balance between addressing that sub- segment and pursuing customer growth versus the the sort of risks of downspinning on on overall consumer ARPUs? Then secondly, just just following up on Bredband2, could you maybe just give us a quick update on on how you see the synergy benefits of that coming through?
Obviously, it's sort of it's it's all it's been about a year since since that deal was closed, how do how should we think about that going into 2027? Thank you very much.
Patrik Hofbauer
Thank you, and good morning. I can take the first question.
As you remember, we stopped working with the brand Halebop during the summer, which we migrated very successfully over to the Telia brand. Now we have a much more clearer market positions between the brands.
One is the Fello in the value base, more value base segment, competing mainly with brands like Vimla and Hallon. Then, of course, we have the Telia brand.
This is our premium brand. We see a clear now market definition between those two.
We're growing actually in the both spaces, which is very positive for us. Overall, we're very happy with the situation at the moment.
We don't feel that the competition is more intense now in Sweden than it has been. It's basically the same level as it always has been.
If I should say something about competition what we feel in the market, it's much more intense in the B2B side, especially on the large accounts, the public tenders. There it's much more aggressive and intense competition than maybe in the consumer side.
Overall, the consumer market in Sweden works very well. Then the next question was?
Eric Hageman
That is on Bredband2, what the contribution is, and how things are progressing on the synergy side. Revenue synergies are developing well.
We are cross-selling TV to this customer base and also mobile services, I would say pretty much in line with our plan, or the business case, if you will. Cost synergies are also developing in line with our plan, maybe slightly better even.
Just to remind you of what we said at the time of the acquisition, it's neutral to our free cash flow in '26 because, yes, you have benefits, but you also have integration costs, no impact in '26. Then we said it has a contribution of roughly 200 million positive next year.
Abhilash Mohapatra
Thank you. Maybe just to follow up on the no-frills one, any commentary on on the Norwegian market where sort of OneCall, as you called out, has been a very successful brand?
Patrik Hofbauer
No, I think it's also very similar. We feel the Norwegian market quite stable.
It's very driven by campaigns, no news. We have clear market positions for the brands that we have.
OneCall works very well in the value segment, and we have then the Telia again on the premium side. I think we have a model that suits us very well at the moment.
No change in that behavior.
Abhilash Mohapatra
That's very helpful. Thank you.
Patrik Hofbauer
Thank you.
Operator
The final question comes from Keval Khiroya at Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Keval Khiroya
Thank you. I've just got two questions, please.
Firstly, Norway, you've highlighted the decent improvement in KPIs. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what's driving that?
Ultimately, are you being a little bit more promotional than before? Secondly, just on AI agents, how do you think about the revenue risk to your business or not?
Can you give us a sense of front book versus back book pricing for your three main Nordic markets? Thank you.
Patrik Hofbauer
The first one, I can take, Keval. Norway KPIs, yes, we're seeing an improvement on the mobile side.
We're happy with that. It's the best for quite some time.
We haven't really been that much more promotional or not more promotional at all, we think, versus last year. I think we've received the questions a few times, I think in response to one of our competitors talking about it.
We don't quite recognize that picture. We are spending on similar levels as we did before.
Then
Eric Hageman
when it comes to AI agents, I'm not sure what your question is, if it's about the news that came from the US.
Keval Khiroya
Yeah.
Eric Hageman
Then. We have already been operating in a world where AI is a part of the customer interface for some time now.
I think we have been focusing on making our services easily now discovered by AI tools. This is changing from SEO optimization basically to AI optimization instead.
This is an environment to win new businesses. This is already active.
We don't have a big gap between front book and back book pricing. Still it's quite complicated to do a follow-up buy, because we need to identify the individual that is buying with BankID or other solutions.
We are not that concerned. We see it more as a move in customer behavior, what kind of tools you use instead of Google it, you use AI assistance instead to find it.
We are working actively with this one already today to make sure that the information is correct and then of course it's beneficial for us. This will continue, we are not that concerned regarding the new method instead of Googling you use the AI tools instead.
Keval Khiroya
That's great. Thank you both.
Erik Strandin Pers
All right. Thank you everybody.
Very good questions. We have to end the call now, but looking forward to speak more to you in the coming days and weeks.
Thank you and goodbye.
Already premium?