Chief Executive Officer, NOS, S.G.P.S.
Miguel Almeida | 2015
Tipologia do Evento:
Jantares-Debate
Tema:
Comunicações, Inovação, Mercados Globais, Regulação, TI's
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About Miguel Almeida
In a 2020 interview, Miguel Almeida stated that remote communications are moving the world toward greater connection, describing this as a positive trend that accelerates innovation and progress. He highlighted that during the pandemic lockdown, NOS provided a "perfect response" to the surge in traffic and change in usage profile. Almeida argued that 5G is a critical pillar for the digital economy and that Portugal should be discussing how businesses can use 5G to become more competitive and create new business models. He also noted that privacy is a form of power that should not be given up for convenience, and that the boundaries and restrictions around it must be carefully considered. In earlier appearances, Almeida said that NOS has an ambition to grow and be a market leader, but that being the absolute leader is not mandatory for the company's health and development. He expressed the view that no single variable can create a sustainable competitive advantage for a company or country in Portugal. He also stated that Portugal's telecommunications sector is among the most developed, dynamic, and innovative in the world, but warned that this condition is at risk without realistic action from all stakeholders involved in shaping the sector's future.
Transcript (28 segments)
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Moderator0:00
Hello, welcome to another dinner debate promoted by PDC. I start by thanking Miguel Almeida, our special guest for this dinner, for his presence, and also naturally thank our sponsors for this dinner, without which this type of dinner is not possible, ACM and Away. I also want to congratulate the executive team of PDC for the organization of the dinner, which as you know has its own logistics. Portugal has one of the most advanced telecommunications networks in the world, as we know. The sector has a set of applications, developing some of the most advanced in the world. The sector took good advantage of Portugal's accession to the European Union, liberalization, etc., and everything happened in the last 30 years. It was fast, we saw everything happen, and great companies were born from scratch, which is extremely difficult, as we know, it implies pioneering and a risk appetite that the Portuguese really have, and the people in our sector in particular have. NOS resulted in 2014 from the merger of Zon Optimus and Zon resulted from the coal of TV Cabo. TV Cabo was born from scratch, as you can see in the PDC book. These and other episodes will be reported in the book that you will soon have the opportunity to see on the occasion of the closing of our cycle of 30 years of PDC. But as I was saying, TV Cabo was born from scratch, Optimus was born from scratch, how to be a mobile operator in 1998, and by the way, the largest shareholder of Optimus, Sony, also was born from scratch in 1950, which recruited in 1965 a promising young executive named Belmiro de Azevedo. Everything in this merger was born from scratch, and by the way, it was born in one of the most difficult places it could have been born, in Portugal, because we have a small population, hence a small critical mass, and critical mass for telecommunications operators is very important in a country where people do not have very high economic power, and therefore with small arcs, and all this despite everything was possible even with low digital literacy of our active population. But it was possible, it was possible therefore with the inclined plane completely against us. I don't say against us, against us, it is difficult to do things in Portugal because of this critical mass deficit that we always have. But despite that, great companies were born in Portugal. Well, and today it is one of those companies that we will discuss again in this dinner debate, resulting from a merger that is always a great challenge and that from the outside was done quickly and efficiently. The main challenge of this challenge was Miguel Almeida, whom I ask then to come to the stage in the format that he also used in last year's dinner debate, that is, directly doing the interview with our journalists. I also thank the presence here today of Pedro Santos Guerreiro and Alexandra Machado. Everything in our sector, I think we should all be very proud to work in our sector, to be very proud to have been born in Portugal. Thank you very much.
