By Cassandra Garrison
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican telecommunications giant America Movil (NYSE:AMX) on Tuesday reported a surge in its first-quarter net profit on the back of strong operating income and foreign exchange gains, while revenues edged higher.
Net profit jumped to 30.8 billion pesos ($1.55 billion), from 1.8 billion pesos in the year-earlier period, according to a filing with the Mexican stock exchange.
America Movil said the gain was a result of "strong performance of operating income and comprehensive financing income of 7.3 billion pesos driven by foreign exchange gains of 22.6 billion pesos."
Some Latin American currencies such as the Brazilian real posted big gains against the U.S. dollar in the quarter, boosted by higher interest rates as well as soaring commodities prices.
But the company's revenue rose just 2.4% from a year earlier to 211.2 billion pesos.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) came in at 81.1 billion pesos, an increase of about 4.2% at constant exchange rates from a year earlier, below a Refinitiv estimate of 83.673 billion pesos.
America Movil said it added 3.2 million mobile subscribers in the quarter, including 1.9 million postpaid customers, of which more than half are from Brazil. The prepaid customer segment saw 1.3 million new subscribers.
"Mobile service revenues expanded 6.3% year-on-year, very much the same pace as in the preceding quarter and substantially higher than that seen a year before, 1.2%," the company said in a statement.
($1 = 19.8911 pesos at end-March)