使用警語:中文譯文來源為 Google 翻譯,僅供參考,實際內容請以英文原文為主
Operator
Good day, and welcome to the Second Quarter 2016 Results Conference Call. For your information, today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Nihat Narin, Director of Investor Relations and Business Development. Please go ahead, sir.
Nihat Narin - Director, IR and Business Development
Thank you, Trish. Thank you for your participation. And I would like to say welcome to our call on behalf of the management team here. We will start today with the presentation by our CEO, Kaan Terzioglu, followed by presentation by CFO, Bulent, and then we will go into the Q&A session.
Just before we start the presentation, I would like to remind you of the brief legal notice that this presentation will make statements that are forward-looking about the future targets and expectations. And these are based on our current views and assumptions, which may of course, change in the future. And our actual results may be different.
Mr. Terzioglu, please go ahead, sir.
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
Thank you, Nihat. Good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. And welcome to Turkcell's second quarter 2016 results call. Today we have a full house here, including our recently appointed executives, Chief Financial Officer, Bulent Aksu; Chief Marketing Officer, Ismail Butun; and our Chief Strategy Officer, Ilter Terzioglu; as well as Chief Sales Officer, Murat Erkan; Chief Technology Officer, Ilker Kuruoz; Chief Legal and Regulation Officer, Serhat Demir; and Business Support Officer, Seyfettin Saglam.
Before getting into the numbers, I should highlight that Turkey has overcome a major challenge to its democracy by successfully averting a coup attempt. Our people and business community have firmly demonstrated their continued commitment to the civil world, and democratic institutions. We are confident that this clear and swift rejection of an anti-democratic course safeguards Turkey's political and macroeconomic future.
In short, now it is time to look forward to a brighter future for Turkey, as Turkey and Turkcell has toughened, and our sector demonstrated success.
While recent events might have some short-term business implications, the prudent steps that we have already taken provide a buffer against potential currency risk, and strengthen our liquidity. Therefore, we are fully funded, and committed to our business plans for the next three years. Our CFO will expand on this further.
In addition, today we announced our Board of Directors decision to buy back our shares in order to protect our small investors against market volatility, and to purchase or redeem our Company's bonds. Moreover, we marked a milestone in the telecommunications sector today, serving today's Turkish broader 2023 economic targets. With a view of an efficient use of our resources while establishing a fair and competitive environment, we have taken significant steps towards forming an infrastructure company together with Vodafone, Turksat and Union of small ISP association telco (inaudible). These alliance members constitute 55% of the telecommunication industry's today's revenues.
Now turning to the numbers, group revenues rose 8.6% to TRY3.4 billion, and EBITDA by 3.5% year on year to TRY1 billion, while the EBITDA margin was at 30.7% in the second quarter. Both are record second quarter levels for the group.
Group net income as per IFRS was TRY416 million, mainly due to lower net finance income, the negative contribution of Fintur, and higher amortization expense due to the 4.5G license. Meanwhile, pro forma net income decreased 4.7% year on year to TRY542 million. The impact of Fintur has been TRY128 million this quarter alone.
For the first half of the year, we are in line with our expectations. In the first half, revenues rose 8.4% and EBITDA 5.7%, resulting in a 30.8% EBITDA margin. Thus, we reiterate our full-year revenue and EBITDA guidance. Group net income as per IFRS was 14.7% year-on-year to TRY979 million, and pro forma net income rose to TRY1.1 billion.
Our operational CapEx-to-sales ratio was 25% in the second quarter, and 23% for first half of 2016, due to accelerated 4.5G investments, in line with high demand in the marketplace. We believe in Turkey, and the rising demand of our customers for 4.5G services encourages us to sustain our investments. We expect our 4.5G investment to keep its pace, and therefore we revise our full-year operational CapEx-to-sales ratio expectation to 25%.
