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TMUS Q2 2020 Earnings Call
August 6, 2020 at 12:00 AM
š
Company
TMUS
Quarter
Q2 2020
Date
August 6, 2020 at 12:00 AM
Speakers
1
Word Count
~8,875
Transcript Content
null
Hey guys. Thank you. A lot of things to ask about, but I think the number one, as I am talking to people here, is on the second half guidance. The $12.4 billion to $12.7 billion, can you help us bring that back to what I would have considered a like a historical T-Mobile cash EBITDA without EIP benefit and stripping out a lease benefit? Mike Sievert (CEO): Peter, could you please start? We need to focus on excluding the lease revenues. If you want to assess what we refer to as core EBITDA, itās not primarily about yield.
null
I am sorry. Peter Osvaldik (CFO): Yes, absolutely. And let me begin with, obviously, the second half guidance is also reflective of increased gross adds from SG&A, right. And thatās both from a seasonal uptick that we expect as an industry in churn which is typical from Q3 to the second half, but also as a result of the COVID-19 cost, $300 million that were excluded in Q2 that again will become part of the normal run rate. And then, you have the leasing revenues, as you said, if you wanted to get to the core adjusted EBITDA.
null
Okay. So that $10 billion to $10.1 billion or so is what you would consider to be a cash EBITDA number in the way T-Mobile used to operate? Mike Sievert (CEO): Yes, the way we used to operate, right. Nothing has really changed in terms of how we think about this stuff, right. So, we have adjusted EBITDA, and then you have leasing and lease revenues that get backed out, to get to this more operational view. Adjusted EBITDA is what we focus on and guide on those. So itās important that you understand that and obviously, bringing in Sprint, there is a much bigger leasing component. And so, the differences between the two are greater now that weāve merged.
null
Yes, that's the second thing I wanted to ask. Historically, Sprint engaged in extensive leasing, and T-Mobile attempted it but seemed to prefer not to. Based on the guidance, it appears you will continue leasing phones significantly at least through this year. What are your thoughts on that? Mike Sievert (CEO): Yes, I mean, Iāll start and Iāll ask Matt Staneff to jump in. Phil, itās not that we didnāt like it. Itās that our view is that, it hasnāt always been demonstrated to add to enterprise value, and customer satisfaction isnāt there and then you cost later on as a result. So, but itās a tool in the toolkit. Weāve always done some of it. I think it depends on how itās done, and we are open to it. The guide doesnāt necessarily imply any big change, obviously. So, leasing revenues come from the run rate that is informed by the customers already in the base. But, Matt, other thoughts about financing in general and how we think about it?
null
Yes. Thatās great. So, as Mike said, we are going to continue with past day one. Right now, weāve got our new proposition in the market largely itās T-Mobile the way it was before. The one thing we do is that we have a Sprint customer base, and we are very aggressively taking care of those customers, now watching and managing their churn helping us. A lot of them are on lease upgrade offers. And so, what you can expect over time, obviously, is we are not going to take away seeing some customers that could potentially increase churn. We are going to continue to serve them. And so, thatās part of what you see in the leasing mix as we got options available, the T-Mobile options that we are still going to take care of for customers. And so it will be kind of more of a gradual change in the total mix versus what we are doing for new customers with that.
null
I appreciate. Thanks. Mike Sievert (CEO): What weāll do over ā but right now, as you know, we ask a one, and therefore our main go-to market for us to center ground. But we have all these tens of millions of Sprint customers, and a lot of them make like leasing in one another lease device, and we are happy to provide that. So, see that level. Thanks, Phil.
null
Okay. Great quarter, guys. Actually, I got two questions. First of all, the 80 bps I am sure that that was particularly sort of a bit of a surprise, especially as Sprint a year ago had, I think, 1.8% churn. So, what are you doing to bring that down so quickly, especially given all the integration efforts of the store closings and that kind of things? Thatās number one. And then, number two, given the availability to 600 MHz spectrum and the pent-up demand for new phones, are you guys looking at the launch of the iPhone in the fourth quarter as an opportunity to take share? And is that baked into the guidance in back half because Iād point out that you had $7 billion in EBITDA for the quarter but just expecting sort of $12 billion, $12.5 billion for the rest of the year. So, obviously, it looks like you are expecting thatās not necessarily to be the run rate, especially as we look out to the fourth quarter? That would be great. Thanks. Mike Sievert (CEO): Understood. Matt, do you want to start on churn?
