EchoStar Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
March 1, 2024

There are 13 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the EchoStar Corporation 4th Quarter and Year End 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer.

Operator

Thank you, Mr. Manson. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and welcome everyone to EchoStar's 4th quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. We will begin with opening remarks from Hamid Akhavan, President and CEO followed by Paul Orban, EVP and Principal Financial Officer then Gary Shanman, EVP and Group President of Video Services John Swaringa, President of Technology and COO and Paul Gaskey, COO of Hughes. Also present with us is Tom Cullen, EVP, Corporate Development. As usual, we request that any participant producing a report not identify other participants or their firms in such reports. We also do not allow audio recording, which we ask that you respect.

Speaker 1

All statements we make during this call, other than statements of historical fact, constitute forward looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause our actual results to be materially different from historical results and from any future results expressed or implied by the forward looking statements. For a list of those factors and risks, please refer to our annual report on Form 10 ks the year ended December 31, 2023, filed on February 29 and our subsequent filings made with the SEC. All cautionary statements we make during the call should be understood as being applicable to any forward looking statements we make wherever they appear. You should carefully consider the risks described in our reports and should not place any undue reliance on any forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

We assume no responsibility for updating any forward looking statements. We refer to OIBDA during this call. The comparable GAAP measure and a reconciliation thereto is presented in our earnings release. With that, I'll turn it over to Hamid.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Dean. Good morning, everyone. This is my first earnings call as the CEO of the new EchoStar. You may notice that we are using a format that we have been at EchoStar, which is different from the traditional dish format. I find it more to my style of providing helpful scripted information upfront, attempts to answer some of the questions you may have.

Speaker 2

The merger was an important milestone in both companies' shared history. It brings us closer to our goal of providing ubiquitous connectivity to people, enterprises and things everywhere. It will enable business opportunities that we intend to realize in cost and revenue synergies as we continue to position EchoStar in the market with its superior portfolio brands, technology and services. This merger combined Dish Network satellite technology, streaming services, engineering expertise, retail wireless business and nationwide 5 gs network with EchoStar's premier satellite communication solutions, enterprise go to market capabilities and U. S.

Speaker 2

Based manufacturing. Collectively, it creates a new kind of athlete in global telecom and for EchoStar to be a leader in terrestrial and non terrestrial wireless connectivity and entertainment services exceeding any other company. When we merged EchoStar and DISH, both companies were at a crossroads as each was transitioning from building capabilities to commercializing them. At DISH, we built the world's 1st standalone 5 gs Open RAN cloud native wireless network. At EchoStar, we launched the largest ever commercial broadband satellite.

Speaker 2

Over the past 90 days, we have sharpened our focus on taking our newly combined capabilities to market and leveraging synergies across our diverse portfolio of products. Work is well underway to improve our capital structure, reset our retail wireless business and grow customer traffic on our network, taking full advantage of our unique combination of assets. For now, I would like to first comment on our efforts to improve our capital structure. Let me begin by stating that we have a value generating business with a strong potential for growth. We have an asset rich balance sheet with significant capacity to support additional debt.

Speaker 2

That said, in the short term, we need to provide additional liquidity to fund the growth of our business and address near term debt maturities. To this end, we have enacted an operating plan for 2024 with the goal to achieving positive operating free cash flow defined as free cash flow minus debt service payments. This includes a reduction in our annual total operating expenses by $1,000,000,000 between synergies and other cost measures. As part of our work towards an improved capital structure, including a longer maturity runway and opportunity to deleverage our balance sheet, the strategic asset transactions we conducted in January enhance our flexibility to implement various balance sheet initiatives, including opportunities to raise new financing. Following those transactions, we launched 2 exchange offers designed to address our near term debt obligations and to reduce our overall debt.

Speaker 2

The exchange offers we launched were not accepted by our existing investors. While discussions with some stakeholders are ongoing, we are prepared to continue good faith discussions with all of our stakeholders and arrive at solutions that are in the best interest of the company and all involved parties. With this as background, let us now address the going concern qualification noted in our 10 ks, which I'll have Paul Orban cover in addition to several key financial metrics and one time items. Paul?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Hamid. As Hamid mentioned, I'll start with addressing the going concern qualifications. Please read the financial statements contained in our 10 ks to see the precise disclosure. This evaluation is a technical accounting determination that, importantly, does not consider the potential mitigating effect of a range of operating and financing plans we're currently pursuing. To provide more color, the accounting rules require us to consider our current cash position and project our cash position 1 year from our filing and do not allow us to consider any new funding sources unless that financing is committed at the point of our filing.

Speaker 3

We are in active discussions with numerous parties to secure committed financing to meet our future obligations and have received significant inbound interest from reputable counterparties looking to provide such financing in various forms and at various positions in our capital structure, all of which we are carefully evaluating. If sufficient financing is committed, the going concern qualification will be alleviated. As of the end of the year, we had $2,400,000,000 in cash and marketable securities. We intend to pay our March 15 debt maturity with cash on hand. Financing will be required to pay off our November 24, dollars 2,000,000,000 debt maturity.

