管理層發言
Good morning. My name is Caleb, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to América Móvil's Second Quarter 26 Conference Call and Webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the star 1 again. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Ms. Daniela Lecuona. Head of Investor Relations.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our second quarter 26 financial and operating results. We have on the line Mr. Daniel Hajj Aboumrad, CEO.
Mr. Carlos García Moreno, CFO. Thank you, Daniela. Welcome, everyone, to América Móvil's second quarter of 26 financial and operating report. And Carlos is going to give us a summary of the results.
Thank you, Daniela. Good morning, everyone. Well, we can see that throughout the second quarter, oil prices remained elevated, peaking mid-May at a price roughly 70% higher than prior to the war. This brought about greater concerns regarding inflation worldwide and the expectation and, in some cases, the reality of high interest rates, including those at the long end of the yield curve. Thirty-year U.S. Treasury notes hit the highest yield in nearly 20 years. However, in spite of the supportive dollar rates, the U.S. dollar did not grow stronger against most currencies in our region of operations this quarter. In fact, it actually depreciated 6% versus the Colombian peso. In the second quarter, we added 3.5 million postpaid subscribers, with Brazil leading the way with 1.5 million subscribers. Colombia followed with 250 thousand, Peru with 173 thousand, Argentina with 154 thousand and Mexico with 101 thousand postpaid subscribers. In the prepaid segment, we registered 3.9 million net losses as Colombia and Argentina cleaned up their base. In the fixed-line segment, we connected 531 thousand new broadband accesses. Mexico was the main contributor with 170 thousand accesses followed by Brazil with 83 thousand and Colombia with 74 thousand. As regards pay TV, we added 10 thousand units with most of them coming from Argentina, Eastern Europe, and Central America. Mobile postpaid and fixed broadband access remain the main drivers of growth of our customer base, increasing at an even faster pace: 9.1% and 6.1% respectively compared with the year-earlier quarter. Second quarter revenue was up 3.1% year on year in Mexican peso terms to 241 billion Mexican pesos. Service revenue increased 3.4% and EBITDA 6.8%. Compared to a year-earlier quarter, the Mexican peso appreciated significantly against the dollar and the euro, 12% and 9% respectively, while remaining flat versus the Brazilian real and depreciating 3% versus the Colombian peso. At constant exchange rates, service revenue was up 5.1% while EBITDA increased 5.3%. It would have increased 6.7% absent a one-off charge in Mexico. Mobile service revenue maintained the pace it has observed over several quarters at 6.5%. Fixed-line service revenue accelerated to 2.7% from 1.7% in the prior quarter, with the downward trend in fixed-line growth coming to an end. On the mobile platform, postpaid revenue expanded 7.2% as in the preceding quarter, with prepaid revenue growth continuing to accelerate to 5.3% up from 3.1% a year ago. Mexico, Colombia, Central America and Eastern European blocks were the best performers in terms of improved mobile service revenue growth. Regarding fixed-line service revenue in the residential segment, both broadband and pay TV revenue grew somewhat more rapidly than in the preceding quarter: 4.2% and 5.4%, up from 3.1% and 4.6% respectively. B2B revenue growth remained stable at 4.0%. Mobile Peru and Central America all contributed to the improvement in broadband revenue growth. As for the recovery in the Pay TV segment, Brazil was the top performer, moving up from a 4.7% pace to a 7.5% pace. Okay. Operating profit totaled 51.8 billion and was up 9.5% in Mexican peso terms. Our comprehensive financing cost rose to MXN 10.4 billion, reflecting lower foreign exchange gains that more than offset lower net interest costs. Our net income totaled MXN 24 billion, a 9.3% or a 90.2% increase from the year-earlier quarter. It was equivalent to $0.40 per share or $0.47 per ADR. So in the first half of the year, our capital expenditure amounted to 48 billion pesos, our share buybacks to 44.6 billion pesos, the service of our labor obligations to 8.4 billion pesos. These were all covered by our cash flow, which together with net dividend income of 1.31 billion, allowed us to reduce our net debt in cash flow terms by 30 billion. You can see this in the slide. Excluding capital lease obligations, net debt totaled ARS 402 billion at the end of June, which represented 1.31x last 12 months EBITDA after leases. So with that, I will conclude this presentation and will pass the floor back to Daniel.
Thank you, Carlos. We can start with the Q&A.
