Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the KPN Second 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 facilitate a question and answer session toward the end of today's prepared remarks. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing pound key five on your telephone keypad.

I will now turn the call over to your host for today, Matthijs van Leijenhorst, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for joining us for KPN's second quarter and H1 2026 results webcast. With me today are our CEO, Joost Farwerck, and our CFO, Chris Figee.

Before we begin, please note the safe harbor statements on page two. Today's remarks may include forward-looking statements, including KPN's expectations regarding its outlook and ambition, as also set out in the press release published this morning.

All such statements are subject to the safe harbor. Let me hand over to our CEO, Joost Farwerck.

Thank you, Matthijs. Welcome, everyone.

Let me start with the highlights of last quarter. Group service revenues increased by 0.8%.

That's driven by consumer, SME, and wholesale. In the mix, consumers showed an improving growth trend across both fixed and mobile.

In business, SME continued to perform strongly. Overall growth was impacted by a decline in low-margin Tailored Solutions division and LCE.

Wholesale continued to grow with international sponsored roaming as the key driver. Our EBITDA increased by more than 3% on a comparable basis, supported by revenue growth and lower costs.

Free cash flow rebounded in the second quarter as planned and is up to 7% year to date. Together with Glaspoort, our joint venture, we remain clear leader in the Dutch fiber market.

Of course, we are disappointed by ACM's decision prohibiting the proposed Glaspoort Delta Fiber transaction. Our commitments to disciplined fiber expansion remains unchanged and fully aligned within our financial framework.

We partnered with Schwarz Digits to bring a European sovereign cloud to the Dutch markets to serve our larger customers and the government. Finally, we expect group service revenue to grow and to accelerate to approximately 2%-2.5% in the second half of the year.

Trends in Tailored Solutions and LCE led us to moderate our full year 2026 service revenue outlook. Of course, the exit run rate is the most important indicator for the future when it comes to service revenues.

Importantly, we remain confident in delivering our full-year EBITDA free cash flow guidance while preserving our midterm ambitions, including shareholder distributions. Chris will take you through the financials later.

First, let me briefly revisit our strategy and our operational performance. Last year in November, we confirmed we are well on track to deliver on our connect, activate, and grow strategy, which is built on three pillars: One, we continue to invest in our leading networks.

Two, we continue to grow and protect customer base. Three, we further modernize and simplify our operating model.

Together, these priorities support our ambition to grow service revenues and EBITDA by approximately 3% and free cash flow by approximately 7% on average over the full strategic period. Let's review our operational performance, starting with fiber.

We continue to lead the Dutch fiber market. As our fiber rollout matures, we are focused on turning coverage into active customers, and this is translating into continued growth in fiber broadband net adds, which now accounts for 72% of the retail broadband base.

Consumer service revenue grew 1.9%, the strongest performance in five quarters, with growth improving across both fixed and mobile. Higher year-on-year customer satisfaction reflects what we differentiate with KPN: secure, high-quality networks, excellent service, and a seamless digital experience.

Our fixed mobile convergence base continued to grow and now represents 61% of the broadband base and roughly 2/3 of the mobile base, supporting customer loyalty and value growth. Let's take a deeper look into our second quarter KPIs.

We delivered another quarter of broadband base growth, supported by a healthy inflow of new fiber customers, despite a challenging competitive environment. Combined with a growing ARPU, our fixed service revenues continue to grow.

In mobile, we added 18,000 post-paid subscribers. Together with ARPU growth and value-added services, this drove mobile service revenue growth to 3.2%.

Now let's go to the B2B segments. Business service revenues declined by 1.1% year-on-year as continued strong SME growth was more offset by the declines in Tailored Solutions and LCE.

At the same time, commercial momentum remains solid across both fixed and mobile. This quarter, for instance, we onboarded all seven university hospitals in the Netherlands.

Customer satisfaction improved significantly year-on-year, reflecting the quality of our networks and services and reinforcing KPN's position as a trusted and secure partner. Building on this strength, we recently partnered with STACKIT to bring a European sovereign cloud solution to the Dutch market, responding to our customers' growing demand for secure and sovereign digital services.

Within business, growth continues to be driven by high margin SME, with a growth of almost 7%, with strong demand across broadband, mobile, and cloud and workspace. In LCE, growth in mobile security and CPaaS was more than offset by declines in legacy services and low margin cloud and workspace.

We expect LCE to grow next year and to remain under pressure for the remainder of this year. Tailored Solutions revenues declined, reflecting a tough period year-on-year comparison, and our continued focus on the value and the contract quality.

We expect Tailored Solutions to flip back to growth in the second half of the year. Gradual improvements in the second half, that is.

Despite lower reported service revenues, the contribution margin increased year-on-year in B2B. Finally, wholesale.

While the broadband service revenues remained under pressure from the decline in copper, mobile performed strongly, supported by international roaming. Other service revenues also increased.

That's driven by visitor roaming. Now, before we move to the financials, as you all know, Chris will be leaving us on the 1st of November.

While we still have Q3 to work together, I would like to thank him for his dedication and significant contributions to KPN. In the meantime, we are ensuring a smooth transition, and we remain fully focused on executing our strategy.