Moving on to the next page, I am pleased to state once again that Turkcell Turkey has recorded all-time high second quarter revenue and EBITDA. Turkcell Turkey remained our key growth driver. Revenues rose 8%, and EBITDA increased by 0.9% year on year, with a margin of 30.7%.
In Q2, the EBITDA margin was down 2.2 percentage points, yet this resulted from increased network and marketing expenses due to 4.5G launch, to further [extend] our technology leadership for the future. We are comfortable with the EBITDA level in the quarter, given the marketing expenses for 4.5G launch. This was also in line with our outlook that we disclosed for 2016.
Turkey's pro forma net income rose 9.5% year on year to TRY513 million. In the first half, Turkcell Turkey revenues rose 8.9% to TRY5.9 billion, and EBITDA ramped up 5.5% with an EBITDA margin of 31%. Pro forma net income for the first half reached TRY1.1 billion, on a 1.5% year-on-year increase.
Moving to the next slide, I'm happy to say that 8.6% growth in group revenues marked the highest revenue growth of the past three years, with an increasing pace every quarter. Turkcell Turkey, which accounts for 90% of our group revenues, increased by 8% due to our value-focused customer acquisition and convergent strategy.
Turkcell International revenues, comprising 6% of the group revenues, was almost stable in TL terms, and recorded 9% organic growth. Other business revenues at 4% of group revenues, ramped up 43.3%, driven by the contribution of recently founded Turkcell Consumer Finance Business. Together with the revenues generated from our financial services reported under the Other segment, Turkcell Turkey revenues would have increased by 9%.
Moving on to the next page, in the second quarter solid performance continued across all major business segments. Consumer and corporate segments grew 8% year on year, on strong demand for data and digital services, especially after the 4.5G launch. We are pleased with the robust demand for our 4.5G services. As of today, we have 16 million customers subscribed to these services. Therefore, we accelerated our investments, resulting in 82% of 4.5G population coverage.
Our 4.5G users have consumed 2.4 times more data than a non-user, with 23% of data traffic now on our 4.5G network. Given this demand, our focus is on increasing the number of 4.5G-enabled smartphones and SIM cards.
Our mobile fixed data revenues rose 36.2% in the second quarter to TRY1.1 billion on higher smartphone penetration and data consumption. Our focus on services has resulted in [56.1%] year-on-year growth in revenues. Among those services, TV revenues have grown 249%, and music revenues rose 181%. Accordingly, given the solid performance of data and services, the share of voice revenues further declined to 42% of our total revenue stream.
Moving to the next page, we continue to focus our efforts on expanding our value-generating customer base and enriching user experience through our strong mobile and fiber networks, dedicated sales force, and customer care.
On the mobile side, our postpaid customer base rose almost 1 million year-over-year to 16.8 million. Postpaid customers now constitute 52% of the total, further improving the subscriber mix.
On the fixed side, our total customers exceeded 1.6 million. We have added 295,000 new customers over the first past 12 months, of which 148,000 were fiber customers.
Smartphone penetration on our network reached 60%, with 3.7 million net additions. Our contracted smartphone sales continue to perform strongly, rising 11% in the first half of 2016. Our contracted sales have been on track, and we foresee no major impact from the recent events in the consumer behavior.
Supported by our focus on high-value generating customers and increased package penetration, mobile ARPU rose 7.1% year on year, to TRY25.7, where consumer ARPU increased by 11%. We have also seen a solid growth of 13% in average revenue per acquisition, which confirms our value-driven strategy.
In the second quarter, additionally fixed residential ARPU rose 7.1% to TRY51.3 with the expansion of multi-play customers with TV and inflationary pricing adjustments.
Moving on to the next page, as the first and only company in the Turkish market to offer a real convergent experience with single billing, we continue to see the rising demand for our multi-play offers. On the mobile side, the share of triple-play offers has been rising steadily, reaching 20% in the second quarter on a 3 percentage point quarterly rise.