分析師問答
At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Leonardo Olmos from UBS. Your line is open. Go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thank you for taking the question, and congrats on the numbers. We loved the deleveraging we saw. My question will be regarding competition in Brazil. You mentioned a more competitive and promotional environment in Brazil. Which segments are most concerned? And how does this entry-level hybrid plan such as ClaroFlex fit in these scenarios? So I am asking specifically about the new, around 30 reais per month low-end hybrid plan that all three mobile carriers launched. Thank you.
Thank you, Leonardo. We are talking a little bit about Brazil. I think in Brazil we have a lot of things. So the first is, if you see one year ago, second quarter, the growth was very high. So the comparison between second quarter last year and second quarter this year is a little bit difficult because second quarter of last year the growth was higher than it used to be in other quarters. So it is a difficult comp comparison between quarters. That is one of the things. The second thing is, no doubt, that the market has been more promotional. Where we have seen — where we are seeing more promotions — are in peak prepaid and in postpaid. Regarding what you said about ClaroFlex, I do not think there is any change in the trends on ClaroFlex postpaid or prepaid. I think everybody is more or less seeing the same trend. So we are not selling more cheap postpaid or more cheap prepaid; we are seeing the same trend. The only thing is that promotions are becoming a little bit stronger. I still think that we are going to have a recovery in the second half, better in the third, but more in Q4. And we are going to see again a little bit more growth in mobile. But if promotions and our competitors are more aggressive, then we need to be a little bit more aggressive. So I am not sure what is going to happen in the next months. Maybe the promotions are not so aggressive, but who knows. So it depends a lot. We have been following them since May. TIM and Vivo have become more aggressive. So we have to follow, and we are going to follow that. So that is what is happening. On the other side, in the fixed side, we have been growing revenues. We are growing revenues; in Brazil I can tell you, we started one year ago at 1.5% growth, then 1.8%, then 2.6%, and today 4.1. So in fixed, things are going better and looking stronger. So we, at the end of the day, have a very strong network. We are doing very well in 5G. We are investing in customer care. We have a very good NPS. We are doing convergence. So if the market is aggressive for the moment, then we are going to be a little bit more aggressive. And in the future, if things go the other way and promotions lessen, then we will see better revenue. We are still gaining in mobile portability; we are the gainers in postpaid in mobile portability. So overall, we are looking at Brazil well. The other important thing you can see is that we think and we are feeling a little bit of a slowdown in the economy. That is also one of the things we are looking at why revenues are decreasing a little bit, because the economy we see a little bit of a slowdown, but it is too early to tell. Let's see what happens in the next months and then we can find if the economy trend is going slow or if it is going to stay the way it is. So that is more or less what we have in Brazil. Makes a lot of sense.
Thank you very much, Daniel. Thank you.
Your next call comes from the line of Marcelo Santos from JPMorgan. Your line is open. Go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. I want to ask about Mexican prepaid performance. The revenue growth we are seeing there has been accelerating every quarter for many quarters already. Usually, you discuss this in light of an improving Mexican economy, but what we hear from consumer companies is kind of not such a great story on the consumption side. Yet, your performance is good. What kind of initiatives have you been putting forward? What is happening in the competitive environment inside or outside of América Móvil that is helping you deliver these results? Thank you.
Well, as you said, we think that the economy at the beginning — when we were almost flat in prepaid and we were growing maybe 1% or 2% in prepaid, that was maybe two years ago when the economy was in a slowdown. But right now, I think the economy is coming back. Our prepaid customers are consuming, are recharging more and are buying higher-value prepaid cards. Instead of recharging 50 pesos, they are recharging 80 or 100. People are starting to use more and more 5G in Mexico. Really, we are the only ones that have a very good 5G network, and that is also helping us a lot. On the other side, we have a little more coverage, so we are gaining some subscribers we did not have. We are starting to expand coverage in some places. But overall, we have a very good base in prepaid. It is difficult to say, but many of our prepaid customers are consuming consistently. We do not have a base where some of them consume one month and not for two months. Our customers are charging and using more data every month. Those are the things that are helping a lot on the prepaid side. Our base of people who are recharging is growing, and that is very good for us.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
Marcelo, this is Carlos. Just a small detail on the economy. As Daniel pointed out, I think that economies are not recovering fast; they are coming back but at this stage it is very uneven and it is not affecting all sectors the same way. I will give you two reference points. As of June, we have registered the highest ever volume of automobile sales, highest ever, and the growth of automobile sales is almost identical to the growth of our prepaid revenues. Just to put it in perspective. Another reference point is if you look at other services like restaurants, they are booming — all sorts of restaurants, high end and low end are working. So it is a little bit uneven: some sectors are doing particularly well, some other sectors are still not recovering.