Speaker 3

We believe we have significant new financing capacity using the unencumbered assets that include our Spectrum holdings as well as through the newly formed unrestricted sub holding approximately 3,000,000 DISH TV subscribers. As we evaluate all of our options, we are focused on operational flexibility and long term financial stability. With the ramp down of network CapEx coupled with the reductions that Hamid discussed, we're expecting operating free cash flow to finance free cash flow excluding debt service payments to be positive in 2024. As Sameet mentioned, this is our first call since finalizing the merger. It is also the first time we are reporting as a consolidated company.

Speaker 3

With that, our financial statements are presented for all periods as if we have always been consolidated. You will see the legacy EchoStar business recorded under broadband satellite services segment and the legacy Dish Network business presented in the pay TV, retail wireless and 5 gs deployment segments. Now let's review our financial performance. First, we recorded 2 significant one time non cash items in the Q4 of 2023. The first non cash item is the impairment of goodwill in the amount of $758,000,000 in total.

Speaker 3

The accounting rules require a company to test goodwill at least annually, which we did in the Q4. In our assessment, as a result of our market cap being suppressed for a prolonged period of time, we impaired goodwill in varying amounts across all of our segments. The non cash impairment charge is recorded in impairment of long lived assets and goodwill on our income statement and as a reduction to operating income and OIBDA. The second non cash impairment was a $1,600,000,000 reduction to the fair value of our 800 megahertz purchase option. Due to the relatively short time period remaining prior to the options expiration, coupled with not having a definitive financing agreement in place, we have reduced the value of the purchase option to 0, resulting in a non cash charge of $1,600,000,000 to other income.

Speaker 3

Other income does not affect operating income or OIBDA, but that does impact total net income. Next, consolidated revenue for 2023 was $17,000,000,000 that's down roughly 9% year over year due primarily to subscriber declines mainly in pay TV. Removing the non cash goodwill impairment, operating expenses before depreciation were $14,900,000,000 that's roughly 2% lower year over year. Operating expenses improved as we have fewer subscribers, primarily in pay TV. The improvements were offset by continued increases in programming costs and pay TV as well as higher operating costs for our standalone 5 gs Open RAN network as we brought more sites into service.

Speaker 3

OIBDA was $2,100,000,000 excluding the impact of the non cash goodwill impairment that's down $1,300,000,000 year over year fueled by the ramp up in operating expenses for the network as well as reductions in subscribers both mentioned previously. CapEx was roughly flat year over year as construction activity for the network was similar in 2023 versus 2022. However, the CapEx spend for the wireless build out decreased in the 4th quarter and should continue to decrease in 2024. You can expect CapEx for network deployment in 2024 to be less than half of what we recorded in 2023. Free cash flow was a negative $1,800,000,000 for 2023, down 1,400,000,000 dollars from 2022, similar to OIBDA.

Speaker 3

The decrease is driven by expanded network OpEx and a reduction in subscribers. For 2023, operating free cash flow was a negative $390,000,000 With that, I'll turn it to Gary to discuss our pay TV unit.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Paul. On the pay TV side, we finished the year with approximately 8,500,000 customers. In regards to DISH TV, our TVS satellite TV service, we finished the year with approximately 6,500,000 subscribers, a loss of approximately 945 from 2022. Year over year, ARPU grew 3.3%, primarily from price increases across both DISH and Sling. And on a full year per subscriber basis, Pay TV drove an OIBDA increase of 3% over 2022.

Speaker 4

Our 2023 subscriber numbers for DISH TV were negatively impacted by a series of local broadcaster group disputes and also due to our Q1 cyber incident. We will always look to protect our largely rural customer base against unreasonable rate increases. Unfortunately, we've resolved most of these programmer disputes and look forward to a less disruptive year in 2024. In 2023, we saw opportunities to increase the yield subscriber base, while also seeking both investment and team efficiencies. 1st, we consolidated the addition Sling Organizations into 1 video services team, driving significant efficiencies across product, marketing, sales and operations.

Speaker 4

We also increased the focus on customer experience, better address customer pain points and improve their products. In addition, we shifted investment to profitable growth areas across the business, specifically in enterprise video, media sales, marketing analytics and loyalty efforts. We'll continue these initiatives into 2024 as well as integrating with and cross selling our Hughes and Boost products. On the Sling TV side, we finished the year with approximately 2,100,000 subscribers, down approximately 280,000 from 2022. It is important to note that Sling is and has been a profitable business, which is rare among streaming services.

Speaker 4

Our Q4 results were impacted by increasingly competitive streaming market. Programmers continue to spend less on their core linear TV product, which we pay for and continue to shift investment into their own direct to consumer services, even though these efforts have been largely unprofitable. In particular, the Warner Bros. Discovery decision to make TNT and TBS Sports available for free through Max and the increasing simulcasting and sports programming on ESPN plus for Disney and Peacock from NBCU has added more confusion to an already fragmented market. Regardless, we continue to invest in experiences to delight our customers and increase engagement, including a new loyalty program that gives our subscribers a chance to win valuable prizes the more they use our service.

