America Movil, the Mexican telecommunications giant controlled by the family of billionaire Carlos Slim, reported a 48% drop in fourth-quarter net profit on Tuesday, well below analysts' expectations. This decline was attributed to foreign exchange losses despite a rise in revenues.
Operating in over 20 countries in Europe and Latin America, the company highlighted that its home market of Mexico, generating 35% of revenue, suffered from the peso weakening over 20% against the U.S. dollar in 2024 compared to the previous year.
Fourth-quarter profit totaled 9.48 billion pesos ($453 million), significantly lower than analysts' average estimate. Revenues reached 236.94 billion pesos ($11.35 billion), an 18% increase year-on-year, slightly below forecasts.
The revenue growth was primarily impacted by accounting changes in Argentina due to high inflation rates, though excluding this factor, revenue in Mexican peso terms still increased by 10%, partly influenced by operations in Chile.
Core earnings (EBITDA) rose around 16% to 91.11 billion pesos during the quarter. The company gained 2.1 million net post-paid customers, primarily from Ecuador and Central America, and added 320,000 new broadband clients.
At the end of December, $1 was equivalent to 20.8829 Mexican pesos.