Very interesting. Thank you. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Phani Kanumuri from HSBC. Your line is open. Go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question is also on Mexico mobile revenue growth. It has registered very strong growth, but I am wondering if it had any positive impact from the World Cup that is happening. Are you seeing higher roaming revenues? Have you seen higher growth in June compared to other months? The second question is also on Mexico. How is the progress happening on the mobile registration? And what percentage of customers have already been registered on this front? Thank you.
Alright. The World Cup impact is modest, so I do not think it is too much. The World Cup was not only Mexico, and we have only around seven games, something like that. We see more roaming in Mexico with people coming, and we see more usage; people are using their devices to watch the games on iPads and phones, so that increases consumption a bit. But it was only two weeks in June, so it is not too much. What we are seeing is that a lot of our customers are coming back to our stores and want to renew; maybe I can tell you that maybe half of our postpaid subscribers are upgrading their plan. So that is very important. They want to have a better plan and use more of the handset. So that is what is giving us strong growth in postpaid. Many of our customers are moving to a higher plan, and that is contributing. The market is very competitive. We have a lot of competition in the market. But as I said, we are the only one with a really strong 5G network across Latin America. We are working a lot on quality, speed and customer care, so we try to give our customers the best service and that is helping us grow. Regarding the registration, for now the authorities have set new dates for the registration. The dates depend on the end digit of your number when you need to be registered. It is only the prepaid subscribers; postpaid are already registered so they do not need to register. I do not know the exact industry-wide number, but there is still a lot to do on that. The process starts August 15 and ends, I think, at the end of November or beginning of December. From January, all new customers must be registered. This applies to current prepaid customers who need to register their numbers. That is where we are, and we hope that all of them will register.
Yes. Thanks for the responses, everyone. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Rogério Araújo from Bank of America. Your line is open. Go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions. The first on the line item 'other financial expenses' — it rose to roughly 6.9 billion Mexican pesos in the quarter, a 40% increase year over year. Could you please break down what drove that increase? Specifically, how much of this relates to cash outflows tied to your labor obligations and special funds? We saw this was nearly 6.9 billion Mexican pesos in the quarter as well. Also looking forward, what level of annual pension-related cash outflow should we model given the maturity of the Telmex plan? Second, on Nucell, could you gently walk us through how it reflected in your accounts and KPIs? Specifically, are Nucell users counted within your reported subscriber base and net adds? We think so, but could you confirm? Also, how are the economics recognized — full revenue or only Nucell's revenue share — so we can understand how this impacts ARPU? Finally, how should we think about the associated network commercial costs and margin profile of Nucell in our results? Thank you so much.
Yes, thank you, Rogério. On the first question regarding other financial expenses, what we are reflecting is partly a bit of elements of a fine that was mentioned a while ago. Because the fine related to a ruling from some years ago, part of the other financial expenses were financial penalties that were accrued since the initial ruling. The other part that is important: other financial expense is generally affected by hedging and currency hedging transactions among other things. Typically, when you experience gains on FX, to the extent those gains had already been hedged, you could be recognizing the offset on your financial results. It works in opposite directions in different periods. So that is part of it. So it is part fine and part FX and hedging related. Nothing to do with pensions. The pensions are accrued on an accounting basis, but what we are showing here is an accrual basis; it is not a cash flow basis. On an accrual basis, there is no change.
And on Nucell, there are two types of MVNOs in Brazil. One we call 'acreditados' and the others are authorized MVNOs. Nucell is one of the 'acreditados' that work like a commercial agent, and those customers count as part of our base. We count them in our base in Claro. So all Nucell subscribers are included as Claro customers.
Okay. Perfect then.
And on revenue recognition for Nucell, the revenue included in our reported numbers is the portion that corresponds to our commercial arrangement. The way the economics are split is reflected in our reported revenue. Nucell also recognizes its portion separately.
Your next comes from the line of Emilio Fuentes from GBM. Line is open. Go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. My question is regarding capital allocation. Given the current weakness we have seen in the U.S. dollar and how this could benefit your investment needs, do you see any downside risk to your full-year CapEx guidance? And if so, given you are currently standing at the lower end of your leverage ratio, do you see incremental free cash flow being directed to share buybacks? Thank you.
Oh, the weak dollar is actually difficult for us on CapEx because for the same items you procure, it costs more dollars in nominal terms for the same budget depending on the currency mix. So in terms of CapEx, it is not helping; while in terms of revenues, a weaker dollar can help. So on costs and CapEx, it is a bit more challenging. But we are within the target we have — 7 billion — give or take; we are in that target and are not planning to move off it. Could you repeat the second question, please?