Good evening everyone, thank you very much to PDC for the invitation to the business dinners and me in particular for being here to moderate Miguel Almeida, especially in the presence of the mother of Pedro Santos Guerreiro, with whom I have worked for many years, and I think we can still make some good pairs. Let's see. Miguel Almeida, everyone knows the professor, but it was exactly two years ago today that he was appointed in a general meeting where Isabel dos Santos was present to preside over the then Zon Optimus. Important, making NOS on this day. Do you still remember, Miguel Almeida, you guaranteed that a new company was born and a new project, more than the sum of the parts, and you wanted to create a company with a different ambition, different characteristics. I apologize to him, the objective was to grow and consolidate the competitive position in the Portuguese market and also outside the Portuguese market. You also left the message that the objective was for the company to create value, but in a sustained way. It is time to take stock, especially when the world has changed and this market in particular has changed a lot. NOS has already admitted, going down to Expresso, has already admitted that it could be the new PT. That was two years ago, Miguel. You became president of NOS a year ago. At this same dinner, on October 16, I think, you said that there was a huge lack of respect for PT, which had had extraordinary staff, excellent employees, to the point that you even went there to get some. Meanwhile, we will talk about all that tonight, but first we wanted to start with the topic of the moment. Miguel Almeida, 5G or TT, Big Data, Cloud, what will be on Sunday?
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Miguel Almeida6:54
We will talk again, but before answering the question, which I will answer with certainty, allow me to start by greeting all those present, in particular the board of PDC, whom I thank for the invitation. Naturally, I will not answer that. I sincerely hope that the elections result in conditions for economic growth for Portugal and for communications, issues that should enter the agenda of the next government, whatever it may be. Particularly in communications, I don't know how long it will take for the next government, I have no difficulty in answering in the short term or not, I wouldn't want to cause a big tennis. Typically, I don't know all communications. Obviously, this government will not have important decisions regarding the life of companies and telecommunications. Companies are companies, and to that extent it may have some impact, but specifically in the sector, I think there are no great reasons for specific interventions.
M
Moderator7:58
Let's then delve into the sector. Do you know what 'andando' means? It's also 'andando', I think that's how you say it, right? 'Abraço' in Kimbundu is the name of my... not only to open Angola, if you want to say something else besides 'abraço', it means something else, which was the end of the partnership between Sonae and the Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos.
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Miguel Almeida8:26
Who can say that this end, the end of the partnership, can be in NOS? NOS has many shareholders, fortunately. The truth is that it has a shareholder that has a controlling position that brings together these two entities. And I cannot speak about the future, I can speak about the past and the present. I have told you several times, in fact, this theme is recurrent. We are very satisfied with the shareholders we have, and in particular with the board of directors we have, because it is stability, the support that the board has given to the executive team, which has allowed the fantastic results we have had, which we will certainly have the opportunity to discuss later. Therefore, I do not see how that can change, and I do not see how a particular business, many businesses, many partnerships, I do not see how a particular business not having gone in the direction that at a certain point the parties thought would be useful, I do not see how that has any effect on NOS, at least any culture among the main shareholders. I don't feel anything. I also have to go into detail to say that we have board meetings, I don't have direct contact with the shareholders, I have direct contact with my board of directors, where both are represented, where both are represented. This can be said with regard to the account of an extraction, it is the same technique, but yes, there are people who are somehow linked to the two entities and who have told me that we have felt good, something that fills us with pride and satisfaction for the company's results, on the other hand all the support from the first hour, from the minute we set the path for us at the time, in our reason, we designed where we wanted to go with quantified objectives, and we had the support of the board at that time, we had the support of the board throughout the execution of that plan, which now has two years. We are delivering, but we feel the greatest support from the board, and therefore, as the two entities are presented, we assume as the European part, we can assume social support, it is not an issue for me, it is completely ours.
M
Moderator10:58
How are we going to talk? We were talking about the merger two years ago. What will we do? What did the market gain from the merger? Let's start the balance by NOS itself. I think the balance is extremely positive.
