Vesa Sahivirta
Good morning, everyone. We have a very familiar team here.
I'm Vesa Sahivirta, Head of Investor Relations, and here together with me are CEO Topi Manner and CFO Kristian Pullola. We start with the presentation, followed by Q&A.
In Q&A, we appreciate that you limit your questions to one due to our time constraints. We had a hard stop at 1:00 p.m.
Finnish time, 11:00 a.m. London time.
Thank you for understanding that. Now, let's get started.
I give word to Topi, please go ahead.
Topi Manner
Thank you, Vesa. Hello, everybody.
Welcome to this Q3 earnings call. As stated, let's get right down to business so that we have time for questions.
The Q3 highlights: revenue was flat during the quarter. Comparable EBITDA down by 1.8% against the strong comparison of Q3 '25.
Telecom service revenue decreased by 1.3%, driven by mobile service revenue decline of 2.3%. At the same time, fixed service revenue grew with 1.6%.
In international software services, we had a good quarter. Comparable revenue increased with roughly 11%.
In Finland, the postpaid churn increased to 18.7%, which is the long-term average churn of Q3s during the last 10 years. Mobile postpaid subscriptions decreased by some 16,000, while the M2M and IoT base grew with some 10,000.
On the fixed broadband subscription-based, we saw a strong growth of more than 20,000 subscriptions, both in FTTH as well as in FTTB. The transformation program is proceeding according to plan, as we have communicated previously.
During the quarter, we carried out operating model changes in our consumer business and initiated a similar process in international software services, all being part of the transformation that we are going through. Our board of directors decided on the third installment of the dividend, namely €0.60 to be paid on 4th of November '26.
During the quarter, mobile recovery continued at a more moderate pace. The revenue, as stated, was flat.
The increases within the revenue number were driven by international software services, fixed services, as well as equipment sales, while mobile services, and to some extent, consumer digital, were decreasing. Then also, discontinuation of the landline copper, the PSTN network, during the quarter, after 140 years of service, decreased the revenue with some €2 million, and that same impact what was also seen in the EBITDA number.
EBITDA was pulled toward the better direction by the outcome of the transformation program. As stated, the PSTN also decreased the EBITDA with the €2 million I mentioned.
In terms of telecom service revenue, we are still being weighed down by last year's mobile competition, and many mobile subscriptions being fixed for 12 months with low price points. However, during the quarter, we saw the mobile service revenue edge up slightly on Q-on-Q basis.
The upsell of 5G continues and is an underlying driver for mobile service revenue. ARPU was flat, and that's the 7%.
When we look into the mobile KPIs more closely, starting from the upper right-hand corner, the net sales prices on Q-on-Q basis decreased a bit, reflecting seasonality, and, as mentioned, slightly increased competition. However, it is important to note that the new sales prices were higher than they were in Q3 last year, and actually they were higher than we saw all through the four quarters of 2025.
Churn, 18.7%, as stated, reflects the 10-year average of Q3 churn. Mobile sales and marketing costs were stable within the composition of marketing and sales costs.
We saw some changes: decreased cost around vouchers and kickbacks driven by our value-based actions on the market, and at the same time, we invested a bit more to sales force on the market, and thus the stable development in sales and marketing costs. The segment results were mixed.
Consumer customers were weighed down by last year's competition, as mentioned. Also the discontinuation of the PSTN network had a slight impact on consumer segment.
Corporate segment had clearly a more challenging quarter. When interpreting the results of corporate segment, it should be noted that the discontinuation of the PSTN business impacted corporate segment with the €2 million negative that was mentioned.
Also, during last year's Q3, we had some bigger deals, and we did not have corresponding similar deals during this quarter, reflecting sort of a normal quarterly fluctuation. In international software services, as stated, return to growth was the theme of Q3, with comparable organic growth at roughly 11%, and EBITDA change upwards €2 million €2 million.
We see very solid progress in Estonia. The revenue increased with 5%.
We are seeing EBITDA increase on quarterly basis, even better increase on year-to-date basis, and we see the customer numbers improving positively in Estonia, while the churn is down on Q-on-Q basis. Very solid progress in Estonia.