Speaker 4

Recent improvements to our experience drove monthly viewership for sub, up over 15% year over year. And we're also really pleased with the growth of Sling Free Stream, our free ad supported service, which recently launched the industry's first free DVR. In 2024, we'll continue to innovate on the platform to ensure we're delivering the content, features and experience our paid and free customers want. I like to now turn it back to Hamid, who will cover retail wireless.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Gary. With the departure of Mike Kelly, I will take the helm of our retail wireless business while we search for Mike's successor. This will consist of overseeing the strategy and operations as well as repositioning the business to take advantage of our owner economics with the arrival of our network. In regard to recent wireless, we have put the majority of the building blocks in place to become the nation's 4th facilities based wireless carrier, but we have not yet optimized our marketing and acquisition tactics, particularly with postpaid customers. We finished the year with approximately 7,400,000 subscribers, approximately 8% from 2022, which was partly due to our focus on higher value subscribers with better devices as evidenced by lower subscriber churn in 2023.

Speaker 2

We also took steps to optimize our sales channels and programs, which in some cases reduced unprofitable

Speaker 1

offerings and underperforming dealers. We do see positive

Speaker 2

trends to build upon, Boost Protect device insurance offerings and higher autopay penetration resulting in lower churn. The availability of mobile devices compatible with our network has until now been limited. We have made great strides in this area over the past 6 months, adding the iPhone 15 lineup, the all new Samsung Galaxy S24 devices and the Motorola Razr, all of which we expect will help our economics going forward. In January, Boost got off to a fast start, launching 7 new devices compatible with our network. As we shift our device mix to 5 gs network compatible handsets, we are seeing higher unit cost, which we expect will be more than offset from the savings arising from the use of our own network.

Speaker 2

In addition, we will focus our efforts to profitably expand our current target customer segments through competitive offers, flexible service options and outstanding customer experiences that exceed the current industry levels. It is our goal to ramp up significant positive momentum by the end of 2024 as we shore up our branding, marketing and operations for the business unit. Let me now hand the call over to John to cover network deployment.

Speaker 5

Thank you, Hamid. We met our June 2023 coverage milestone by offering broadband service to over 70% of the U. S. Population as confirmed by the FCC covering more than 240,000,000 Americans with connectivity through the latest technology. Today, our network provides 5 gs broadband coverage to over 73% of the U.

Speaker 5

S. Population and 5 gs voice coverage to more than 200,000,000 Americans with a competitive device portfolio and domestic and international roaming partners. This milestone not only marks an expansion of the world's first 5 gs Open RAN network, but also affirms our steadfast commitment to advancing America's technology leadership in wireless. We continue to expand, optimize, meet milestones and advance the Boost wireless network build out in alignment with our network development plan. During our last call, we indicated that we'd launch over 20,000 on air sites by the end of the year and we exceeded that mark.

Speaker 5

Boost Wireless Network as recently noted by Signals Research Group offers a very good user experience and fast speeds. We have firm plans in place to continue to move Boost customers with compatible devices to our network to take advantage of owners' economics. I'd like to turn it over to Paul Gaskey, who will cover broadband and satellite services.

Speaker 6

In line with our strategy, we expect a gradual shift in mix of the revenues from consumer to enterprise and we anticipate that in 2024, our enterprise revenues will surpass consumer revenues for the first time. Our consumer business under the HughesNet brand ended the year with approximately 1,000,000 satellite broadband subscribers, down approximately 224,000 from 2022, due primarily to our capacity limitations, competitive pressure and more selective customer screening as we focused on more profitable subscribers evidenced by our historically high ARPU. Jupiter 3 commenced operations in late 2023. This satellite provides significant additional capacity allowing us to be more competitive and responsive to customer demands for greater speed and higher data allowances. Early feedback from customers is quite positive and will help us reverse the subscriber loss trend of 2023.

Speaker 6

Our Hughes Enterprise business consists of many diverse systems and service components. We finished 2023 with a multi year backlog of approximately $2,000,000,000 and our order bookings in the Q4 of 2023 came in strong at 694,000,000 dollars Of note in the Q4, we announced the receipt of a major contract from Delta Airlines to provide in flight communications to over 400 Boeing 717 and regional jets. This way to optimize high performance aeronautical solution utilizes advanced artificial intelligence to power the Hughes in flight management system that includes a multi orbit antenna and Hughes Jupiter Ka band satellite capacity. This order marks a change in strategy for Hughes as we begin to directly serve airlines around the globe. Turning to our OneWeb business, we began initial shipments in December of a huge manufactured user terminal based on our unique flat panel electronically steered antenna technology.

Speaker 6

Manufactured in our U. S. Based facility. In parallel, we continued to deliver gateways to OneWeb for their global network. As for our Managed Services business, which focuses on providing highly reliable and secure communication services to enterprises, it was named by Gartner as a leader in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant.

