Grupo Televisa S.A.B.

Second quarter 2025 conference call. Before we begin, I would like to draw your attention to the press release, which explains the use of forward-looking statements to everything we discuss in today's call and in the earnings release. Now, I'll call over to Mr. Alfonso de Angosia, co-chief executive officer of Grupo Televisa.

Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, Elcita. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us.

With me today are Francisco Balin, CEO of Cable, and Sky, and Carlos Phillips, CFO of Grupo Televisa. Before discussing our second quarter operating and financial performance, let me share with you what we believe are the key milestones achieved so far this year, both at Grupo Televisa and Televisa Univision. At Grupo Televisa, let me touch on four major achievements. First, our strategy to focus on attracting and retaining value customers in cable has allowed us to stabilize our internet subscriber base in the first half of the year and potentially grow it sequentially over the coming quarters. Second, we keep executing on the implementation of OPEX efficiencies and the integration between EASNY and SKYLE to extract further synergies. This has already contributed to expanding our consolidated operating segment income margin by around 80 basis points in the first half of the year to 38.1%, driven by a year-on-year OPEX reduction of around 7%. Third, we continue to maintain a disciplined CAPEX deployment approach to focus on free cash flow generation. So far this year, we have invested 3.9 billion pesos in CAPEX, which is equivalent to 13% of sales. While we expect CAPEX deployment to accelerate during the second half of the year, we are cutting our CAPEX budget from 2025 to $600 million from the $665 million previously disclosed, mainly because we have had successful negotiations with suppliers resulting in more favorable terms. And fourth, during the first half of the year, we have generated around 3.6 billion pesos in free cash flow, allowing us to prepay a bank loan due in 2026 with a principal amount of 2.65 billion pesos. This debt repayment comes on top of the $219 million principal amount of our senior notes already paid on March 18th. Additionally, at the end of the second quarter, Grupo Teneriza's leverage ratio of 2.2 times EBITDA compared to 2.4 times at the end of the first quarter, mainly driven by our free cash flow generation. And at Teneriza Univision, I will elaborate on three key milestones. First, engagement and growth for VIX remain strong, with momentum accelerating across both our free and premium tiers. Moreover, subscribers have now surpassed 10 million, implying double-digit growth year on year. Second, the efficiency plan to reduce operating expenses at Teleisa Univision by over $400 million in 2025 is proving to be successful. In the first half of the year, our total operating expenses were defined by around 13% year-on-year for total savings of around $226 million. This shows a disciplined execution of our cost-saving initiatives, including lower content, technology, and marketing costs, and the normalization of our DTC-related investments. And third, looking at Televisa Univision's leverage and debt profile, the company ended the quarter at 5.5 times EBITDA, an improvement from 5.8 times in the prior quarter driven by growth. Furthermore, last week, Televisa Univision addressed its near-term debt maturity profile by refinancing $1.5 billion, eliminating the majority of its 2027 bond maturities. The leveraging remains a core strategic priority for Televisa Univision, and management remains committed to further strengthening the capital structure of the company during the second half of the year. Having said that, let me turn the call over to Balim, as he will discuss the operating and financial performance of our consolidated assets.

