America Movil announced a boost in Q4 profit, while using the opportunity to take aim at the situation in Mexico following the entry of AT&T.

With Telefonica also active in the market, it said that “we have now very intense competition in Mexico that benefits our customers”.

However, it continued: “At a global level, America Movil is smaller that these two competitors in terms of revenue, profit and enterprise value. Still, these two large enterprises are subsidised by America Movil with asymmetric regulation.”

The company’s mobile revenue in Mexico fell 2.9 per cent to MXN32.8 billion ($1.76 billion), marking what was described as “the lowest rate of decline posted in five quarters”. It has 73.7 million wireless subscribers in the country, an increase of 3.1 per cent year-on-year, driven by postpaid additions.

On a group level, the company reported a Q4 net profit of MXN15.66 billion, compared with MXN2.63 billion in the prior-year period, on revenue of MXN230.58 billion, up 1.2 per cent from MXN229.3 billion.

The company’s prior-year profit was impacted heavily by foreign exchange losses and financing costs.

EBITDA of MXN63.88 billion was down 5.1 per cent.

A 1.5 per cent decrease in service revenue, to MXN194.5 billion, was offset by growth in equipment revenue.

The company noted that the share of mobile in total service revenue has continued to increase, reaching 68.5 per cent in Q4 compared with 65.8 per cent in the prior-year period. In addition, the share of data as a portion of mobile service revenue has reached 50 per cent for the first time.

America Movil ended the year with 285.5 million wireless subscribers, which marked a reduction of 1.4 per cent year-on-year. The lion’s share of the losses can from prepaid customers in Brazil (6 million were lost in Q4 alone), which the company noted is “affected by an economic recession”.

More positively, it said that its more lucrative contract subscriber base was up 5.9 per cent year-on-year to 63 million.