Speaker 6

This recognizes us as one of the few companies that has the ability to deliver best in class enterprise services on a global scale. With that, I'll turn it back over to Hamid.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Paul. As noted, we have work to do to strengthen our capital structure, achieve sustainable and profitable customer growth and develop an integrated new athlete in global telecom. We will utilize the experience and resources from within our established business units to realize the growth opportunity of our newer businesses. As a newcomer in wireless industry, naturally we have significant challenges ahead, But we also see opportunities which the incumbents are unable to capture due to their legacy obligations, whether it be protecting their higher prices for existing base or being tied to inflexible operation systems. We will focus on identifying and leveraging these advantages wherever possible in each of our market segments.

Speaker 2

We will also find new ways to bundle our diverse products across the new EchoStar family to provide innovative solutions and services customers want. Are only about 60 days into the merger, but as mentioned, we have already put significant improvement initiatives in motion to increase our momentum across all business units of the new EchoStar. With that, we'll open it to Q and A.

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Ric Prentiss with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 7

Thanks. Good morning, afternoon everyone. Appreciate the prepared remarks. Let me start with the unencumbered assets, obviously, structural changes. Can you talk a little bit about the spectrum securitization market?

Speaker 7

Is it open? What kind of prices are you seeing out there? And just maybe even a broader question, what kind of timeline should we be thinking of as far as addressing kind of the financial plans that you're pursuing in advance of the November maturity?

Speaker 8

Rick, thank you.

Speaker 2

Good to hear you. As I mentioned, first, I want to make sure that we plan on meeting our immediate obligations in March. And then we have the window obviously till November to address the next maturity. Here, we obviously have access to multiple ways to do that. One of the ways is the one you were referring to, which is unencumbered, the spectrum assets.

Speaker 2

That's a market that generally understood by the investors. I think there's always interest in that market because the commodities in that market are well known. We're not going to comment on the specifics of how we're going to do that. But with Spectrum assets, it's one way to get there. As Paul also mentioned, we do have other assets such as the subscribers we mentioned from our Pay TV business.

Speaker 2

Look, we're going to take our time and make a transaction that is in the best interest of all parties, the company and all the stakeholders involved. And we have a significant amount of time to do that. I do not find myself and the company under the gun to make a transaction in a rapid fire. As I said, the window is long enough for us to make a sound decision that is a long term oriented solution for the company and we're not going to compromise by making a quick decision there.

Speaker 7

Okay. You mentioned the $1,000,000,000 total expense savings. Can you help unpack that a little bit about which silo is it in? What kind of line items is it in to give us a rough shot of how that $1,000,000,000 will be achieved?

Speaker 2

I'll pass that to Paul.

Speaker 3

Yes. Good question. It's across the board in all segments. All business units are contributing. Obviously, pay TV is going to be taking the lion's share of it, but it's across the board in retail wireless, the 5 gs deployment and even Hughes is contributing to that.

Speaker 3

It's going to be both in G and A as well as cost of services and in COGS. However, we are using some of that to reinvest back in the business, so you won't see 100% of that come through as we're making other sound investment choices.

Speaker 2

Yes. And then there's also on the retail wireless, accelerating our transition of customers to our net will significantly improve our economics. I mean, I think we're having great experiences there. And as John mentioned, that's on the way and we are that significantly helps going forward as part of the

Speaker 8

$1,000,000,000 and beyond.

Speaker 7

One more quick one for me if I could. Can you quantify roughly the impact that the Hearst had on the quarter as far as subs either churn or subscriber losses?

Speaker 4

We're not breaking that out. But obviously, what I talked about sorry, this is Gary. What I talked about earlier is there was some drag overall in our overall subscriber numbers in Q4. And like I mentioned, we resolved most of those issues with the number of partners we had and we're looking forward to a less disruptive 2024.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks a lot. Took a

Speaker 8

long time last night getting through all

Speaker 7

the details, but appreciate all the stuff you put out there. Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Walter Piecyk with LightShed. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 8

Thanks. I guess first just is this Charlie's absence on the call imply any kind of change in how active he is and dealing with what's going on at the company? And then I guess specifically in wireless, if you're having to cut cost to hit your version of operating cash flow or free cash flow, How does that impact your ability to get people to have interest and purchase the phone and the value proposition that you're offering in the market right now? It seems like that's something that requires more investment, not less.

Speaker 2

Two different questions. I'll try to take both one after another. Well, first of all, I want to mention that today is Charlie's birthday, so we give him a day off. And I want to wish Charlie the happiest and healthiest year ahead. But coming to more specific answer to that question, as I have taken over the day to day operation of the business, I've been in the seat now for slightly longer than 90 days running the business.

Speaker 2

That has freed up Charlie, that's given Charlie the ability to focus on more strategic and longer term developments. Hopefully, I here and with a confident team that we have around this table can answer all the questions for you. So I'm delighted that Charlie has felt comfortable enough to let me run the business and so we can focus on a bigger picture opportunities in the future. Coming to the retail wireless businesses specifically, look, I don't think this is going to be and for us at least, it's not going to be head to head matching dollar for dollar positioning in marketplace is naturally we don't have the resources that the other 3 have, which command more than 93% of the marketplace. And so we need to go to market differently and much more efficiently.

