Welcome everyone to Far EasTone's 2023 second quarter earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent background noise. After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please follow the instructions given at that time if you would like to ask the question. For your information, a webcast replay will be available within an hour after the conference is finished. Please visit www.fareastone.com.tw under the Investor Relations section. Now I would like to introduce Mr. Gary Lai, the IR officer. Gary, please begin. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you to attend Far EasTone second quarter 2023 result conference call. Our President, Chee, and CFO, Sharon, both joined the call with us today. Just a reminder, before Chee's presentation, please pay attention to the first page disclaimer in our material. Let me pass to Chee, please. Thank you, Gary. Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to report to you about our second quarter performance and also the first half, since it's already closed. As you can see from this slide, all of our KPIs have surpassed our guidance with a strong Y-O-Y, year-over-year growth. For example, our total revenue for the first half has grown 3.2%. For this quarter alone, second quarter, it is a 4.7% growth. Of course, our most impressive part still remains with our net income, and the EPS remains to be in double digits, 19.7% for this quarter. For the first half, it's at 19%. If we exclude this one-time gains that in the first quarter, and we are, we are still looking at 15.9, that's almost 16% of the year, year-over-year growth. In terms of achieving our board of target rate, and then it is either meeting or exceeded, as you can tell. Okay, next slide. All right, just some highlights, and then so give you a look at the trending data. For our revenue, and this, this chart shows beginning of the first quarter of 2022, and then we, we are seeing this total revenue continue to go up for each Y-O-Y for the current period. This total revenue for the second quarter actually has achieved a positive year-over-year growth for 11 consecutive quarters already. Of course, that is driven by consistent 5G customer upgrades that we are able to maintain, and then also the post-pandemic recovery, that we certainly see more traveling, so the roaming revenue and also the prepaid revenue also helped. Okay. In terms of the EBITDA, and our EBITDA per quarter, and then this trend is going up. For this quarter in particular, the second quarter, the EBITDA is NT$ 7.91 billion. It is actually our new high for the same period. For the EBITDA growth, that's at 3.5%, and it is basically attributed to higher growth margin that we were able to gain from our core business and our new economy services. In terms of the net income, our second quarter net income, it is NT$2.77 billion. The EPS is at 0.85, so it is to reach the six-year high for the same period. The Y-O-Y growth rate is 19.7%, as I mentioned earlier, we continue to lead the industry in this category. Some more financial metrics for your reference. The net debt and net debt to EBITDA multiples are improving, as you can tell. We have been paying down our debt. Also the free cash flow continues to be strong. Our CapEx is in line with our 2023 guidance that remains at NT$9 billion. In the mo- mobile core business area, we continue to see the solid growth. It is powered by 5G. Our service revenue for mobile continues to grow. This is starting at first half of 2021. This, this trend is very promising and encouraging, of course, as we have been saying, you know, the mobile service has been saturated, and then it's declining. Since the deployment of 5G in 2021, we start seeing the rebound of it. Of course, we haven't reached before the 499 problem in 2018, but we are certainly on in, on our way getting there. Okay. In terms of the postpay RPU, it is also increasing, has been increasing for Far EasTone, and we are looking at 735 RPU per month, okay, for our postpaid customers. For the postpaid customers numbers per se, it is also increasing, even though this is a very saturated market. We are still very happy to see the continuous growth in this area. Also, in terms of our 5G penetration, it has come to more than 36% already. Now, if you ask me more specifically, if this is for the smartphone users, and this number will be even higher. Okay. Postpaid churn rate continue to go down. I think in a way it is, kind of due to the merger cases ongoing. Of course, ours got already approved a couple weeks ago. I think that is sending some messages to the market that they probably wait and see. But then we welcome this stabilizing, you know, market. You know, the less churn is better for us. Okay. Okay, then for the new economy, we are looking to, especially this year, we are now looking for aggressive growth in terms of the revenue in the new economy area, partly due to we want to de-risk because the, the global economy is still very volatile. On the other hand, we want to, you know, continue to enhance our margin and then continue to deploy more ICT deployments with our new homegrown solutions and to improve the margin. As ICT remains the primary growth driver, we have a security service and also smart ICT, that is the ones that de- deployed with our solutions. They were, they are leading the way, okay? Our main highlights for new economy revenue are shown on the left for the enterprise. The ICT margin has improved like a 14%. Excuse me. Okay. The security service revenue has increased 15%. As I mentioned, we have been focusing on our homegrown solutions and their deployment, the revenue compared to the same year last year, if we exclude one-time EMS revenue, that was a huge revenue booked during the first half last year. If we exclude that, we are still seeing a very significant increase for this homegrown solutions in the smart ICT area. Consumer and new economy are driven, the growth is driven by the e-commerce revenue, 13% Y-O-Y. Our e-commerce is relatively small, we are happy to see the growth, the double-digit growth. That is compared to the market, it is better than the market. For the media service, we also