América Móvil, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:AMX) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Oscar von Hauske: As we mentioned before, we are also in the market — what we call digital services. So within these digital services, we include all — there is cybersecurity, cloud, network management, and in cloud, we are residing software-as-a-services, [infrastructure-as-services] (ph) and has been very, very well received in the market. And as what we are doing a lot of network management moving from MPLS networks to SD-WAN, and has been working pretty good on the B2B market.

Daniel Hajj Aboumrad: We just launched a new data center in Peru. We haven’t had one there. So we launch – and we finished in January. So we’re going to put also more corporate focus on this market. I think we are in all the markets we’re having already corporate services. I think best networks and best customer service gain better customer clients. So that’s — what’s happening in Mexico, in Brazil, in Colombia, in Peru, in Dominican Republic, in Central America, all around Austria. Austria is doing very good also.

Oscar von Hauske: And I think what is also important to not underestimate the change in Brazil. Brazil was the main headwind that we were facing on the fixed-line platform because PayTV used to be the lagging of revenue-line. But over the years, broadband has really more than overtaken PayTV. So the headwinds from PayTV are now being felt less. They are less important. So we are confident that we can continue to grow revenues on the fixed-line platform in Brazil.

Daniel Hajj Aboumrad: Last year we do around — in fiber I think we do 14 million house, home-passes. So that helps to sell and to do more customer improvement.

Joseph Galone: Great, thanks.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Froylan Mendez of JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Froylan Mendez: Hello, good morning. Can you hear me?

Daniel Hajj Aboumrad: Yes, yes.

Froylan Mendez: Okay, thank you so much. Two questions please. The first one on Brazil. We saw that ARPU grew around 3%. However, we did see a lot of the base migrating to a post-paid plan within the Brazilian base. We were wondering why didn’t the ARPU grew a little bit better or faster? What’s the explanation behind that? And secondly, in Mexico broadband, you mentioned 17 million home-passes. How far can that number go? Or are we reaching like a trough level? Is that the maximum capacity in fiber that you can handle?

Daniel Hajj Aboumrad: Well, In Mexico, we do already 17 million fibre home-passes. We’re reviewing — and we are seeing where it makes sense for us to still go and do home-passes. There is still a lot of capacity in these 17 million home-passes, so we can penetrate more also these houses and it’s what we’re doing all around. In Brazil, the ARPU, let me see, the ARPU — your question is that the ARPU is growing in Brazil?

Froylan Mendez: It was 3%. We found that number a little bit low given the post-paid migration that we saw. We have expected like — faster acceleration on ARPU. Just want to know if something changed, or what could be the explanation of that low ARPU?

Daniel Hajj Aboumrad: I don’t know exactly, but I can tell you that in Brazil, we’re doing very good in post-paid. We’re growing around 8% the base of post-paid, the subscribers in post-paid is good. Maybe some of these post-paid are in the higher plans, other ones are in the lower plans. But all over all, Brazil is doing good and we are moving a lot of our pre-paid also to post-paid new customers plus upgrades from pre-paid. And these upgrades from pre-paid are moving slowly, so they are not moving to the high-end plan. So they are just jumping to post-paid. And then in the next years, I’m sure that with 5G and better handsets and more usage these can improve the ARPU. So that’s more or less what is happening in Brazil.

Froylan Mendez: Thank you so much.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Fred Mendes of Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Fred Mendes: Hello, good morning everyone and thanks for the call. I have two questions here. The first one on Telmex and you know, special net ads results are very, very strong. Just trying to understand this dynamic, obviously as you pass through your fiber, you know, 80% of the network already on fiber, I think that explains a lot, but trying to understand the profile of these clients, if you’re basically getting new clients or if you’re able to get from other operators, basically trying to understand, you know, the dynamics behind such a strong results that would be my first one. And then the second one on Colombia, there was some news, I guess – [mission] (ph) — that you expect to do $1 billion investment, CapEx, this year, correct me if I’m wrong.

So just trying to understand your expectations there. It seems to be still a competitive market, but one of the players is facing some challenge. So just trying to understand the rationale, if this is true and the strategy for Colombia for 2024. Thank you.

Daniel Hajj Aboumrad: But first in Colombia, I don’t have exactly the disclosure of what’s going to be the CapEx in each country. But if you can talk to Daniela, we can review and see what we’re going to do. In this CapEx, I don’t know if they are accounting for the frequencies that we already get and renew, the frequencies that we renew in February. So I still don’t know very good on that — but we can show you exactly what we’re doing. But all over all, in CapEx, we’re going to do the CapEx that we commit and we’re on target and it’s what the plan is. It’s $7.1 billion, $7.2 billion on CapEx for this year. In Telmex, I don’t know Oscar if you want to give your view.