With that, I'll hand over to Chris.

Thank you, Joost. Let me walk you through our financial performance, first summarize some key figures for the second quarter and the first half of the year.

To start, adjusted revenues decreased by 0.5% year-on-year in the second quarter, as higher group service revenues were more than offset by the decline in non-service revenues and other, which reflected the absence of prior year IP sales and IPR settlement benefits. Excluding these one-off effects, adjusted revenues increased by 2.5% year-on-year.

Second, adjusted EBITDA after leases decreased by 0.3% compared to last year, or an increase of 3.4% on a comparable basis. Again, excluding IP sales and IPR benefits.

This underlying growth was driven by higher revenues and lower costs. The reported EBITDA margin improved by 8 basis points to 45.6% of total adjusted revenues.

As previously highlighted, our full-year EBITDA guidance assumes a U-shaped year-on-year growth pattern over the year, with continued lower growth year-on-year in Q3 and a planned pickup in Q4. Third, our net profit decreased by 1% year-on-year, driven by lower operating profit, partly offset by the absence of one-off costs related to hedge accounting recorded last year.

Finally, as anticipated, our free cash flow rebound in the second quarter and increased to about 7% to [audio distortion]EUR 329 billion compared to the first half of last year, mainly driven by EBITDA growth and changes in working capital. I'll provide more detail on the underlying cash developments later in this presentation.

In the second quarter, group service revenues grew by 0.8% year-on-year, driven by consumer, SME, and wholesale. Excluding the effect of Tailored Solutions in the quarter, the underlying group service revenue growth was 2.2% year-on-year.

As previously guided, we expect group service revenue growth to improve in the second half of the year. Within the mix, consumer service revenues increased by 1.9% over the year, showing improved growth in both mobile and fixed.

Looking ahead, mobile is expected to remain our primary growth driver. Business service revenues declined by 1.1% year-on-year, mainly driven by Tailored Solutions and reflecting our focus on margins and contract quality.

Excluding the Tailored Solutions business, Q2 growth was 3.1% year-on-year. For the second half of the year, we expect B2B to return to top line growth, driven by continued strong growth in high margin SME and Tailored Solutions normalizing, partly offset by a softer performance in LCE.

Finally, wholesale delivered 1% year-on-year growth in the quarter, driven by international sponsored roaming and uptake in visitor roaming, while copper declines continued to weigh on broadband. Our adjusted EBITDA grew by 3.4% year-on-year on a comparable basis, ahead of our midterm K-curve ambition, whilst the EBITDA margin improved by 40 basis points to 45.6%.

Growth was supported by revenue growth and continued cost discipline. Higher direct costs mainly reflected increased handset and hardware sales, as well as higher third-party access costs.

We also continued to make solid progress on efficiency, with indirect costs declining by EUR 50 million year-on-year, supported by a lower workforce, lower energy costs, and ongoing operational improvements. Compared to last year, our workforce was reduced by more than 330 FTEs.

Year to date, we've reduced indirect OpEx by EUR 80 million. While the current run rate includes some phasing effects, underlying progress remains in line with plan.

We reiterate our ambition to deliver EUR 15 million-EUR 20 million of structural net indirect OpEx savings by 2026, and a full EUR 100 million of net savings in 2030 compared to 2025. Looking ahead, we expect a temporary EUR 4 million-EUR 5 million headwind in the third quarter related to a one-off CLA payment, but remain confident in delivering our full-year EBITDA guidance.

In the first half of the year, our operational free cash flow increased by 3.1% year-on-year or 6.7% on a like-for-like basis, so excluding the IP sales and IPR benefits. The strong cash conversion reflects the continued strength of our underlying business and was primarily driven by EBITDA growth.

Let's look at free cash flow. Free cash flow increased 7% to EUR 329 million in the first half, supported by EBITDA growth and favorable working capital developments.

This was partially offset by higher cash taxes, interest payments, and restructuring costs. Interest payments were temporarily higher in the first half and are expected to normalize in the second half of the year, while the movement in provisions mainly reflects timing effects.

Overall, our cash margin remains broadly stable at about 11% of adjusted revenues. Looking ahead, we expect a small free cash flow drag in Q3 from EBITDA working capital phasing relative to last year.

For the full year, free cash flow is expected to be more weighted towards Q4, supported by the timing of EBITDA generation and working capital effects. We therefore remain fully confident in delivering on our full-year 2026 free cash flow outlook.

Finally, we ended the first half with a cash position of EUR 365 million, absorbing the final dividend payment over 2025 and the completion of the EUR 250 million share buyback program. Let's focus on return on capital.

KPN remains focused on creating long-term value, evidenced by a strong return on capital employed. ROCE was 14.4%, remaining at a strong level.

The 20 basis points year-on-year decline reflects higher capital employed from continued network investments and higher spend on real restructurings. Looking ahead, we scope to further enhance our ROCE, reaching our 2027 financial ambition of 15%, consistent with continuous creation of shareholder and stakeholder value.

We continue to run a strong balance sheet. At the end of June, our leverage ratio was 2.5x.