Looking into strategy just briefly, as witnessed by the numbers, we are being challenged in terms of growth as we speak, but looking into '27 and looking into telecom services of '27, we see that our entry point to '27 will be better than it was for this year. On the fiber space, in the fixed services, we will have a new growth opportunity related to data center connectivity that is clearly tangible and growing quite rapidly, on top of the FTTH and FTTB demand that we see on the market.
In Elisa Industriq, we initiated an operating model change that will be resulting in a significant improvement of profitability in that business during '27. Then we will certainly continue with continuous improvement efforts around productivity and efficiency, thus progressing with our strategy implementation.
Looking into 5G upsells, that clearly continued in a trend-like fashion, as before. As of now, our 5G penetration stands at 61%, with 3% pickup during the quarter.
Strong fiber growth, I already mentioned. In the home services, perhaps the most notable development during the quarter was that we renewed our contract, a long-term contract with MTV, a Finnish commercial TV company, and brought their streaming service, Katsomo+, to our Elisa Viihde, Elisa entertainment customers, as a very tangible customer benefit.
On corporate and IT and cyber businesses, we won some good deals: Kemppi is one of the examples, a Finnish international company; and also in Estonia, during the quarter, we acquired Pro IT, a small IT firm, and with that, we are strengthening our IT offering for corporates in the Estonian market. Then, in international software services, the main headline is that we initiated the operating model change.
During the quarter, after slow Q2, we saw activity picking up in the software space, and we were very happy to receive several major orders from new global customers, including three leading chipmakers globally in the semicon industry. These deals had a small impact on Q3 revenue, but most importantly, these deals will be supportive of the revenue going forward, especially going into 2027.
With the operating model change, we are planning to integrate our individual software businesses within Elisa Industriq fully into one Elisa Industriq. In the course of doing so, we will be realizing efficiencies.
Now the respective processes in each of the countries have been started, and we are well on our way in terms of the implementation. The operating model change is targeting a significant improvement in profitability for the full year of 2027.
As part of the operating model change, we are planning to introduce two business areas within Elisa Industriq, one being manufacturing and the other being critical infrastructure, where we are serving telecommunications and energy industries. We expect in Elisa Industriq that the organic revenue for the full year will be within the bracket of 5% to 10%, and as stated, going forward, we expect to see gradual improvement in EBITDA in this part of the business.
Data centers and data center connectivity business is now rapidly expanding in Finland. Finland is experiencing a data center boom.
During September alone, data center investments in the order of magnitude of tens of billions were announced in the country. The most notable was Google's announcement of them investing €13 billion during the course of next two years to data centers in Finland.
We are very happy that Google has been choosing us as their main partner in building data center connectivity, high-capacity, reliable connectivity for all of their four data center campuses in Finland. As an indication of the market size, the Finnish electricity grid operator, Fingrid, has now been forming electricity contracts with data centers that would amount to 5 GW of capacity, once realized.
This is, indeed, an indication of the potential size of the market in the coming years. Our year-to-date cumulative order intake in this part of the business now amounts to approximately €100 million.
As stated, this order book has been building very rapidly. The orders mainly came in during the third quarter.
Going forward, we will also look into other types of opportunities within the data center space, looking into optics, looking into managed services with campus-ready service packages, and thereby exploring adjacent opportunities in this space as well. While the revenue recognition related to data centers will commence mainly from '28 onward, once the construction of the connections has been completed, it is important to note that the cash flow characteristics of this business are positive.
During the quarter, we spent on CapEx related to data center connectivity, but for the full year, given the advance payments of customers, we expect positive net cash flow. Then some words about the AI-RAN partnership with Nokia and Nvidia.
In March, we announced that we are looking into a proof of concept together with Nokia and Nvidia around AI-RAN, and now we are moving to implementation in this one. As one sign of this collaboration and closer cooperation, especially with Nvidia, we launched a beta version of our Moontalk Siri, personal real-time AI assistant, which is using Nvidia's Nemotron open models and distributed infrastructure in terms of compute, distributed sovereign infrastructure in terms of compute.
Now we are looking closely into this. We are developing further solutions together with Nokia and Nvidia, and we expect to see very soon announcements related to even closer collaboration around AI-RAN.
Then finally, just to wrap up, our outlook and guidance for the year remains unchanged. While we see slightly increased competition in the mobile space, we are targeting to be well within the guidance range in terms of comparable EBITDA.
With that, I will hand over to Kristian to go through his part of the presentation. Thank you.
