The Spanish multinational generated US$1.349 billion in revenues throughout 2024 and US$335 million in the fourth quarter in Mexico.
Telefónica Movistar's Mexican unit reported a 2.5% decline in total revenue for 2024 and a 13% decline for the fourth quarter of the same year.
Telefónica attributed these declines to a general depreciation of the Mexican peso against the dollar throughout 2024, although this data would also be a reference for the sale of this subsidiary to a potential buyer, whose main asset is its approximately 22 million mobile consumers.
The Mexican currency depreciated 22.5% in all of 2024, the largest depreciation of this currency in 16 years and due to internal and external macroeconomic factors, while the economy only expanded by 1.2% at the country level in the entire year, but with a drop in GDP of 0.6% for the fourth quarter.
Mexico's annualized inflation for that year stood at 4.90%, above the 4.66% in 2023.
Telefónica earned €1.286 billion (US$1.349 billion) in all of 2024 in Mexico. A year earlier, in 2023, this operator's revenue stood at €1.318 billion (US$1.383 billion).
The company posted 320 million euros ($335 million) in revenue for the fourth quarter, up from 367 million euros ($385 million) a year earlier.
Movistar has not had this level of turnover for a quarter since the first of 2023, when it billed 298 million euros (US$ 312 million) in what is traditionally a weak quarter for companies due to the January slump.
Telefónica also did not record a decrease in its annual income since the 2021 financial year, when it saw a 2.2% reduction in its cash inflows compared to the 2020 result.
Movistar said its overall revenue fell, but also said revenue from the sale of Internet and telephone services rose 7.6% year-on-year.
The company's EBITDA for the 2024 financial year fell by 9.5%, from €129 million (US$135 million) in 2023 to €116 million (US$121 million) in 2024. In the fourth quarter, EBITDA decreased by 40.7%.
"In Mexico, the mobile contract business continues to perform well, which together with the positive performance of the wholesale business translates into solid growth in service revenues in local currency," Telefónica said.
“The results are impacted by the depreciation of the Mexican peso and the volatility of the shutdown of the access network and the early cancellation of lease contracts. Thus, EBITDA is down 40.7% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, but Capex is up 51.1% in 2024,” detailed a statement.
Telefónica's cellular operation in Mexico, the largest of its businesses in Spanish-speaking Latin America, saw smaller declines than those recorded by other subsidiaries of the Spanish group.
For example, Telefónica's business in Chile saw its annual revenues in 2024 fall by 19%, Peru's by 7.4% and Colombia's by 3.2%, although Movistar also sells fixed Internet and/or pay TV products in those markets, as well as a cellular service.
Telefónica has the subsidiary that sells the most phones in Latin America in Mexico, with sales of 333 million euros (US$ 349 million), although this area showed a decrease of 12.8 percent.
Telefónica did not disclose the number of mobile users in Mexico. The most recent data available, from the first half of 2024, puts the number of Movistar users at 22,980,926 cellular accesses.