Leverage increased slightly during the quarter, reflecting the usual seasonal impact of dividend payments and share buybacks, partially offset by free cash flow generation. Looking ahead, we expect leverage to end the year at or slightly below our self-imposed ceiling of 2.5x, supported by stronger free cash generation in the second half.

Our interest coverage ratio remains strong at 9.1x. The average cost of debt declined slightly following the partial unwind of interest rate hedges, slightly increasing our exposure to short-term floating rates.

Even so, floating rate exposure remains limited at 18%. Finally, with a liquidity of EUR 1.4 billion, we remain well-positioned to cover debt maturities through the end of 2028.

We expect group service revenue growth to accelerate to 2%-2.5% in the second half of the year. Combined with the 0.75% achieved in the first half, which reflects the decline in our Tailored Solutions business, this brings our full expected FY 2026 group service revenue growth to approximately 1.5% year-over-year.

Importantly, our full-year EBITDA free cash flow guidance remains unchanged. This is supported by a favorable mix with Consumer and SME performing somewhat better than initially expected, alongside continued cost discipline.

We therefore remain confident in delivering our full-year financial outlook. Our midterm emissions remain unchanged, including cumulative share distributions.

Let me conclude with a few key takeaways. We delivered a solid first half with improving consumer trends and continued momentum in SME, driving healthy service revenues and underlying EBITDA growth.

In fact, for the second quarter in a row, underlying EBITDA growth came in above the 3% hurdle. We expect group service revenue growth to accelerate 2%-2.5% in the second half of the year, up from 0.7% in H1.

We remain the clear leader in Dutch fiber, with almost three quarters of our retail broadband base now on fiber. Despite the competitive market, we continue to see healthy consumer inflow across both consumer and business, supported by strong customer satisfaction levels.

Cost discipline remains strong, free cash flow is progressing according to plan. We strengthened our digital service portfolio through the partnership with Schwarz Digits, we successfully completed our EUR 250 million share buyback, underlining our commitment to return all our generated free cash flow to shareholders.

Overall, we remain on track to deliver our full-year EBITDA, CapEx, and free cash flow outlook. All midterm ambitions, including cumulative share distributions, remain unchanged.

Thank you for listening. With that, happy to take your questions.

Thank you, Chris. Operator, please could you open the floor for questions?

Analysts, please limit your questions to two, please.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will start the question and answer session right now. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing pound key five on your telephone.

Our first question of today is from Mr. Joshua Mills from BNP Paribas.

Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Thank you for taking the questions.

One from me on the B2B side, then a second one on the consumer side. On the B2B side, it looks like this is the reason why you have downgraded the service revenue guidance for the year.

I just want to understand within that, was the bigger negative surprise on Tailored Solutions or LCE? Because I think Tailored Solutions you had always said would face a tough comp, and this is more about the lappings and contracts last year.

It does not seem like much has changed. You highlighted a couple of times during the call that LCE is going to remain soft in cloud and workspaces, part of the reason for that.

Some more color around whether it is LCE or Tailored Solutions which is disappointing would be helpful. Secondly, on the consumer side, I think in the past you have given some quite granular detail on where you expect service revenues to develop in Q3, Q4.

Could you just remind us of where you expect to see consumer service revenues land, whether it accelerates, and then whether there is any other price increases to come through that will help with that? Thank you.

Thank you, Joshua, for your questions. I will start.

Chris will follow up. You are right.

The downgrading of total service revenue this year is related to the B2B effects. In consumer, we consider our growth pretty strong in the competitive environment where we are.

SME did very good. Wholesale is in the plus.

It is all about Tailored Solutions and LCE. We guided for 2%-2.5% service revenue on full year, already last quarter, we saw that we are moving more to 2% than to 2.5% when it comes to Tailored Solutions and LCE.

The effect of Tailored Solutions is slightly more negative than we planned for the beginning of the year. It is low margin.

We are cleaning up there, so I am not that worried about the margin effect. The impact on the service revenue is a bit stronger than we expected.

LCE, we tried to flip it around in the coming six months. We expect that to happen only next year.

In all honesty, when it moves below 2%, we think it's prudent to adjust our service revenue guidance. Having said that, in total, we will move up above 2% in this coming quarter and the coming second half of the year.

I think that's the most important message we have on service revenue. We will end the year on the level between 2% and 2.5%, and we will exit the year on that level.

Joshua, to add on that on the B2B side, look, we reported declining B2B growth. X-Tailored Solutions would be around 2.5%-3% in each quarter.

I think in the second half of the year, you'd expect total B2B growth in the segment also to be north of 3% in each of the coming quarters, driven mostly by SME. On the flip side, where LCE is 0.7%, Tailored Solutions are a bit below our plan, a bit softer.

SME is doing better, so you'd expect SME to grow around 7% in the second half of the year. That continues actually to do better than planned.

Total B2B will be growing about 3%+ in the second half of the year. When you look at the consumer side of things, I'd expect consumer service revenues to be around 2%.

We did 1.9% in the second quarter. Q3 and Q4 will be similar, so 2% ± a bit on each of the quarters.

I'd expect mobile to accelerate because our base is up significantly, about 100,000 mobile ARPU doing better. We have indexed mobile service revenues.

