Quarterlies roundup: América Móvil, Telia, KPN and SK Telecom

It’s quarterlies season once again with the results coming through thick and fast after América Móvil, Telia, KPN and SK Telecom all reported their numbers.

Starting in Mexico, América Móvil reported healthy growth across the quarter with revenues jumping an impressive 18.5% year-on-year to roughly $14 billion, with profits up 8.3% to $1.6 billion. During the three months, the telco added a staggering 632,000 customers to its ranks.

In its domestic market of Mexico, despite government efforts to reduce the influence of América Móvil’s Telcel brand, it still controls roughly 64% of the total market share, according to the Ovum’s WCIS. Revenues declined by 2.3% to roughly $3.4 billion, though the team reported a slight increase in ARPU’s from $6.7 in Q1 2016 to $6.8 in 2017. It may not be a earth-shuddering increase, but the company is heading in the right direction as postpaid customer base increased 6.7%, while prepaid declined 2.1%.

SK Telecom was a company which had a slightly mixed bag across the quarter as total revenues effectively stalled at KRW4.23 trillion, while net income increased 2% year-on-year to KRW583.5 billion.

The explanation for revenues hitting a glass ceiling was put down to tariff discounts and the elimination of sign up fees, though the team remain optimistic for the future, as its 4G user base increased 10.9% year-on-year to 21.7 million. The 4G user base now stands at 72.6% of the total subscriber base.

Over in the Netherlands, KPN is seemingly having a less fun time in 2017.

Although the operator beat market expectations, revenues across the quarter declined by 2.4% to €1.65 billion, with the Enterprise business unit causing the drama. The Enterprise side of the business declined 6% for the period, while the consumer side reported relatively healthy revenue gains of 1.5% for fixed and 3.8% for mobile.

Cross selling would appear to be one of the winners here for the team as 45% of postpaid mobile customers also took fixed services from KPN, while the number of households taking both fixed and mobile services rose by 45,000 to 1.12 million, or 39% of broadband customers. Consolidation of the user base is one of the holy grails of the telco business model, though there don’t seem to be many telcos who are doing it as well as KPN are currently.

While KPN and SK at least have something to brag about, the same cannot be said about Telia.

“The pressure from the legacy decline was slightly higher compared to previous quarters,” said CEO Johan Dennelind. “Costs in Sweden and Finland were elevated in the quarter, due to short term efforts within customer support, IT and rebranding. We do see cost levels to normalize ahead, especially in the second half of 2017.”

Revenues across the group declined 5.6% to roughly €2.01 billion. Operating income increased to €730,000, though that will come as little consolation considering how low the profit margin is.