Earnings Call Transcript - BCE Q2 2025

Operator, Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the BCE Q2 2025 Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Kris Somers. Please go ahead, Mr. Somers.

Krishna Somers, Senior VP

Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. With me here today are Mirko Bibic, BCE's President and CEO; and our CFO, Curtis Millen. You can find all our Q2 disclosure documents on the Investor Relations page of the bce.ca website, which we posted earlier this morning. Now, before we begin, I'd like to draw your attention to our safe harbor statement on Slide 2, reminding you that today's slide presentation and remarks made during the call will include forward-looking information, and therefore, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Results could differ materially. We disclaim any obligation to update forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Please refer to our publicly filed documents for more details on assumptions and risks. With that out of the way, I'll turn the call over to Mirko.

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

Thanks, Kris, and good morning, everyone. Earlier this year, I shared our strategic plan and capital allocation strategy aimed at fostering sustainable free cash flow growth and enhancing shareholder value in both the short and long term. I'm pleased to report that in Q2, the Bell team made significant strides toward these objectives. Our distinctive assets are working together to diversify revenue streams and enhance overall performance. We remain committed to executing our plan, and it is yielding positive results. I will now update you on our progress regarding our four strategic priorities: prioritizing the customer, providing the best fiber and wireless networks, shaping our enterprise with AI-driven solutions, and developing a digital media and content powerhouse. Additionally, we will continue to modernize and streamline our operations. For 145 years, our purpose has centered on connection. We facilitate connections among Canadians and empower our enterprise clients to engage with their customers. Through consistent long-term investments in core infrastructure, we've enabled Canadians to access the latest global technology innovations. Our aim is to place our customers at the center of every interaction. We understand their time is precious, which is why we are emphasizing self-service tools to provide support whenever they need it. I'm excited to share some of our initiatives and the tangible outcomes we've achieved thus far. Our self-install program, initiated in Ontario and Quebec in 2020, has allowed customers to set up their Bell services at their convenience, proving to be a great success. Since 2022, we have conducted over 1 million self-installs, with more than 90% of new residential customers choosing this option. This approach is more convenient for our customers and leads to significant cost savings. Customers can also utilize our AI-powered virtual repair diagnostics tool to identify and solve various technical issues without needing to call for support or schedule a technician visit—resulting in the elimination of 1.2 million calls since 2022. Our AI virtual assistant, which offers online chat support, has been launched nationally, enabling more natural conversations with customers, saving them time and improving productivity for Bell. These customer-first initiatives greatly enhance satisfaction, leading to reduced churn, increased customer lifetime value, and improved financial performance. Our next strategic priority is to provide the best fiber and wireless networks. Last Friday, we announced the completion of our acquisition of Ziply Fiber, a leading fiber Internet provider in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, completing this ahead of schedule. I would like to thank the Bell and Ziply teams for their hard work and dedication. We are excited to welcome Ziply Fiber to the BCE family and look forward to collaborating with them to expand their fiber infrastructure to reach more communities and deliver the connectivity and service their customers deserve. This acquisition adds 1.4 million locations to Bell's fiber footprint, reinforcing our status as the third-largest fiber Internet provider in North America. This marks an important milestone in our fiber growth strategy and diversifies our fiber revenues in a competitive landscape. By combining Bell's expertise with Ziply's experienced management, we are creating a robust platform for long-term growth and geographic diversification that will create significant value for our shareholders. Our partnership with PSP Investments will support Ziply's infrastructure in underserved U.S. markets, and we'll approach this in a financially disciplined manner. The plan is to achieve a total of 8 million fiber passings in the U.S. Ziply