Carlos Garcia Moreno
Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Diego, please go ahead
Thank you, Daniel. Good morning everyone. Although increasingly hawkish tone by the Fed Governor on the back of continued inflationary pressures, brought about renewed increases in U.S. interest rate in the latter half of the third quarter, from the first half with 10 year rates ending the quarter at 3.33%, just making a rate of a 4% of [indiscernible], that was the context of the third quarter for us. In the quarter we added 2.9 million wireless subscribers of which 1.9 million were postpaid. More than half of the new postpaid clients came from Brasil, with Austria contributing 329,000 subs, Columbia 215,000 and Peru, 155,000. Net subscriber gains in prepaid amounted to 1 million, with Mexico leading the way, with 402,000 net adds followed by Columbia with 300,000 and Central American and European blocks with approximately 135,000 each. On the fixed-line platform, broadband access has increased by 156,000 in the quarter, with Argentina being the main contributor and the Central American Eastern European blocks following. Mobile postpaid was our fastest growing active group, increasing 11.9% year-on-year, 118 million followed by mobile prepaid that climbed 8.2% to 190 million. In both cases access growth accelerated in the third quarter. On the fixed-line platform, broadband access lines rose 2.1% to 31 million, while Fixed Voice and Pay TV access fell 1.6% and 1.3% respectively. The latter appears to be on an improving trend. Our third quarter revenue reached MXN215 billion. It was up 1.8% year-on-year, with service revenues rising 3% in Mexican peso sense. At constant exchange rates, service revenue expanded 5.9%, and mobile service revenue jumped 9.7% and fixed-line service revenue remained almost flat but growing 0.2%. Year-over-year, the Mexican peso appreciated strongly vis-à-vis the Colombian and Chilean pesos, 12.9% and 18% respectively, and even more versus the euro, 16%. It remained practically flat vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar and the Chilean peso. The appreciation of the pesos extends difference between revenue growth in nominal constant exchange rate. Mobile service revenue rose more than 9% year-on-year at constant exchange rates, both is the prepaid and the postpaid segments. It was the fastest rate of growth of -- in least five quarters with postpaid revenue growth accelerating in each of the last two quarters, partly board by 5G services. Brasil led the way in mobile service revenue growth at 32.5% which includes the impact of the incorporation of part of Oi’s mobile clients followed by Mexico and Eastern Europe with 9.7% and 6.9% respectively. At 3% Columbia posted its best revenue growth in third quarter as did the Central America block with 6.5%. Ecuador on an improving trend for several quarters now, posted a 1.6% revenue increase in the period. On the fixed line platform, growth and revenue growth 3.4% at constant exchange rate and that of copper network increased 12.6%, also the fastest pace in at least five quarters, helping offset 5.4% reduction in Pay TV services and a 6.1% decline in wireline voice revenue. Eastern Europe with Dominical Republic and Puerto Rico were the top performers with double-digit growth and revenue growth. Corporate network was our fastest growing business line across the board with the Brazil posting a 27.7% rate; Columbia, 14.4% and Mexico 8.1%. Fixed Broadband revenue increased between 4% and 5% in both Mexico and Brazil, with Eastern Europe revenue surging 13.5%. Our EBITDA rose 2.3% year-on-year, to MXN83.2 billion. It was an increase of 5% at constant exchange rate, with EBIDTA margin, which have been on an improving trend all year, expanding to 38.8% from 38.6% a year before. Brazil and Eastern Europe were the main generator for EBITDA growth, with 10.8% and 8% respectively. EBIDTA expansion helping about a 5.7% increase in our operating profit to MXN44 billion resulting an MXN18 billion net profit in the quarter, after MXN17 billion in comprehensive financing costs, that were 33% below that of the prior year, mostly on account of the foreign exchange losses incurred then. The increase in current and deferred taxes has mostly to do with our current book carrying booked interest and tax assets a year ago which reduced the line item at the time. We didn't sustain [ph] that increase in profit. The difference is simply increased -- explained by increasing profits to [indiscernible]. Our operating cash flow allowed us to fully cover our capital expenditures of MXN105 billion in the nine months to September. The remainder was funded with MXN72 billion in net financing. So MXN545 billion [ph] was used in shareholder distributions, including MXN21 billion in share buyback, MXN20 billion in labor obligations and MXN 13 billion in the net acquisition of ownership interest coming from the acquisition of a portion of Oi’s mobile clients on one hand and the sale of our interest in Claro Panama on the other hand. Our net debt excluding leases ended September-October at MXN412 billion equivalent to 1.39 times our last 12 months EBIDTA after leases. The spin-off of our Sitios Latin America in August resulted in the separation of 29,090 towers in 13 countries. But also brought about a reduction of MXN47 billion in our net debt as it migrated over to Sitios. With this summary I will pass it over back to you Daniel Hajj. Thank you, Daniel.