Speaker 2

And that's one of the things that I highlighted in my prepared remarks that we are optimizing that today and throughout the year, we're going to be better and better step by step. As one of the examples is that we are more focused on local advertising and local go to market rather than national TV. We think that's a higher yield for us. I think we're focusing on developing our digital channel, which will be better experience and also doesn't put us in a big channel conflict with stores. And so there's a number of ways that we are thinking creatively, plus the fact that we have a network that right now underutilized.

Speaker 2

When I walk around, I'm getting 700 megabits, 800 megabits per second connections on a typical Android or iPhone device. There are some differentiating features we have that I think we need to maximize in terms of positioning rather than just go dollar for dollar spending acquisition cost in a traditional way. So it's an exotic art. It's a different way to do it, but we are very excited about developing that throughout 2024.

Speaker 8

Thanks. And can you just also if you have a sense of when you might get hit the final milestone or the 75%, the 2025 milestone in the spectrum fully securing that spectrum that probably has an impact in your ability to use that as an asset that you can borrow again. Just any timeline on heading that because I think you said I think Swaringa said you were 72, 73, so you're only a couple of 100 basis points left. How much longer to get there?

Speaker 2

Yes. We have made substantial progress towards meeting our goals for 2025, the milestones of 2025. Depending on our success and our fundraising, which I mentioned earlier, we could meet those milestones. So but having said that, it is my personal opinion that, that doesn't really translate into a competitive offering for the American consumers, which has been the intent of the FCC. I just that milestone certainly is within reach once we and if we manage to get our fundraising.

Speaker 2

But I don't think it's going to change the picture in the nation in a significant way.

Speaker 5

And Walt, it's John. Just to clarify, we have overall U. S. Population attainment with our network, but components of the 2025 build out commitments are a little different because that's measured at the PEA level. So there are more rural sites and things that go into that.

Speaker 8

Got it. But just to go back to the last answer, I think you said if you get the financing then you put the dollars in to get you to the like is it a chicken or egg thing in terms of you want to get the money and then spend the CapEx and then get the approval or get the hit the milestone and then use that as kind of a springboard to get the financing? Like what's coming first there? I think you were saying that the financing has to come first.

Speaker 2

I wouldn't go as far as putting that in a sequential order. I think these are activities that run-in parallel. There's quite a bit of upfront non very expensive work that has to be done for instance to secure the zoning and permitting and preparation. And so it's not a linear spend. It's very exotic in terms of just scheduling of by geography, by location, zoning environment.

Speaker 2

So I can't give you a very specific answer other than saying these are activities that we run-in parallel and we manage this on a very careful day to day basis.

Speaker 8

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Brian Kraft with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 9

Hi, good morning. I wanted to ask a few if I could. First, the large sequential step up in satellite services EBITDA in the Q4 to $155,000,000 just was wondering what drove that big improvement in margin and where that should go directionally from here? Is that like a good run rate? Does it continue to improve?

Speaker 9

Or was there something anomalous that drove it so high in the quarter? The second one was, you mentioned moving traffic on net from Boost. I was just wondering if you could help us to think about the timeline for doing that. It sounds like you expect progress this year. And then the last one I had was, Hamid, you talked a bit about Boost Infinite not getting a lot of traction in the market yet.

Speaker 9

Just curious what you think really has hindered the progress? I know you tried a national ad campaign in late September, early October. You launched on Amazon. So is it the network? Is capital behind it, is it the branding and are you seeing any real proof points yet on some of the things that you plan to do to gain momentum that you just mentioned

Speaker 1

in response to Walt's question? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Okay. Paul, perhaps you can comment on the EBITDA.

Speaker 6

Sure. Certainly. Could you just clarify your question just a little bit more?

Speaker 9

Sure. I think the satellite services EBITDA in the 4th quarter came in at about $155,000,000 And in the previous few quarters, it had actually been decelerating. So that was a pretty large sequential step up. And I was just trying to understand what drove that big improvement and how to think about that a go forward basis? Like is that a good run rate?

Speaker 9

Should it continue to build? Or was there something in the Q4 that made it unusually high that's not going to repeat?

Speaker 6

Certainly. Yes. So typically our 4th quarters tend to have higher enterprise results. And so we had strong enterprise in the 4th quarter. I can't tell you that exact

Speaker 7

4th quarter is stronger.

Speaker 9

Okay, got it. Thank you.

Speaker 8

Tom, maybe you want to please comment on the unmet?

Speaker 5

Sure. I'll take the second piece and thanks for the question. While we don't publicly share numbers, utilization of the network continues to grow every day. As mentioned earlier, we're now covering more than 200,000,000 Americans with 5 gs voice on our way to 240,000,000 plus. And as an update over last quarter, roughly 2 thirds of the devices that we're now sourcing are compatible with our network.

