America Movil's gains in pay-TV, triple play can't stem 17.4 percent revenue drop

America Movil (NYSE: AMX) reported that Q1 wireline results were driven by a 20.6 percent rise in pay TV and more customers opting for triple play voice, video and data bundles.

During the quarter, the service provider added a total of 1.1 million wireline revenue generating units (RGUs), including 753,000 pay-Tv subscriptions and 568,000 broadband access subscribers.

Outside Mexico, America Movil said it added 304,000 wireline voice lines. However, as seen with U.S.-based telcos it said that "single-line accesses are being displaced by triple-play bundles." In other countries it serves such as Brazil, 56 percent of its net wireline additions were triple play bundles.

Brazil, which is America Movil's largest wireline market, it had 29.7 RGUs, up 18.7 percent from Q1 2012. The telco reported that the key drivers in Brazil's results were pay-TV and broadband, which increased 24.1 percent and 22.7 percent, respectively.

Mexico had 22.3 million RGUs, while Central America and the Caribbean had 6.2 million and Colombia 4.3 million. Three of the fastest growing markets were Ecuador and the Argentinean block, which both grew about 35 in the quarter, and Peru, which grew at 20.8 percent.

Despite seeing various gains, Q1 net profit was MXN 26.9 billion (USD 2.19 billion), up nearly 80 percent sequentially, but down 17.4 percent year-on-year from Q1 2012. It attributed the drop to "lower operating profits, and foreign exchange gains which were smaller than a year before."

For more:
- see the earnings release (.pdf)

Earnings roundup: Wireline telecom earnings in the first quarter of 2013

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