News
Mexico-based telco giant swings to profit on lower financing costs.
America Movil this week reported an 11.8% increase in third quarter revenue, driven by accelerating growth in mobile data use.
Revenue in the three months to 30 September came in at 249.71 billion pesos (€12.18 billion), compared to MXN223.44 billion a year earlier.
"The main factor behind the improvement was the renewed dynamism of mobile data revenues, whose year-on-year rate of growth rose from 4.1% in the second quarter to 7.7% in the third," said the Mexico-based telco group, in a statement on Thursday.
The growth in revenue offset rising in expenses, which grew to MXN181.98billion from MXN156.68 billion, resulting in EBITDA growing 1.5% to MXN67.73 billion.
A 36.4% fall in financing costs, attributable to lower forex losses, led America Movil to swing to a third quarter net profit of MXN2.12 billion from a year earlier loss of MXN2.88 billion.
"Throughout the third quarter economic activity showed signs of renewed strength in some of the major Latin American markets, including Mexico and Brazil, and financial flows in the international capital markets remained fairly stable," America Movil noted.
In terms of subscribers, America Movil ended the quarter with 283.92 million mobile customers, down slightly from 282.85 million a year earlier driven mainly by a decline in Brazil.
On the fixed-line side, revenue-generating units increased 3.1% to 82.31 million, thanks to solid growth in Central America, Austria and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and Colombia.