Speaker 5

And so we're loading customers with compatible devices in really 3 separate paths, which are new customer activations, upgrades. We're actually now doing over the air migrations, which are generally seamless to the customer. As you know, we've been actively working to seed MNO compatible devices with customers for months now. And while there was additional cost in doing so, it's investment that will pay off we benefit from owner economics and reduce MVNO expenses in 2024. And the plan that we talked about last quarter is largely on track with the different legs of the stool there, coverage devices leading to lower MVNO expenses over the year, but we're not going to break that out right now.

Speaker 5

There's just a lot of work to do and we're focused on it every day.

Speaker 2

And I will take the third part of your question which had to do with Boost Infinite. So first, I want to say that as I walked into the business, I was incredibly impressed by what was achieved on the network side. And I can't be more look, I launched the first 2 gs in the U. S. At PCS Primeco and I've launched the first 3 gs in Europe with Deutsche Telekom as a CTO of Deutsche Telekom T Mobile Europe.

Speaker 2

I created the forum for the LTE in Europe in the first time. And so I've been part of the 2 gs launch, 3 gs launch, 4 gs launch and now 5 gs, and this has been the best I've seen. I have never been so impressed by starting point B and, so exciting. But having said that, the company had been focused purely or primarily on build as a project company, not as a P and L company related to the mobile wireless. So as a result of that, I mean, there had a meeting of focus on developing the go to market, the product positioning, the experience, the digital experience of the customers on an onboarding.

Speaker 2

So when I looked at that, I realized that it doesn't make sense for us to spend a heck of a lot of money advertising and pulling customers that we are not going to be delighting not because of the phenomenal network, but also just the experience of giving them that start, that fresh first impression. So kind of dialed it back, want to regear. I would not attribute and this is a very strong statement, I would not attribute in any way slower start of our postpaid business to lack of customer interest. I mean, we have metrics here that says, we have phenomenal number of customers, 100 times more than the customers we activated interested in coming in. We just didn't have us and our partners, our strategic partners, didn't have the right system set up.

Speaker 2

The systems were not optimally planned and connected and debugged for a perfect experience between us and our strategic partners. And so it made sense for us to kind of re gear that and come back and that's what we're working on. And obviously, we'll gradually you will see the improvements in the market. I'm very excited about our chance. It's but again, I just want to emphasize that, I see us being a force in the market with all the things that I've mentioned in my remarks, but our entry was not I would just say internally not optimized and we'll fix that this year.

Speaker 9

Thanks all of you. Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jonathan Chaplin with New Street Research. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 10

Thanks guys. A couple, I

Speaker 2

guess the first one is

Speaker 10

probably for Hamidah and Paul. I was wondering if you could give us a sense of how the discussions with bondholders progress from here and as equity holders who aren't involved in that process, what are we going to see from the outside? Is the next step you coming out with an improved exchange offer or does it sort of all happen behind the scenes? And does it make sense for you to raise new debt before you've figured out the exchanges on existing debt? So that was the first question.

Speaker 10

And then I'm like almost 100% sure that this is correct, but really to clear up any confusion that might have been caused by Walt's question. I think it's the case that the test that you need to meet in 2025 is on a license by license basis. And I think it's the case with the 73% of the country that you've built out so far, you're already protecting the value of the vast majority of your Spectrum portfolio. And so you don't need to complete the build in order to raise money against that spectrum. I think most of that spectrum is already locked up.

Speaker 10

Most of that value is locked up and it's just the piece that you need to complete actually has much lower value licenses in it. So just a clarification there. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thank you. I'll take the first part. I mentioned in my remarks that we are in active discussions with numerous parties right now to secure financing to meet these obligations, including the obligations you mentioned. We have significant inbound interest right now and from very reputable parties and counterparties.

Speaker 2

And we are able to engage with anyone and all the stakeholders in good faith to find better solutions that and good solutions that are in the best interest of the company and all of the parties involved. So I can't tell you any specifics of how we are going to reach one of these and what may end up being, what looks like is going to be the solution selected. But as I said, we have many avenues and we'll

Speaker 8

we have many avenues and we'll

Speaker 2

select the avenues, as I said, that we find it to be in the best interest of all parties. More to come on that, but I don't want to put myself and the company under the gun. We have the runway to make a proper decision and evaluate and make a measured decision that is long term oriented. It is not in our best interest and we are not focused on trying to find a solution that just kicks the can down the road in one step at a time. I think this is a business full of potential.

Speaker 2

We see having the runway to execute with the assets that we have, with the unique combination of things we could do coming as a company that doesn't have the legacy obligations, we could be disruptive, we will be disruptive. And so that's our mindset, that's our goal, that's how we want to execute. So we're not going to make a rash decision. Paul, if you want to add anything, please go ahead and add. Yes.

