Telecoms giant America Movil triples quarterly net profit in Q3

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican telecommunications giant America Movil (NYSE:AMX) reported on Tuesday that it more than tripled its net profit in the third quarter from a year ago, citing a weaker peso boosting its foreign earnings and lower financing costs.

Net profit increased 217% to reach 6.43 billion Mexican pesos ($326.37 million), the company said in a filing to Mexico’s main stock exchange.

Revenues for the company, controlled by the family of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, came in at 223.46 billion pesos ($11.35 billion) for the period, up nearly 10% year-on-year.

Analysts polled by LSEG had estimated dollar-denominated net earnings of $1.11 billion from revenues of $11.47 billion for July through September.

The company said its higher earnings were helped by the sale of some towers as well as the depreciation of the Mexican peso, boosting the peso-denominated value of earnings made abroad.

By end-September, the Mexican peso had weakened more than 13% against the U.S. dollar compared to a year earlier.

America Movil said the peso had weakened against most currencies in the regions where it operates, “with the notable exception of the Brazilian real.”

America Movil said its core earnings, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), rose around 12% in the quarter to 89.42 billion pesos, an increase of 6% stripping out the impacts of foreign exchange.

($1 = 19.6921 Mexican pesos at end-September)