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Miguel Almeida11:10
And in all fronts. To make a balance, you have to take into account the starting point, what were the expectations regarding the merger at the first moment, and in a second moment when we presented the plan in February 2014, what were the objectives we set out to achieve. From that perspective, I think there is no doubt that the success is huge in relation to the shareholders' expectation, who thought at that moment that this merger would generate value. The numbers speak for themselves. Today, if we compare the value of the company today with the value the company had after the merger on October 1, the company has appreciated 60%, while the PSI-20 fell 15% in the same period. To value a company 60% in a market context where listed companies lost 15%, from the perspective of the shareholders' expectation with this operation, I think there is no doubt. Then in relation to the objectives we had, we have a project, an ambitious project of growth, we want to reinforce the competitive position in the Portuguese market, but more than that, we identified these objectives. If we look two years later at what is happening, we not only reinforced our competitive position, we grew market share, we are in some things anticipating the goals by at least 12 years, which is obviously a huge success. Since the merger, we have grown percentage points of market share in a highly competitive and completely mature market. We had defined as an objective to gain five points in five years, so we are on the right track, clearly. If we look at the market shares of the second quarter of this year measured in revenue, which is what counts because it's about service, we are talking about 28% market share, roughly. Before two years, at the end of this quarter we have to see the numbers, but we have gained three points of share in two years in a plan that aimed to gain five points in five years, it is a clear success. But if we look at all the operational indicators, we grew volumes in these two years, depending on how we measure, between seven and nine percentage points of share in mobile. We stopped a historic decline of many years of decline in the pay-TV customer base. For a year now, we have been growing the pay-TV customer base, something that has never happened since the spin-off of Zon. Since that time, the market share for obvious and natural reasons with the starting point we had, and for the first time we are widening the distance to the second player in this market. We are at an important inflection point in pay-TV. In business services, we grew more than 10% in the last year. It has been visible that a set of very respectable and large companies in this country have given us their trust, and the market continues. When in the past, the revenue of the commerce sector fell 4.13% to 42% in this year, we grew revenue in that area as well, reversing a trend of many years. We are growing revenue in the last quarter, we have done 3.2% growth. We are growing operating result.
What about consumers? I want that question. You ask about consumers. I think these numbers clearly demonstrate that this operation will bring value to the market. With this combination of assets, we said at the time that we would have the ability to offer Portuguese consumers, whether individuals or companies, a set of services that met the needs and expectations of consumers. Apparently we were right, the numbers speak for themselves and they have been satisfied. And more than that, speaking already in terms of everything to talk about the last two years and the trends, the penis continues to be quite positive. More than that, this operation allowed, for example, with regard to next-generation fixed networks, we brought fiber to more than one million Portuguese with a large investment in expanding our fiber network. We made a significant investment in the mobile network, allowing more Portuguese to have choices in 2G, 3G, 4G, which I think consumers also gained a lot from this operation. As we always say, by the way, why are you going to ask that question? From that, revenues grew 3.2% in the last year, and when services in the case of NOS will be 10%, it means something very simple: consumers are paying much less than they paid before, and if you look at two years, still very, very much. So clearly they gained.
M
Moderator16:27
The question I was going to ask was how is it that Portugal has used high prices and especially a bit that was not... I was going to return to the share in television, because the business even of that and now eye to eye that the president of Vodafone Portugal is there said that the victory, well, a great feat that Vodafone had managed to be in television was a Pyrrhic victory. Continue to be? What message do you send to your competitors about the role of NOS and what will NOS achieve in the television segment?
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Miguel Almeida17:04
Okay, I have to start here by talking about my competitors, and therefore in the case of Vodafone, I have to start with a said climate. First of all, I have to say, and it's not to post, Aliomar and several people from Vodafone, I mean, Vodafone is a great company, it is a company that has been for NOS and certainly for me in these years, a huge challenge, a good challenge. It is a company that has a history, a worldwide presence with success, and in Portugal it also has a set of assets, essentially it has a team of employees in Portugal. I don't know the rest of the world so well, but in Portugal I know well a management team of the highest quality and competence, excellently led by my table companion Mário Vaz. Therefore, it is important to make this point because the last thing I want to do is to be disrespectful to my competitors. And what I said, I sincerely believe that even if they weren't here, I would say the same thing. Now, that comment taken out of context, but you are terrible, I followed it from a question that had a false premise, and I will repeat it now. The false premise was that Vodafone is gaining market share. And what I said was that personally that is not true, and I respect the enormous competence of the Vodafone team, but the monkeys are floor are option at each moment, and companies have the assets they have at each moment. Vodafone was caught, as a result of changes in the Portuguese market and the consumer, it was caught in this whirlwind, nothing to do with that, but the fact is, looking at the numbers, they don't lie. Numbers have this characteristic. Vodafone in the last two years, the period we are evaluating, has lost market share and we have gained market share. It was in that sense, and then the question is about pay-TV, they are gaining, and I answered a Pyrrhic victory. That's why it's true that Vodafone is doing an excellent job in acquiring customers and growing its market share in pay-TV, but from a starting point obviously without knowledge, it's easier to start from a lower point, it still has a large distance to the two operators with the largest share. They are doing an excellent job, they are growing in that segment, in that service, but they cannot cut. They are gaining from a single operator in Portugal at this moment in these two years, and that operator is called NOS.