Speaker 2

I agree with you. We have a long runway at

Speaker 3

this point in time, so there's no reason for us to rush into anything. We want to look at a holistic perspective. And like I said in my comments, we're looking for operational flexibility and long term financial stability. We just don't want to do one thing here. We got many things at our disposal levels that we can pull and we want to make a hopefully put together a solution that's house all of our financial needs for the long term.

Speaker 8

And, John, can you comment on the coverage?

Speaker 5

Yes, of course. And just to further clarify, the 25 commitments are on a license by license basis. That's correct. Obviously, there's public information that you can read to get a better handle on the specifics there. But it is also true that the existing deployment does cover significant portion of our 2025 commitments.

Speaker 5

As I've mentioned on earlier calls, it's a more surgical build because we have to achieve a license by license milestones. So we're working through getting those sites planned, working through site acquisition. I think Hamid mentioned earlier, we're working things in parallel to make sure that we do what we need to do there.

Speaker 8

So John, if I can just follow-up on that. I think my point is a

Speaker 10

little bit different. It's just the licenses that you've already covered at 75% with your existing build, I think are a lot more valuable than the licenses that you haven't covered yet.

Speaker 8

And so when you look at

Speaker 10

the value of the portfolio that you've already protected with the build, I think it's sort of 80% or 90% of the value of the portfolio, even though it's much lower percentage of the license that you've already covered at 75%?

Speaker 5

I think you're onto the right track there. The sites that would be in front of us are lower POPs per site, more rural. So I think you got it.

Speaker 10

Got it. Thanks guys. I really appreciate it.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 11

Thanks. Hameed, thanks for all the commentary on the network and retail wireless as you've come in with fresh eyes. What should we expect from this business this year? I mean, are there things we're going to see through the course of 2024 either net adds or improving service gross margins or just in the reported results that the market can see that this network that you say is excellent and ready to go can translate into a business? Because obviously, even if you raise capital to deal with the November maturities, there's more maturities down the line and we sort of know the trend line in video.

Speaker 11

So this is really about building something real

Speaker 2

with Boost. So maybe you

Speaker 11

can just set expectations for us or maybe the answer is given the cost cutting and free cash flow, this is not a year we should expect to see the business inflect in any way. Would love to hear your thoughts on that. And then I just had a follow-up.

Speaker 2

So let me answer your question in reverse. As Paul and I both mentioned, we're now looking to solve these maturity problems in a way that it will permanently be a drag on a business. We try to find solutions that are permitting us to develop the business in a significant and reach its full potential in a holistic way. I mean, so that's the goal. I mean, the opportunity is so unique here to be the 1st in the world to build the O RAN.

Speaker 2

There's incredible amount of interest by all parties, enterprises, government, defense community, everybody is interested in making the great this a great success plus the fact that we have all this satellite assets that can tie to it, direct to device, bunch of other things. So I want to say that we look at that and say, we cannot let shortage of capital or limitations prevent us from making this business reach its full potential, which the reason I want to be here and I'm excited about it. Now let me bring you to the first part of your question, which was what are you going to do in 2020? Look, I see 2024 like any other new brand new mobile business that I have seen or launched and I had many of those is a transition year where you gear the business for success. Now any number that shows up upfront because it is small number here, small number it could skew your model in a very strange way.

Speaker 2

It's not the year to build a model on and it's not the year that we want to put a very static number. This is not a business on a steady state. We're going to go to market. We're going to throw something out there. We're going to be disruptive here and there to see what works.

Speaker 2

Sometimes put something in the market is not great and you kind of reiterate, it becomes great. I'm really excited about like the one thing that I want to emphasize here and I stand behind, the network is awesome. It is awesome. I just can't speak to how great it is, plus the fact that you got the national roaming on the top of 2 other networks. I mean, I just can't imagine anybody not seeing that as a differentiator.

Speaker 2

It has never happened in the history of mobile, never. Nobody has had this. Nobody has had national roaming. This is the first time. And we like to use that and I think that's that removes all sorts of limitations from my perspective in terms of our go to market.

Speaker 2

But it's not the year that I can give you a static forecast. So please give me a year to figure out what which end is up and how we are going to maximize our market performance. But you're going to see installments. I'm not also reducing expectation to the point that you're not going to see us at all this year. It's just not the year to build a model on.

Speaker 2

Give me a year, I'll help you build a model next year.

Speaker 11

Okay. And then I just was curious, there's a mention in the K, I think there's a third test sort of that still needs to be finalized for the 2023 spectrum sort of FCC milestones that I think you have to I think it says you have to finish that DRiV test this month. So I want to make sure that that's something we should be thinking about as a risk. And then I was lastly just going to ask a bit of a random one, Hamid. One of the partners that we've all focused over the years has been Amazon.

Speaker 11

As again, with your fresh eyes sort of surveying the relationship that DISH has, anything you would call out there that you think is interesting or underappreciated or is that another one we shouldn't be thinking about much in 2024?

Speaker 5

This is John. As it relates to the DRiV testing, we're on track with that and we're getting ready to submit. I wouldn't put any extra risk factors on that beyond what we've already disclosed.