We have additional price increase on our security solutions that will add to ARPU. I think that successfully managed renewal delta front to back.

I think we're getting better at that as well. When you look at the premium side of the market, we obviously increased our front book pricing.

Odido did the same. I would say that the upper end, the premium part of the mobile market is in quite a decent place.

In the no-frills segment, in the non-committed part, we've seen stabilization and increasing of roaming revenue. I'd expect consumer revenues to be around 2% with mobile up.

It could be above 4% in the second half. On fixed, the underlying fixed growth is close to 1%.

It will moderate a bit in Q3. It has to do with the comps last year.

For example, last year, we increased our pricing of our second set-top box. That's not happening this year.

You see a little bit more volatility in the fixed service revenues in the second half of the year. Underlying 1%-1.5% is feasible certainly into next year.

To be very precise, in the second half, you see mobile north of 4%, fixed below 1% for a total service revenue growth in consumer around 2%. Again, B2B, north of 3%.

Thank you. Sorry, guys, just one very quick follow-up on the LCE softness.

Is there anything structural here? Is it that you're seeing more competition from AI players on the cloud side or something like that?

Or is it just normal course of business?

Well, I think what we're seeing is on the other cloud and workspace is going down a bit, but they're lower margin business. I think mobile is doing actually quite well in LCE.

There's some price pressure, but good volume wins. I think the pressure is more on corporate VPN, corporate connectivity, which a bit of broadband and a bit of voice where we see somewhat more competition.

Finally, it's in IoT as well. I mean, IoT is a business where you have strong volume growth and then the occasional repricing, right?

You grow volumes to your large customers, reprice the price per tick a bit. A bit of a sawtooth revenue pattern, we're now coming this year in the downward part of the sawtooth, we'll grow again.

I don't see any AI companies coming in.

No.

Joost, you want to add to that?

Well, we have more or less the same strategy as in SME. We started on SME because that's generating far more cash than LCE.

It's a decline in legacy, like Chris said, and it's making the new business grow, move your customers to future-proof business. Takes more time than we expected.

It's also more complicated than more mass market steering on SME. In principle, we have the same strategy there.

Move our customers to future-proof portfolio, it will grow. It takes some time, but yeah, I'm pretty convinced we will end up there.

Thank you.

The next question is from Ajay Soni from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question.

My first one is around the KPIs we saw on the net add side. I think some were expecting a bit of a tailwind from the Odido security breach, which didn't really materialize.

Is this due to competition stepping up within Q2 which maybe offset this tailwind? The second one is just looking into next year.

You mentioned H2 service revenue around 2%-2.5%. Within this, there still feels as though there are headwinds from LCE and wholesale broadband.

Looking ahead into 2027, could we actually see service revenue growing higher than this? What other headwinds or tailwind do you see for next year?

Thank you.

Yeah. On the broadband net adds, your first question, I think Q2 was, taking into account that we live in a competitive broadband market, still a rough quarter for us.

First of all, we had this Odido breach that provided temporary uplift. On the other hand, VodafoneZiggo is far more competitive.

They drew a line in the sand. They don't want to lose customers.

The competitiveness intensity has moderated also because Odido's trying to fight back from that breach effect. Recent pricing moves by KPN and Odido, early July were there.

Odido implemented some mobile front book price increases. That leads to a more rational market we see compared to Q2, Q3 starting on a much lower level, less, like I call it, rough.

Q2 was, according to the last five quarters, the most competitive one. It started with our competitors, one impacted by a negative incident and the other really trying to fight back and spending a lot of costs on that to make the decline less or turn it around.

At the end, we follow our own strategy. We believe in investing in our base and not hunting after all the price seekers.

Until now, that works quite well. Taking everything into account, I'm pretty satisfied with the plus four we report to this quarter.

It's not as before, but taking into account everything that happened, I'm pretty okay with that.

To your question, Ajay, on the service revenue growth, I think we've got fair visibility on the second half of the year. The 2%-2.5%, we feel pretty comfortable to underwrite that.

Obviously, it's June, so it's early to say what service revenue growth in 2027 will be. I would say 2%-2.5% is probably the right ballpark.

If I have to look into my crystal ball or read Joost's tea leaves, I would say, if anything, consumer should be around two to slightly higher. SME is growing at 7%.

I don't count on that continue, although SME has been outperforming expectations for a few years now. I wouldn't count on SME growing by 7% again.

Some moderation is expected, although it will probably be the highest growing business that we have. I wouldn't count on that staying at 7%.

LCE and Tailored Solutions normalizing and improving a bit into next year. Wholesale will be similar to this year.

I think it depends a bit on how we end the year. As I said, it's hard to say, give full guidance on service revenue growth for next year.

That was already in June. If I look at the moving parts and what we see in the second half of the year, I would say bank on 2%-2.5%, same range with slightly different compositions.

Great. Thank you.

The next question is from Mr. Polo Tang from UBS.

You can go ahead.

Thanks. Firstly, congrats to Chris on the new role.

Secondly, I've got two questions. The first one is just about EBITDA growth.

