[Non-English content] Good morning and welcome to Spark's half-year results announcement for the six months to 31 December 2020. I'm joined here today by our CFO, Stef, who will take you through the financials in more detail, and we'll then take some Q&A. In the first half, we have adapted to the implications of the pandemic. We've ensured our network is sustained for New Zealanders, while we're focused on offsetting the implications of the COVID-19 border closures on our top-line through disciplined cost management. We've supported New Zealand's recovery by investing in critical 5G infrastructure, digital skills for small businesses, and bridging the divide for vulnerable communities. While the economy is showing more encouraging signs of recovery, and to date we've seen lower levels of collection risks than we anticipated, there is still a high degree of uncertainty due to new disease variants, recent lockdowns, and the borders remaining closed. These border closures have impacted the broadband and prepaid markets, resulting in approximately 44,000 fewer people migrating to New Zealand in H1 FY 2021 versus the same half last year. It's led to some heightened competition for the remaining connections in those markets. Within that context, I'm pleased to say revenue decreased 1.5% to NZD 1.796 billion. That was due to the loss of a higher margin mobile roaming revenue, and that's on the border closures I've touched on, and also some higher voice revenue declines due to a non-recurring provision to refund historical wire maintenance charges. I'm pleased to share the impact on revenue was offset through our disciplined cost reduction, with EBITDA holding steady at NZD 502 million, a 0.4% increase on the first half of FY 2020. NPAT reduced 11.4% to NZD 148 million as a result of higher depreciation and amortization charges, which Stefan will touch on more in the financials. Now, as we look ahead, the cumulative FY 2021 EBITDA impact of COVID-19 is expected to be around NZD 50 million, and that's versus our original estimate of around NZD 75 million. That's aligned with seeing the economy recover faster than when we thought and a lower level of collection risk than we originally anticipated. As a result, we've narrowed the full-year EBITDA guidance range to NZD 1.1 billion-NZD 1.130 billion, and the full-year dividend guidance to NZD 0.25 per share, 100%, and it's obviously subject to no adverse change in operating outlook. If we turn, I'd now like to unpack the underlying performance of some of our key business lines further. While our mobile service revenue did decline NZD 5 million or 1.2%, Spark's underlying performance remains strong. When you strip out the impact of NZD 21 million of loss of outbound roaming, mobile service revenue increased 3.8% from the first half of FY 2020. We grew our share by 0.2 percentage points to 40.4% when compared to the same time last year. That was driven by strong growth in pay- monthly connections of 68,000 year- on- year. While prepaid connections were down, and that was in line with a contracting market and travelers, a shift to Endless plans contributed to an increase in prepaid ARPU of 8.1%. As I noted earlier, the broadband market was impacted by lower net migration, heightened competition, and this, combined with some execution challenges, meant we did not see the growth in connections that we aspire to. We have improvement plans in place for H2 to improve the trajectory, but we do acknowledge that the borders are likely to remain closed this year. We remain committed to the medium-term target of 30%-40% of our base on wireless by FY 2023, and the customer and cost benefits that this will deliver. Precision marketing is helping us to identify customers who are best suited to wireless broadband and to provide them with more compelling, tailored offers. We continue to experience growth in cloud, security, and service management revenues. They increased 4.6% to NZD 229 million. That was driven by strong momentum in service management revenues as we completed transitions, which converted into ongoing work. Finally, we've seen some good growth in collaboration revenue, up 4.2% versus the year ago, and that's really on the back of more products being used as people work in more flexible situations on the back of the COVID changes. If I turn now to our strategic update on slide six. We're now six months into the new three-year strategy, and we're focused on how our world-class capabilities will enable us to reignite our revenue momentum as the New Zealand economy begins to recover. Our focus on delivering simpler, more intuitive customer experiences is progressing well. We've seen the launch of our new Spark app. We've got a further 18% of customer care interactions now being self-solved digitally, and more than 100 legacy plans have already been retired, with customers shifting to products that best suit their needs. We're also introducing a new frontline operating model where we're cross-skilling our customer care teams to improve first call resolution. It's an important part of driving higher customer engagement and productivity. Our work on precision marketing and propensity models is leading to more targeted, relevant offers to customers and higher take-up rates, alongside greater