null
Yes. Iāll start on churn. 80 bps, thatās a great number. Itās a great number to have in the first quarter. Now that we are together and the comparison is accurate. T-Mobile was among the leaders in the category, and as you said, Sprint was in the high ones. I think the last close to 106 and down 180 basis points. One thing to consider is, this was done in Q2 when covered with the Q. And we said the switch in flows were down. We were taking care of customers and then a collection - weāve accounted for all of that. But Q2 is a bit of an anomaly, and youāve seen that across the industry in terms of what churn has done. We have been very hard at work. Weāve been talking about what weāve done, getting the Sprint customer base access to the network. Weāve got 10 million customers kind of on a daily basis using the network. We could provide VoLTE with a much better experience, and weāve been hard at work giving value to the Sprint customer base. And taking un-carrier principles and deploying them pretty broadly across the base. So we are not predicting where churn will go. And like just Peter said, seasonally, itās going to be up a little bit and in the third quarter, and weāve put that into our guidance. And I canāt predict where churn will go, but what I can say is that the things we need to get to where it was at 0.80 last quarter, we will keep doing and more of as we move forward. Mike Sievert (CEO): And not to mention, in addition, but the legacy T-Mobile side of things, which will be increasingly difficult for us to compare you because we are past day one now and where business is going forward. But, the legacy T-Mobile side had a blockbuster low churn number. And so, blended in that also helps. So this is really gratifying. We have tailwinds on churn over the medium and long haul, because we know what drives it. We have seen this journey on the T-Mobile side from some of the highest churn in the industry to some of the best churn in the industry in its network. And where, I just got done talking at length about how no one is going to be able to catch us on the network. So we are really excited, and to Mattās point, seasonally this year there are going to be two dynamics. One, COVID-19, we think the impacts of it will start to abate, which brings some normalcy back into the suppression this quarter, as well as whatās normal for T-Mobile, which is a seasonal uptick in the second half, all against the backdrop of real exciting tailwinds. So, thatās the first piece. And the second piece you asked about was, kind of how to think about the second half, and I will say, we have burdened our plan with the activations we think are necessary to deliver the growth that we guided. And that means, we know that gross activations will up in the second half, why I just told you that seasonally and due to COVID, churn will be up, and weāll outrun that churn and the other guyās churn will be up, and thatās an opportunity for us. When the other guyās churn goes up a little bit, thatās when we compete. You asked about phones. I donāt know. I canāt comment about phones. I really hope there is a well-rounded 5G phone portfolio as we exit the year. And so, Iāll just leave it there. If there is, that would be a great competitive moment for us. So, hopefully, that helps, John. null (Operator): And next weāll go to Mike Rollins with Goldman Sachs. I am sorry, Brett Feldman with Goldman Sachs. I apologize. Your line is open.
null
Hey. Thank you for squeezing in. Hopefully Mike come next. I think you need to call this a good quarter, so congratulations on that. I want to talk about the integration. You expressed your confidence in the synergy targets that you had outlined in the release. All the commentary sounds like you are just moving faster than I think we would have expected when you first now at the field two years ago. And one of the questions will be, do we think we can start seeing the synergies come into your numbers more quickly, that would seem like you would be accretive to the NPV and also the integration spending that you outlined for the second half of this year actually looks pretty modest considering that you had previously talked about spending $15 billion through the integration. So, thatās when you are going to win much more significantly as we move past this year. What would drive that, or are you actually at the point where maybe you are realizing there are greater efficiencies associated with the integration as you get closer to execution on it? Thank you. Mike Sievert (CEO): Yes. Let me start and then ask Neville to comment. First of all, I love the fact that some of the tower companies that are out there sort of spreading some disinformation about our pace. I just got them tell you we are in all the biggest cities in the country with 2.5 GHz 5G already. And we will be in thousands of cities and towns across this country as we exit this year with that layer gig. So, thatās what weāll be running really fast. The reason it feels tough over there at the tower companies is because both standalone T-Mobile and Sprint were planning on lots of new sites. Sprint for coverage and T-Mobile for capacity. New T-Mobile has synergies, thatās called site avoidance, and I know thatās tough. If you are a tower company, because millions and billions of dollars of site avoidance are just the kinds of comments you are now hearing. That doesnāt affect our rate and pace we are going like crazy. And you are right, there is not only speed potential which is NPV accretive, but look, the faster we get out in front of the pack on the demonstrable customer provable network leadership, the more of the operating results start to give us the potential to start talking to you about the magnitude of synergies as well. And the enterprise value created from outgrowing our competitors. So, Neville, why donāt you tell us a little bit about the rate and pace, because I know thatās on everybodyās mind?