see a 9% Y-O-Y revenue growth as well. We have some highlights to share with you just on the enterprise side, right? As I mentioned, we want to grow our ICT business with the FET homegrown solutions. That is deployed across both private enterprises and also public sectors. Some examples for your information is, for example, we have deployed this intelligent coastal monitoring system for Coast Guard Administration. We also have the intelligent city solar monitoring system for Taipei, Taoyuan, and several cities. This, we have this smart, uninterrupted power system that is using the batteries from the electric motorcycles, like a Gogoro, for example, and we recycle. This is also for the ESG per se. You know, we use the recycled batteries to power up, you know, as a UPS for the busy intersection. In the case of a power, power outage, by the Taipower, and then these, these intersections would not be affected because the traffic for these in, we call them the busy intersection because the traffic is heavy. In, and then also there are lots of people walking on the street or across the street, so it's important we keep them in order, you know, while there's a power outage. And usually for this instrument, it can last at least four hours, you know, until the, the power comes back. Okay. Then we also deployed some managed IT services for some tier one hospital, and then the infrastructure management center for a leading manufacturing company in Taiwan. Okay. On the consumer side, we have this Guardian Network service, which is really preventing the users from visiting unsafe websites. We have, you know, deployed onto our network. This is not through an app that they have to download. It is part of our network service. If the user subscribe to it, this they can enjoy this extra protection our network provides. This is deployed in, like, January, we already have 400,000 subscriptions. You know, it has successfully protected against an average of 47 attacks per user per month. I just look at my own report because I'm one of the subscribers to that service. I, you know, I, apparently I was almost visiting eight unsafe websites and that were blocked. Okay, that, that was good. This is part of our effort to make our network more safe for the users, as now there are more and more internet-related or telecom, through the telecom network, related fraudulent events. We want to do every effort we can to protect our users from being abused. Okay. Also our AI-powered predictive fraud, fraud detection system has effectively blocked more than 90% of these fraudulent SMS, that's the text messages, and also the scam calls. We've been refining the AI models because these guys, they are really smart. They want to outsmart you, so we keep changing our algorithms as they change their patterns. This is ongoing, and this is why you need AI, the machine learning, to learn as you go, okay? For our friDay Video, it is ranked Number 1 for our domestic OTT platform for three consecutive years now by Taiwan Creative Content Agency, so public survey. Also our Mobile Circle, which is our digital reach platform, and also our, you know, members application, that the users of Far EasTone can use this app to do a lot of the telecom-related services. On top of it, we have provided many services, you know, for our users, and this maintains Number 1 as the membership satisfaction score in the industry. Through this loyalty program, we really designed and wanted to make sure everything that we could do to help our customers. Also we want to, of course, improve the loyalty and the engagement and all that. We also see a 72% increase in the daily active users, and they have generated an 800 million scale membership points in the fan economy. Okay. These are the things that we have been doing or, in the digital services for the consumer area. We have won some major honors, and especially in the ESG and in the corporate governance area. This is just for your quick review. The one on the last, that is Allot Cybersecurity Leadership Award. It's a global award. Allot is the Israeli security company, that they each year, they select three winners from their global partners. That is almost 100 of them. For those that are best performing, and then they were able to deploy the service and benefit their users. You know, Far EasTone was one of the three winners this year, and Allot CEO actually flew in in person to grant us this award. Okay, just for that information. Also, everybody probably is curious about how, how, how are we doing with the merger, because we did get the approval from FTC. That was kind of the last hurdle we have to pass, and now we have filed with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. We just follow the procedure and go through the documentation, the filing, and all that. At the same time, we are already working with APT on this merger integration related activities. It goes from the network, the IT, and then also, you know, the back office and, and all that. A lot of the, a lot of activities are going on, but most importantly, our network, teams are already working together. The first thing we needed to do is to swap, you know, our RAN equipment, for the, one of the major synergy that we were talking about for the, for this, merger. There's a lot going on. Then last I checked, my team and the, the, the joint team is ahead of the schedule. It is good, and it, it started off really, really well. We are looking, so this is what we were busy with in the third quarter. Fourth quarter is where we still maintain as a target, and we are confident that we will be able to meet that. We should have our record day or the effective merger, merger effective day in sometime in fourth quarter. When that is determined, and of course, it depends on the progress with the Stock Exchange. Once we learn more, and once this is determined, we will have official announcement made. Okay? All right. Because the merger, the effective date is still TBD, we are disclosing our third quarter consolidated financial forecast only at this point. In fourth quarter, we will have another IR meeting, and at that time, then we will disclose the fourth quarter