You briefly touched on it in your prepared remarks, but can you talk in a bit more detail through the phasing of EBITDA growth in terms of Q3, Q4, and quantify some of the puts and takes? Looking at Q3, from memory, you've got one-off gains from last year dropping out, plus you called out the new wage agreement impact.

Therefore, to clarify, should we expect Q3 EBITDA growth to be another quarter in terms of actually, should Q3 EBITDA growth actually be declining, is the question. Will you get any further IP sale benefits this year?

Second question is, can you comment on the level of fiber overbuild in the Dutch market currently? Can you confirm if you still intend to build to 80%-85% fiber coverage longer term, or would you consider wholesaling from the likes of Delta Fiber and ODF?

I'm just asking the question, as KPN covers roughly 70% of the Netherlands and ODF and Delta Fiber cover the remainder of the market. If all your fiber build from here is overbuild, will this not increase competition in the Dutch broadband market going forward?

Thanks.

Yeah. Polo, let me take the first question.

Indeed on Q3 last year, in the third quarter, we had EUR 16 million of earnings from the IPR settlements. Obviously, they will not come back this year.

I would expect headline EBITDA in Q3 to show a small decline versus last year, simply due to this effect. Underlying small growth, a bit less than this quarter.

If I look at the distribution of EBITDA through the year It's more tilted towards Q4. Full year guidance firmly intact.

I mean, you can now figure out what Q4 will be like, but it's a little bit more back-end loaded than in Q3, both on the headline, also on an underlying basis. Those are mostly one-offs and effects as we allude in our voiceover.

We have our Collective Labor Agreement as a one-off payment this year, EUR 45 million. That hits us in Q3.

Those things feature into the Q3 numbers. Full year's EBITDA confirmed, reiterated, a little bit more tilt towards Q4 than Q3, and on a headline basis, a small decline.

Polo, on the fiber rollout, we guided for a fiber footprint up to 85% in the future. That is including small M&A.

That deal between us or Glaspoort and Delta Fiber is blocked by negative decision by ACM. Of course, we disagree with that outcome.

It took them two years to get on paper why they block it. We cannot follow the line of reasoning.

We have decided to appeal ACM's decision, but that will take time. If we cannot buy anything, we cannot do small M&A, we will move up to 80% probably, and let us see where we end up after we fight that ACM's decision.

It is not all overbuilt, by the way. There are still regions where we are building that where we are the only ones.

It is also related to new build. We expect 70,000 to 80,000 new build houses in the Netherlands every year.

We will connect these. Our strategy is not today that we serve our customers via wholesale deals with third-party fiber networks.

Of course, one of the strategic questions for us is, okay, how do we serve our customers outside the fiber footprint? We do that today with a mix of copper, bonded copper, fixed wireless access, bonded with copper, et cetera.

There are several solutions we use today, and how we move further to 2030 is what we are working out now. It is relevant question.

Besides the whole ACM decision, it is important anyhow. That is something for us to first decide on and then to inform the market.

We are not changing our fiber rollout plan. It is all within the financial framework we guided for, and we believe that some of overbuilt areas, overbuilt is not a good business case.

We have to decide how to serve our customers there. That is for the future.

Clear. Thanks.

The next question is from David Wright from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thanks, guys.

You've given great deal of granularity, far more than most would provide, I think, on the next couple of quarters. I guess, it was just a bit more on the 2027 service revenue CAGR, the midterm.

You've obviously brought down the 2026. I think it's probably fair to say that some of the LCEs may be just a little bit less visible.

I know we had been expecting some improvement. That's been pushed out a little.

Was there no temptation just to take a little edge off the sort of 2027 service revenue guidance with this particular move? Or are you sort of still confident that the building blocks are there to get you back there?

I appreciate that circa 3% could be 2.6%, but just wondering how you thought about that. Thank you very much.

Let me start. Chris can give his view on 2027, although.

It's no longer his horizon. We're working on a plan to get on 2027.

We have pretty good view, but this call is about Q2 and not about 2027. We're not skipping our guidance for the full strategic period.

That's the first thing. If we have anything to change there for the full period, we'll be formally communicating to the market.

Like we said, we're uplifting service revenues in the second half of the year. If it's 2%, it's more difficult to get it up to 3%.

If it's 2.6%, we're in a better movement. I'm pretty convinced that we are.

We're increasing prices every year in consumer, both on broadband and mobile. In between, we increase prices.

We do it in SME. We're good in SME by approaching the markets ourselves and via partners.

Mobile's great. We're building on our fiber footprint.

We still believe in the plan for the full strategic period. If it's going to be 2.45%, 2.6%, that I don't know yet.

Sorry, Chris, after you.

David, look, as I said, we're pretty confident underwriting the 2.5% growth forecast for the second half of the year. The exact number for service revenue growth in 2027, I believe, yeah, it's still a couple of months out.

Depends a bit how you end the year, but at this point, I see no reason to deviate from that same range. In the end, EBITDA growth in the end is also more important than service revenue growth, right?

Yeah.

I'm pretty okay with the cost performance this year. That gives a cushion for EBITDA growth for next year.

