America Movil reported a 42.1% decline in net profit in the first quarter of 2015, largely as a result of forex issues, while revenue growth was hit by regulatory measures in Mexico.
Meanwhile, the Mexican regulator this week awarded a dozen new licences for the provision of telecoms and TV services, but America Movil was reportedly not among the licence winners, meaning it will have to wait longer to launch TV services in its home market.
America Movil’s bottom line for the three months to the end of March came in at 8.23 billion pesos (€493 million), compared with MXN14.22 billion in the year-ago quarter, hit by foreign exchange losses, particularly the depreciation of the Brazilian real compared with the U.S. dollar.
Consolidated revenues rose by 3.1% in peso terms to MXN220 billion (€13 billion), while service revenues grew by just 0.6% to MXN193.76 billion, and EBITDA declined by 3.1% to MXN68.25 billion.
The operator said service revenues were impacted by the regulatory situation in Mexico, including the elimination of termination charges, national roaming and long-distance charges on its fixed and mobile networks. In its home market, America Movil’s revenues fell by 1.9%, while mobile service revenues slid by 8.4%.
Mexican regulator Ifetel, or IFT, is keen to level the playing field and address America Movil’s market dominance, hence its decision to impose asymmetric regulation last year.
For its part, America Movil is working to get the regulator onside, in no small part because it hopes to be granted permission to launch TV services.
On Thursday Ifetel said it has granted 12 new universal licences that enable the holders to offer both telecoms and TV services.
The regulator did not share the identities of the licence winners, but according to Reuters, America Movil was not among them.
The newswire also quoted unnamed officials at Ife tel as saying that many of the concessions awarded had been in the works since the time of the previous regulator, Cofetel.
America Movil added 611,000 mobile customers in its home market in Q1 to reach 72.1 million, although it still has 1.3 million fewer mobile customers than it did a year ago. Fixed-line accesses fell by 757,000 to 21.6 million.
At group level the operator ended the reporting period with 289.65 million mobile customers and 78.34 million revenue-generating units (RGUs) on the fixed-line side.
Mexico remains its largest mobile market but Brazil is now very close behind, with subscribers growing by 4.6% year-on-year to 71.9 million. Fixed RGUs in Brazil stood at 36.3 million.