has been exceeding our expectations, achieving strong customer acquisition and penetration on its fiber network. These metrics are expected to improve further as we leverage additional synergies and growth opportunities from our partnership with PSP. In Canada this quarter, we successfully added 27,000 new FTTH customers, a solid outcome despite a slowdown in our Canadian fiber build and pricing trends, demonstrating the substantial value we provide our customers. This contributed to a 3% increase in Internet revenue. We continue to dominate new growth in areas where we have fiber, which remains a superior offering resonating with customers. The demand for fiber is also driving higher multi-product penetration, resulting in an 8% rise in households subscribing to mobility and Internet service bundles where fiber is available. In wireless, our performance has improved significantly. We gained 94,479 new net mobile phone subscribers in Q2, reflecting our successful execution in gross activations and customer retention. Notably, postpaid churn decreased by 12 basis points to 1.06%, marking our first year-over-year improvement in nearly three years. This achievement is directly linked to enhancements in customer service, increased product intensity, and effective real-time retention offers. We added 44,547 new net postpaid wireless subscribers this quarter, all under the Bell brand, aligning with our strategy to focus on quality, profitability, and margin-accretive subscriber acquisition. Prepaid net adds remained steady with 49,932 as we continue to target the value and newcomer market with our Lucky Mobile brand. Q2 marked our third consecutive quarter of year-over-year ARPU improvement with only a slight decline of 0.7%. This quarter's results reflected ongoing competitive pricing pressures and lower roaming revenue, partly due to decreased travel to the U.S., although some of this impact was offset by one-time revenues from the G7 Summit. We are regaining momentum in wireless by focusing on superior networks, enhanced customer experience, product intensity, and churn reduction. We anticipate continuing to capture a fair share of subscriber additions and strengthening our financial performance moving forward. Now let’s discuss our enterprise growth strategy, which we have carefully developed over the past few years. Our overarching strategy focuses on reinventing our core services and leading the market in AI-powered technology solutions. We are modernizing our offerings by developing Unified Communication as a Service and Network as a Service, leveraging partnerships with companies like Zoom, ServiceNow, and Salesforce. We believe this modernization will drive growth in our core enterprise services. Additionally, we have expanded our suite of offerings into adjacent, unregulated areas that complement our core services with AI-driven technology solutions, a space that is seeing robust growth that we expect to continue. A crucial aspect of this is leading in cybersecurity. Our security business has been strengthened by our acquisition of Stratejm last year. This collaboration, combining Stratejm's automated AI-powered security operations with the Bell Network platform, presents a compelling offering for our customers. We also launched Ateko in May, specializing in five major platforms—ServiceNow, Salesforce, AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud—and targeting four key industry verticals where we have strong customer relationships: financial institutions, utilities, public sector, and technology, media, and telecommunications. The final component of our BBM growth strategy is Bell AI Fabric, aimed at establishing itself as the foundation of Canada's AI ecosystem. The fabric comprises four layers: a hardware infrastructure layer with Canada's largest sovereign AI data centers on an extensive fiber network, a software infrastructure layer featuring customized LLMs, advisory and professional services led by Ateko, and a collection of AI applications for consumers and businesses. Together, these elements create a unique set of interconnected assets and expertise that are unmatched in Canada. The foundation of this strategy is supported by the trusted Bell brand, our superior networks, and our longstanding enterprise relationships. This differentiates us in the market, and we are already seeing results while our North American peers have faced more significant declines in their enterprise businesses. In BBM, we recorded a record quarter of revenue growth driven by contributions from all four growth vectors mentioned earlier. Core connectivity and communication services, which represent the largest portion of BBM revenues, stabilized in Q2 and showed slight growth. As anticipated, both Ateko and our cybersecurity business are growing rapidly, alongside AI Fabric. We have played a prominent role in connecting