Finally on this, when Chris and I started together, we made an overview for the company where we make our money, and it's mass market. It's consumer, SME, and wholesale.

That's where, Chris, 85% of our cash comes from. Of course, we try to fix the data solutions and the LCE parts, but that's why we started in fixing consumer, SME, and we have a challenge in also, but it's growing.

We're really also focused on the value steering of things. We really prioritize SME above LCE, for instance.

I'm convinced we can fix it, but it takes more time. It's a lower margin business.

Just very quickly, my second thought. The fiber deal that obviously fell through, it did seem a little bit of a surprise, and perhaps not going so consistently with the direction of wider EU regulation.

Has there been any sort of more commentary that indicates what the pushback was to that particular deal? Or is this something I'm assuming that you can appeal in the court?

Yeah. Well, listen, for us, it is not a surprise.

If it takes a supervisor and a competitive regulator two years to work on a decision that you know is going to be a negative one because of [AI]. We have good conversations with ACM.

They are probably listening in as well, so we are not going to disclose what we are discussing with ACM about this. We will appeal.

That is one thing. The second, it is a bit, they are flipping around the regulatory model.

According to me, a long time ago, I was a lawyer, but the way this has been built up is a bit strange for us. You refer to European movements.

That is completely opposite. The Netherlands is an exception there, but we think it is also a very strange decision, and I am convinced that we can fight it.

70% of these cases, we win. It is not an appeal we do on ACM, but it is in the court of Rotterdam.

Let us see. Yes, it is strange, and on the other hand, it is also naïve to anticipate on further consolidation in the coming 12 months because of this decision.

That is why we have to take it into account. Let us see, what happens.

Very good. Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you, Joost.

The next question is from Ms. Molly Whitcomb from Goldman Sachs.

Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions.

Firstly, just on cost savings. I know we've discussed potential phasing for the rest of this year, but you've maintained your kind of EUR 15 million-EUR 20 million cost savings guide for the year.

You've managed EUR 15 million so far this year. I understand there's a bit of a drag in Q3, but is there any potential to outperform on full-year cost savings?

Secondly, just to come back on LCE again. You said you're expecting there to be some sort of improvement into 2027.

I understand it's early days, but I'm still not really understanding what's giving you the confidence that you're going to see an inflection there. Secondly, I think you've spoken to, as part of this question, sorry, I think you've spoken to the tough operating environment in LCE.

Is there one particular kind of main aggressor that you're seeing? Just a little bit more color on that would be great.

Thank you.

Well, like we said, it's mid-year 2026. For me, it's a bit unusual to talk about next year.

Of course, I appreciate your question around LCE because it's very fragmented market. We are the main player there, and we have the largest position.

We're competing against international players, ICT players, smaller players, but it's mainly us against foreign companies like whatever, BT International, ICT providers, et cetera. It's pretty fragmented.

We try to move away from being a workspace provider. We're the largest workspace provider.

According to us, doesn't make sense because there's not enough margins on there. We're good at reselling workspace nowadays, so we're shifting that.

Part of the impact on the revenues is also by decision of us. We're really focused on the connectivity part.

The old connectivity, the traditional connectivity part on the fixed side, on fiber, but also on the CPaaS, new kind of business when it comes to communications. We're launching new portfolio there.

It takes longer to build it, to migrate customers, to sell it, to sign off contracts, et cetera. It's a tough environment and not that easy to steer as mass market.

Like I said, I think we will fix it one day or the other, but it's not going to happen coming months.

Yeah. Molly, on your cost question, obviously, indeed, the reported cost reduction was about EUR 15 million-EUR 16 million.

Ahead of more than 50% of the EUR 15 million-EUR 20 million that we guided for. There's two things.

One, there's a bit of phasing in the year in that, and then in Q3, obviously, you have this CLA increase. I think in the Q3 set, the third quarter will probably report a small increase in cost or a decline in cost in that very quarter.

For the full year, we'll make the guidance of EUR 15 million-EUR 20 million. I think we could end at the upper end of that range.

I feel pretty okay with that. The most important thing is to be on track with the EUR 100 million net savings by the end of this decade.

That's what we're working against. I would say the results so far, tell us we're still on track to deliver that.

By this year, the EUR 15 million-EUR 20 million is reasonably secured.

Yeah.

There will be a bit of phasing again. Q3, as I said, cost will be a bit higher.

Q4, it'll be lower again. That's just going through the motions of the year.

With that, we feel confident with the rate we've given and are on track towards the EUR 100 million savings.

Makes sense. Thank you very much.

The next question is from David Vagman from ING. Please go ahead.

Hello. Good afternoon, everyone, thanks for taking my question.

First of all, Chris, thanks and wishing you all the best. On my two questions, the first one on the regulation.

Looking at the regulatory and legal reasoning of the ACM, I understand clearly you disagree, are you looking at the regulatory truth that is expiring, I think, in 2030? Do you see any read-across basically on how the ACM has been looking at this case, at the Dutch market, and hence reason for you to appear right now?

Second question on the next incoming, let's say mobile spectrum auction. If you could give us your rough expectation.

I know it is early, of course. Thank you.