null
Yes. I mean, thanks, Mike. I mean, we are moving at an incredible pace. I could not be more pleased with the progress that weāve made in whatās a few short weeks since we combined with the Sprint team. And itās on two fronts, I mean, weāve been rapidly accelerating the breadth of this network, and if I talk to the 250 million people now covered with T-Mobileās low-band 5G, 327 million of people covered with LTE too, right? And we are closing in on that opportunity for in our 5G footprint. So that gives us the breadth. The depth comes from the 2.5 GHz spectrum, the mid-band slice thatās so important. All I can say is, we are baking that cake super, super fast. So, to give you some idea and dimension for you, I mean, as we get to the second quarter, every week, we were starting up great activity on about 600 sites per week. In the last month, that number has gone to 700 sites per week. So you can all do that math, that thousands of sites in a month and in the quarter, and we are running very, very hard of having that mid-band layer of the network. To this great opportunity, Mike outlined the experience and the speeds. To the earlier question about 5G phones in the fourth quarter, we have a great line-up today, lots of great phones, great news from Samsung just the other day announced, and we want to make sure that there is really only one 5G network that you would love to put a 5G phone on. And itās from T-Mobile. The coverage is spotty at best from AT&T, and nascent from Verizon. When you can combine great coverage with great performance and speed with mid-band inside the fourth quarter, thatās going to be a complete game changer. So, great quarter. Great numbers. But we are only just getting started with this network rollout, and the pace is phenomenal. Mike outlined, obviously, we are not building in all the places, but standalone T-Mobile and Sprint would have planned to, and thatās good for this business, right. We are starting to generate those cost avoidance, site avoidance synergies at pace, real pace in the second half of this year, and weāll talk to those numbers more as we close out 2020. But tremendous progress is underway, and I couldnāt be happier. Tower guys are not so happy. We could be doing some more with the tower guys, but thereās a competitive process in play right now, and we have choices that we can make. So, I would fully anticipate that we will start more tower build as we move into the second half, but to be seen. That doesnāt slow us down. We have lots of options to build, and we are building furiously. Mike Sievert (CEO): And Peter, just very briefly on Brettās last part, he was asking about the operational spend, and it was maybe, it sounded like it may have been a little less than he was expecting given the Q2 spend. Do you want to unpack that a little bit? Because I think thatās some point people will understand. Peter Osvaldik (CFO): Yes. Absolutely, Brett. And as we said, what you saw in Q2, while there was an elevated amount of merger-related cost, there was a lot of transaction and then restructuring and severance, right from acceleration of some of those synergy opportunities. When we fled them to the second half, it is primarily what I would call operational synergy capture now. So, thatās when you think about the pace; thatās an element to consider in there. And of course itās subject to us identifying ways to prudently go faster, which we are going to continue to do, just like you saw in Q2. Mike Sievert (CEO): Operationally, itās experiencing rapid growth in the second half. The operational part of our costs in Q2 was relatively minor, mostly comprised of deal-related transaction expenses. From this point on, all costs will be operational. Therefore, we expect a significant increase in actual costs as we progress through the system in the second half. Is the $15 billion still the budget? Sorry, is this $15 billion still the budget in the outlook for integration? Nothing has fundamentally changed in our goals, and we will eventually provide you with an update on our progress. We have been stating, and I hope we have supported it with evidence and reasons, that we are feeling more confident now. We believe our two-year plan may be somewhat conservative. We still need to provide more details on that, but for now, we have one data point for the company, which is todayās report. We will establish more metrics for you and later provide a revised perspective on the future. We recognize that we still owe you that.
null
Great. Fair enough. Thank you. Mike Sievert (CEO): Okay. Thanks. Operator? Meanwhile. Sorry, operator, who is next? null (Operator): Next we have Michael Rollins from Citi. Your line is open.