Leverage and whether incremental free cash flow would go to buybacks? No. What we have said consistently is we first determine what our target leverage ratio is meant to be. We need to look at our leverage ratio considering expenditures and commitments we have already committed to take, which will include the purchase of Desktop, which we expect likely to close this year. So we basically manage to stay within the range we have set: not more than 1.5x net debt to EBITDA and not less than 1.2x net debt to EBITDA. So there are limits in terms of how much we can reduce our leverage at this point.
And adding another point: we just announced the Wow acquisition yesterday. I think it makes a lot of sense for us in Peru. It adds more fiber — more than 3 million homes passed with fiber and about 500 thousand customers — and creates a lot of synergies. We are open to look at more of those acquisitions. They are good for us; they are broadband customers we can sell prepaid, postpaid, or TV to. This network is outside of Lima and complements our presence. Fiber also helps us serve corporate clients where we are growing. Small businesses are also, as Oscar is saying, an area of growth. So we are also looking for other good acquisitions.
Next question. Just a reminder to everyone, if you would like to ask a question, press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Carlos Siqueira from BTG Pactual. Go ahead.
Hi, everyone. How are you? Hope all is well. So I have one question, please, and it is related to M&A strategy in Europe. If you can let us know what you are looking at or what makes sense for América Móvil at this point. Thank you.
Well, thank you. We are open to see everything, but what we are really looking for are companies like Desktop and Wow that add fiber customers and complement our fiber network. We want assets where we can sell more services to those customers like prepaid and postpaid. Also fiber provides access to small and medium companies and creates synergies. We are not looking to enter new countries right now, but we are looking at opportunities within the countries where we operate that will help us grow faster and consolidate the market. Consolidation will be important.
Perfect. Thank you. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Ernesto Gonzalez from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. You may go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking our question and congratulations on the results. I have two questions. The first is on Colombia. You delivered really strong results consistent with past quarters. Could you talk about how you see this market evolving, especially now that some time has passed since the acquisition of Telefónica closed? The second question is on Argentina. Given the recent competition authority resolution on potential consolidation in the market, does it change how you view the long-term outlook for Argentina? Any comments you can give are greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Well, good that you are talking about other countries. On Colombia, I think we are doing very well. In Colombia we are growing very fast in mobile. We were the first to deploy 5G there. We have a very good network and portability is going well for us, which is why we are growing. A lot of customers are moving to higher plans. We work a lot on service quality and speed, so all of that makes customers use more service and brings new customers to our network. On the fixed side, we are also moving to deploy more fiber. Fixed is more challenging, probably, but I think we can grow. We are doing fiber; we have a good network, sales and distribution, so we can do much better in fixed. Oscar, do you want to add on corporate?
In corporate, yes — in Colombia the corporate segment is growing pretty nicely as well.
So good in mobile, good in corporate, and moving to be better in broadband, fixed TV and mobile — that is where we are. In Argentina, we will compete against a major competitor there, but nothing else to do; we have fiber, a good broadband position, 5G and we are growing. That is the same strategy: deploy fiber to win more broadband and TV customers and remain competitive on price. We are growing also very well in Peru; in fixed broadband we grew around 12% which was impressive. There is a lot of opportunity in the corporate segment in Peru as well.
Yes. Really clear. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Rogério Araújo from Bank of America. Your line is open. Go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the follow-up question. If you could provide more details on the regulatory fine of 1.3 billion Mexican pesos on Telmex: what are the reasons behind it and also the potential recurrence of regulatory fines going forward? Thank you.
Well, this is something that dates back to 2017. In 2020 this fine was imposed on an alleged violation of asymmetric measures. We contested it at the time and now in June it became final.
We believe it is disproportional. It does not make any sense. It is 6% of the revenue, which is the minimum in accordance with the law, and we think it is completely absurd. Unfortunately, at this stage we cannot do anything. It is not on Telmex directly but on Telnor, an affiliate of Telmex, and that is what led to this penalty. We do not think there will be more of those, but it is what it is.
Okay. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Marcelo Santos from JPMorgan. Your line is open. Go ahead.
Hi. Thank you very much for the follow-up. I just wanted to go back to the first question regarding Brazilian mobile: based on what you said, you expect growth to improve in the third and fourth quarter. Do you see room to increase controlled prices for mobile hybrid plans this year? Or not? Could you comment on that, please? Thank you.