marketing efficiency with a 9% improvement in the spend- to- revenue ratio. We're continuing to migrate our data infrastructure into the cloud to enable this work. We've got 5G available in five locations across New Zealand, and we're now live and testing in Christchurch. We'll obviously be rolling out the broadband offers and mobile offers to customers next month in relation to Christchurch. The OTN 2.0 network is providing greater automation and additional network resilience. We'll also continue to improve our agile maturity across all parts of our business while adapting to the new flexible ways of working, which we introduced to support COVID-19. We've seen digital leadership and development programs have also been delivered to a significant amount of our leaders in the first six months, so keeping that talent development occurring, even though there's been quite a degree of change in the way we are at work. If we look ahead to future markets, we're making steady progress in our future markets with Internet of Things connections growing by 65% during the half. Our digital health platform is in development, and we see this playing an important enabling role in the digitization of the healthcare sector that is planned. New Zealand Summer of Cricket has been successfully delivered and well- received by Spark Sport customers. The foundations we're building here within these future markets are important to our aspirations for long-term revenue growth. I turn now to infrastructure assets. We recognize there's an increasing interest in investment in quality infrastructure assets, of which we own a significant portfolio across towers, fiber, and backhaul networks, data centers, and subsea cables. We're reviewing investment and partnership opportunities to maximize the economic value of these asset classes while maintaining the relevant ownership rights necessary to retain competitive advantage. Our desire is to drive greater capital efficiency, increased network resilience, and better customer experiences. We'll update you on the progress of that review in our full-year results presentation in August. I now just turn to the scorecard for the H1 FY 2021 indicators of success, which are captured on slide nine. We are successfully delivering on a number of those key indicators, including improving data-driven insights, building out our 5G rollout, growing the key markets of cloud and IoT, delivering a successful Summer of Cricket with 99.9% uptime. We're also building a more sustainable Spark with a focus on our emission reduction target while delivering this cost. There are a few key areas that do require correction in the second half, most of which I've already touched on. If I start with consumer and small business IoT, we have revised the COA to be more holistic across our base. I've also noted earlier that we've moved to a more flexible operating model and have experienced some initial cross-selling challenges. This is being addressed, though, through improved training, tooling, and with a focus on our resolve queues, where our more challenging customer service issues are managed. I noted before around mobile service revenue is being impacted by roaming. We've also seen a bit of a shift towards our $39 Endless plans. We still grew the underlying service revenue at 3.8%. The Spark brand connections I've touched on, and we have the mitigation plans in place for half two. That'll focus on better capacity modeling to better target offers and ensure they remain competitive in a market that has increasingly become competitive. We continue to work with our community partners and different crown agencies to bridge the digital equity gap. We're also focused on improving the number of connected Kiwi houses. I'm now going to pass over to Stef, who'll take you through the financials before we open up for Q&A. Thanks, Jolie, and good morning, everybody. It's my pleasure to take you through the half-year results for 2021. Starting with the summary of key financials as set out on page 11 of the results presentation. Spark generated revenues of NZD 1.796 billion, down NZD 28 million or 1.5% compared to the prior year. EBITDA was NZD 502 million, up NZD 2 million on the prior year. Net profit after tax was NZD 148 million, down NZD 19 million compared to the prior year due to an increase in depreciation amortization, which I'll touch on more shortly. Pleasingly, free cash flow of NZD 113 million was up NZD 63 million compared to the prior year. As a result, we've confirmed the interim dividend at NZD 0.125 per share, fully imputed. The strength in free cash flow also gives us the confidence to remove the guidance range for the dividend, for the full year dividend, and guide for a full year dividend of NZD 0.25 per share, fully imputed. Now, to take you through some of those elements in a bit more detail. Starting first with our revenues. The NZD 28 million decline in revenue was primarily driven by two factors. The first key driver of the revenue decline was the impact of a non-recurring NZD 17 million provision to refund historical wire maintenance charges. We have a wire maintenance service available to our customers with in-home wiring. It is common across the industry and was created to help customers avoid costs associated with some in-home