Kristian Pullola
Thank you, Topi. Let me take you through the financial performance.
In Q3, group revenue was flat on a year-on-year basis at €561 million. Within that, we continued to see the expected mix shift: mobile services, consumer digital services, and the discontinuation of the traditional fixed PSTN weighing on revenues, while international software services, equipment sales, and fixed services supporting growth.
Comparable EBITDA was €210 million, down by 1.8% or approximately €4 million from last year. The transformation program continued to support productivity.
However, the benefits did not fully offset the impact from lower telecom service revenue and the discontinuation of the PSTN business. Below EBITDA, higher depreciation and slightly higher net financial expenses also weighed on earnings.
Comparable earnings per share were €0.59 compared to €0.64 last year. As Topi explained, the mobile recovery is continuing, but at a more moderate pace.
The impact of the improved net sales prices is coming through with a delay and will be more visible in '27. Our focus remains on improving service revenue development and delivering transformation benefits, while maintaining disciplined cost control and looking actively for opportunities to improve earnings.
Moving to investments, CapEx, excluding licenses, lease arrangements, and acquisitions, was €77 million in Q3 compared to €65 million last year. This represented approximately 14% of quarterly revenue.
The key point is that year-to-date CapEx, excluding data center investments, remains in line with our guidance of 12% of revenue. Just a reminder: the 12% guidance for CapEx is valid for CapEx, excluding licenses, lease arrangements, acquisitions, and data center investments.
The CapEx allocation remains consistent with our strategy. Our main investment areas are 5G coverage expansion, fiber build-out, and IT systems that support consumer experience and productivity.
Along with these established investment areas, data center connectivity provides additional growth opportunities. As Topi said, the year-to-date order intake was approximately €100 million, mainly being secured during the third quarter.
We assess these opportunities together with their investment requirements and cash flow profile, and we expect positive net cash flow from the data center connectivity for the full year. When we talk about net cash here, we take into account both the CapEx as well as the inflows, including the advance payments received.
We will not provide exact CapEx numbers on a quarterly basis for the data center investments due to competitive reasons. However, we will report this number on an annual basis in conjunction with our full year results.
All in all, we are maintaining investment-disciplined while funding the infrastructure and capabilities that underpin future growth. Turning to cash flow, comparable cash flow in Q3 was solid at €116 million compared to €125 million last year, a decline of approximately 7%.
There were three main drivers behind the development. First, lower EBITDA reduced cash generation.
Second, higher CapEx and higher paid financial expenses weighed on CapEx. Third, working capital provided a positive offset, contributing approx- approximately €20 million compared to €6 million last year.
Working capital supported the quarter, but did not fully compensate the lower EBITDA and investments and financial expenses. Our priorities remain unchanged: maintain investment discipline, manage net working capital actively, and improve the conversion of earnings to cash.
All in all, Q3 delivered solid cash generation, while improving the year year-to-date cash flow performance remains an important focus. As said, we expect positive net cash flow from the data center connectivity opportunities for the full year, with inflows mainly coming during the fourth quarter.
Finally, on capital structure and returns, net debt at the end of September was €1.5 billion, slightly above the year-end level. Net debt to EBITDA was 1.9 times, within our target of 1.5 to 2 times.
The equity ratio was 38%, above the minimum target of 35%. Our capital structure therefore remains within our financial targets.
On financing, we progressed on the proactive refinancing discussed last quarter. In August, we signed a committed €300 million credit facility to cover the bond maturing in '27.
The facility matures in '29 and was fully undrawn at the end of September. This gives us flexibility in managing the upcoming maturities with committed financing already in place.
Return ratios are at good levels. The comparable return on equity was 28.3% and the return on investment was 17.4% for the first nine months.
All in all, our balance sheet remains solid. Refinancing for the '28 bond is secured, and we continue to focus on disciplined investment, cash generation, and returns to shareholders.
With that, I'll hand back to Vesa for Q&A.
Vesa Sahivirta
Thank you, Kristian. Now we move on to Q&A part, and could we have the first question from the conference call lines?
Thank you.
Operator
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad.
The next question comes from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Andrew Lee
Hi, everyone. I had a pretty short-term question and a kind of medium-term question.
Short-term question is just, I guess, negative surprise today is competitive intensity has been higher in Q3, both on the consumer mobile side through the vouchers and on the corporate side, through just general price competition. I wondered if you could comment on what you're seeing at this stage in Q4.
