the telecommunication company AT&T In March 2023, he achieved one of the best months so far in his eight years of adventure in Mexico. In the interannual measurement from March to March, the company attracted 1.07 million new cellular customers and touched the mark of the 21.61 million total consumers that it directly serves in the country, since traffic also travels through its telecommunications networks. of another 25 million Mexicans, among the users of Movistar and of virtual mobile operators.
The company’s numbers were all positive in March. AT&T grew by 3.4% its postpaid business; 6.0% for prepaid and 7.9% for resellers. AT&T achieved overall growth of 5.4% in the period.
In a measurement from March 2022 to March 2023, the telephone company gained 163,000 new postpaid users and 911,000 prepaid, data that, translated into economic criteria, had a positive impact on its financial result for the first quarter.
In it first quarter of 2023, AT&T billed 883 million dollars for its operations in Mexico, 28.0% higher than the 690 million dollars entered in the first quarter of 2022. Only in March, AT&T billed more than 600 million dollars in Mexico. The revenue figure for the first quarter of 2023 was also $22 million higher than the record for the last quarter of 2022.
In more detail, AT&T’s income from the provision of its services stood at 591 million dollars, 101 million dollars more than a year earlier, while its income from the sale of cell phones grew to 292 million dollars, also almost a hundred million dollars before the record of a year ago.
The spectacular March numbers achieved by AT&T lost luster in the measurement of net adds for the entire first quarter of the year, the result of a contraction of net adds in the prepaid segment.
AT&T achieved a net addition of 49,000 prepaid users from January to March, but also lost 58,000 prepaid customers, in what would have been the best quarter in its history in Mexico, because the company also reduced its financial losses by almost 71%, promising its investors that its Mexican operation is on track to break even soon. AT&T presented an Ebitda of 145 million dollars in the first quarter of the year.
The telecommunications group attributed this stumbling block to a bad moment facing the prepaid services market in Mexico, also a result of adverse economic effects and the regulatory framework in the telecommunications market.
“Although financially we achieved strong Ebitda in the first quarter and we also experienced positive momentum in postpaid growth, adding 49,000 subscribers, we continue to face challenges in the prepaid segment, as we operate in one of the most concentrated markets in the world, where structural conditions still hamper competition and therefore limit consumer benefit,” the company said in a press release.
According to Mexican Institute of Finance ExecutivesMexico’s economy lost momentum in the first month of the year, thus impacting various manufacturing and service industries.
The IMEF Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing indicators for the month of January reflected that the Mexican economy reduced its dynamism, in a context also in which economic activity reduced its growth in the last quarter of 2022. Mexico grew 1.4% in the first quarter of 2021.
