Proximus Group financial results – First quarter 2025

• Read the full Q1 Financial Report here

Highlights Q1 2025

• Proximus’ Domestic segment ended the first quarter of 2025 with a net gain of +7,000 Mobile Postpaid cards for its Residential unit, despite a challenging market structure, and a net loss of ‑15,000 Mobile Postpaid cards in its Business unit, impacted by an exceptionally high customer churn in the ME‑segment. Proximus’ Fiber footprint reached 2,309,000 homes and businesses passed end‑March 2025, supporting a continued growth for its Domestic Internet base with +5,000 in total, including +6,000 in the Residential segment. Residential convergent offers grew by +10,000 customers to a total of 1,183,000, a +4.6% year‑on‑year increase. End‑March 2025, the number of active Residential and Business Fiber lines totaled 607,000, with +43,000 added during this past quarter. The customer base for TV and Fixed Voice sees continued erosion, down respectively by ‑16,000, and ‑41,000 subscriptions.
• Proximus’ multi‑brand and value strategy clearly delivers, closing the first quarter of 2025 with Domestic underlying revenue up by +1.2% to EUR 1,216 million, despite a first full quarter of market structure change. The Residential unit posted a +0.5% revenue increase, including a +3.1% growth in Customer Services revenue reflecting the continued positive commercial net adds performance and the January 2025 inflation‑based price adjustment. Convergent revenue grew by +6.4%. The Business unit revenue was up by +1.5% year‑on‑year, supported by a +13.3% rise in Products revenue, whereas Business services revenue was down by ‑0.7%. The strong revenue performance on IT and Internet Services did not fully offset the lower revenue from Mobile Services and eroding legacy Voice and Data services. Proximus Wholesale unit posted revenue up by +0.9%, with the increase in Wholesale Services progressing by +16.3%, outpacing the EUR ‑5 million reduction in Interconnect revenue (no margin impact).
• The first quarter 2025 Domestic EBITDA totaled EUR 430 million, up +1.5% to the same period in 2024, with the growth in Direct Margin more than offsetting higher OpEx. Year‑on‑year, the OpEx increased by +3.4 %, reflecting the impact of wage indexations, higher customer related opex and strategic transformation initiatives, partially offset by ongoing cost efficiencies.
• For the first quarter 2025, on a pro‑forma basis, Proximus Global grew revenue by +2.7% (+2.4% at constant currency) to EUR 436 million and grew Direct Margin by +4.1% to a total of EUR 124 million (+3.7% constant currency). Driven by the Direct Margin growth and a ‑2.4% cost decrease, Proximus Global posted a +15.3% year‑on‑year EBITDA growth to EUR 51 million.
• In aggregate, the Proximus Group underlying revenue totaled EUR 1,636 million for the first quarter of 2025, up +1.5% on a pro‑forma basis (+8.8% reported), driven by an increase both in Domestic and Proximus Global revenue. The Underlying Group EBITDA totaled EUR 481 million, a year‑on‑year increase of +2.8% on a pro‑forma basis (+6.0% reported).
• The Proximus Group booked CapEx for first quarter 2025 totaled EUR 270 million, year‑on‑year lower by EUR 24 million mainly due to cyclicity of TV content contract renewals and the decline in 5G spending post‑peak. Fiber‑related expenditures rose, driven by the consolidation of Fiberklaar, now accounting for 30% of total CapEx. By end‑March 2025, fiber deployment covered 2,309,000 premises, representing over 38% Fiber‑to‑the‑Home population coverage and 43% including "fiber in the street."
• For the first quarter of 2025, Proximus Group reported a Free Cash Flow of EUR 81 million, including M&A transaction costs and proceeds from the sale of its data center business. Adjusted for these elements, Organic Free Cash Flow amounted to EUR ‑36 million, a significant improvement compared to EUR ‑112 million in the first quarter of 2024. This positive trend was driven by higher underlying Group EBITDA (EUR +27 million), a lower change in working capital (EUR +78 million), and reduced cash CapEx (EUR +32 million) over the quarter.

Guidance 2025

Proximus Group reiterates its full-year 2025 guidance across all metrics.

Following a strong start to the year, Proximus confidently reaffirms its Domestic guidance for the full year 2025, anticipating broadly stable revenue and EBITDA despite the change in market structure and resulting increase in competition.

Proximus Global closed a solid first quarter 2025. Recent macro-economic developments, including currency fluctuations, which may pose headwinds for the remainder of the year, are being closely monitored.

Shareholder remuneration

In line with the Capital Markets Day announcement in January 2023, Proximus rebased its dividend level to EUR 0.60 per share for the year 2025. The rebased dividend level incorporates all known macro and inflationary headwinds, closed M&A transactions (Route Mobile and Fiberklaar), as well as expected changes in market structure. The proposed dividend is reviewed and submitted to the Board of Directors on an annual basis, in order to keep strategic financial flexibility for future growth, organically or via selective M&A, with a clear focus on value creation. This also includes confirming appropriate levels of distributable reserves.

Proximus will return the expected dividend of EUR 0.60 per share over the result of 2025 in 2 tranches: a gross interim dividend of EUR 0.30 per share payable in December 2025 and the remaining normal gross dividend of EUR 0.30 gross per share payable in April 2026, pending approval by the 2026 Annual General Meeting.