América Móvil Consolidated Results
During the second quarter U.S. dollar interest rates remained as volatile as they had been in the first quarter. With inflationary pressures stronger than anticipated earlier in the year, the reductions of interest rates by the Fed originally expected to take place in the latter part of 2023 appeared increasingly improbable, giving rise to an upward trend in medium and long-term rates throughout the latter half of the quarter that has continued in July.
Second quarter revenue was down 4.6% year-on-year to 203 billion pesos in Mexican peso terms, with service revenue falling 4.2%. As in the prior quarter, this reflected the appreciation of the Mexican peso vs. our other operating currencies in the period. Correcting for foreign exchange effects, service revenue increased 5.0%, a slightly slower pace than that observed the prior quarter.
Service revenue growth continued to advance on the fixed-line platform, moving up to 2.3% at constant exchange rates from 1.8% the prior quarter. On the mobile platform it slowed down to 6.7% from 9.3% the prior quarter.
The improvement of fixed-line service revenue growth was observed in three of our four principal markets: Mexico, Brazil and Austria. In Mexico it was driven by both corporate networks services and fixed-broadband services; in Brazil and Austria by the latter. Importantly, the downward trend of PayTV revenue appears to be coming to an end: in the quarter they were down 1.3%, the lowest decline in several quarters.
The deceleration of mobile service revenue growth stems principally from the normalization of mobile revenue in Brazil exactly a year after the integration of revenue from former Oi mobile clients acquired by Claro. The uplift in terms of revenue growth provided by former Oi clients has come down to 0.8% from 6.4% a year ago. In addition to the above, we also had somewhat slower growth in Mexico and Colombia.
EBITDA was down 3.8% in Mexican peso terms to 78.7 billion pesos in the quarter, representing a 38.9% EBITDA margin. At constant exchange rates it expanded 5.6% in the period, reflecting the greater operating leverage of the company. The reduction in inflation rates we have seen in most countries, as well as the appreciation of most Latam currencies and the euro vis-à-vis U.S. dollar, have recently contributed to this through their impact on costs.
We turned an operating profit of 40.3 billion pesos in the quarter, down 2.8% year-on-year, which helped bring about a 25.9 billion pesos net profit in the quarter, almost doubling that of the year-earlier quarter mostly on account of foreign exchange gains increasing from 4.4 billion pesos in the year-earlier quarter to 14.0 billion pesos. Our net profit was equivalent to 41 peso cents per share or 46 dollar cents per ADR.
In the first six months of the year capital expenditures totaled 64.4 billlion pesos and distributions to shareholders 5.0 billion pesos, including share buybacks in the amount of 3.1 billion pesos and dividends of 2.0 billion. These were partly funded by 2.4 billion pesos in dividends received from KPN and Verizon.
Our net debt excluding leases totaled 358 billion pesos at the end of June—equivalent to 1.43 times LTM EBITDA—having come down by 23.9 billion pesos from the end-of-December figure on the back of the appreciation of the Mexican peso vis-à-vis other currencies, particularly the U.S. dollar. In cash flow terms we reduced our net debt by 3.8 billion pesos in the period.