Canadians with technology on a large scale. The next generation of technology infrastructure involves sovereign AI computing, which will transform Canada much like previous innovations such as the telephone and Internet. We are uniquely positioned to develop and manage this infrastructure for Canada. Our ambition is to become the backbone of the AI economy in Canada, mirroring our historical role as the foundation of its communication infrastructure. Bell AI Fabric aims to deliver high-performance, sovereign, and environmentally responsible AI computing services to Canadian businesses, researchers, and public institutions. It is important to emphasize that this is not a standard colocation business; it will feature purpose-built AI data centers integrated with high-impact AI services tailored for large language models and AI workloads. Since announcing our first AI fabric facility in Kamloops in June, in collaboration with Groq, we have encountered strong interest from potential partners. This is exemplified by our recent partnership announcement with Cohere, a global leader in large language models, who will collaborate with us to deliver comprehensive sovereign AI solutions to government and enterprise customers across Canada, facilitating innovation within our economy. We anticipate the creation of end-to-end sovereign AI bundled solutions from AI Fabric, representing a significant new revenue stream for Bell’s enterprise business that is unregulated and creates new opportunities for free cash flow. The demand for Canadian AI data centers is projected to grow at an annual rate exceeding 20%, complementing the increasing need for computing, inference, large language models, and other AI solutions across various industries. Given our strategic advantages, we believe we are well positioned to secure a considerable share of this AI opportunity with our national fiber connectivity, owned land in crucial locations, access to low-cost power and cooling, and established customer relationships, enabling us to provide a complete range of necessary services. Now for media, digital revenue increased by 9% year-over-year and now represents 43% of total media revenues. This growth was driven by Crave, which saw a 72% year-over-year increase in direct streaming subscribers, along with robust performance in Connected TV, Crave with ads, and FAST channels. We are continuing to invest in sustaining this shift with significant expansions of Crave to include CTV, Noovo, news, select sports, and a larger range of children's content. New streaming bundle offers will include Disney+, Crave, and TSN targeting the Canadian market, as well as the integration of the Bell marketing platform into Trade Desk, allowing advertisers seamless access to Bell's premium first-party data. Bell Media had a strong first half, reflecting our digital pivot and focus on flagship franchises after five years of dedicated effort and investment. While we expect Bell Media to generate positive revenue and EBITDA for the full year, results may vary due to industry dynamics and near-term macroeconomic challenges that could affect advertiser demand later this year. Nevertheless, our goal for Bell Media remains steady: to consistently achieve annual revenue and EBITDA growth while making significant contributions to BCE's free cash flow. Before passing the call to Curtis, I want to express our disappointment regarding the federal government's recent decision to decline changing the CRTC's ruling on mandatory wholesale access. We call on the government and CRTC to ensure that network builders receive full compensation for the substantial costs and risks involved in constructing networks. I also want to highlight that the Bell team is focused on executing our strategic plan and delivering value for our customers and shareholders. We are establishing Canadian tech services leaders with Ateko and Bell Cyber and forming the backbone of the AI ecosystem with Bell AI Fabric. We are also committed to significantly investing in Canadian content as the leader in digital media. These investments enable BCE to continue connecting Canadians with one another, with their clients, and with technology. We anticipate growth through our customer-first initiatives, renewed momentum in wireless, strength in enterprise, and considerable expansion in the unregulated U.S. fiber market. I am pleased to announce that BCE will host an Investor Day on October 14 in Toronto, where we will outline how our strategic elements intertwine in a differentiated manner to generate long-term shareholder value. We will provide further details shortly. As we look ahead, I wish to reaffirm our strong focus on disciplined execution, financial resilience, and value creation, and I thank the Bell team for their dedication and for delivering results for our customers and shareholders. Now, Curtis, over to you.