null
Hi. Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. First, when the deal was initially announced, the management mentioned in the projections that there were expectations of revenue challenges related to Sprint plans transitioning into T-Mobile plans. Now that you are completing the process of integrating Sprint metrics into T-Mobile, how do you evaluate any potential challenges from adjusting to T-Mobile plans over the next few years? Secondly, could you provide an update on distribution and presence, considering the integration and ongoing management through the pandemic? Iām also interested in any insights on how customer behavior might be shifting as stores reopen, such as whether there is a trend towards online engagement versus returning to in-store experiences where representatives assist customers. Thank you. Mike Sievert (CEO): Yes. You bet. And by the way, I got so enamored with the second part. Tell me the first part again, what was the management?
null
Revenue. Mike Sievert (CEO): Yes. So, listen, on pricing, revenues and ARPU and all that, one of the things you got, I think from our report was that we see a relatively stable outlook in the near term. For competitors, I guess, didnāt guide or give you much to go on, we felt with the new company it was important to us to just do a best efforts view and we donāt see catalysts in the near term for big changes one way or the other in ARPU. Separately, you heard Peter start to talk about ARPA and that weāre looking at this at a household level, because we think there is, in the 5G era, all kinds of opportunities to develop deeper relationships with households that would be accretive to ARPA without necessarily affecting ARPU. Thirdly, Iāll say, our plan all along has been to bring a intense level of competition to this market like we have always done as the un-carrier, but now in a sustainable way backed by the long-term network plans that we have. And thatās obviously going to be to the benefit of consumers and we funded that fully in our model. How that relates to ARPU specifically and how that will unfold over the years. Again, I know we have a two-year-old set of spots, and at some point need to update that.
null
Yes. So this $10.1 billion, which linked to the earlier point around how you think about that and how that can gain positivity impacts. So yes, in ARPU weāre coming off a period of a high end as industry average, and so just the long-standing course and method to how we continue to execute will be performing. Mike Sievert (CEO): Well said, Matt. So this disconnect during that time that weāre going to drive alongside the spending capabilities. So that changes and restarts, weāre working through that. Over time those pieces will come together. So, yes, there are challenges in the near term for Sprint to migrate migrants to T-Mobile plans when numbers are taken up and all of that, but for T-Mobile we keep competing fiercely.
null
The last thing Iād say is, as Mike mentioned as well, it feels like itās always an enterprise value expression of value by retaining and creating a significant brand out of that. Mike Sievert (CEO): See some of the T-Mobile consumers crossing over to Sprint and rather than what one may have expected, this is actually a big opportunity as well for T-Mobile, moving forward.
null
Thanks guys. null (Operator): And weāll go to our next question, John Hodulik from UBS. Your line is open.
null
Okay. Great quarter, guys. Actually, I got two questions. First of all, the 80 bps I am sure that that was particularly sort of a bit of a surprise, especially as Sprint a year ago had, I think, 1.8% churn. So, what are you doing to bring that down so quickly, especially given all the integration efforts of the store closings and that kind of things? Thatās number one. And then, number two, given the availability to 600 MHz spectrum and the pent-up demand for new phones, are you guys looking at the launch of the iPhone in the fourth quarter as an opportunity to take share? And is that baked into the guidance in back half because Iād point out that you had $7 billion in EBITDA for the quarter but just expecting sort of $12 billion, $12.5 billion for the rest of the year? That would be great. Thanks. Mike Sievert (CEO): Understood. Matt, do you want to start on churn?
null
Yes. Iāll start on churn. 80 bps, thatās a great number. Itās a great number to have in the first quarter. Now that we are together and the comparison is accurate. T-Mobile was among the leaders in the category, and as you said, Sprint was in the high ones. I think the last close to 106 and down 180 basis points. One thing to consider is, this was done in Q2 when covered with the Q. And we said the switch in flows were down. We were taking care of customers and then a collection - weāve accounted for all of that. But Q2 is a bit of an anomaly, and youāve seen that across the industry in terms of what churn has done. We have been very hard at work. Weāve been talking about what weāve done, getting the Sprint customer base access to the network. Weāve got 10 million customers kind of on a daily basis using the network.
null
And so as we watch that closely, as Mike mentioned before, this is a great starting point for customer satisfaction and their coverage levels.
null
Well thank you gentlemen very much. null (Operator): Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the T-Mobile U.S. Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. If you have any further questions, you may contact Investor Relations or media departments. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. And have a pleasant day.
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Transcript sourced from Financial Modeling Prep (FMP)