M
Moderator20:04
And the competitors ask, we are lacking competition, the sale of Cabovisão and Oni, what impact can it have on the market? I don't know, I could discuss if I knew, if I knew who the buyer was, I didn't believe in the French part that was a real computer, that's it, they don't like to stop believing, because I don't know so much, because not knowing the company, we don't know the plans that the company has in Portugal, I think that will greatly influence the behavior of Cabovisão and Oni in the coming times, and with that measure, I don't know if that's good for you and for the other competitors that are known in the market. I don't know if it's good, I don't know if it's good or if someone comes who has expectations similar to ours, which was a competitive dynamic market with the perspective of value generation for all, starting with consumers and ending with the operators themselves, will be very welcome, but I don't know, I don't know who it is, and that's not lacking.
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Miguel Almeida20:58
Office, naturally I know that, it is the sole shareholder owner of one of our main competitors, naturally about that I have more curiosity and it is easier, it is more difficult to run with high that was with old PT, I have no idea. Portugal Telecom is like who I respect, behind was in the past, has been a company also at that time a competitor for me, with few in the competence it has shown to defend its position as a bet on investment in innovation that typically the product in Convents in countries that don't have that is the past of PT that I know. The future I know, I think very little time has passed since the effective change of the eventual change of the lines of orientation of PT, I think there is still not enough data to evaluate, and I don't have a crystal ball about what the new management and new direction of PT has plans for.
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Moderator21:18
Portugal Telecom is like who I respect, behind was in the past, has been a company also at that time a competitor for me, with few in the competence it has shown to defend its position as a bet on investment in innovation that typically the product in Convents in countries that don't have that is the past of PT that I know. The future I know, I think very little time has passed since the effective change of the eventual change of the lines of orientation of PT, I think there is still not enough data to evaluate, and I don't have a crystal ball about what the new management and new direction of PT has plans for. Netflix will enter Portugal, how will you face this giant, giant in quotes, will it make it difficult for customers to have internet access at home?
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Miguel Almeida22:31
I think that first of all, a great fascination of the months in Portugal for Netflix, we already understand why, every day the rest are, I don't know, we'll see. We'll see about consumers and media. Certainly we already know, every day it writes that rarely someone has the ride that Netflix has had in creating free advertising. In fact, we have already taken advantage, we are suspicious, we are taking advantage, we launched a product that gives a way, has similar characteristics, and this wave that the media have sympathetically created about our first one is very welcome. It is another service that adds value to the high-quality connectivity that we provide to our customers. I don't believe it is a competitor to a telecommunications operator. I think many others or T3 use that expression, I am jealous of a business that rides on top of our networks, and that is a truth. We can also leave this topic, but it does not affect the business of a telecommunications operator, certainly, and in my expectation, my conviction, it does not even affect the business of a pay-TV operator at all, to the extent that it has enormous success with consumers, at least remotely similar to what it has with journalists, and I think that this even stimulates consumption, stimulates more people to adhere to quality offers regarding broadband connection and even to lose the consumption of a product with content that we have in other channels and other forms of consumption that attract more customers in the market, and that would be excellent. But the point is, don't estimate that the television connections didn't hear, I'm not with the test, I don't believe.
M
Moderator24:18
And the role of regulation? If we want the new relation, I will go, are the attitudes that comment here deserves, that had a recent comment, it seems this week from the Anaconda conference, it seems to me something completely incomprehensible, unsustainable. There is a quantity, here the sector knows very well what I am talking about, there are huge amounts of regulation on everything, plus a pair of boots on the telecommunications alarm clock, but only in Portugal, not in Europe. It's not a value judgment on Portugal, it's like that. And zero legislation regarding OTTs, only tests that the only and exclusively provide services that are the same services delivered in other forms, they are the same services that operators provide, which in turn are regulated, so in my perspective, unfair competition.