I think we can increase prices, but there is a lot of competition. We are not going to do anything until we see how the market behaves. What we want is to have the network and coverage to be competitive. If there are one, two, or three months or quarters where promotions are more aggressive, then we will respond with promotions. In May, with Vivo and TIM being more aggressive, we needed to be more aggressive. We do not control the competition. We control our own actions. In Brazil and all countries we are prepared to compete: if they do more promotions, we will do more promotions; if promotions relax, we can relax promotions. We are a long-term player. There have been periods of aggressive competition, for example in Colombia a few years ago, and today we are back growing. We are investing in network, training people, and increasingly using AI agents which will help us reduce costs and better understand customers. This is not a short-term change, but it will help in the long term. We are seeing EBITDA grow faster than revenues because we are controlling costs and expenses. That is our strategy across Latin America and Europe. In some countries competition may be intense for a quarter or two, but we are prepared.
Alright. Thanks a lot. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Walter Piecyk from LightShed. Your line is open. You may now go ahead.
Thanks. In Mexico, you have had very good margins for quite some time. I think they stepped up a couple of years ago. But you do show revenue growth there. Curious if there is a way to further leverage that to take margins higher specifically in Mexico.
As I said, we are really working hard to control costs and expenses and to find ways to encourage customers to upgrade plans, but we want them to use the plans they buy. We want long-term customers, not short-term. If we can increase revenue and reduce costs across the company, margins will improve. Overall, this quarter versus the comparable quarter last year, margins of many of our companies increased a bit. In almost all the companies, EBITDA margins increased this quarter.
And then the fiber acquisition and potential other acquisitions: I assume these are not going to negatively impact the good trajectory in terms of capital return with dividends as well as share repurchases. Related to that, you still have a stake in Verizon. Is there any thought of monetizing that stake to provide additional cash for acquisitions or capital return? Your leverage ratio is within target. Curious how all those things fit together in terms of maybe selling Verizon, how much fiber more to build, and whether we might see a big step up in capital return in 2027.
The cash flow in the first six months was really good; we increased cash flow. We still need to pay dividends for the second half. With the peso-dollar dynamic, dividends require a significant peso amount. Carlos is right: we have a target for leverage. In the long term there will be acquisitions and returns to shareholders and debt reduction — those are the three things we want to balance. We aim to be financially healthy to be prepared for future opportunities. We need to pay the Desktop acquisition later this year. Overall we will look to acquisitions, returning capital to shareholders, and reducing debt. We see opportunities similar to Desktop and Wow in the future; that's why we want to be healthy and ready to act.
Why continue to own Verizon?
Regarding Verizon, when prices were at a lower level we sold part of the stake. We sold half of it at that time. We have not taken a decision regarding the other half. We are open to divesting in the future, but not in a hurry. It has to be at a good price and there is no urgency to sell.
Pretty good price now. We sold at a lower price than this one. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Jesus Romo from GlobalData. Your line is open. You may go ahead.
Hello. Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. Quick follow-up on the Mexico numbers, specifically the prepaid subscriber numbers. I noticed that you have positive net adds in Q2 26 versus Q1 26. Since we are in the middle of the ongoing registration process, could you share a little color on the factors that guided you to have positive net adds in this quarter? Promotions, the World Cup, mobile portability, or a combination of factors? Thank you.
It is very difficult to explain effects related to the registration process. Since registration applies to new customers, some customers decide not to renew because they have to register, so there are disconnections. It is complex and customer behavior is changing. Prepaid customers used to buy very cheaply and churn more; behavior is evolving. What matters most in prepaid is the amount of revenue per month you get, and that is what is performing well for us.
Just to give a reference point: prepaid net adds in the second quarter were 146 thousand in Mexico. A year ago, second quarter of last year, they were 83 thousand, and two years ago they were 106 thousand. So over the last three years, the second quarter has given us better prepaid net adds.
Another trend across countries is migration from prepaid to postpaid. In some countries this is happening faster than others, but as people see the handset as part of daily life they move to postpaid where they consume more data and applications. That is likely the trend for the next five years: more migration from prepaid to postpaid.
Just a quick follow-up, if I may. Do you perceive any effect of customers coming in from Movistar now that there is an announced deal — not approved yet — but there is an announcement of Movistar changing hands?
I think it is difficult to say customers respond because they know the company is for sale or not. Some know, others do not. What we see is the number portability trends where we are gainers in portability and we continue to be gainers. I do not know exactly if it is related to the Movistar process or other factors, but we are gaining customers from all companies.
Thank you. Thank you.
We have reached the end of the Q&A session. We will now turn the call over to Mr. Daniel Hajj for final remarks.
Just thank everyone for being on the call. Thank you very much. Bye.
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.