On the fixed side, our multi-play ratio in total fiber residential subscribers, which includes internet and TV users, rose also 3 percentage points on a quarter-on-quarter basis to 33%. These upward trends in multi-play offers, [are size of] take-up of convergent offers in the market.
Moving to the next page, digital services are key components of our future positioning. While certain services directly generate revenue, others such as My Account, play a key role in retaining customer loyalty. According to our calculations, among heavy users of these services, we observed positive impact on both ARPU and churn levels.
Total downloads compared to the last year rose from 12.5 million to 31 million. And the number of subscribers accepting our services in terms of paid subscribers, rose to 16.7 million. Our new generation communication platform, BiP, continues its rapid rise, surpassing 8.9 million downloads to date. By our calculations, BiP decreases the churn by 0.5 percentage points.
My Account, which was upgraded for screening mobile and fixed quota usages, have been downloaded 8.1 million times to date. Our leading music platform, fizy, has reached 6.7 million downloads. fizy provides TRY3.2 incremental ARPU, and decreases the churn by 0.7 percentage points.
As of today, we have around 1.8 million Turkcell TV mobile downloads. Mobile TV provides TRY5.2 incremental ARPU, and decreases the churn by 0.8 percentage points. Moreover, the IPTV platform has reached 303,000 customers on 35,000 quarterly net additions.
The most widely used personal cloud service in Turkey, Smart Storage, geared up to 2.9 million downloads, while the best sports app in the sector, Goals on your Mobile, has been downloaded 2.4 million times.
Furthermore, our online education platform, Turkcell Academy, has been downloaded by 900,000 customers; and our digital publishing service, by 400,000 customers.
Moving on to the next page, we are very pleased with the overall performance of BiP, our instant messaging platform. We have added a few features to the BiP as part of App to Network Call, in addition to Voice over IP and video call capabilities. Our customers also continue to enjoy free data over BiP while roaming.
BiP also offers service platform to a wide range of sectors, including banking, insurance, customer care, entertainment, and the media. These services, we believe, will increase both customer loyalty and usage, as well as account for corporate sales revenues.
We also appreciate the global performance of BiP, the downloads of which have risen 25-fold year on year. BiP's penetration in countries of operation is outstanding. Ukraine, Northern Cyprus and Belarus are among the top countries with the highest BiP downloads. In Northern Cyprus, BiP reached 11% of population penetration.
Moving to the next page, with our technology leadership in Turkey and through international collaborations, we will continue to the global positioning of our country as a regional information hub. Accordingly in the second quarter, Turkcell unveiled Turkey's largest data center in Gebze. This data center is spread over a total area of 33,000 square meters, with 20 rooms of active area of 500 meters square each.
The building has 33,000 meters of fiber connections. Total investments for Gebze data center is expected to reach TRY275 million in three years. In this manner, Turkcell has tripled its total data center space, reaching 52,000 square meters, with 17,000 square meters of white space. Furthermore, we are planning to open two new data centers in Ankara and Izmer over the next 18 months. Upon their completion, Turkcell will have a total data center area of 107,000 square meters.
Turkcell International revenues were at TRY204 million, with the impact of currency devaluation in Ukraine and Belarus, and the EBITDA margin decreased 1.2 percentage points to 26%. lifecell is the major component of our international business in Ukraine. lifecell continued its growth in local currency by 7.1%, almost doubling mobile broadband revenues.
The EBITDA margin fell 3.8 percentage points to 26.4%. This was mainly due to higher network-related costs from the 3G rollout, operational leasing expenses after the sale and leaseback of transaction of lifecell towers, and the marketing costs of rebranding activities from life to lifecell.
In Belarus, revenues rose 25.1% year on year, with increased voice and terminal revenues. The EBITDA margin improved by 1 percentage point, mainly due to operational expense management.
