Daniel Hajj
Analyst · UBS Company. Leonardo, your line is now open. Please go ahead
Thank you, Daniela. Welcome everyone to América Móvil second quarter of 2024 financial and operating report. Carlos is going to make a summary of the results. Hi, Carlos, you can.
Carlos García Moreno: Hello. Thank you, Daniel. Good morning, everyone. Well, the second quarter of the year got started with an important surge in long-dated U.S. Treasury yields with those in the 10-year tenor advancing 50 basis points in April on the back of unexpectedly strong employment figures. They remained volatile throughout the quarter, closing June at 4.4%, practically the mid-point of the range in which they traded throughout the period. The Mexican peso, which had withstood well the U.S. interest rate volatility, weakened sharply following the Mexican presidential elections on June 2nd. After months of appreciating vis-a-vis, not only the U.S. dollar, but also practically all the currencies in our region of operation, the Mexican peso was to depreciate against all. We added in the quarter 2.4 million subscribers, of which 1.8 million were postpaid, with Brazil contributing roughly half, Colombia 183,000, and Mexico 99,000. The numbers you see for Austria also include [indiscernible] machine-to-machine. In our prepaid platform, we registered 599,000 net additions, with Colombia gaining 261,000 subscribers, followed by Argentina with 191,000. In the fixed-line segment, we obtained 376,000 broadband accesses, including 148,000 in Mexico and approximately 63,000 each in Argentina and Brazil. Voice lines and PayTV units registered losses in the period, and were down 63,000 and 56,000, respectively. Our postpaid base increased 6% year-on-year, with prepaid expanding 1.6% and fixed broadband accesses 4.9%, they were the second more dynamic access line. Our second quarter revenue, MXN206 billion, was up 1.5% from a year before, with service revenue expanding 3.5% and equipment revenue falling 9.8%. At constant exchange rates, service revenue increased 4.7% year-on-year, practically the same pace it had maintained the prior quarter, but with slightly faster mobile revenue growth and somewhat slower fixed-line revenue growth. And that's helped to bring about a 6.9% increase in EBITDA. The greater operating leverage stemming from positive revenue growth on both platforms has been the main driver of EBITDA growth, obviously, coupled with strong cost controls. Mobile service revenue accelerated to a 5.1% pace from 4.9% in the preceding quarter on the back of stronger postpaid revenue growth, as prepaid revenue stayed on pace. On the fixed-line platform, service revenue growth decelerated to a 4.1% pace from 5.1% the prior quarter, basically on account of corporate networks revenue, which had seen a big jump then. Broadband revenue growth continued to improve, reaching 7.9%, up from 6.4% in the first quarter and corporate networks revenue increased 7.2%. The prior quarter it had seen a 13% jump on account of some extraordinary contracts that have been obtained. It is important to note that fixed broadband revenue consolidated, has come to be nearly 25% higher than the combined PayTV and fixed-voice revenue. EBITDA totaled MXN83.1 billion in the quarter, which represented a 5.6% increase in Mexican peso terms from the year-earlier quarter and 6.9% at constant exchange rates, as seen before. The consolidated EBITDA margin reached 40.4% in the quarter, that was a 1.5 percentage points improvement from a year before, again on great operating leverage and solid cost controls. Our operating profit came in at MXN46 billion, having risen 12.9% from the year-earlier quarter, but our comprehensive financing costs reached MXN40 billion on account of foreign exchange losses resulting mainly from the depreciation of the Mexican peso. And because of this, we ended up posting a net loss of MXN1 billion in the quarter. I have to say that at the end of May, prior to removing the peso, the two-thirds of our net debt were Mexican peso based. In cash flow terms, our net debt increased by MXN14.3 billion and together with [MXN67 billion] (ph) in operating cash flow, allowed us to cover CapEx, totaling MXN56 billion, share buybacks in the amount of MXN12.5 billion, and labor obligations for a similar amount. That's in the six months of June. Now, our free cash flow was MXN10 billion greater than that of the first half of 2023, partly because of lower capital expenditures, which were down MXN8 billion. Our share buybacks in the period were 4 times the ones we registered a year before. We went from MXN3 billion in the first half of 2023 to MXN12.5 billion in share buybacks in the first half of 2024. Our leverage ratio came down to 1.38 times EBITDA from 1.5 times the prior quarter. That's the summary, and I will turn the floor back to Daniel for the Q&A. Thank you.