AT&T lauds 'remarkable' 2017 in Mexico

AT&T México added 1.3mn mobile customers in 4Q16 and 3.3mn in 2016 overall to round off the year with a total of 12mn mobile customers.

"Mexico has been a remarkable success story. In a little more than a year, we deployed 4G LTE, 78 million people in more than a 160 markets; rebranded our services and stores; and became the fastest growing wireless company in the country," AT&T CFO John Stephens said during a conference call with investors.

The company launched mobile operations after acquiring the operations of Nextel in 2015. The company also acquired the operations of Latin America's largest pay-TV provider DirecTV.

AT&T plans to invest US$3bn in Mexico by 2018 and have LTE available to 100mn people by the end of that year.

In the fourth quarter the firm increased its mobile customer base by a net 233,000 postpaid customers and 1.06mn prepaid users.

Mobile service revenues fell 3.4% to US$477mnn, while equipment revenues doubled to US$171mn from US$ 87mn a year ago.

Pay-TV service revenues were up slightly to US$1.26bn from US$1.21bn, helped by currency effects. The operator lost 88,000 subscribers in Brazil, while gaining 67,000 in other countries during the three months, for a total 12.4mn customers at year-end.

AT&T's international operations nevertheless made a loss of US$240mn due to higher operating costs, compared to a US$260mn loss in 4Q15.

The company still faces a tough battle to improve its 10% mobile market share and compete with Telcel (66.4%) and Telefónica (23.7%).

Mexico also faces uncertainty due to the new US administration as President Donald Trump has said he will oppose AT&T's proposed acquisition of Time Warner and claimed he will slap taxes on US companies' building operations outside the country and bringing goods and services back in to the country.

AT&T's plan for Mexico is to create a pan-American network that facilitates trade between the US and Mexico.

That said, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told investors on Wednesday that after a recent meeting with Trump, he was bullish on the issues of tax and regulatory reform and was optimistic that Trump's choice of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai would bring some clarity and predictability to the regulatory environment.

For more on AT&T in Mexico read BNamericas' operator series