wiring faults. The service was originally developed for copper-based customers, but in recent years, it has also been available for fiber customers. While some fiber broadband customers have benefited from the wire maintenance service, overall, it hasn't been as significant as we would have liked. We've, therefore, decided to remove the service on fiber, and we will be processing a refund to these customers. As part of our ongoing drive to simplify the business, we have retired this product, and with a declining customer base, the impact to revenue going forward is negligible. It is worth noting that the underlying trend in voice is a decline of 12%, which is consistent with prior trends. The second key driver of the revenue decline was the impact of COVID-19 and the associated border closures, which resulted in the loss of NZD 26 million of higher-margin or high-margin mobile roaming revenues. As a result, mobile service revenues declined by NZD 5 million or 1.2%. However, on a more positive note, underlying service revenue, when the impacts of roaming are excluded, grew by 3.8%, reflecting the growth of the pay- monthly customer base of 68,000. If we look at other movements in the revenue items. In the broadband market, the drivers of the revenue decline are the shift of advanced costs, such as Lightbox and Netflix, to an agency agreement whereby they are set off against revenues. Also, an increase in the competitive intensity is driven by lower market growth as immigration falls in line with border closures. We expect this trend to continue into the second half. As Jolie mentioned, we've got a mitigation plan focused on retaining market share, which will place some pressure on the broadband revenue line. It is important to retain these customers for the long term as our future prospects for our wireless offerings. Cloud security and service management revenue has grown by NZD 10 million or 4.6%, with strong growth in our annuity service management business, as customers see the value of having a local service provider help them transition to cloud. Our procurement activity remains strong, subject to supply chains continuing to operate as they are at the moment. We expect revenues for the year to be broadly flat, with COVID-related roaming impacts offset by higher spending on mobile devices, cloud, and procurement. As revenues have fallen, we've taken action to manage the cost base accordingly. Operating costs of NZD 1.294 billion were down NZD 30 million compared to the prior year, with targeted cost-out programs to help offset the revenue declines and maintain EBITDA. During the half, we saw product costs fall by NZD 6 million, primarily as the result of lower sport content costs as the cost of the Rugby World Cup were in the first half of the prior year, whereas Cricket costs will fall in H1 and H2 in FY 2021. Also, the divestment of Lightbox has reduced product costs, and we'll continue to see that benefit in H2. Offsetting the lower sport and Lightbox costs was an increase in procurement costs in line with the increase in revenues. Labor costs for the first half were down NZD 12 million to NZD 255 million. There are three key drivers of this. Firstly, our gross labor cost was down as we divested some businesses, and as customer adoption of digital channels and products grew, less people are required to support those legacy businesses. Secondly, the mix of work changed with more of our efforts spent on developing new products and services, which resulted in less of our labor costs being expensed and more of it being capitalized. Third, some of these gains were partially reinvested back in support of growth, with increases in people to support revenue growth in our service management business, and also in Leaven, Spark Health, and in service operations. This trend of decline in the number of people supporting legacy businesses and the growth in people to support our established and future markets is one we expect to continue as we rebalance the business to become a digital services provider. Looking at our operating expenses, the largest reduction was driven by the cost reduction program. Within this, we saw significant reductions in travel, discretionary spend, and the benefits from improved marketing efficiency. We note that bad debts for the period had reduced. This is a pleasing sign, but we do remain cautious in this space as the impact of government stimulus on the economy has been significant, and it's possible that the full impact of COVID on small business has not yet been felt. As we look forward to the second half, we'll continue to maintain the cost reduction program to offset the impacts of roaming, and we have a line of sight to savings that are in excess of what we saw in FY 2020. Moving on to look at EBITDA. It's pleasing to report a result of NZD 502 million, which is broadly flat on the prior year despite the impacts of COVID and the provision for the refund of historical wire maintenance charges. During the half, we estimate the impacts of COVID at NZD 27 million, of which NZD 26 million related to inbound and outbound roaming. As we look forward to the second half, we've assumed that borders remain closed, and as a result, there is no return of those roaming revenues. The impacts on other parts of the