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Miguel Almeida24:40
And it is not something that we believe that the regulator has already admitted to lighten the population for network operators because per day of the objective, clear, that is the direction, it cannot be otherwise, but that is not what has happened. Lack of regulation in the Portuguese market lately? Lack of little regulation. Well, I think that could eventually be the obsession that I don't share that the operator has been or for the known recorder little active in recent months, I don't share that. But let's imagine that was true, all that regulation tutorial is still there, nothing disappeared, nothing appeared, it's just Google. Telecommunications, we discussed the other day also all the rules and laws regarding individual data protection, it is an absolutely inscribed thing in Portugal that then conflicts with other laws to make it unmanageable and makes it completely impossible. We go back to the same example.
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Moderator26:21
And several applications on that phone that know exactly where Alexandra is, they process that information, then process that information and add, store, and add information they already have about what you did yesterday, where you were yesterday, what you consulted, what you bought, it's all there. We cannot have the location of our customers, but I'll just go there, that doesn't seem very reasonable. I'll just support seeing the financial situation that the company has there that we all know for the speech to write you today.
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Miguel Almeida26:44
And I patience, sometimes I have doubt, it's just explanation. I have not spoken about SportTV, I was not mandated by SportTV. OK, 50% of SportTV is in a great financial situation. SportTV is not just marking who thinks who thinks it was the opposite. OK, that is a restriction for the growth of SportTV to the extent that the investment process in important television rights is determinant for the growth of the operator. And I don't, in the same way, if I had here some shareholder of mine in his condition or representing, if I had someone from Sonae paying in the discussion we were having a little while ago in a retail conference or something else and started giving opinions about us, I wouldn't be happy. I think it's not like that. And it's not up to me, who has no executive role in SportTV, if we are shareholders and I am CEO of a company that is a shareholder of SportTV, but I don't feel comfortable sharing points of view about SportTV since I don't.
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Moderator27:28
I am not at SportTV. SportTV is an important content that all operators have, all under conditions, still all have, therefore under equal conditions. But the point is that SportTV cannot, if it is not able to buy important rights, it lost Formula 1 from 2016, I think, after that.
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Miguel Almeida27:40
That one who didn't want to talk about SportTV 1, and it's not a cake of longing in our bag. We are in the season from the football point of view, we are in the 2015/2016 season. SportTV has the Champions League gold for another three years, SportTV renewed the Spanish league for another three years, and could continue. Therefore, the SportTV contents, I think, have the cost-benefit adapted to the Portuguese market, they are all here. If at some point there is any player that has, in our perspective, an irrational behavior, there will always be the difficult path that without content, it's a bit difficult, there isn't even airtime to transmit all that there is. It seems a pay in that example of the south of the mind, forgetting all the examples of larger apartments, it is late to infer a conclusion that seems not to fit the current moment. SportTV, we can refer to the conclusion that referred to Benfica TV when talking about irrational behavior.
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Moderator28:37
I was answering, it wasn't SportTV, the point was Formula 1.
And we come back here a little, changing the subject a bit. As a manager, do you like to pay low salaries?
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Miguel Almeida30:00
From the start, as a manager, I myself receive a salary, well, to start, I can't tell you what the philosophy is and the way we see the theme in the homes. It is necessary to take a step back and share the way we see the theme of employees. We have this perspective, I don't know if it's right or wrong, but it's our perspective, that employees, in our case, are one of the main assets that the company has. The company has a very important asset called customers, it has a very important asset called networks and technological platforms, and clearly at the same level for us, we are our problems. And being so, we seek to walk in this direction: develop people so that they feel that as employees of NOS they develop professionally, guarantee that they have the career opportunity that meets their expectations and ambitions, invest heavily in their training and development, and remunerate according to what we believe is the value presented by each one and their individual contribution to the success of the company. Therefore, we do not have that perspective. In fact, just look at a very recent example. In March, April of this year, in addition to the reinforcement of the bonus that was already part of our policy, NOS paid an extraordinary bonus to all its employees, all of them, as compensation or as recognition of the enormous effort made by all NOS employees in the merger process and the enormous success that this process itself had, essentially the launch of this new path and the conciliation in this path. And this extraordinary bonus was not, from a formal point of view, but it was approved by the board. This demonstrates the way we see the relationship of the company, in this case our company, with our employees. They are a critical asset of the company and must be treated as such.