Our operation in North Cyprus comprising 17% of our international revenues, recorded 2.7% year-on-year growth. The EBITDA margin declined by 1.8 percentage points to 38%, driven by the regulatory amendments regarding termination rates, additional frequency fees.
Now let me hand over to Bulent for the financial review. Bulent?
Bulent Aksu - CFO
Thank you, Kaan. As mentioned, I have been appointed as the CFO of Turkcell last week. And I am happy to be a part of the Turkcell family. Good afternoon and good evening to all participants. I will now talk in more detail about our financial results.
In the second quarter, as Kaan highlighted, our business in Turkey was the main revenue and EBITDA growth driver. Turkcell Turkey's incremental contribution to our top line was TRY222 million, mainly stemming from data and services. This resulted in 8% growth in Turkcell Turkey revenues. Including the financial services revenues from [our] Turkcell Financing Company, our revenue generated from Turkey operations increased by 9% year on year.
Other subsidiaries contribution was at TRY44 million, and year-on-year growth was 43.3%. This was mainly the effect of Turkcell Consumer Financing Company, which commenced operation nationwide in March of this year, and which to date has funded more than 1 million agreements for smart device purchases.
Moving on to the next page, also EBITDA rose by 3.5%, exceeding TRY1 billion year on year. In nominal terms, Turkcell Turkey and Turkcell Financing Company were the main growth drivers of group EBITDA. The EBITDA margin was down by 1.5 percentage points. This was mainly due to the rise in direct cost of revenues. Excluding depreciation and amortization, the direct cost of revenues increased by 1.6 percentage points, mainly due to the network-related expenses.
Administrative expenses rose by 0.3 percentage points. Selling and marketing expenses declined by 0.4 percentage points, driven by the decline in selling expenses, with our value-focused customer acquisition strategy, despite the rise in marketing expenses related to the 4.5G launch.
Moving on to the next page, in the second quarter, net income as per IFRS declined to TRY416 million. This was mainly due to a TRY24 million translation loss in compared to a translation gain of TRY261 million in the second quarter of last year; higher interest expense on loans and 4.5G payables; the negative contribution of Fintur amounting to TRY8 million, compared to a positive TRY94 million a year ago, mainly driven by devaluation impact and operational tax cost in the region; and higher amortization expense due to the 4.5G license.
I will now talk about our balance sheet and cash flow items on the next page. Our net position was at TRY3.5 billion, and our consolidated debt at TRY7.3 billion at the end of June 2016. The rise in total debt and cash borrowed was mainly due to the utilization of EUR445 million and $500 million club loan facility at favorable terms to further strengthen our liquidity.
During the quarter, the major cash outflow items included capital expenditure of TRY880 million, of which TRY802 million was related to the Turkcell Turkey; the second installment of the 4.5G license fee payment of TRY1.3 billion; advance payment for fixed-asset purchases from Ericcson and Huawei of TRY950 million.
Moving on to the next page, I will now like to briefly discuss the foreign currency breakdown of our cash, debt, and CapEx. We set a balance foreign currency cash and debt position in order to reduce currency exposure. The entire foreign currency debt position is related to the Turkcell Turkey. And some portion of it was recently hedged, which I will explain in detail.
Our net-debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 0.8 times as of June 30, 2016; changed from a net debt position of 0.3 times as of 2015 year end. Turkcell is the only company in Turkey to [sustain] three investment grade ratings from rating agencies. Recently Standard & Poor's affirmed our BBB- rating, and revised its outlook to negative (inaudible) rating action, following [recent] events.
Given our responsible financial management, we are committed to maintain an acceptable level of net-debt-to-EBITDA ratio. Furthermore, a number of steps that we have taken over past quarters provide sufficient liquidity, and a buffer against potential currency risk that might stem from international fluctuations. Our liquidity position remains strong, and we believe we require no further liquidity measures.
