America Movil's ongoing movement into Brazil's telecom market continued to pay off in Q4 with the country contributing fully 46 percent of the carrier's total worldwide fixed line revenue generating units (RGUs).
Brazil is the service provider's largest and fastest-growing operation with 107.2 million access lines, up 5.7 percent from the same period a year ago. In Brazil, America Movil's key revenue driver was payTV, which drove a 5.6 percent rise in revenue in the country.
According to a report in Reuters, America Movil is trying to drive more growth in Brazil, a market that is now larger than its Mexico business.
Meanwhile, Mexico accounted for 28 percent of America Movil's total revenues. Colombia accounted for 7 percent, and both Central America and Europe (Telekom Austria) accounted for slightly less than 6 percent.
From a total wireline RGU perspective, America Movil added 840,000 RGUs in the fourth quarter to end the year with 78.4 million RGUs, up 6.5 percent year-over-year across all the company's geographies. Despite seeing customers disconnect service in Mexico, Puerto Rico and Europe, the service provider still posted a 2.9 percent increase in the number of fixed lines. Two areas of growth were broadband and PayTV, which rose 8.6 and 10.1 percent, respectively.
The service provider ended 2014 with a total of 368 million access lines, up 8.4 percent from the end of 2013, mainly due to its acquisition of Telekom Austria. On an organic basis, the company's access line subscriptions increased by 1.2 percent in 2014.
In the wireline segment, America Movil had a total of 22.6 million broadband subscribers, up 8.6 percent year-on-year. It ended the quarter with a total of 34.3 million fixed lines, up 2.9 percent and 21.5 million payTV customers, an increase of 10.1 percent.
Despite seeing gains in Brazil, the service provider overall reported that its Q4 net profit dropped due to exchange losses as a result of a weaker Mexican peso and lower operating profit. These factors offset the company's modest revenue growth.
Overall net profit was 3.6 pesos ($240 million), down from 16.3 billion pesos in Q4 2013.
For more:
- see the earnings release (.pdf)
- WSJ has this article
- Reuters has this article
Special Report: Wireline telecom earnings in the fourth quarter of 2014
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