It sounds like that competitive intensity has continued. If that's the case, do you still think that you can avoid a decline in telco revenues on a full-year basis?
It would be good to get just a bit more of a kind of update on that. Then the second question, the medium-term question, is more on the macro recovery we've seen in Finland.
Macro headwinds have been weighing on your corporate business and ISS. I wonder if you could comment about when we will see the positive benefits of the macro recovery on your numbers, and what point in 2027 should we look for that?
Thank you.
Topi Manner
Thank you, Andrew, for the questions. Starting with the first one related to the mobile market.
When we look at the competitive situation in Q3, we need to remember that the normal seasonal pattern with the back-to-school campaigning and so forth is that there is typically more competition in Q3. Seasonality is one factor in this.
What we saw especially in the early part of Q3 is more campaigning on consumer space, where one of the competitors did not use pricing that much, but more vouchers. That was the backdrop for our comment of slightly increasing competition.
In the corporate space, the other competitor is being quite active at this point of time, and these are basically amounting to the comments that we had on mobile market development. Now, if I look at the developments within Q3, September has been calmer in terms of the competitive situation, and now it remains to be seen that how that will be carrying out and carrying through the Q4, which is typically the most active campaigning period of the year.
Then related to related to the macro question, the macro backdrop is improving in in Finland. The GDP forecasts of the country have been upgraded lately, there are underlying positives in in that one.
Then the data center boom that the country is experiencing certainly will be an add-on to the macro picture. I think that the most significant impacts of the data center investments to us are actually indirect and coming through to the improved outlook of the economy, thereby improving the demand both from consumers as well as as corporates.
Having said that, the data center connectivity business is an important growth area for us, as stated, with the order book of 100 €100 million and possible additional opportunities related to managed services and other other other businesses. We do see the macro improving.
We expect that to continue during '27, despite the risks that the global economy has related to energy prices, related to, rise in long-term rates and things like that. We see early signs of our corporate sales pipeline improving.
We don't think that that will be impacting our numbers during this year, but going into, latter parts of second half of last year second half of next year, then we we expect to see more more impact on on the back of the improving economy.
Andrew Lee
Thanks, Topi. Appreciate that.
Just a quick follow-up in terms of what you said on the near-term competitive intensity. As things stand, calmer September, guessing slightly calmer October when you mentioned that, if it sounds like ongoing corporate competition.
If things don't change from that level of intensity, we should still see some form of top-line growth in the telco business for the full year?
Topi Manner
As stated, it remains to be seen how the market develops during the Q4 on that one. When it comes to our telecom service revenue indications, the range from 0 to 2%, it is clear that we will be at the lower end of that range.
Andrew Lee
Thank you.
Vesa Sahivirta
Thank you, Andrew. We want to remind you that please limit your questions for one, we have some time constraints today.
Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Ondrej Cabejsek from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yes,
Ondrej Cabejsek
good morning. Thank you for the presentation.
I wanted to touch upon your cost base. I think seen a bit of a disappointment on EBITDA, and I just want to understand where that's coming from, because you indicate in the presentation that your cost on the commercial side alone, or I think the mobile sales and marketing costs alone, are, if I read the chart correctly, about €5 million lower year-over-year.
We're not seeing much in the way of, I guess, personnel savings unlike in the first half. If you can talk about the cost evolution and why the EBITDA, I guess, was softer than expectations this quarter.
Feeding into that, the kind of voucher issue that you guys talked about, I think some of your competitors suggested that you had or that you yourselves were a bit more active on that front in the first half of the year. There's been a drag on your EBITDA since I reckon this is accounted for as OpEx.
Now that maybe you are using less of this, if you can confirm, does that support EBITDA? Your competitors also kind of raised more prices than you have, now that you are, I guess, doing less on the voucher side, does this not only support your EBITDA, but does that mean that on the front-book pricing, you can be as active as your competitors year-to-date, maybe towards the end of the year?
Thank you.
Kristian Pullola
Maybe I can start on the EBITDA development, and then Topi can comment on the use of vouchers. Again, I think the way to look at the EBITDA development in the quarter is that while revenue was flat, the mix shift in revenue was still towards lower-margin revenue from higher-margin revenue.