Moving on the next page, in order to hedge against foreign currency risk, we aim to halt almost all of our free cash in US dollars or euro, which improves our net foreign currency short position, and reduces our exposure. In addition, this (inaudible) recently in June and July, we engage in participating cross-currency swap transactions at very favorable rates. With this transaction, Turkcell has swapped EUR500 million long to Turkish lira in June, and a $150 million long to Turkish lira in July to protect us against interest rate and currency risk.
Through all these actions we have decreased our debt in foreign currency by almost 50%, and made our balance sheet more immune to macroeconomic volatility.
This brings us to the end of our presentation today. Thank you very much for being with us, and now we are ready to take your questions.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Ivan Kim, VTB Capital
Ivan Kim - Analyst
Yes, good evening. Two questions from my side, please. Firstly, on the cost of sales, the cost of sales increased quite a bit. Can you please elaborate on the reasons behind that, and what should we expect for the second half of the year?
And secondly, what is the reason for relative to the first quarter, a slowdown of mobile revenue in Turkey? And maybe some-- a couple of words on the competitive environment in the mobile space. Is the price action following the launch of 4.5G in line with your expectations? Thank you.
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
Ivan, thank you very much. First of all, thanks a lot for asking the question around mobile revenue, and as well as the cost of sales issues. Now frankly speaking, 4.5G launch marked an important turn into our service commitments to our customers. The 10 customer commitments we have provided, which actually aligned with the 4.5G launch, have significant issues related to our revenue growth potential. And these are temporary issues. And they were deliberately taken by us in order to accelerate the 4.5G deployment.
One was we doubled the quotas of all of our users, which actually puts a cap to the potential over-utilization revenues, which was again done specifically based on the 10 commitments we have given to the customers.
Second issue was about our roaming strategy in terms of cost of the roaming. We make changes to our roaming strategy to make sure we had favorable roaming rates to our customers, basically repositioning us as the most competitive player in this particularly area.
These had potential impact close to about TRY30 million in terms of the revenue potential this quarter. With regard to the cost of sales, there are two main issues there which I would like to explain. One, we have stopped the practice of subsidizing tax for newly established lines. This actually allows us to focus on high-revenue potential customers, eliminating unnecessary costs related to taking on new customers with very low or no revenue potential at all. This was a reduction in our sales expense, which we have actually used as a further budget for marketing expenses for the 4.5G.
So these elements increased our cost of sales in terms of the total marketing expenses, while giving us more headroom in terms of reducing our sales acquisition costs. Both of these transactions actually, as I mentioned, were actions we have taken knowing the results, and also we are enjoying now the positive market impact.
You have also asked the question about the market. Since six quarters, we are seeing consistent rationalization of the Turkish market, the price competition replacing actually by healthy inflationary pricing. This is visible not only in our numbers, but in the numbers of the competition which was announced recently.
Ivan Kim - Analyst
Great. Thank you very much.
Operator
Vyacheslav Degtyarev, Goldman Sachs
Vyacheslav Degtyarev - Analyst
Yes. Thank you very much for the presentation. Two questions from my side. So firstly, can you please elaborate on your medium-term revenue and EBITDA guidance? They obviously stay intact, as you didn't present it in this quarter presentation. And also, how do you view your long-term CapEx-per-sales ratio, given the recent change in the 2016 guidance? That's the first question.
And the second one is then can you estimate the impact of lower incoming tourists into Turkey in the third quarter? So what is their roaming fees at the high summer season, as well as the amount of SIM card purchases by tourists? Thank you.
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
Thank you, Vyacheslav. First of all, I think I made an explicit comment about reiterating our short and midterm revenue and EBITDA guidance. And there are no changes in that. If you look to the guidance we have provided at the end of 2015 for 2016, we said our EBITDA margin would be in between 31% to 33%. As you can imagine, this was lower than 2015 EBITDA margin, which was 32.4%. So the change you see in Q2 numbers reflecting this actual prediction.