Speaker 2

So commenting on Amazon, we see Amazon I see personally Amazon as a very strategic partner and I think they see us the same way. I don't want to speak on their behalf, but that's what we sense. We are excited about our work together. I think they've given us incredible amount of attention and help and we're working with them and in glove and we're very excited about it. I mean, we're jointly committed to making sure that offerings that we have on Amazon meet the Amazon's experience, which I like to have.

Speaker 2

Look, I like to have the Amazon experience, not the mobile com online or any other experience. I mean, that's one of the goals we have and we're not going to compromise on that. And that's again, another one of those things that

Speaker 11

I said, we want to

Speaker 2

make sure we get it right, but we have all the support we need from Amazon. So delighted with the relationship there. Very good. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Tom Luedtke with Citadel. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 1

Thank you for taking the call. 2 years ago at the same call for the year end 2021, Charlie talked about your abilities to be very mathematical. And the network is built primarily for the enterprise and government solutions. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about where we have success there and what you see in the near future from that since we seem to be focused on the call here with consumer wireless?

Speaker 2

So let me this is not sure 100% whether I will hit the mark on answering your question because it's a bit of a broad question. But we see a great potential in our enterprise and part of that enterprise is the governments. Look at the Hughes and now the broadband portion of our segment of our business at EchoStar now, We do have a relationship with and business with the Department of Defense and government in multiple entities there. We see incredible opportunities there. In fact, tying that opportunity to the 5 gs, which we have demonstrated in a couple of places.

Speaker 2

We demonstrated that in a spades in Whidbey Island and we got a second base as a result of that and that's become a showcase. We also won award from the government, Orchid project of $50,000,000 We see that there's significant amount of interest in the DoD government enterprise related to that. But I want to say that these things, as you're well aware, in the enterprise business, you work for quite a while before you get a monstrous contract. Paul Gasky mentioned in our in his remarks that Delta Airlines, we had a massive booking that was in the works for 1.5 years. It takes before you get something like that.

Speaker 2

But in the enterprise, when you get it, it significantly overshadows anything you can do in a consumer. So we're going to be focused on both. I want to make sure that people knows. In the shorter term, while we're working in parallel to develop our enterprise business, government business, make 5 gs and O RAN the differentiator in data space, which it is, we're going to feed ourselves using the consumer. So we're going to do both.

Speaker 2

And the future will tell us how what the mix will be, but we are excited about the enterprise opportunities.

Speaker 8

Operator, I think we'll take one more question before wrapping up.

Operator

Thank you. Our final question will come from the line of Michael Rollins with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 12

Thanks. Just wanted to follow-up, Hamid, on some of the comments that you're making about the focus for the mobile business on creating a competitive offering. Are there mobile spectrum bands that EchoStar holds that you now view are no longer necessary to that competitive commercial strategy and could be monetized as part of this long term funding plan? And the second thing, just back to your earlier comments around the build requirements. Do the comments infer that you may want to ask for a delay from the FCC, so you could achieve some of the competitive and commercial objectives that you were sharing with us previously?

Speaker 12

Thanks.

Speaker 2

So regarding the spectrum band, spectrum bands are all Every spectrum band has a use that is specific to a certain need you may have at certain times. So I cannot give you a specific answer, what a spectrum we're going to need at one point. But they all will come useful at some stage in your life of a business. And ultimately, when you are, I don't know, 50 years into the business, you're going to need every spectrum band in every geography. But on the way there, you have plenty of flexibility to adjust your spectrum in a way that best is monetized for you at that stage in your life.

Speaker 2

So I don't find myself in a position we don't find ourselves in a position that we are tied to a very specific recipe of or ownership of the spectrums that make us we can be successful in many, many ways using the spectrum we have. And we have plenty of spectrum, far more than I need at this moment. So we are good. Now as it comes to our interactions with the FCC, I generally don't like to comment on any activities regarding the FCC. We take all of our obligations very seriously and intend to meet every one of our obligations.

Speaker 2

But I refrain from making any comments detailed comments regarding FCC for obvious reasons.

Speaker 12

And just one last one. And just given that in terms of what you just described on the commitments, can you just give us an update of just assuming that you have the funding, how many more sites and how much more in terms of dollars is needed do you believe to satisfy all the requirements and just put this whole question behind you?

Speaker 2

Yes. We don't disclose that, but we will add ample capital to

Speaker 3

hit the requirements if we're able to raise money.

Speaker 2

And as you know, you could build the sites in many different ways. You build sites for capacity, you set for coverage, there's always to do that. So it's really not it's more of an art than a science. So our engineers would have to look at that. And for that reason, it doesn't really make sense to put a number out there.

Speaker 2

But as Paul said, we have enough resources. We would have enough resources to meet that obligation. I want to thank everyone for participation. I think we had a different format. We took some time upfront.

Speaker 2

But hopefully that time was useful to answer some of these questions. So the Q and A did not have to be as long. With that, thank you very much and hopefully we see you on the next earnings call.

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Earnings Conference Call
EchoStar Q4 2023
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