business have been less severe than expected. Accordingly, we're reducing our estimate of COVID-related impacts from NZD 75 million to NZD 50 million. While this is a decline of NZD 25 million, the majority of that improvement will be offset by the NZD 17 million provision for the refund of historical wire maintenance charges. Now looking at net earnings for the half. We've seen an increase in depreciation and amortization of NZD 29 million. Within the NZD 263 million charge here, NZD 209 million relates to the depreciation of our fixed assets. This is up NZD 18 million or 9%, and reflects the ongoing shift to shorter life assets which support our digital services. Also sitting in this category, which relates to the depreciation of right- of- use assets following the introduction of new IFRS rules. The depreciation on right-of-use assets is up NZD 11 million, reflecting increased lease activity and new retail property leases. We expect this trend of depreciation of fixed assets being higher than CapEx to continue in the near term, as asset lives continue to shorten as we acquire additional spectrum, before returning to align with capital investment in the longer run. Shifting out to look at CapEx, and we see that our first half expenditure was NZD 55 million lower than the prior year, and this reduction reflects two factors. Firstly, in the prior year, the first half included a significant mobile and core investment in support of capacity for the Rugby World Cup, which is a long-term investment for the benefit of all of our customers. Secondly, we've actively focused on managing the phasing of our spend to balance it more evenly over the year. As a result, the first half spend was 55% of the NZD 350 million envelope, whereas the first half last year was more like 66% of the full-year envelope. Spend for the half was focused on mobile network capacity, the rollout of 5G, and also additional resilience within the South Island. We continue to invest in IT systems that support our focus on simpler and intuitive customer experiences. We remain confident that a strong approach to prioritization will allow us to make significant improvements in this area, while also maintaining spend within that NZD 350 million envelope. While it's not in H1, it is worth noting that in January, we renewed our 1800/2100 MHz spectrum at a cost of NZD 50 million. As a result, FY 2021 CapEx, including spectrum, will be greater than in FY 2020. It's also worth noting that we did investigate some deferred payment options, but we didn't feel these were economic. Now, if we look at net debt, we saw an increase in our debt levels of NZD 51 million compared to H1 FY 2020. This increase was required to top up the dividend, as H1 cash flows are significantly lower than H2. Strong participation in the dividend reinvestment plan and improved free cash flow meant that the top-up requirement was significantly less than the prior period. Net debt is expected to decrease in the second half as free cash flow is weighted to that second half. Our reported net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.35x, and we remain with an S&P A- minus credit rating. Looking now at free cash flow. Free cash flow in the first half is NZD 113 million, was up NZD 63 million on the prior year. This was primarily driven by low CapEx and improved working capital, which was NZD 42 million lower than the first half of FY 2020. As we look ahead to H2, we remain confident in our ability to deliver free cash flow of NZD 420 million-NZD 460 million. Second- half free cash flow is expected to be significantly greater than the first half, as around 55% of EBITDA is weighted to H2 versus 45% in H1, with CapEx following the opposite pattern, with 45% being accrued in the second half versus 55% already spent. The one-time improvements in working capital will sustain, and the timing of our tax payments will also weigh it to the first half. The confidence in free cash flow, when combined with the uptake in the dividend reinvestment plan, meant that we have the confidence to narrow the range and confirm dividend guidance of NZD 0.25 per share for FY 2021. The dividend reinvestment plan will be retained for FY 2021, and shares issued under the DRP will be issued at a 2% discount to the prevailing market price as determined around the time of issue. Lastly, on our confirmed guidance for FY 2021. We have narrowed the range on EBITDA guidance as we better understand the impacts of COVID on our business. EBITDA guidance is now set at NZD 1.1 billion-NZD 1.13 billion. There is no change to the CapEx guidance, and it remains at NZD 350 million for CapEx and NZD 50 million for spectrum. Dividend guidance is NZD 0.25 per share fully imputed. That now concludes the financial summaries, and we'll open the line for questions. Back to you, operator. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your question, please press the ten hash key. Once again its star one if you wish to ask a question. Thank you. We have multiple questions in the queue. Our first question comes from Sameer Chopra from Bank of America. Please ask your question, Sameer. Morning. I had two. Morning. Morning, morning. I had two questions. One is, anything you're noticing in your OpEx and CapEx trends from migrating apps to the cloud or initial 5G rollout? I'm just wondering whether these new technologies are giving you an efficiency benefit that we can expect on a going forward basis. That's question one. The second one is, can we just talk a little bit more about this trend of the growth of pay- monthly customers away from prepay? What's driving this trend now, during this particular period? Thank you. Thanks, Sameer. I'll take those two up. The first one around the OpEx, CapEx trends. I think as you see more and more of our services and journeys move online and we start to use more applications, we look at our own internal infrastructure and we look at what is appropriate to be on the cloud. That in itself creates efficiencies. It's a little bit like some of the self-healing and automation work we've done around our [OPM tool] for example. I think as you look forward, that is an area that we'll continue to see efficiency come through, and I don't see anything that abates that trend. On the second piece, around what's happening with our pay monthly. We have seen a continued trend in growth in pay monthly, and it's shifted in part from people sometimes from prepaid plans up into post pay or within post pay, obviously looking for greater data as they do more and more on the move and use their devices more and more. I think this trend is aligned to that. We did see a contraction in the prepaid market where you see more travelers, and so therefore the border closures had a bigger impact on that. Even within the prepaid portfolio, we saw our ARPU increase 8.1% as we saw customers seek more of an Endless plan within that prepaid portfolio. Again, that desire to have greater data and use that. The only thing I'd add to that is that we also, with our pursuit in marketing, we have been getting a better understanding of the household characteristics of our customer base and putting more targeted, more relevant offers in front of them, which helps drive that conversion from prepaid back up into pay monthly. That's been a real focus for the business over, actually, for a couple of years now, and we continue to see quite strong success there. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Sameer. Once again, it is star one. Our next question is from Arie Dekker from Jarden. Please ask your question, Arie. Good morning. Just starting with fixed wireless. First part of the question, just in your broadband connections by segment, the growth in wholesale and other, was that predominantly fixed wireless? I think that would've been a combination across the different services, but we do offer fixed wireless through wholesale as well. Yeah. I guess the question I have is, because clearly, you weren't impacted in the six-month period by sort of holding back on selling fixed wireless, like you were in the PCP, and you've got a target of 40,000. That growth is obviously pretty weak. You've talked about the fact that your targeted selling is going well. What is the issue there? Have you tapped out the base? Is churn growing? I guess that's a start, then what's going to change it for the balance of the year? I think, Arie, it's getting clearer around the customers that fixed wireless works best for and in the areas where we have capacity. Remembering, of course, with fixed wireless mobile, it always goes to the particular tower and the area that you do that. As we see greater rollout of 5G as well, that also opens up the opportunity, because predominantly on 5G we're seeing fixed wireless as the predominant use of that in the first period. As we look at those things, those are the things that will give us confidence in the improvement. There is still work to do. There's no doubt. We've noted that it's from 9,000 connections to get to the target of 40. We have got a lot of work to do in that second half, and we don't shy away from that. I think from our point of view, there have been a few things in the first half that meant as we came out of different lockdowns, we had stop-sales for certain periods. They obviously are now off, so we have an opportunity. It is a highly competitive market. You can't lose sight of that across the whole broadband market in terms of pricing and the changes that we see out there. It's really around making sure the compelling benefits of fixed wireless and the pricing is appropriate for that product. Yeah. There was some holdback in selling in the first half on capacity constraints in some of those. Well. -lockdown Still had a lockdown in August. Yeah. Through those periods, we stop sale because you don't want to have network movements happening like that. Also, you have challenges with people changing and things through that time. You would've had a bit of that through there. I certainly don't point to that being the sole reason to what we didn't. We need to improve our execution, and we're focused on that. Yeah. You referenced Yeah. Sorry, Arie. The only other thing I'd say is. Yeah. We're still confident in the addressable market that's there in the 30%-40% by FY 2023. We just need to improve our cadence of how we're moving forward on that. Yeah. You referenced in the answer to that question price as well. Are you starting to consider price, as well as the 5G improvements, as one of the levers you'll use to get to that target that