By Sarah Morland
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican telecommunications giant America Movil on Tuesday reported a 48% fall in its fourth-quarter net profit, well below analysts’ expectations, with the company citing foreign exchange losses even as its revenues rose.
The company, controlled by the family of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, attributed the decline to “a higher integral cost of financing, nearly half of which was associated with foreign-exchange losses.”
The company operates across over 20 countries in Europe and Latin America. In Mexico, its home market which brought in some 35% of revenue, the peso ended 2024 more than 20% weaker against the U.S. dollar compared to a year earlier.
America Movil’s profit landed at 9.48 billion pesos ($453 million) – well below the average estimate of analysts polled by LSEG, who had forecast more than double the figure in dollar-denominated net earnings, at $1.15 billion.
Revenues, meanwhile, came in at 236.94 billion pesos ($11.35 billion) for the period, up 18% year-on-year, but just slightly below an LSEG forecast of $11.41 billion.
America Movil noted that its quarterly revenue growth was largely due to a new accounting methodology in its operations in Argentina, which ended last year with 118% inflation.
Excluding Argentina, the firm said, revenues would have still risen 10% in Mexican peso terms, thanks in part to the consolidation of its operations in Chile.
America Movil said its core earnings, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), rose around 16% in the quarter to 91.11 billion pesos.
The company added 2.1 million net post-paid customers in the quarter, driven by gains in Ecuador and Central America, and some 320,000 new broadband clients.
($1 = 20.8829 Mexican pesos at end-December)
(Reporting by Sarah Morland; Editing by Kylie Madry and Sephen Coates)