Curtis Millen, CFO

Thank you, Mirko, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with BCE's consolidated financial results for the second quarter highlighted on Slide 10. We achieved positive revenue growth, posting a solid 1.3% increase, thanks to our effective fiber strategy, our success in attracting premium wireless subscribers, and better cross-selling of our mobility and Internet services. We also experienced continuous digital media growth and strong momentum in our enterprise segment due to our AI-powered technology solutions. EBITDA decreased by 0.9% as a result of higher costs linked to our increased product revenues. Both net earnings and EPS improved from last year, largely due to lower asset impairment charges and a non-cash loss recorded in Q2 2024 relating to an obligation to repurchase minority interest in a joint venture equity investment. Adjusted EPS fell by 19.2%, impacted by non-cash mark-to-market losses on FX hedges and options, a rise in interest expenses, and decreased tax adjustments compared to the previous year. Consistent with our strategy to cut capital spending by about $500 million in 2025, CapEx declined by $215 million in Q2, leading to total year-to-date savings of $488 million. Additionally, we saw a strong 5% increase in free cash flow during the second quarter. Focusing on Bell CTS in Slide 11, the financial performance of Bell Business Markets was a standout this quarter. After laying the groundwork over the past few years, we are experiencing strong demand for our diverse suite of enterprise services. The BBM team achieved significant revenue growth year-over-year in the second quarter. As Mirko noted, it’s worth mentioning that all four components of Bell Business Markets contributed to this growth. This encompasses modest growth in core connectivity and communication services, rapid expansion in Bell's Ateko managed services and cybersecurity division, and the launch of Bell AI Fabric with our first facility coming online in June. We recognized revenue and EBITDA upon delivery under this AI data center agreement, with annual cash flow expected in the coming years. Internet revenue rose by 3%, demonstrating a healthy balance between subscriber growth and disciplined pricing, bolstered by our fiber services. Increased sales of mobile devices due to higher upgrade volumes and contracted activations also boosted product revenues in Q2. Wireless service revenue experienced a minor drop of 0.3%, indicating a second consecutive quarter of improvement in the year-over-year decline rate. Our quarterly results reflect competitive pricing pressures but were supported by nonrecurring revenue linked to the G7 Summit. Despite a 1% increase in total CTS revenues, Q2 EBITDA fell by 1.6%, mainly due to a 3.2% rise in operating costs driven by higher costs of goods sold, reflecting significant growth in product revenues. On to Bell Media on Slide 12, we maintained a strong digital momentum and solid overall financial results, marking our fifth consecutive quarter of revenue and EBITDA growth. Total revenue for Q2 increased by around 4%, driven by an 8.1% rise in subscriber revenue due to strong growth in Crave and sports DTC streaming. Events like the F1 Canadian Grand Prix and our acquisition of Sphere Abacus also contributed to higher revenues this quarter. Despite robust digital video advertising growth, total advertising revenue decreased by 3.1% due to ongoing weaknesses in traditional broadcast TV advertiser demand for non-sports programming and the previously announced sale of 45 radio stations, most of which occurred during the quarter. Alongside the revenue increase, Media EBITDA rose by 7.8%, resulting in a 1.1 percentage point margin increase to 27.9%, showcasing really strong performance by Bell Media across revenue, EBITDA, and margins. Moving on to Slide 13, our balance sheet is well positioned with $3.8 billion in available liquidity and a robust solvency surplus of $4.1 billion for all BCE-defined benefit pension plans. Our reported net debt leverage ratio at the end of Q2 was approximately 3.5 times adjusted EBITDA, which does not account for our acquisition of Ziply Fiber that closed on August 1, funded by $4.2 billion in net sale proceeds from MLSE received in early July, alongside cash on hand. We are incorporating $2.6 billion of incremental Ziply Fiber net debt that has been rolled over and remains outstanding. We are targeting a net debt leverage ratio of about 3.8 times by year-end 2025, considering the effects of the MLSE sale and the Ziply Fiber acquisition. On a pro forma basis, adjusted to include 12 months of Ziply Fiber EBITDA, our net debt leverage ratio would be roughly 3.7 times. Additionally, we continue to review noncore assets and are pleased to announce we have reached an agreement to sell our home security and monitored alarm assets, with the transaction expected to close later this year. Proceeds from this divestiture will be used to reduce our leverage ratio and strengthen our balance sheet. Now, on Slide 14, Ziply Fiber will function as a separate business unit, with results reported independently starting in Q3 2025. In the meantime, I'd like to share some expectations for Ziply Fiber's financial and operational performance in 2025 to aid investors with their financial forecasting. Ziply Fiber continues to show consistently strong results, driven by the strength of its fiber-to-the-prem platform. During this interim period, performance remains robust with both revenue and EBITDA exceeding our initial expectations. Last quarter, we noted their impressive EBITDA growth of 17% for 2024, projected to accelerate to over 20% in 2025, thanks to ongoing operational execution and a wide growth runway. Ziply Fiber is expanding its subscriber base, providing high-speed Internet to about 440,000 retail subscribers, with 85% of them on pure fiber service. More mature markets have achieved a 40% penetration rate, compared to an average of 23% in newer locations. Thus, there is substantial growth potential in our current footprint, especially as over 40% of the fiber locations were built in the last four years. The acquisition of Ziply Fiber is vital to our strategy for fostering sustainable core business revenue and EBITDA growth with an attractive return on capital. Finally, regarding our updated financial guidance targets for 2025 detailed on Slide 15, with Ziply Fiber included in our operating results for five months this year, we are raising both our consolidated revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance for full year 2025 to a range of 0% to 2%. Our adjusted EPS guidance for 2025 is being updated to a range of minus 13% to minus 10% from the previous range of minus 13% to minus 8%, reflecting higher depreciation and amortization along with increased interest expense assumptions related to the Ziply Fiber acquisition. This revised range does not yet take into account any purchase price allocation for Ziply Fiber since valuation is still pending. Given Ziply Fiber's planned CapEx to implement its fiber build-out over the remaining five months of the year, we now anticipate BCE's capital intensity to rise to about 15% in 2025, up from the previous estimate of 14%. I want to remind investors that our previously announced partnership with PSP Investments, set to close later this year, will significantly minimize BCE and Ziply Fiber's capital investments and enhance free cash flow during the network build phase. Hence, we can expedite our U.S. fiber build-out while maintaining a pro forma combined company capital intensity around 14.5%. We also expect our capital intensity to further decline after Ziply Fiber's construction of around 500,000 fiber locations in its copper footprint by the end of 2028. Accordingly, we are revising our free cash flow guidance for 2025 to a range of 6% to 11%. Furthermore, I should clarify that our guidance ranges do not account for the upcoming divestiture of Northwestel. Now, I'll hand the call back to Kris and the operator to start the Q&A session.