ones, and then very, very likely, then we probably will be already merged by then. We'll, we'll see. Here, this is only for the third quarter. The guidance for the revenue will be at NT$ 23.07 billion, and compared to the same third quarter last year, it is a 4.1% year-over-year growth. For the EBITDA, we are looking at NT$ 7.93 billion. That is also a 3% Y-O-Y growth from 2022. Our net income is NT$ 2.66. It's roughly almost 10, a little bit shy of a 10% Y-O-Y growth. The same case with the EPS. For this year to third quarter, for three quarters together, we are looking at NT$67 billion for the total revenue. It's a 3.5% Y-O-Y growth. If we go down, it's about 2.51 EPS wise, and that is like a 15.8% compared to the same three quarters in 2022. That is our forecast for the third quarter this year. Just to recap our second-half priorities, as I mentioned, we already kicked off the merger activity. We will accelerate the network consolidation efforts. We want it to go smoothly. We can prepare for the merger and the effective date, which is targeted for fourth quarter. We'll continue to grow our 5G adoption, penetration, and also for the digital services, we'll continue to enhance them. Also, we want to improve the consumer engagement, so we can prepare for serving broader customer base once the merger is completed. We will also continue to grow our green and smart ICT business, especially those with the homegrown solutions. Also, we have secured this a Microsoft LSP license fee. This is one area we will also focus on, and this will provide us in the enterprise area. It's a, you know, Microsoft has a very good suite of products, and also with the, with the Azure service and also with the generative AI, they are looking to deploy these Copilot programs. They have gained a lot of attention and interest from our enterprise customers. I'm, I'm very confident this program, although we only just started this, like, in April, but then I'm seeing a steady growth in this area. This is one area I think we should see a very steady cushion we'll be able to build on, on top of our ICT projects for the enterprise, and then which will continue to be our growth driver. Okay? With that, I will conclude my summary for you all, and then we will now welcome your questions. Thank you, President Chee. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our question and answer session. If you have a question for any of today's speakers, please press star one on your telephone keypad, and you will enter the queue. After you are announced, please ask your question. If you find that your question has been answered before it is your turn to speak, please press star two to cancel the question. Now, please press star key and number one to ask the question. Thank you. Our first question will be coming from Sarah Wang of UBS. Go ahead, please. Hi, thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. I have two questions. First is regarding the guidance for third quarter. May I ask what's the key assumption here? Why the net profit growth is relatively slower than first half. My second question is on the potential merger synergy with APT. I recall, at the beginning of last year, the guidance is, the EPS should be accretive from year one. It's been almost two years since then. How shall we think about the previous target? Will there be any significant change? Thank you. Okay, hi, Sarah. Let me answer your second question first. Although, so we are not yet complete the merger, right? The effective date. All I can say, yes, if you look at what we announced to the, in the investors back in February last year, right? February last year. What we said there and then, you know, from what we can see, I think, we, we, we are still maintaining, and that will be the case. That's all I can say at this point. I think I am advised, right, at this point, since we are not, we already filed it with the Stock Exchange, so we really cannot, you know, give out any specific numbers. I, I could tell you that the expectation we have back then and then are still our expectations. Okay? For the, for what you said about the net income, like, the 10% seems to be slower. Well, I, I think, you just, we just cannot take all those double digits, like almost 20%, like, for granted. It is still very good. And also we, we do have some non-operating income, you know, that was realized in the first half of the, of the year. Then we, we don't. We even, especially those are like a, you know, fluctuating, right? I cannot count down that in my budget. You can look at this, maybe this is more conservative, but this is without considering the fluctuating operational gain, and which did help me in the first half with some of the sound net income. Okay? Did I help? Yes, very clear. Thank you. All right. You're welcome. If you would like to ask the question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We are now in question and answer session. If you would like to ask the question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now in question and answer session. If you would like to ask the question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. As a reminder, please press star one on your keypad if you would like to ask the question. Thank you. Maybe I made it, too clear, so you guys making it very easy for me. Yes, of course. Thank you. Please take the chance to ask management more questions. You can always follow up with Gary and Amy, so they will be happy to answer any questions. If there's a need to schedule, schedule a separate meeting and if the schedule allows, then of course, we'll also make an effort to do that. As always, FET, thank you for your support. It appears that there is no questions at the moment. I'll pass the call back to Mr. Gary Lai. Gary, please proceed. Thank you. Thank you everybody to attend our second quarter result conference call. See you next quarter. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for your participation in Far EasTone's conference. There will be a webcast replay within an hour. Please visit www.fareastone.com.tw under the Investor Relations section. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.