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Moderator32:21
Are you satisfied with the football sponsorships? We have the league. NOS, are we completely honest? Yes, we are making a definitive balance, it's early, we are in the middle of the season, a little more than a season, while NOS's answers to the league.
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Miguel Almeida32:32
The first evaluations are quite positive. We believe it is a good investment. We all know the role that football plays in the lives of Portuguese people in general, and for us it is important to be associated with an event that is close to people, that says a lot, that generates the emotions it generates, and we think that is important for the brand. And any plan to reinforce investment and sponsorships? We have options, we will change. We have a strong presence in football, we have a strong presence as is known in music. We are very satisfied with the return we have had from music, in particular the big events we organize. We think it has a great return for the brand directly in visibility and also in the perception that people have of the brand. Your question if we have in the short term any plan for a significant sponsorship, the answer is no. I don't really like to go live in Lisbon.
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Moderator33:39
G1? And nothing, I really like big... the tool also that I am privileged and live in an absolutely fantastic place, and maybe that helps, but I have difficulties even to understand the question, because I don't see, I am Portuguese, I am living in Portugal. Maybe the question is if I had some problem in a foreign country with a very different culture, even so, to know even different. Now Lisbon, the last time I thought it was Portugal, and I like to work next to the Alvalade stadium, it's a bit shorter there, and yes.
It's just, just for size, not to create misunderstandings, because in my personal perspective and I don't want to offend anyone, aesthetically the stadium doesn't include.
In search of the last question, which is as important as the first for the definition of the sector. And Olaf tag? Oh, you don't want to ask difficult questions about competitors and the sector. This is very difficult. I think the jury is still out to make the grand final. It's very politically correct. If we do this for Lisbon, pencil, let's talk about football. I have, you know, it's a topic that the orders that take football about the both we can, we can do this gentleman and this lady if they lose their time with that discussion. It's hard to say right away, and after what happened on Tuesday, right? And if it were Monday. And we don't ask many questions because time is up. We don't ask many questions, we managed a little more than an hour, even so, maybe 15, which in itself is demonstrative of your power of synthesis in the answers, and we who are realists, we are used to measuring that response capacity, which is not very common. Short, short, short, we don't know who will be there, but we know that it doesn't even order the next one to see because it doesn't know if it will last long, and also if we see that Miguel Almeida considers that the tension that exists in other businesses between its largest shareholders is completely not an issue, and it's so much that he really knew what he wanted to say, that 'tanto' is the name of the future distribution network in Angola between the same two patients exactly two years ago today. Miguel Almeida, Lisbon went up these functions present because of the strength of the merger of the then NOS, and the balance is already possible to be done now. We are halfway through the objectives that were then defined or the deadline that was defined for those objectives, and the answers were what we heard: for shareholders, a 60% appreciation when the PSI-20 fell 15; in the market, a great decote of 3 percentage points; revenues are growing; and for the consumer, the merger also brought gains. Work in the future, the answer was the investments in the network and what they will allow, the investments will allow services used. And the competitors: Vodafone was highly praised, even it was, that's why they place an enormous challenge, it is doing an excellent job but not increasing market share, in fact, if it did, but no one is. Only the new owners of Cabovisão and Oni, I don't know new names of PT, I know but I don't know what they were. The time press, but besides having a press, it's a good service that hung itself for free on the networks with a certain relationship, which is incomprehensible. The expression 'trip' was not mega unfair competition, it needs more revelation, maybe even needs less. It caught me provoking with the question about whether you like to pay low salaries, and you explained that no, and that from low salaries you spoke of the notion of fair salaries, but then you added and gave as an example the bonus that was paid to all workers in return for the work done in the merger. You like Lisbon? I like Porto, I like FC Porto, and by the president also likes André André. Thank you, thank you.