Krishna Somers, Senior VP

Thank you, Curtis. With that, Matthew, we are ready to take our first question.

Operator, Operator

The first question is from Stephanie Price from CIBC World Markets.

Stephanie Doris Price, Analyst

Hoping you can unpack the guidance a little bit more just in terms of your initial estimates of Ziply, any adjustments to your thoughts and anything outside of Ziply that's included in the revised guidance?

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

Stephanie, thanks for the call. On the Ziply side of it, so as is in the presentation, Ziply, both on the revenue and the EBITDA side, continue to outperform our investment case and outperform the financials provided in November. So that continues to be a very good operating performance story. And in terms of revised guidance, I'd say the revised guidance reflects our current view of the combined company performance, right? So this reported both the existing business and overlaid with the Ziply performance, but it's not a straight A plus B.

Stephanie Doris Price, Analyst

Okay. And maybe just a follow-up just on the free cash flow side. And maybe some comments on the free cash flow around Ziply expected for 2025?

Curtis Millen, CFO

Yes. In somewhat odds with what I just said, Stephanie, on the free cash flow side, we are very happy with our Canadian free cash flow performance, and the midpoint of guidance on the free cash flow metric actually is simply a Canadian expectation overlaid with Ziply Fiber.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from Jerome Dubreuil from Desjardins Securities.

Jerome Dubreuil, Analyst

I'm interested in the kind of longer-term free cash profile that Ziply brings. So if you can please discuss the free cash flow profile evolution in the coming years because we're seeing the free cash headwind this year, but from my understanding, you have a bigger CapEx only in the first 2 years. And then there's a significant change in the CapEx profile with the InfraCo structure taken over. So if you can discuss maybe what is in the coming years, is there an inflection in the free cash profile from Ziply?

Curtis Millen, CFO

Jerome, thanks for the question. You're right, a few stepping stones, building blocks for that question. Again, the EBITDA performance at Ziply through the interim period has been very strong. Growth in 2024 was 17%, expected to be north of 20% in 2025. So continued EBITDA growth, which ultimately falls to free cash flow. You're right, given the PSP partnership is a fiber build partnership. What it allows us to do is once we're through the 500,000 fiber locations built in the Ziply copper footprint, the vast, vast majority of fiber build will be done through the PSP partnership, which means CapEx at Ziply that we consolidate is largely nearly all going to be success-driven in a much lower number dollar-wise. So you're right that we do continue to expect free cash flow growth, and frankly, accelerated ones the PSP partnership is up and running, which we believe is going to happen by the end of this year.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from Aravinda Galappatthige from Canaccord Genuity.

Aravinda Suranimala Galappatthige, Analyst

I wanted to dig in a little bit into Bell AI Fabric. Mirko, maybe you can just talk a little bit about the sort of the longer-term revenue opportunity here. I know in one of the press releases you've indicated a $9 billion TAM. I'm not sure how broad that sort of estimate is. How should investors think about sort of the medium-term opportunity here from a revenue perspective, and then, obviously, the free cash flow elements as well?

