America Movil’s Q3 results reflected the impact of natural disasters, legal action and foreign exchange changes, pushing it into the red for the period.

The company’s top line decreased 2.2 per cent to MXN244.2 billion ($12.7 billion), with service revenue down 1.9 per cent to MXN210.3 billion, with the company noting lost revenue in Mexico and Puerto Rico due to earthquakes and hurricane Maria.

America Movil provided bonuses to prepaid customers and credited monthly fees to contract customers in Puerto Rico. In Mexico, networks were opened at no cost for a five day period.

In Colombia, an arbitration panel said America Movil’s Comcel subsidiary was “obliged to revert certain telecom assets to the Colombian government” and “in order to not disrupt the public telecom service”, it would instead have to pay the government the value of the said assets.

On 29 August, a payment of COP3.2 trillion ($1.1 billion) was made. The decision was challenged “in all national and international instances available to us”, the company stated.

America Movil also said that “after a period of relative calm in financial markets”, information on likely acceleration of wage inflation revived talk of future inflationary pressures and, with the US Federal Reserve signalling it will continue raising rates, “bring about renewed volatility in emerging markets currencies”.

The company said excluding Puerto Rico and the US, which since Q3 2016 also included “certain T-Mobile subscribers”, the revenue trend in the recent period was “very much in line with those seen throughout the second quarter”.

For Latin America as a whole “mobile data revenue led the way” with a 24.3 per cent annual increase outpacing growth in fixed broadband (5.2 per cent) and pay-TV (0.9 per cent).

The company reported a net loss of MXN9.5 billion compared with a prior-year profit of MXN2.1 billion, principally as a result of the Colombia ruling.

It ended the period with 280.4 million wireless lines, down 1.3 per cent year-on-year.