That creates a headwind that is then caught up by the cost improvements that we have from the transformation program. Then within the sales and marketing, we have been shifting investment from vouchers to sales activities.
That's, in a way, why that development on a year-on-year basis is flat compared to where we started off beginning of last year. Really, the revenue shift created a hole that needed to be filled with cost savings.
Then, of course, some of the cost savings we have, as we said, invested into growth, and some of that has also been then offset by inflation during the year.
Topi Manner
Then on the use of vouchers on the market, our understanding is that during this year, we have been the player on the market who has been clearly using the least the vouchers, as witnessed by the development of our sales and marketing costs. During the summer, we initiated value-based actions on our mobile services, and we clearly limited the usage of vouchers at that point of time.
I think that, based on our observations, that has led to the market reducing the vouchers to some extent, although there is one competitor on the market who has clearly been very active on that space still.
Ondrej Cabejsek
Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Derek Laliberté from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Derek Laliberté
Thank you. Just looking at the Q4 EBITDA recovery you've been talking about, because at Q2, you indicated that the Q4 comparable EBITDA growth should be stronger than Q3.
Given this weaker Q3 mobile trends and more intense competition again, does that still hold that we'll see a higher EBITDA in Q4 versus Q3? What are the main drivers, would you say, behind this expected improvement?
Thank you.
Kristian Pullola
Clearly the somewhat increased competition on mobile creates a headwind for that. As Topi said, we still target to get there by being disciplined on cost and by looking at additional opportunities to drive earnings during the last quarter of the year.
Derek Laliberté
All right, thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Maurice Patrick from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Maurice Patrick
Hi, guys. It's Maurice here.
Thanks for taking the question and for the presentation. A question for me really on cash flow and dividends.
If I look at your presentation deck, slide 16, you've got year-to-date cash flow down 12%. EBITDA is, yeah, negative.
This really kind of goes against 15 years of growth. I was looking earlier, having covered the company for a long time.
You've been growing the dividend or keeping it flat, I think, for more than 15 years. That's generally been driven by growing EBITDA on flattish CapEx to sales.
Now we've got EBITDA sort of flat declining. You've got CapEx, yes, similar, but you have got leverage at the higher end of your range, 1.9 times, 1.5, 2 times, rising rates.
Should we assume dividends can remain flat or growing from here, or is there a risk of a reset given your payout ratio target of 80% to 100%? Thank you.
Perhaps
Topi Manner
I start with the dividend policy part, and then Kristian can complement with the cash flow characteristics that we are seeing. In short, our dividend policy stays intact, and the continuously improving dividend is and has been part of our story.
Therefore, we understand that the dividend is important for our shareholders, and does the comment is that the dividend policy is intact.
Kristian Pullola
Clearly we have focus on cash now during the last quarter. As I said, some of the inflows related to the data center opportunity are mainly coming in during Q4.
We will actively look at what can be improved when it comes to net working capital, and cash conversion in general is focused on across the organization. In addition to that, I've said now, maybe a couple of quarters in a row already that we are also looking at in what areas could we release capital from our business that can then be reinvested into growth areas.
Releasing capital will improve all of the ratios that we have related to cash. That continues to be also a focused area during the fourth quarter.
All of this is done to be able to secure what Topi said from a dividend policy point of view.
Maurice Patrick
Great, thanks, guys.
Operator
The next question comes from Andreas Joelsson from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Andreas Joelsson
Thank you, and hello, everyone. My question is on the mobile side.
You have a lot of fixed contracts expiring, I guess, already in Q3, but especially in Q4, and you have communicated that you need to sort of motivate or justify towards your customers that when they renew these contracts, that the ARPU level will come up quite a bit from the campaigns from last year. How is that discussion going with the customers?
Have you taken actions already in advance to approach them, or how could we see this? It would be very helpful.
Thank you.
Topi Manner
Thank you. This is an important focus in our company at this present time, and as stated, that process has started during the Q3 and will continue with higher volumes in Q4.
We don't disclose further information on that one due to competitive reasons at this present time. Suffice it to say that when we are renewing the contracts that we did for 12 months last year, those campaigns, we are clearly seeing at present time a notable pickup in the average price, along the lines of the current market prices.
The way we are approaching the customers in this is that we are doing A and B testing of various offers and bundles all the time. We are offering value-added services to customers together with the mobile sub in order to make sure that we get to keep the customers with higher price points.
