Sebastiano Petti: Okay. Thank you.
Mirko Bibic: On — no, no problem. Thank you for the question, Sebastiano. On business wireless growth, I think, that was — okay. So on wireless, in particular your question around business wireless, I’d say in the big picture was one of the softer areas due to slower subscriber growth on the revenue side and that reflects lower demand. And you kind of identified them in your question, Sebastiano, there is — our customers are undertaking workforce rationalization programs of their own, also other cost rationalization initiatives which are affecting price and that’s a reflection of the general economic uncertainty. There’s also been a leveling off in roaming due to lower travel, as you can imagine, as our customers look to control their own discretionary expenses. And data overage continues to be something we’re managing well, but continues to be in decline, including in the business segment.
Sebastiano Petti: Oh! And on leverage.
Curtis Millen: Yeah. And on leverage, right, so at the 3.0 times target of leverage, now ultimately it’s a matter of driving free cash flow growth, which we’re focused on. And you get there a handful of different ways, Sebastiano. So it’s revenue growth as we leverage and monetize our fiber asset and bundling strategy as Mirko referred to. It’s continued cost transformation, leveraging digital transformation. And ultimately as CapEx comes down following our heavy fiber build period, we’ll look to drive more positive free cash flow, delever and reduce our payout ratio.
Mirko Bibic: Yes. And on — Sebastiano, just on Page 5 of our deck, so the 39% reference, it’s mobility and Internet sales growth, not nets, but sales growth. And that’s overall, not just in any one particular province. Our nets, it’s not on Page 5, but the combined mobility and Internet bundle nets have increased 100% year-over-year. So it shows you the traction we’re getting with that strategy.
Sebastiano Petti: Thank you for that.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Drew McReynolds from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Drew McReynolds: Thanks very much. Good morning. Just two for me. Mirko, in your commentary, you alluded to the advertising kind of recovery, which is great to see just being uneven. Can you just unpack that a little bit for us in terms of where kind of pockets of strengths and weaknesses are and how Q2 looks for you? And then secondly, one of your competitors just commenting on still continued relative kind of robust wireless market expansion here in 2024. Obviously, we see that continuation in Q1. Just what are your expectations for the remainder of the year and how is Bell doing to certainly improve its share of new-to-Canada population growth? Thank you.
Mirko Bibic: Yeah. Thank you. Two good questions. So I’ll start with the second one. We do continue to see strong market expansion and we’re taking part in that quite successfully. And the way we’re going to take advantage of that growth, whether it’s new to category or new-to-Canada is through our very strong distribution. So we’re quite pleased with the results we’re seeing from the Staples partnership we have, which has been in place for a year now and that continues to improve. And they — the other Best Buy Express is going to start kicking in the latter part of this year and we see that as being a high potential distribution channel. And the other one that I mentioned, which is very recent with the no name mobile program, I think we’re going to see some strong success there.
And all of those, particularly the last one, I think plays very nicely in terms of our desire to get a bigger share or better share in the new-to-Canada category and we’ve made strong progress in that segment. We’re not where I want to be. Again, we’ve been very transparent about that, but when we put our focus on something, we tend to execute really well. So you’re seeing the building blocks being put in place and you’re going to see us gather a more appropriate share in that segment. And on the advertising market, on the media side, think in terms of pockets of strength, really where we saw good growth was in radio advertising revenue and in the out-of-home segment as well was up nicely. TV advertising revenue, not as strong as the growth in radio and out-of-home, but certainly an improvement over what we’ve seen recently.
And so when you put all those together, TV advertising, radio advertising, out-of-home, we saw growth for the first time in a while. So that’s great. We’re one of the only ones who’ve been able to pull that off. It’s hard on your question, but what I see for Q2 and going forward. It’s hard to answer. I don’t want to dodge your question. It’s just — it’s too choppy to call. On the conventional side, there are — some challenges remain. On the digital side, it’s good. So we’ll just keep managing it. And we’ve got to just continue to believe in the strategy that we put in place several years ago, which is the hard pivot to digital. So having the very best content on all the platforms that customers actually want to use to view our content and that’s how we’re going to drive growth in this business and we’re seeing the early green shoots.
So I’m pretty optimistic.
Drew McReynolds: Thank you very much.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Simon Flannery from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Simon Flannery: Good morning. I wonder if I could continue on the broadband theme. Could you give us a little bit more color on your fiber passings and where the pacing is going? Obviously the CapEx is down, but I think you referenced a positive winter weather condition. So where are we looking at for passings this year? And give us some sense, if you could, of the loading upside that you still have with the penetration rates you’re seeing in your mature markets and how much room you have in some of these other markets to get there? And then fixed wireless is something that we’ve seen a lot in the U.S. and Rogers has been talking about recently. What are you seeing in the market in terms of competition from fixed wireless and are you thinking more about expanding that beyond some more rural areas into parts of the country where perhaps you’re not the wireline operator? Thanks.
Mirko Bibic: Thank you for that, Simon. So on fixed wireless first, we’re not seeing any competitive impacts to our core internet business from fixed wireless competition. As I’ve said in the past and I firmly believe, I don’t think the fixed wireless product is going to be a competitive substitute in urban markets where there is fiber, which is by far the superior technology and Tier 1 premium cable. I don’t think it’s going to be a product that hunts. We don’t intend to increase the footprint of our fixed wireless product. We were the first to launch fixed wireless internet at scale and it works well, as I’ve said before, in rural areas where there is no broadband option or low speed broadband. And that’s where we’re going to continue to focus with our product.
And on fiber passings, the first question, we — in — on our February call, we moved away from giving projections on an annual basis and I’ll stick with our plan now is to pass 8.3 million locations by the end of 2025, that was once a target of 9 million locations by the end of 2025, we’ve taken that down as a result of recent regulatory decisions and that’s — and as a result, we’ve also taken CapEx down from by a $1 billion over 2024 and 2025. So, if you take capex down to that degree, you can take down your fiber passings targets. So, 8.3 remain, we remain on track for that 8.3 and we’ll get there over the rest of this year in 2025. And we still have a strong fiber penetration growth that we expect across our entire footprint.
We’re not where we want to be on market share yet and that’s from Manitoba, all the way to Newfoundland.
Simon Flannery: Great. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Jerome Dubreuil from Desjardins Securities. Please go ahead.
Jerome Dubreuil: Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Two for me. First one, I think, we all know the answer, but on — I think it would be beneficial to have it out there. Any chance that the dividend in 2024 is not what has been communicated for the rest of the year? And then the second question, are there assets that you think you might lack and that you might acquire that could help you maybe put you in a position to generate maybe accelerated sustainable topline growth? Thank you.
Mirko Bibic: So, on further assets, I’m going to not comment just because any deliberations we have internally on those kinds of things are strategically and competitively sensitive, but I do appreciate the question. It’s something that, as we deliberate strategically, you always think about things like that. So, I understand and appreciate the question, but I just don’t think we should answer it. And the dividend is as for 2024, the dividend is as stated — as was stated in February. That’s the dividend.
Jerome Dubreuil: Thank you.
Mirko Bibic: Good. Seen as though we are timing out, we need to transit to our AGM location. We will call it a day on the conference call, so thank you very much for your participation. As usual, the IR team will be available throughout the day for follow up questions and clarifications on that. Have a great day.
Curtis Millen: Thank you, everyone.
Thane Fotopoulos: Thanks everyone.