In terms of long-term CapEx to sales ratio, our three-year plan has not changed. We have accelerated some of our CapEx investments. And this will be reflected in this year, taking our CapEx to sales ratio to 25%, but long term, we remain committed to 17-16% range in terms of our CapEx to sales ratio.
The last period, the six months, Turkey has seen a lower number of incoming tourists. We see almost a 30% decline in the total tourist population. And this is of course reflected in our revenues as well.
Vyacheslav Degtyarev - Analyst
Okay. Thank you.
Operator
(Operator Instructions). We seem to have no further questions on the phone at this time.
Nihat Narin - Director, IR and Business Development
Trish, there is a couple of questions through website. Let me actually ask my CEO to respond to some of those.
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
Sure.
Nihat Narin - Director, IR and Business Development
Kaan, could you just tell us, what's your plan about TRY150 million that you disclosed about the buyback? Are you going to buy the shares, or bonds?
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
This question comes from Berk, right? Berk Ozbek from Global Securities?
Nihat Narin - Director, IR and Business Development
That's correct.
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
Yes. Today's Board meeting, we decided that we would do share buybacks or bond buybacks up to TRY150 million. And this will be of course an action that will be done in case of high volatility in terms of protecting minority shareholders' interests, as well as benefiting from potential volatility in the bond market prices.
Nihat Narin - Director, IR and Business Development
Thank you, sir. And another question again from Berk, asking about how to read upward revision of the CapEx after the corporation decision in developing fiber network in the order of the weighted application of infrastructure.
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
Sure. The acceleration of our investment plans with regards to 4.5G is really about the mobile network deployment. We already reached 82% population coverage. And the demand that we see in the marketplace justifies speedier execution on the deployment of the network.
So the joint fiber investment company that we have announced today, together with Vodafone, Turksat the major cable TV provider of Turkey, as well as the alternative ISPs in the country; they are related to the fiber deployment that needs to be done in the future. And the objective of this is really to make sure that 21 million households all reach a fiber-to-the-home solution, and this will be regarding mostly fixed infrastructure projects.
Nihat Narin - Director, IR and Business Development
Thank you, sir. I think that Berk is quite generous in asking another question. While we have another question on the line. Could you tell us the number of mobile Turkcell TV subscribers as of Q2?
Let me answer this question. As of Q2, we had a mobile TV about 400,000. TV [was] 74,000, and IPTV around 300,000. So that is answering the full answer of Berk questions.
So maybe we have another question coming from the line. Trish?
Operator
Yes, we do. We have another question that comes from Baha Makarem, Arqaam Capital
Baha Makarem - Analyst
Hi there. Thank you for the call. Two quick questions. First one, can you guys give us a breakdown please on prepaid versus postpaid ARPU for the quarter?
And second question is looking at your cash flow statement, we see net operating cash flow going into the negative, mostly due to working capital changes. Can you please give us some more color on what's going on there, and why the giant drop? Thank you.
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
Sure. Let me start on the second question. Actually excluding our spectrum payments, we had a cash neutral position, despite the fact that we have accelerated our CapEx investments in the first half. And we do feel comfortable with our alignment with the original plan.
In terms of the breakdown of ARPU and the changes on the ARPU, we have seen increased ARPU levels of 7.1%, reaching to TRY25.1. And I'm just asking my team on the details. Nihat, if you can give us.
Nihat Narin - Director, IR and Business Development
Sure. Baha, unfortunately, we are not giving the breakdown of the ARPU, neither on the pre or post. But as you know that there is a significant part is coming from data recently. But if you're asking for the pure ARPU on the prepaid and the postpaid, let me just rephrase.
On the mobile postpaid, ARPU is TRY25.7. It was TRY24 last year in the same quarter. On the postpaid, TRY38, now we disclose TRY37.7. On the prepaid side, TRY12.2 is up to TRY13.3. And all are actually disclosed in our press release.
