Telecoms giant America Movil triples quarterly net profit in Q3

7:08 pm Tuesday, October 15th, 2024

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican telecommunications giant America Movil reported on Tuesday that it more than tripled its net profit in the third quarter from a year ago, due in part to a weaker peso boosting its foreign earnings and lower financing costs.

Net profit increased 217% to 6.43 billion Mexican pesos ($326.37 million), the company said in a filing to Mexico’s main stock exchange.

Revenues for the company, controlled by the family of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, came in at 223.46 billion pesos ($11.35 billion) for the period, up nearly 10% year-on-year.

Net profit came in below the estimate from analysts polled by LSEG, who had forecast dollar-denominated net earnings of $1.11 billion from revenues of $11.47 billion for July through September.

The company said its higher earnings were nonetheless helped by the sale of some towers as well as the depreciation of the Mexican peso, boosting the peso-denominated value of earnings made abroad.

By end-September, the Mexican peso had weakened more than 13% against the U.S. dollar compared to a year earlier.

America Movil said the peso had weakened against most currencies in the regions where it operates, “with the notable exception of the Brazilian real.”

America Movil said its core earnings, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), rose around 12% in the quarter to 89.42 billion pesos, an increase of 6% stripping out the impacts of foreign exchange.

The company added 1.8 million subscribers, including 1.4 million post-paid customers, driven mainly by gains in Brazil, the region’s largest economy. In the fixed-line segment, the company added 327,000 broadband accesses.

Operating profit grew 14.2% in the quarter, while financing costs were down 4.8%, the company said.

America Movil entered a joint venture with Ericsson in September to sell network software, together with 11 other telcos.

Also in September, America Movil signed a non-binding deal with Spain’s Telefonica to explore joint participation in the sale of assets of Chilean carrier WOM.

($1 = 19.6921 Mexican pesos at end-September)

(Reporting by Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Sarah Morland and Lincoln Feast.)