On regulation, this is more a competitive regulation topic than the telco regulation part. On the last part, we are no longer regulated.

That was a battle we also fought in court. By the way, we succeeded there in two steps.

KPN, a couple of years ago, suddenly was no longer regulated on the telco regulatory parts. We came out with that voluntary wholesale proposal for the markets.

It's up to 2030, and that is supervised by ACM. That's the model.

Of course, also this ACM is about two things. The left part is telco regulation part, and the other part is more the competitive environment.

This one is in competition, so not about specific telco regulation. They just say, "Listen, on the wholesale side, you have more or less 75% of the country in your hands.

You are dominant," as they call it. The more you buy, the more dominant you become, and that's not good for the market.

That is more or less in a very short what they say. In moving up to 2030, we will, of course, perhaps change the model for a longer period of time, and we will work on that and discuss that with the telco part of ACM move into 2030.

So far, no changes there. On mobile spectrum, we are discussing that with the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

That's not a part of our government. That, I think, will happen in 2028 or 2029, somewhere there.

Multi-band auctions are an important one. There we aim for the same strategy for our government as well as last auctions, that they encourage us to invest in our infrastructure and in our mobile networks, so that they don't make us pay too much for the license, but they encourage us to invest in certain areas and in the quality of the networks.

Outcome of that is that we have the two best mobile networks in the world in the Netherlands. That's pretty convincing KPI for our government as well.

We're in the middle of that, and it's up to us to make it happen and to come to a clear model in the Netherlands together with our government and the other telcos.

Okay. Thanks very much.

Yes.

Our next question is from Keval Khiroya from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Well, two questions.

Firstly, what do you think it would take for the fixed ARPU growth to improve more materially? There is a competitive backdrop you've talked about, but you've also now got an impressive 72% of the retail base on fiber.

Do you think there's something you can do to drive that fixed core ARPU growth higher, a bit like the security feature in mobile, or does it ultimately need the market to improve overall? Secondly, can you give us a view on how we should think about the wholesale mobile revenues in the second half and beyond, and how the sponsored roaming elements will support versus H1?

Thank you.

Well, fixed ARPU, the competitiveness is one thing. That the more competitive the market, the more we have to fight for our base, and the more back book, front book movements will happen.

Investing in our base is one thing. Adding more in the portfolio for households is also important part of our strategy, especially on the security side, like you mentioned.

Cooling down the market is important one for us as well. That it's not healthy if we all hunt for the same customers.

There's a lot of rotation in the market, and all the more or less customer bases are the same as previous quarter. I think cooling down the market, following our own strategy, adding more services on the portfolio, in-home security, et cetera, that will work.

To get it above three, that's hard work. I'm pretty okay with the last quarter.

I think above one for now is good, and we try to lift it further up. It also relates, as you said, to the market developments.

Yeah, I guess to me, the most important thing is market developments, we've been able to limit migrations from front book to back book to a relatively low amount. Still, the biggest big threat to ARPU is that delta between acquisition pricing and back book pricing as customers try to take advantage.

If that thing normalizes, that would actually help ARPU a whole lot. That takes more than one player to make that happen, I think.

On sponsored roaming in mobile and on wholesale, yeah, it's a good business. It reflects international travel, eSIM adoption, IoT connectivity, and I think where we're good at, we've got over 600 roaming agreements, and we're an independent provider.

We have unsteered roaming commitments. That is worth a lot.

I think a business that is now used to and able to connect and onboard customers pretty quickly. That gives you a bit of competitive advantage in this space.

Will this continue to grow at this pace? At some point, it will flatten down a bit.

I think there's a bit of margin pressure coming on over time. I'd expect the second half of the year to be good, possibly to flatten out a bit over time.

It is not a level of growth you will sustain in the long run, but it's nice margin business that will help you grow. Generally speaking, I do see more opportunities from broader mobile in wholesale, but more on the national level in the medium to long term.

In some ways, we've got a good business in sponsored roaming. Continue to grow in the second half of the year.

At some point, this level of growth will be fading as other people join the party. We do have a number of clear on-hand opportunities also in domestic national mobile partnerships that will support mobile in wholesale in the medium term.

They will carry the baton from a few years down the road.

Understood. Thank you both.

The next question is from Mr. Paul Sidney from Berenberg.

Please go ahead.

That's great. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon to everyone. Just two questions from me, please.

First one, a bit of a follow-on. As the industry moves to a value over volume approach, particularly in consumer, pricing is more important than ever.

We've seen Deutsche Telekom putting up back book broadband prices earlier this year. Swisscom's done a similar move.

We've seen AT&T putting up prices on some of their old legacy products. I just wonder, is there potential and desire for KPN to be a bit bolder on price increases, particularly on the back books, given that I think we all believe that the service that you're giving is being priced too cheaply, and if customers want to churn, then so be it, because it'll be low-end customers.

Just secondly, apologies, Chris, I ask you this every quarter, but in terms of capital allocation, you're committed to returning free cash flow to shareholders, but are there any initiatives that are bubbling up under the surface within the company that may be not obvious to us that KPN can invest in to create value, given all the optionality you have, given the very strong cash flow generation we expect over the next few years? Thank you.