This is a ongoing management in the company, something that we optimize on daily and weekly basis as we speak, as we move forward. In doing so, we, of course, constantly keep eye on the churn and competitor actions, and that is the sort of ongoing management of this operation.
Andreas Joelsson
Perfect, thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Fredrik Lithell from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Thank you.
Fredrik Lithell
Thank you for taking my question as well. I thought we could put some more time on ISS and your ongoing reorganization.
What that will mean for profitability, how they will work with the operations, and if we should expect more EO items in the coming quarter, as it has just started up, would be interesting. Thank you.
Topi Manner
Yes. As stated, when we look at the profitability of Elisa Industriq at this point of time, we are not happy with the profitability level and EBITDA level.
Until so far, when we have been acquiring software companies, we have been integrating those companies partly, but not fully. With the operating model change that we have now initiated and we are planning, we will be integrating the software companies fully to one Elisa Industriq business.
In the course of doing so, we will be realizing efficiencies. That means headcount reduction.
That means, once we go through with the planning, that is likely to mean reduction of sites in Elisa Industriq. Product development synergies are part of the plan, simplification of the product portfolio, definitely synergies in general and admin parts of the Elisa Industriq.
Further, we will be doing investments on sales management and sales pipeline management, the go-to-market motion, in order to accelerate growth. All of this sums up to a significant profitability increase that is foreseeable for 2027, coming especially from the cost side of Elisa Industriq.
Then when we look at now the revenue momentum in Q3, that is clearly picking up. As stated, we are very happy to see the customer wins that are significant.
The customers are large, global entities who have been selecting our software for their whole production footprint, for all of their fabs. That is something that will certainly support the revenue going into 2027.
Lots to be done in Elisa Industriq, but encouraging progress during the quarter.
Kristian Pullola
Maybe on the one-time items, given that we are still in the planning phase, some of the one-time items were recorded in Q3, but there is more to come related to the planned savings here.
Fredrik Lithell
That's very clear. Thank you.
On these big contracts, congrats to all of those, but are they partly perpetual license, or is it really clean SaaS-type of models in those contracts? Thanks.
Topi Manner
There would be both elements in these deals that we would be talking about, but clearly, the SaaS share of this revenue is increasing also with the new deals.
Fredrik Lithell
Great, thanks.
Operator
The next question comes from Ulrich Rathe from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Ulrich Rathe
Thanks very much. I have a question and a clarification.
Question is, following up on Andreas's question, what share of your contract sales in Finland, new sales and also the contract extensions or how you would call that, what share of those in total are at the advertised prices, and what share is at individualized prices? The reason I'm asking is obviously that there is a trend in industry overall to individualize prices more and more.
I think your answer to Andreas's question suggests you're doing this. I'm just wondering whether you can share the overall sort of mix in your total sales in mobile.
The clarification, please, is the order book in the data center business of 100 million, what's the contract length, the average contract length for that? Is that 12 months?
Probably not, right, but could you just share the contract length? Thank you.
Kristian Pullola
Maybe I'll make it easy here. On the contracts, we will not, for competitive reasons, be able to discuss that.
However, your general trend is well understood, and also something that we are seeing. I think on the order book on the data center side, we are talking about orders that take some time to implement through the CapEx that is required, thus the revenue impact is only expected to materially start in 2028.
They are long-term contracts that the data center operators are expecting from us because they want to have certainty of connectivity operations for their data centers.
Ulrich Rathe
Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Felix Henriksson from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Felix Henriksson
Hi, thanks for taking my question. It is on the AI agents, which seems to be a growing concerns among investors in the sector.
Basically, the bear thesis seems to be that consumers may find it easier to switch to cheaper plans with the help of agentic AI. My question is that, do you consider this to be a threat in the Finnish mobile market, and is this something that you sort of need to future-proof your business for?
For example, we heard Tele2 talk about this quite extensively in their call yesterday. Thank you.
Topi Manner
There would be, of course, many angles to this discussion, but let me start one sort of recent phenomenon, and that is that some large companies, including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup in the banking sector, they have been clearly stating that they won't be allowing AI agents to transact on behalf of their customers. If we look at our sort of mobile postpaid product in Finland, that mobile postpaid product is also closely associated with identification standards like mobile ID.
