The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: Usman Ghazi - Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. KG, Research Division - Analyst
: So I just wanted to look at the fiber revenue growth trend versus the copper revenue growth trend in the consumer market and the consumer
segment. What I can observe is that the growth rate in the fiber service revenues, they used to be roughly 14% through most of last year. It's come
down to roughly 10% in Q1. Meanwhile, the copper declines that were roughly 14% or above 14%. If I kind of adjust for the various provisions that
we faced in Q1 last year, obviously, reported, you're saying copper is down 11%, but excluding these one-offs, it seems to be down less than 10%.
So given the accelerating kind of migration from copper to fiber, it seems somewhat counterintuitive that fiber revenue growth has come down
and copper declines have come down as well. So could you perhaps provide more color? Is this just a function of more price promotions in fiber
or something else? That was the first question. And then the second question was just on the -- if there's any update on the market analysis of the
regulators preparing on the broadband market?
Question: Usman Ghazi - Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. KG, Research Division - Analyst
: Great. Just a follow-up on the wholesale. So I guess, I mean, the question is going to come up anyways. But I guess the volume intake is a bit lower
on wholesale. You mentioned, obviously, you have in cable being aggressive. So the alternative kind of providers struggling a bit. I mean, are you
considering maybe taking a tactical kind of approach to incentivizing wholesalers a bit given the cable strategy? In wholesale, we saw the same
development, similar development as in KPN, so affected by the commercial intensity in the market that's faded a bit during the quarter and
normalized. So you saw also a greatly improving wholesale order balance. What I find in wholesale we, of course, a large client but some other
clients, we saw also the smaller clients recover.
Question: Konrad Zomer - ODDO BHF Corporate & Markets, Research Division - Analyst
: The first question is on your free cash flow development related to a more smooth CapEx development throughout the year. Is it fair to say that
you also think that your fiber rollout might be more evenly spread throughout the year as in we're likely to see more quarters with less than 100,000
homes passed from KPN than we might have seen in the past? And my second question is on your price increase again. It seems that the main date
that you might put that through will be the 1st of July. Why would you not bring that forward? Is there a contractual reason not to do it? Or is that
a commercial reason not to do it, given that your 2 competitors already put through significant price increases before you did?
Question: Konrad Zomer - ODDO BHF Corporate & Markets, Research Division - Analyst
: So it's a commercial decision.
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