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

Yes. And as I said in my opening remarks, thanks, Aravinda, we're going to execute on the enterprise growth strategy at very manageable investment levels, and we expect it to generate significant IRRs on that strategy. The growth, the TAM is large, and the market growth rates are quite significant, and we're poised to compete and lead. It's not just AI Fabric; it's the way every element of the BBM strategy works in unison. It starts with having the best network connectivity and having the ability to deliver purpose-built AI data centers fast. In this environment, the time to power and the time to construction are a massive competitive advantage, and you saw that we were able to deliver a data center in June. More will come on stream, and you'll see some interesting announcements in the weeks to come that show you the continued momentum in Bell AI Fabric. When we have the best networking, the access to the power and cooling, the land, and the building, the ability to stand up the facilities fast spins the service revenue potential as well because now we have Ateko that goes in there and provides AI and technology and systems integration advisory services. We have a partnership with Cohere, where we can provide access to that software layer. We wrap everything in with cybersecurity services. It's a powerful foundation for long-term growth, and it's a powerful recipe for our customers, and it's a significant opportunity to drive product intensity in the enterprise space because of that integration between all elements of the strategy, which are working in harmony. The team has done an amazing job putting this together over 18 months, and you're starting to see the results.

Aravinda Suranimala Galappatthige, Analyst

Thanks, Mirko. And just a quick follow-up before I hand the line on asset divestitures. I mean, we saw tower monetization transaction with TELUS recently. Beyond the $7 billion that you've sort of earmarked, how should we think of sort of the potential there beyond fiscal '25 to further strengthen the balance sheet?

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

Thanks. We don't have any updates to share at this time with respect to something like a potential tower sale or monetization of infrastructure. Earlier this year in February, we announced what our priorities were going to be, at least in the near term. The focus for us has been to execute against each of those. For example, close Ziply, get the PSP partnership done, and get churn down. We indicated that we're going to have a couple of noncore asset sales, and Curtis mentioned one on the home monitoring in alarm. That has been the priority to date. We view our infrastructure as potentially a valuable source of capital, and we fully recognize the strategic value of a lot of our infrastructure that could be towers or AI fabric or other things. As we demonstrate to investors with our U.S. expansion plans, we'll consider executing on partnerships that help us achieve our long-term goals and drive shareholder value. So it's a long way to say that we're going to remain open to exploring opportunities under the right conditions going forward.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from Tim Casey from BMO Capital Markets.

Tim Casey, Analyst

Your wireless metrics were encouraging this quarter. Mirko, could you discuss the market dynamics that contributed to BCE's performance in Q2? Additionally, what are your observations for Q3, considering that it's still early in the back-to-school season? Lastly, on the regulatory front, Mirko, have you exhausted all your options regarding the cabinet decision from last night, or should we expect you to explore other avenues?

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

Thanks, Tim. Look, on wireless, I'm really pleased with the performance that we delivered. Over the course of the first 6 months of the year, you can see that we captured our fair share of gross adds and net adds, and that's the goal. Again, it's all elements of the strategy working together in harmony to deliver those results, particularly a big focus on putting the customer first, which has allowed our churn to come down dramatically. A couple of other elements: market growth is still growing, but not as fast as in previous years, coupled with the drop-off in newcomer growth. We weren't as exposed to the newcomer segment as others, and there's still opportunity there for us. Additionally, we like the pricing structure we see with tiered pricing and better differentiation between brands. It allows us to have pricing that is reflective of the value we provide to customers, both on the service side and the hardware pricing side. Our distribution position has always been strong, so you put all those elements together, and you see the results we delivered in wireless. As for the regulatory side, I've said in my opening remarks that we're disappointed, and we don't think it's the right decision, but now the focus is on ensuring that all of us who build networks in Canada get fully compensated for the significant cost of building and for the investment risk taken when we build. We're continuing to explore that.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from Maher Yaghi from Scotiabank.

Maher Yaghi, Analyst

I wanted to maybe just dig a little bit deeper into wireless. So the improvement in churn metrics, how sustainable are those? And are they dependent on a lot of handset financing efforts on your part to improve those churn metrics? And second, on ARPU, again, in wireless, the improvement in the year-on-year decline, how should we think about those improvements? Can they continue to improve as we go into the second half from here? You mentioned there are some one-time asks that helped the year-on-year decline in Q2? Curtis, maybe you can peel off a little bit here and see what could be sustained. Lastly, you mentioned in your slides that about 40% of new Internet activations are coming with bundled wireless services. How much of your base is actually bundled? Or in another way, how much of that kind of push into bundling can be extended to your existing Internet subscriber base to help grow your wireless business even further?