Thank you, Alfonso. Good morning, everyone. First, let me walk you through the operational and financial performance of our cable operations. We ended June with a network of almost 20 million homes after passing around 18,000 new homes during the quarter. In the second quarter, our monthly churn rate fell below our historical average 2% as we kept executing our strategy to focus on valued customers while working on customer retention and satisfaction. Our broadband broadcasts continue to improve on a sequential basis, allowing us to deliver more than 6,000 net ads during the second quarter compared to the disconnections of around 6,000 of the first quarter and losses of about 85,000 on the fourth quarter of last year. In video, we also experienced stronger gross ads than in the first quarter, therefore, we lost about 53,000 video subscribers during the second quarter compared to 73,000 cancellations in the first quarter and 95,000 disconnections in the fourth quarter of 2024. Our mobile net ads of 83,000 subscribers during the quarter were almost two times higher than those of the first quarter and more than tripled compared to the full year of net ads of 2024. We are able to achieve this because, late last year, we relaunched a new and innovative MGNO service, Develop IGTs, offering enhanced user experience. We are confident that this new service will make our bundles more competitive, while allowing us to increase the share of wallets from our existing customers. During the quarter, net revenue from residential operations of 10.5 billion pesos, which accounted for around 91% of total cable revenue, decreased by 3.1% year-on-year, mainly because we had a slight lower subscriber base. However, net revenue from our residential operations remained stable on sequential wages, potentially suggesting a turning point. On the other hand, net revenues from our enterprise operations of 1.1 million pesos, which accounted for around 9% of cable revenue, increased by 3% year-on-year, mainly driven by higher recurring revenue. Moving on to Sky's operating financial performance. During the second quarter, we lost 347,000 revenue-generating units, mostly coming from prepaid subscribers that had not been recharging their services. In addition, beginning the second quarter, we started to charge an installation fee of 1,250 pesos to all new satellite PPG subscribers to increase the return on investment for this service. This translated into a slowdown in video browse additions for Sky. Sky's second quarter revenue of 3.2 billion pesos declined by 16.3% year-on-year, mainly driven by a lower subscriber base. To sum up, Segment revenue of 14.8 billion pesos fell by 5.9% year-on-year, while operating segment income of 5.7 billion pesos declined by 4.2%. Our operating segment income margin of 38.4% expanded by 70 basis points year-on-year, mainly driven by the efficiency measures that we have been implementing and synergies from the ongoing integration between Nissan Skype. On a sequential basis, our operating segment income for the second quarter was basically flat, while our operating segment income margin extended by 60 basis points. Regarding CapEx deployment, our total investment of 2.1 billion pesos accounted for 14.3% of sales during the second quarter. Finally, operating cash flow for Cable and Sky, which is equivalent to EBITDA minus CAPEX, was 3.6 billion pesos in the second quarter, representing 24.1% of sales.

Thank you, Valir. Now let me walk you through Tenerife Univision's second quarter results. The company's second quarter revenue of $1.2 billion declined by 4% year-on-year, while adjusted EBITDA of $398 million increased by 10%. Excluding the impact from the depreciation of the Mexican peso, Televisa Univision's second quarter revenue remained unchanged year on year, despite the impact of the renewal cycle with key distribution partners in Mexico. On the other hand, adjusted EBITDA increased by 14% year-on-year, reflecting margin expansion driven by the benefits of a streamlined cost structure and continued DTC profitability. Moving on to the details of our revenue performance, during the quarter, consolidated advertising revenue decreased by 5% year-on-year, or 1% excluding the FX impacts. In the US, advertising revenue was 2% lower, reflecting a sequential improvement compared to the first quarter, as growth in VIX and media ratings stabilized, driven by the strong performance of our content. In Mexico, advertising revenue declined by 13% year-on-year, driven by the depreciation of the Mexican peso. FX-neutral advertising revenue in Mexico was stable, driven by DIX and a strong sports programming rate that was partially offset by a decline in local advertising revenue. During the quarter, consolidated subscription and licensing revenue was flat year-on-year, but grew by 2%, excluding the FX impact. The growth was driven by DIX's premium tiers in both geographies, offsetting linear platform declines primarily related to the renewal cycle with key distribution partners in Mexico. In the U.S., subscription and licensing revenue increased by 9%, while in Mexico it fell by 23%. Excluding impacts from FX and the renewal cycle, subscription and licensing revenue in Mexico grew by 13%. To wrap up, Bernardo and I remain confident that our focus on value customers, efficiencies, and ongoing integration between EASY and SKY at Grupo Televisa, and further integration and operational optimization of Televisa Univision, now that our DTC business has gained scale and achieved profitability, will allow us to create greater value for our shareholders throughout this year. Now we're ready to take your questions, Elisa, could you please provide instructions for the Q&A?

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and then 1 using a touchscreen telephone. To draw your questions, you may press star and 2. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up your handset prior to pressing a key to ensure the best sound quality. Once again, that is star and then 1. join the question sheet.

We'll pause on the parallel to assemble the roster. Our first question today comes from Emilio Fuentes from GDM. Please go ahead with your question.