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
Maybe Baha, in terms of our consumer ARPU, the way I look at it has been up 11%, which actually makes us very comfortable considering the increased penetration of our digital services driving the ARPU up for our consumer line of business.
Baha Makarem - Analyst
Okay. Fair enough. Thank you, guys, very much.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Vyacheslav Degtyarev, Goldman Sachs
Vyacheslav Degtyarev - Analyst
Yes, a couple of more questions, please. So firstly, does the recent disappointing performance of Fintur impact your willingness or the target valuation of the assets that you offered to TeliaSonera? And secondly, again the question on the buyback. Maybe you might disclose some limit of the volumes that you might be pushed within (inaudible), or any timing for this share buyback, how long may that last? And also, does this TRY150 million amount include bonds and shares combined? Thanks.
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
So Vyacheslav, thank you very much. With regard to performance of Fintur, of course we are closely monitoring. We would regard a TRY8 million loss instead of TRY120 million gain, as per our plan. So we are very concerned about the performance of Fintur. And naturally, this will be reflected in all our discussions in terms of our process in this acquisition.
With regard to the buyback, the TRY150 million includes bonds and also shares. I do not want to give any timing with regard to this. And bond acquisitions will be subject to capital market board's approval. But in case that doesn't happen, it will be all used for the share buyback. And the timing is really subject to as long as it is needed to keep the necessary measures for avoiding volatility.
Vyacheslav Degtyarev - Analyst
Okay. Thank you.
Nihat Narin - Director, IR and Business Development
Trish, there is a couple of more questions through website. I'm going to ask again to my CEO, if I may, while we are awaiting other questions. I think infrastructure companies have become quite popular now. We are getting more questions, Kaan.
Could you just tell us if you are going to change your CapEx guidance going forward, if you establish infrastructure companies? That question comes from (inaudible). And the common question is coming from Murat Ignebekcili from Burgan Securities.
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
I think the infrastructure company, the joint company, should be operational based on this action plan, in next year, 2017. Clearly, it will have an impact on our fixed investment CapEx. But I would like to mention that our short-term guidance of accelerated investments with regard to 4.5G will not be impacted by this.
Nihat Narin - Director, IR and Business Development
Thank you, Kaan. Trish, I guess I have no more questions on the website. But if you have any questions standing on the line, please let's have it. If not, we are ready to actually terminate the call.
Operator
There are no--sir, apologizes, we do have pop-up question just coming up. Do you wish to take it?
Nihat Narin - Director, IR and Business Development
Please do. Please do.
Operator
Berk Ozbek, Global Securities
Berk Ozbek - Analyst
Thank you for the presentation and for the answers. I would like to ask a question about your customer base. Right now we see notable subscriber losses in postpaid segment. And what does your expectation say about customer base? What is your red line about it? Right now your postpaid customer reached 52%. Do you expect more subscriber losses at the postpaid segment? Thank you for the answers.
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
Thank you. Thank you, Berk. We are very comfortable with the pace of our customer acquisition and the mix of our subscriber base. As I mentioned before, we stopped the bad practice of subsidizing taxes for establishing new customers. And we will continue sticking to that strategy. This only drives higher customer acquisition cost, and no significant [there any] impact.
I suspect this practice will be also come only advisable for all the players in the market. I think the amount of customers acquired via this method has been extremely detrimental to the valuations. Thank you.
Berk Ozbek - Analyst
Thank you.
Nihat Narin - Director, IR and Business Development
Thank you, Berk. Trish, I understand that there is not any question neither on the web or line. So do you have any remarks?
Kaan Terzioglu - CEO
Well, thank you very much for your interest and confidence in our Company. I look forward to talking to you over the next investor calls, and our next quarterly call. Thank you very much.
Nihat Narin - Director, IR and Business Development
Thank you for all. Thank you, Trish. Just to remind, if anybody would like to listen, the (technical difficulty).
Operator
Thank you. That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.