you have for fixed wireless? I think when you look at a competitive market, you have to make sure that your product stacks up both in customer experience and is relative on a pricing basis. We will always be looking at how competitive our offers are across our whole broadband portfolio, fiber, wireless, broadband as well. Yes, we will consider that. Obviously, in retail, you went back about 10,000 in broadband in the period. Should I take your comment on price to be more around broadband more broadly than the fact that you're going to underuse the margin you're getting in fixed wireless to bring pricing down for that product specifically? Sorry, Arie. Yeah, I agree. I think you should think about the category as a whole within that fixed wireless. We will continue to look at it and make sure we're competitive in the market. Arie, one of the things that you've seen is that with migration levels so much lower, you've got a much smaller amount of activity within the market, yet the same level of competitive activity. You've got the same number of people chasing a smaller number of customers who are moving. That is driving quite a competitive dynamic. That's why, yes, we need to look at the full suite of offerings across both wireless and the fixed component. Sure. I guess just my next question is sort of in the future markets, and I guess the Spark Sport initiative specifically. The objective was to deliver Season 1 this year. I guess, as you start, you haven't had to provide a lot of detail on the financials of it and where you're at with customers. Could you just sort of talk to how you're thinking about Season 1 more from a, is it going in line with your expectations? How are you thinking about growth from here in that category? Are you at the point where you're sort of looking at holding/pulling back, or are you encouraged enough that, as rights come up, you'll be looking to actually participate more aggressively to grow out your content? Yeah. Just some comments on that. Thanks, Arie. Look, I think it's worth starting this by kind of lifting up with going, what are we trying to achieve in the market? Then I'll kind of come through some of your questions. Obviously, we've been pretty clear within the sports space; it does a number of things for us. First of all, it provides us with some really solid differentiation in our core products. Secondly, we want it to be a commercially viable business in its own right. Thirdly, we want to give customers a great experience. We're progressing well on those journeys. I think if you look at how sport has gone, we're really pleased with the uptake. We've had some great feedback on that. What we have said is that on the second objective of being commercially viable, we're only just starting this journey. Head of the longer-term aspiration, we're not there yet. What we would say is that our level of investment is not dissimilar to what we used to spend on Lightbox. We're investing that same level of money, but we have opportunities and the intent to improve that. I think part of the way we look at that is through a combination of growing the base, growing the content, and also through partnerships. All those things, none of that intent has changed. If there are Formula One rights come up. Sorry, I was just going to touch on that. To your point around rights, we will assess them like we have other rights that we have come across. The opportunities that have come around, do they meet customer needs? Are they commercially sensible for us and our desire to grow that there's offering for our customers? Within that context, yes, we will consider the rights that come up, and we'll also look at partnerships around that as well. Sure. The last question. Clearly, you're not going to have much to provide in terms of detail around that infrastructure assets opportunity that you're looking at. I guess the question I do have, as you look at that, is, if you release capital from your infrastructure, what might we expect you to do with it? I think at this point, we're early on in this review, but what we can see is there opportunity either to increase our investment or to build broader partnerships to deliver some of this potentially earlier. What we think about that is really around how we will invest in terms of creating what's considered a vantage point buffer, and using that opportunity to do that through offering a better, more resilient network that customers can get experience. If you think about what's happening in New Zealand and globally, you've seen digital services become more and more in place. Therefore, you think across the country, the need to ensure that we are providing connectivity and services across the whole country becomes pretty critical. Within this context, we're thinking about the different assets. We're also looking at the technology changes that are occurring. As more moves to the edge of a network, think about other than just computing and cloud, we think a lot more around what we would also do within our network as a result of that. This is really the start of looking at the different asset classes, how we best leverage those classes, and the economic value that goes with that as part of this. You've seen globally, too, many of our peers are looking at this. We already participate in co-investments together already today, whether that's on the subsea cables or whether that's the Rural Connectivity Group. Again, it's exploring more of those and thinking around how we best make use of the global assets that we do have. Yeah. It's not necessarily releasing capital, but also potentially looking at accelerating investment through partnerships. Yeah. It could be a combination. Great. All of those things, we'll come back with an update on the progress of that at the August preview. August results should give you more indication on that, but it's a combination of things within that mix. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Arie. Thanks, Arie. Our next telephone question is from Kane Hannan of Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question, Kane. Cheers, guys. Just two from me. Firstly, on the cost out programs, we'll see a few on them well in the half. You talk about how we should be thinking about your cost base as some of those COVID-19 headwinds reverse, hopefully in FY 2022. Interested if you could talk about the size of your retail network today, whether you see much scope to drive savings there, given that shift online. Secondly, on the infra review as well. You talk about how you think your 1,500 mobile towers drive your competitive advantage. I suppose the options that you would have to maximize value, anything that you can say today, whether you'd be willing to go over 50% in terms of a sale. Just interested given that a similar release. Cheers. Why don't I pick up with, start with the cost out of one? In the first half, the cost out had been driven through an ongoing move of our customers to wireless broadband, through the ongoing shift of customer interactions from traditional channels through to digital channels, and also continuing to really manage our discretionary cost lines very tightly, and also starting to see some of the benefits of automation coming through. I think those trends, there's nothing we would see in that would stop in H2. We would expect those trends; they're all long-run trends, and things that we have very active programs on are central within our strategy. We would expect those to continue into the second half. I don't see those abating. Then in the retail space, I think it was one of your other questions. There's a couple of ways we think of that. First of all, we're always looking at our footprint and our channel mix. We're clearly seeing a lift in the use of digital channels that will create opportunities to think about some of those other channels we have. That's part of our long-run review. That will create future opportunities, no doubt as well. I think that shift from retail or from traditional to digital will continue to create opportunities as we go forward. The only other comment I'd make there around retail is we own all of our own network, and that's quite important to us in terms of how our brand shows up in market and the opportunities that customers have to engage with us on the things that they need to engage with us on. Our frontline operating model really leverages both our retail footprint but also our care centers together, and that leverages that well. I think from that perspective, you've now seen, I know in Australia, I think there's some consideration of some of the businesses bringing the retail skill back into their business. We have already had that for a number of years, and we see the benefits of that. Yep. I think on the broader discussion around infrastructure, we're really not getting into any more detail on the review per se until August. We don't have anything else to say on that right now. Okay, maybe just one quick follow-up, maybe just on the fixed wireless. Just the 30%-40% penetration targets. Do you think there's scope for all players to get those sorts of numbers? Is that if you were to hit those numbers, would you think you'd have a dominant share in those markets? I think if you stand back today, we currently have a significant share. Competitors have obviously also talked about their ambitions in this space with, I think, similar levels of ambition if you look at their desire. What that does leave you, of course, is with 60%-70% of the market still being fiber when you think about 30%-40% of our base being wireless. I think that they will have a similar ambition. You'd have to ask them directly, I guess, for that. Cheers, guys. Thanks. Our next telephone question is from Brian Han from Morningstar. Please ask your question, Brian. Good morning. Six months ago, Stefan, you guys wavered a little on your dividend for the full year. You've reiterated the NZD 0.25 dividend. Can't see much change in the free cash flow or the balance sheet dynamics. It looks like you're even paying the spectrum renewal from free cash flow. Why the sudden confidence about maintaining the dividend at NZD 0.25? I think the confidence is really driven by the improvement we are seeing in the free cash flow. Free cash flow for the first half is up NZD 63 million. We also have a better understanding of the COVID-19 impact. Part of the reason for the range previously is we were early on in the COVID piece. There was a lot of uncertainty in the economy. That has played through to a greater extent now. We have a much better understanding of the impacts on the economy, what a lockdown does to our business, and the result, we are still seeing the free cash flow has improved. I guess a combination of those three things has given us the confidence to narrow that guidance range. Okay. The network asset review that you touched on was that brought on by some unsolicited external interest, or was capital efficiency improvement always on the cards? Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think you mentioned any of this network review in your three-year plan unveiled last year. Just to touch on that, we did reference in our investor day presentation the consideration of the exploration of infrastructure sharing and other types of opportunities. We did talk about that then. This was more to do with our own internal review and the work that we're doing, rather than any particular offer or discussion with anyone else. Thank you. Thanks. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, it is star one to ask a telephone question. Our next telephone question is from Phil Campbell from UBS. Please ask your question, Phil. Yeah. Good morning, everyone. Just a couple from me. Stef, I was just wondering if you could give us a little bit of an update on Southern Cross NEXT in the wake of COVID, whether that's going to impact or have any impact for the timing of the top-up payments. The second one was just on COVID. Obviously, we've got a NZD 25 million reduction in the impact of COVID from NZD 75 million to NZD 50 million. Is that mainly bad debts, or is there some other stuff within that NZD 25 million that's causing that? Sure. I'm going to start with Southern Cross. COVID has delayed the timeframe of Southern Cross NEXT some. We'd know through the capital calls this year. Gateway 2022 will ultimately depend on the level of pre-sales. We're keeping a close eye on that. I think we previously indicated that we might see some resumption of dividends around Southern Cross in 2022. That will now push out into 2023. All in with the use, COVID has kind of slowed the timeframes on Southern Cross NEXT. Move on to your other question, Phil, around COVID impacts coming down from NZD 75 million to NZD 50 million. The moment has pretty much played out as we thought. We assumed that the majority of it would drop away, and it has. I think the other impacts are bad debt. As you say, we'd anticipate that that might be higher. The government stimulus program has clearly been quite effective there. We also had a high level of uncertainty around just what it would mean for some of our IT services business, and particularly some of the project revenues. That has proved to be more resilient, which is promising. Lastly, the other one that we were unsure at the time was really around some of our handsets, mobile handset devices. Actually, what we've seen, similar to what's happened in the rest of the economy, is consumers seem to have quite a strong desire to, instead of spending their money on perhaps overseas holidays, be spending it on hardware, whiteware, new devices and the like. We have seen that bounce back a little more quickly than we thought. I hope that gives you a flavor for where those differences are. Yeah. No, thanks for that, Stef. Just a quick follow-up on, obviously, you look at some other international markets, they do talk about this kind of 5G bump, and obviously, it's probably been interrupted a little bit by COVID. What's your expectations over the next couple of years? Do you think you can get ARPU growth as a result of 5G and probably further kind of handset revenue increases as well, even though they're low margin? I think it's certainly something that we would aspire to. If you look at our ARPU trends over the last little while, we've actually been quite successful in growing our customer base, our prepaid and pay-monthly. What I would do is I'll perhaps compare and contrast to some international markets where they've been in a period of ARPU decline, and 5G gives them that catalyst to turn that around back into growth. We've come from probably a lower base. We're growing our ARPU. I think 5G gives us that opportunity to continue that trend. Obviously, 5G creates the opportunity to consume more over your device in a much faster way. Therefore, use data and other things, and then it will actually be higher. Jolie, could you just remind me? I think Vodafone is doing a NZD 10 increase from July, I think. I can't remember if Spark is planning on doing that as well for 5G, or can you give us an update on that? Did you say a NZD 10 increase on their pricing? Yeah, I think Vodafone was going to put a NZD 10 increase in last July, and obviously, it got postponed. I don't know if it's still going to happen this July, but I couldn't remember what Spark's stated policy on that was. I think if you look at it as a network rolls out, obviously, until you've got that coverage ubiquitous, you have a top tier to access that currently. As we look ahead, we will definitely be considering how we would think about that from a pricing perspective because of the new utility that you get from 5G. Great, thanks. Thanks. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to hand the call back to the speakers for closing remarks. Please continue. Okay. Thank you, everyone.