Hi, thank you for taking my question. First of all, regarding Televisa Unidition, I was wondering how are you thinking that business in right of the ongoing separation between content streaming and cable TV in the U.S.? Do you still see value in keeping distribution and content bundled, both through streaming and linear channels, or would it make more sense to separate from traditional cable TV? And regarding Sky, given the tone rate of these connections, could this eventually become a self-burden for you or is it something you would not allow to happen?

Thank you. Thank you, Emilio, for your question.

I think that the transactions at Warner and Comcast did make a lot of sense for them. It's part of the evolution of this industry that is undergoing an existential transformation. For us at Televisa, the distribution business, we're selling our networks to distributors. It's still a $1.1 billion revenue business. Our channel packages continue to be very strong, especially in entertainment and sports. We just renewed our deals with DirecTV and Cox. And we just launched our U.S. network on Hulu. So it takes us for now to keep everything together as a bundle. But we will always analyze alternatives to generate value. Dave Haslop is Director of Arts. He's part of the Board of Directors. And we learn always a lot from Dave. So we'll keep analyzing alternatives. But for the time being, it's a large business, and it makes sense to keep it together. As to your second question, I'll ask Alim to answer it.

Thank you. I think that's a great question because it gives me the opportunity to address an issue that I see there's a little confusion regarding Skype. As far as integration is concerned, we're almost towards the very end, meaning that all the cost structure that CHI used to have has now basically disappeared. So CHI, as we see here, is a revenue stream of prepaid and postpaid subscribers with a variable cost of programming and a satellite cost. Other than that, everything is already embedded in the infrastructure that EZ already has. So there is no potential... likelihood of sky being a burden, because it only becomes a revenue stream. And like we've mentioned before on the initial presentation, we are starting an installation fee of about 300 pesos. So we make sure that we have a payback on every new subscriber. So, the disconnections don't generate any sort of capex or opex to us, basically, as we collect them as part of the payment that they have to pay back as part of collections. So, there is no impact. So, if I see this moving forward, the sky, it will be this revenue stream that will be declining as it is in this business everywhere in the world. So, there is a declining rate of revenue, but still a very robust, you know, very high margin generation. And since what we are paying, or will be paying, for the sake of eBot, we basically have amounted for that in the first 12 months of scenery. So everything else that Sky generates from now on we'll be basically going to the bottom line of our business. I think there needs to be some clarity. So we're not so concerned about the decline of the Sky business because that was already in our forecast. And for technological reasons, we don't see that changing anytime soon. But we are, yes, generating a lot of cash from that transaction that we think was very profitable to all of us.

Yeah, I think to add on that, the deal that we made where we bought 42% of sky from AT&T was a great deal, and the execution by Vani and his team in terms of the synergies that he was mentioning has been great. So now it's all a matter of extending the life of the subscribers that we have. But, of course, it's no surprise to us that we have lost subscribers, and we will continue to lose subscribers.

The whole industry, the ETH industry, is in secular decline.

Our next question comes from Leva Mizabata from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. My first one would be on CapEx. Could you comment on your expectations for the year? Do you see room for a downside revision on the guidance, and are you still targeting the 1 million homes pass for 2025? And the second one, do you see broadband ads going back to positive territory? What can we expect for the second half of this year? Could you comment a little bit on your turn trajectory and how has been the response to your strategy to focusing on value clients? And what do you see as a healthy level for growth ads, net ads, and turn for the second half of 2025? Thank you.

Hi, Lydia. Yes. As I mentioned in the opening remarks, we have updated our capex guidance. for 2025 from $665 million to $600 million that had been previously disclosed. And I'll ask Alim to go into the details.

Thank you, Alfonso. I think that, and also like was said in the beginning, this is mostly due to more efficient negotiation with suppliers. And because the way he approached the market with a very focused focus approach on higher end subscribers, we don't have to worry too much about, you know, just bringing a whole bunch of subscribers that will churn very quickly. And that's why churn is at its lowest rate, not only in this company, but also in the industry overall, which we think is very, very valid. So, as we see the world moving forward, we anticipate churn to be low because of the things that we are doing into retaining and valuing our existing customers, but also we are targeting growth of those high-end, more reliable, and more stable customers. So we are not trying to become the leader in market care of NetApp. What we are trying to do is to start increasing quarter-over-quarter the revenues of our cable business. Like I said, the supply discussion, I just mentioned that a second ago. So that's our focus. So we see, yes, a trend moving upwards in terms of quarter-over-quarter revenue growth and growth, not huge growth, but a few growth in terms of subscribers in cable. I think that was basically your question. I don't know if that answers what you had in mind.