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

Thanks, Maher. On ARPU, when you exclude the impact of the one-time items, particularly the lift from G7, our ARPU decline was closer to in line with previous quarters, but still industry-leading. The pace of ARPU improvement will largely depend on pricing stability in the second half of the year. The back book continues to transition into the new pricing environment. Assuming pricing remains stable, we expect to see positive ARPU movement within the next 3 to 5 quarters. On Internet, the focus for us is going to be to penetrate the fiber plant that we've already built. There's a lot of upside there because we have built a significant amount of new fiber passings in the last 3 years that aren't yet at full run rate in terms of penetration equilibrium.

Curtis Millen, CFO

Maher, it's Curtis. When I was going through the rest of your questions, I wanted to point out that the handset product margin is positive and has actually increased quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year.

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

On churn reduction, it's a multifaceted approach. The retention activities we've put in place contribute to this. There are customer service improvements and a stronger distribution position, which I've mentioned. All those efforts have contributed to the advance. Thank you.

Maher Yaghi, Analyst

Okay. And just a follow-up, Curtis, you mentioned that the new guidance is a reflection of an updated view about your existing business plus Ziply. But maybe can you help us understand just how you're viewing your existing business now versus the beginning when you gave that guidance into wireless and wireline? Have views improved or stayed the same or become a little less positive by segment?

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

Thanks, Maher. I can't provide all the detail you want on that. If you look at the midpoint of guidance relative to what it was and overlay the Ziply impact, the revenue midpoint has increased. EBITDA has slightly decreased in line with consensus, and free cash flow remains where the midpoint is.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from Vince Valentini from TD Cowen.

Vince Valentini, Analyst

Curtis, can you just walk down exactly the USD 335 million? We can all do 5/12 of that and apply an exchange rate. Is that just simply what's added for Ziply in the last 5 months and the rest of the delta is changes in your Canadian guidance? Or is there some sort of accounting adjustment or integration or restructuring costs or anything else that would create that not being a straight line from USD 335 million to whatever is in your numbers?

Curtis Millen, CFO

Yes, Vince, you're on the right track. It's not ever going to be just exact 5/12, but you're right, and it reflects the impact of our consolidated view. The underlying business at Ziply continues to outperform. It's not a Ziply Fiber EBITDA. In fact, Ziply's EBITDA is doing better than our investment case.

Vince Valentini, Analyst

I just want to make sure I understand where everything stands. So if I look at the $335 million in relation to the total enterprise value of $7.6 billion by the time the deal is finalized, that equates to 16.5 times EBITDA. I assume that's before synergies, but is there an error in that calculation?

Curtis Millen, CFO

Well, a few things, Vince. One, I wouldn't look at closing net debt. Transaction values are done on the announcement. We've accelerated fiber build and their subscriber acquisition in the interim period, which is a positive for us. The multiple would be based on the 2025 EBITDA. The multiple has actually gone down since we announced, and a couple of other things that are impossible to see, but in terms of our ability to hedge U.S. dollars, between announcement and closing, we've probably picked up $100 million of value that we hadn't seen before. Their Big Beautiful Bill also has an NPV benefit on the tax side whuch provides savings on cash taxes. So we're comfortable with the valuation.

Vince Valentini, Analyst

I'll just ask one last quick question regarding Alarm proceeds from that proposed transaction, which you didn't disclose. Is it not considered material?

Curtis Millen, CFO

No. It's in the disclosure. It's $90 million guaranteed with $80 million conditional, so $80 million earn-out.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from Sebastiano Petti from JPMorgan.

Sebastiano Carmine Petti, Analyst

Congratulations on finalizing the Ziply transaction. Mirko and Curtis, regarding the U.S. opportunity with PSP expected to close later this year, has your perspective on organic growth in the market changed as you consider scaling the PSP joint venture passings through building versus potentially smaller acquisitions over the last few months? Or is your view still aligned with initial expectations? Additionally, could you share your thoughts on the converged opportunity? There's significant attention on this in the Canadian market, and you provided some impressive statistics today. How do you see this evolving in both Ziply and the joint venture context? Is this something we might revisit in the future, or should we expect some developments in the near term?