Mobile ID, in turn, enables customers to transact in the online space quite freely. That means that when we look at our postpaid product, it is really important for us also to know our customer, and know with whom we are dealing with.
That is something that we will be taking into consideration going forward. That's one angle to the discussion.
Having said that, when you look at the channels in Finland, in terms of especially the mobile sales, the predominant channels are telephone channel and physical online shops. Web shop does play a role, but it is the third biggest channel at this point of time.
As stated, in accordance what Kristian just stated, that the general trend on the market is more toward individual pricing and differentiated by the customer. This is also something that we can manage within the channel set up that we are currently having.
That's second angle to this discussion. The third is that, clearly, us as well as all other players on the market, we need to work on differentiating our services and also improving the customer loyalty.
We, as the only player on our market, have a loyalty program to our customers, and we certainly want to strengthen that program going forward in order to improve the customer retention.
Felix Henriksson
Very good. Thanks for the color.
Operator
The next question comes from Max Findlay from Rothschild & Co. Please go ahead.
Max Findlay
Good morning. Thank you for taking the time to speak to us today.
Just a quick question on domestic digital where it shrank year-on-year by 1%, which was the first time it shrunk since 4Q '24. Just wondering if there was anything going on there, or should we expect it to continue growing in future quarters?
Thank you.
Kristian Pullola
Can you repeat the question? I didn't catch the beginning.
Max Findlay
Just a quick question on domestic digital services, where revenues declined this quarter year-over-year. Just wondering, should we expect them to return to growth going forwards?
Topi Manner
I think that in domestic digital services, the entertainment services, the streaming services are probably the biggest part of that, and then also the IT services on the corporate side. We are basically seeing flat revenue growth in the entertainment services as we speak.
In the IT services on the corporate side, on the back of the improved sales pipeline that we are currently seeing, as I mentioned related to the macro question of Andrew, then we are seeing more activity, and we hope to see revenue growth in that business going into '27 and going into the later parts of first half of '27. Brilliant,
Max Findlay
thank you.
Kristian Pullola
Two final questions.
Operator
The next question comes from Paul Sidney from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Paul Sidney
Good morning. Thank you very much for taking the question.
Just going back to mobile, you lost postpaid customers in Q3. I think the group number was 16,000, ex M2M and IoT, presumably the number was higher in Finland, given you grew the base in Estonia.
On prior calls, you've made it clear, a leading player, you're not prepared to lose market share. Does this signal a shift in strategy to give your competition a bit more room to breathe, reduce market pressure, and if not now, is this something you would consider going forward, just given all the challenging competitive environments that we've seen over the past 12 months?
Thank you.
Topi Manner
Thank you for the question. No, it does not reflect a shift in the strategy.
There has been quarterly fluctuation in this one. During this quarter, the net add development also reflected especially one of the competitors using vouchers quite a bit in their campaigning, and at the same time, we initiated value-based actions to reduce the use of vouchers.
This is fluctuating from one quarter to another. We have been investing into Salesforce in mobile currently, and we are seeing nice pickups in the net adds on the corporate side if we look at the year-to-date numbers of this year.
That means that we going forward want to keep our market share as the market leader. For the time being, also given the repricing activity with the ending contracts from last year, we have adopted these value-based measures, as mentioned.
Kristian Pullola
Let's take the final question.
Operator
The next question comes from Ajay Soni from J.P. Morgan.
Please go ahead.
Ajay Soni
Thanks for taking my question. Mine is around the EBITDA guidance.
Far this year, I think it's broadly flat growth, and then to hit the mid-range of your full-year guidance, I think you need to deliver around 9% in Q4. Does this guidance range still stand, or similar to revenue, telco service revenue should fully be the trend towards the lower end of your range?
Thank you.
Kristian Pullola
Again, as Topi said in the prepared remarks, clearly the recent trends in mobile is creating a headwind, but our target is to operate well within the range. No update there.
Maybe the thing to keep in mind when thinking about this is that Q4 last year was the most intense competitive quarter, and as a result of that, maybe a slightly easier compare than some of the other ones we've had this year.
Ajay Soni
Thank you.
Operator
There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers.
Vesa Sahivirta
Thank you. Also, thank you for keeping the schedule as planned.
All right, thank you for participating, and we hope you a nice report season going forward. Thank you.
Bye now.
Kristian Pullola
Thank you very much for participating. Thank you.
Bye-bye.
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