Yeah, that answers. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from Milena Okamura from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead with your question.

Hey, thank you for taking all the questions. The first one is, you mentioned that you continue to focus on high-end customers. Could you please tell us a little bit about your commercial strategy recently and how have you seen competition evolving?

Thanks. Thanks, Helena. Rani, can you please go over the question?

Yeah. So, like I said, we don't have any changes in that. We see the competition in Mexico being very, very rational. And I think that's a key element of the success of our strategy in this market. All the players are being very rational. Prices are, you know, they do not increase, but we don't see anyone discounting significantly prices, which means all the major players are seeing this as as a stable market moving forward, so no one should see big swings either way.

Thank you. Very clear.

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Our next question comes from Matthew Harrigan from Benchmark. Please go ahead with your questions.

Thank you. There's a real tendency in the U.S. for more consumption, especially sports, but also, you know, streaming shows and even linear programming on social media, TikTok, obviously a lot of streaming consumption is on YouTube, and it doesn't really monetize that well yet, especially, you know, for sports. You know, with your primacy in Spanish language media, what are you doing to get more efficient on realizing the digital revenues. Your profile there, including on sports, is really important. And the second question, and I know this is just inherently fuzzy, but any new concerns on U.S. tariff policy and specifically anything that might affect the composition of your program with so much being produced in Mexico City on a very efficient basis? Thank you and congratulations on the cost.

I think it's a remarkable job. Thank you, Matthew.

Yeah, I mean, there is a tendency where sports and also entertainment content is being streamed, of course, and we're putting a lot of effort at the Univision into selling more digital packages. I don't know if you saw, but we brought in a head of sales in the United States, Tim Natividad, that comes from TikTok. And he's somebody that knows a lot about the digital market, and he will help us to enhance all our digital products. So now we have centered on VIX and selling advertising on VIX. That has picked up. VIX is now a billion-dollar revenue business, including subscriptions and advertising sales on the AWOP product. So that has become a real special business. However, we're also enhancing all our digital sales, more especially in the U.S., where we have to do a better job. So Tim will help us in using basically our sports assets and our entertainment assets to build up and enhance those sales. We're also doing a much better job in windowing our content. We own the sports rights and we own most of our content. And now we have a chief content officer for Televisa Univision. As you might remember, before we had a content officer for VIX, a content officer for Linear Mexico, and another one for Linear in the United States. Now we have unified that position, and now the chief content officer is a seasoned executive that comes from Telerita, and he's in charge of basically windowing all our content, including sports. and, of course, enhancing our monetization of that content. So I think we have a much better team now, and we're doing things much better, and you'll see the results this year and in 2026. So I think that we're doing a much better job there, as I was mentioning. And what was your second question?

Just all the... volatility in the U.S., the tariff policy and the posturing. And you occasionally see hypotheticals where there's an effect on entertainment companies. I mean, clearly, you produce a lot of programming down in Mexico City that also shows in the U.S. And I know that wasn't a primary concern. People think more about, you know, agriculture and cars and chips and all that. But you have seen articles in the trade press about people at the Basel studios starting to worry about some things that an administration like you or could do. It doesn't seem like it's too likely to happen, but it's definitely much more on people's radar screens than you would have thought before Trump was elected, to say the least.

Yeah, great question, Matthew. Fortunately, digital content is not considered a physical fit for purposes of tariffs, so All the shows and films produced in Mexico and that are aired or screened in the U.S. remain outside of the scope of the tariff laws. And under the U.S. MTA, it currently exempts digital transmitted content from tariffs. So we never know and we can never predict what is going to happen with respect to tariffs. As you have seen, many things change, but we think that we're in solid ground now.

Great. Thank you.

And with that, we'll be concluding today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Manager for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much for participating in our call, and we're always here to answer any questions that you may have. Have a great day. Bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference call and presentation. We do thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your line.