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

Thanks, Sebastiano. When talking about Ziply, the U.S. fiber market is very attractive, which is the reason why we're so pleased to have closed the deal last Friday. U.S. fiber deployment lags Canada. Only 50% or so of homes in the U.S. have fiber. This speaks to the significant opportunity as we start executing the fiber build, completing the copper overbuild for Ziply in its core ILEC market, and activating our build engine with PSP later this year. Both will be running simultaneously. If there are opportunities that allow us to efficiently execute on the 8 million fiber passings plan with some accretive acquisitions, we'll take a look at it in conjunction with PSP. In terms of convergence, customers, whether in Canada or the U.S., consistently will choose the superior broadband product. Ziply Fiber currently does not have a mobility offering, and their performance speaks for itself. When the time comes to offer a bundled service, we will be ready.

Curtis Millen, CFO

As Mirko said, it's positive revenue growth across the 4. I'd say it's low double-digit revenue growth across BBM. We're quite happy with the momentum we've built up here over the last 18 months, and it's really starting to perform.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from Drew McReynolds from RBC Capital Markets.

Drew McReynolds, Analyst

Could you provide a follow-up on the Bell business market? It's great to see all the moving parts coming together. How do the three or four revenue streams fit into the segmented disclosure? We can clearly see product revenue, but how does it relate to the wireless and wireline data side? Can you help us understand that a bit better?

Curtis Millen, CFO

Yes, thanks for the question, Drew. The new item reflects generally the Ateko side of the world and cybersecurity, which comprises most of the service revenue. We also will sell equipment, which will hit our product revenue. The AI Fabric side varies depending on the contract signed with third parties, determining whether the revenue will be recognized as service or product revenue. It's not a straightforward answer, but we'll provide clarity as we continue to monetize contracts in our pipeline.

Drew McReynolds, Analyst

Okay, no, that's great. And maybe a follow-up for you, Mirko, just back to the TPIA file and the rates needing to be balanced. What's your updated thoughts as we get a finalized framework here in Canada regarding further fiber-to-the-home expansion? Assuming you get rates that you're pleased with, do you see further fiber expansion opportunities from a BCE perspective?

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

We certainly have a fiber opportunity in Canada. We're focused on penetrating what we've already built, and we're close to 8 million fiber locations. Unfortunately, there has been a significant scaling back of our fiber build in the last 18 months. At one point, we aimed for 9 million fiber locations passed, but that has plateaued around 8 million due to regulatory decisions affecting future builds. Our focus is on ensuring the appropriate compensation for all network builders moving forward.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from Matthew Griffiths from Bank of America.

Matthew Griffiths, Analyst

On the updated guidance for free cash flow, I know that includes the contribution from Ziply, but does it also factor in the bonus depreciation extension that was passed? And related to that, within the JV structure, will the U.S. operations on the CapEx side and the cash tax side continue to benefit from that extension of the bonus tax depreciation? And one final question. Mirko, if you could set some expectations for what you're planning to communicate on the October 14 Investor Day, whether it includes longer-term guidance, the way we often see these days with Investor Days, or if it's just a deeper dive into a certain segment of the business where we can potentially get some additional disclosure on numbers to match the qualitative descriptions?

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

You should just come to October 14. We'll have an Investor Day focused on sharing what matters most to our investor base. The agenda will be structured around the 4 strategic pillars of growth I've outlined, supported by the business transformation program and our amazing Bell team. That's what we'll be showcasing.

Curtis Millen, CFO

In terms of the bonus depreciation, there's no impact in 2025. That cash benefit is going to be captured over time for us, but not in 2025.

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

The entity that's going to be spending the capital will get the benefit from the 100% bonus depreciation. So the expectation is we should continue to benefit from that within the partnership.

Operator, Operator

There are no further questions registered at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Somers.

Krishna Somers, Senior VP

Thanks again, everyone, for your participation on the call this morning. Richard and I will be available throughout the day for follow-up questions or clarifications. Thanks, and have a great day.

Mirko Bibic, President and CEO

Thank you, everyone.

Curtis Millen, CFO

Thanks, everyone.

Operator, Operator

The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.