Daniel Hajj
Analyst · JPMorgan. Marcelo, your line is now open
Thank you, Daniela. Thank you everyone for being in the call. Carlos is going to make a summary of the third quarter results.
Carlos García Moreno: Thank you, Daniel. Good morning, everyone. During the third quarter, it's our pleasure to share we're prevalent in several industries at a global level. Capping inflation data continue to surpass estimates in the U.S. and other countries. The market consensus appears to shift in favor of the fair monetized authority moving more rapidly than anticipated with the expansion of the monetized base and 50 base of interest rates to begin to rise. This context 10-year interest yield from U.S. government is a mild correction just prior to the end of the quarter helping strengthen the dollar versus most currencies, including the new and several Latin American ones, closing the quarter high because all of them. Regarding the operations in the third quarter, we added 4.2 million wireless subscribers of which 2.2 million were postpaid clients. Ending September were 302 million subscribers, 7% more than a year before. Roughly half the new postpaid clients came from Brazil with Colombia contributing 313,000 subs and Peru 252,000. Chile and Austria, which contributed -- subscribers -- postpaid subscribers. Mexico led the way in prepaid with 577,000 net adds followed by Brazil with 307,000 and Argentina 270,000. Colombia, Ecuador, the Central American block and our European operations each obtained around 200,000 new prepaid clients. On the fixed line platform, we got pay-TV net disconnections in Brazil, but more than offset the net gains we had in other countries. At the end of the quarter, Brazil's pay-TV [indiscernible] were down 5% from a year before whereas Colombia's were up 6% and in the rest of our subsidiaries, they were up 3%. For América Móvil, there was a 2% reduction overall [indiscernible]. For broadband accesses, Argentina was up almost 50% year-on-year followed by Peru and Colombia with approximately 10% each. In the aggregate, América Móvil's broadband accesses increased 3% over year ago. Our revenue totaled MXN253 billion in the quarter, that's a 2.6% decline in peso terms on account of the appreciation of the Mexican peso versus other currencies in our region relative to the year --. At constant exchange rates, service revenue increased 4.5% year-on-year slightly [indiscernible] cost and expansion leading to a 7.5% increase in EBITDA totaled MXN87 billion. Peru, Eastern Europe, The Dominican Republic, and Mexico were the countries with revenue growth was fastest from 16.6% in Peru to 6.4% in Mexico. Central America, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Austria all delivered growth in the 4% to 5% range. Mobile service revenue expanded 5.9% with fixed mobile devices and 5G services playing an increasingly important role in some countries, while fixed line service revenues increased 1.6%. In both cases, the mobile and the fixed -- were their best showing in several quarters if we correct for the low second quarter term base that affected the yearly comparison in mobile. In the third quarter, both prepaid and postpaid mobile revenues increase around 6%. The comps that you see in chart prepaid has to do with distortion in the annual comparison I mentioned before as prepaid keep its lowest point in the second quarter of 2020. Mexico and Brazil both increased their mobile service revenue 9%, Peru posting 15.8%. In the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, and Dominican saw revenue increases of 14.5% and 7.7%, respectively. Our European operations for their part recorded nearly 11% growth with value equation of Macedonia and Serbia all registering better than 10% revenue increases. At nearly 7%, Austria's revenue growth was [indiscernible] by 5G services and fixed mobile device. On the fixed line platform, broadband and corporate revenue expanded 5.6% and 4.6% respectively and pay-TV revenue fell 5.2% with clients in Brazil continue to revise down the cost of their pay-TV plans, reflecting a greater share of content coming from streaming services as opposed to the traditional multichannel offerings. On the fixed line platform, revenue growth was not working in Peru, close to 20%, Colombia 9.8%, and Eastern Europe 9.2%, with Bulgaria posting 15% [ph] growth and Belarus and Serbia expanding their revenue more than 20%. Not included in the charts of Argentina even with high inflation, it's fixed service revenues have risen almost 9% in real term after inflation. Our EBITDA margin jumped to 34.6% from 33.2% the prior year and this was our highest EBITDA margin in nine years. Mexico, Central America, Dominican Republic, Peru, they were all behind this margin expansion having the first three of them registered 3 percentage point improvement beginning with Mexico, and Peru's two and a half. We obtained an operating profit of MXN47 billion in the third quarter. It rose 4.7% in peso terms and 10.4% at constant exchange rates in relation to the prior year as depreciation and amortization charges declined 2.5% in peso terms. Our comprehensive financing cost amounted to MXN35 billion, which was 12% more a year before, mostly driven by an MXN11 billion foreign exchange loss which resulted from the application of the dollar in the quarter that we mentioned at the beginning. Our net interest expense was down 12%. At MXN15 billion -- MXN15.8 [ph] billion, our net profit was down 16% from the prior year -- from the year earlier quarter. It was equivalent to MXN0.24 per share and [indiscernible]. In the nine months to September, our cash flow helped us cover capital expenditures of MXN91 billion pesos, distribute MXN37 billion to our shareholders by way of dividends and share buybacks. The [indiscernible] amounted to MXN22 billion. Just to give you a reference, last year by this time of the year, the share buybacks were MXN1.5 billion, so this year we're having MXN22 billion. We have cash flow also helped us pay down MXN14.5 billion obligations and reduce our net debt by MXN38 billion in cash flow terms. At the end of the quarter, our net debt stood at MXN588 billion or MXN488 billion if we exclude leases. The latter amount was equivalent to 1.55 times EBIT of the last 12 months. This is EBITDA after leases that I'm talking about. So, 1.55 times. Net debt excluding leases compared to EBITDA after lease. Relative to December, the debt in balance sheet was down MXN59 billion. Okay. So, with that, I would like to pass the floor back to Daniel and open for Q&A.