The whole point you touch on value steering. That of course, is on our radar screen as well.

Compared to other years, prior years, we did more than we used to. We use CPI increase more or less every year on full broadband and mobile-based consumer on the SME base and in the part of the contracts in CLA as well.

In between, we did some price increases in broadband, in mobile related to improving the proposition on security, et cetera. We don't want to scare off our customers, but so yes, when we can offer our customers more quality on KPN, there's good reason to increase prices, and if we can explain it, then it's good.

Let's put it that way. That's on our minds.

Do we scare off customers? We have no-frills brands as well, so we follow a balanced approach, high quality, higher priced is KPN.

Works quite well. The mobile side, unlimited gets the higher price, but also supported by security packages, et cetera.

There's on the Youfone side or on the Simyo side, you can buy a cheaper proposition with less guarantees and lower speeds. In that balance, we think we can play this strategy excellent.

You refer to other telcos. We're looking at that as well.

We're doing more or less the same in the Netherlands, but we have to play it in. It's a delicate balance we try to find here.

Let's put it that way.

To your second question, Paul, on capital allocation and other investments, look, I think we made a clear commitment. We return all our free cash flow to shareholders.

We stick to that commitment. Part of it is a EUR 0.20 dividend over year 2026 and EUR 0.25 over next year.

Are there other opportunities to invest? In that commitment is even for next year after the CapEx step down, still EUR 1 billion in CapEx.

That's still a heck of a lot of money. In line with even at the higher end of the European telcos.

We continue to invest in this business from a CapEx perspective. If there would be other opportunities bubbling up, as you say, we've got a balance sheet that has a 2.5x net debt-EBITDA leverage, and because of EBITDA growth, it gradually goes down.

If you wouldn't do anything, this thing gradually moves, drops by 0.1x, 0.15x terms every year. That means that if additional opportunities would come up, you've got a balance sheet that gives us room to invest.

Obviously, you need to save a bit of money for spectrum auctions, you need to save a bit of money for the future glasvezel consolidation. We think that the ability of KPN to invest into new opportunities if they come up is still there, given the fact that we still have the balance sheet, we invest EUR 1 billion, and then we can still pay out all this cash to shareholders.

The model still stands as far as we're concerned.

That's great. Thank you very much.

Chris, all the best for the future.

Thank you.

We'll now go ahead with today's final question coming from Carl Murdock from Citi. You can now go ahead, please.

That's great. Thank you very much.

Two from me. Firstly, just following up on Paul's question, but kind of on the CapEx step downs 2027, how do you operationally manage such a big step down in CapEx?

What are the key steps and risk factors around such a big change in the CapEx budget? Should we be able to see the step down immediately from Q1 next year?

Secondly, just on the sustainability and the growth differential between SME and LCE, is there any risk of contagion between the issues in LCE and SME, or are they just totally different markets and competitive dynamics, given what you were saying about LCE facing mostly international competitors? Thanks.

On CapEx step down, CapEx, the way we run it, is more or less six to eight quarters in advance. Today we're not steering 2026.

Today, we're steering 2027. If we're building fiber, we'planning it almost two years in advance.

That is what we are more or less currently already booking in. It's not that suddenly on the 1st of January, we have to decide where to cut on the CapEx.

It's completely or more or less fully related to the fiber rollouts. That's steered today.

My message is 2027 CapEx is steered today and not next year. Yes, we do it in advance and it's pretty prudent how we run it.

Pretty predictable as well. SME versus LCE, these are, as far as I'm concerned, completely different markets.

There's a consumer and then there's a SOHO, and then followed up by SME, which is really about 10-500 employees at the max. Far above that's where LCE starts.

Lots of SME customers are still in the residential households, to give you an example. We moved a part of LCE, in our own definition, to SME because we saw an opportunity there and we have a better sales system and a better platform and a better machinery supported by AI already on the SME part.

For us, these are two different markets. That's according our own definitions.

The more we put in SME, the more successful we are to put. The way we look at LCE today, the more really the larger companies are in there, and the rest is just SME.

Yeah, I mean, on your point on CapEx, look, Joost, we're planning the CapEx next year right now, right? The plan is we're nearly done.

Obviously, there's value creating scarcity, I always say, the plan for next year is nearly ready. We've got a few more things to solve, then we have the plan ready, fully operational for CapEx next year.

Operationally, some parts will be slimmed down. For example, when you step down your fiber rollout, you can scale down your fiber department.

That will be scaled down in staff levels as well, to re-utilize that factory, that operation. That's actually being executed in parallel.

The second point to make on SME, a lot of our SMEs are going through partners, right? Distribution through third-party intermediaries that work with our KPN ÉÉN platform, and that are paid commission also based on the revenue they generate.

They also have an interest in keeping our queues at a healthy level. The distribution model in SME, selling via partners to small employees, small and midsize companies, is different from selling to professional procurement officers in large corporates.

I think that makes these markets really different.

Okay. Thank you, Chris.

That's great. Thank you.

That concludes today's session. In case of any other questions, you know where to find us.

Cheers.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's presentation. Thank you so much for participating.

You may now disconnect your line. Have a nice day.