Megacable Hldgs Sab Ord

Good morning and welcome to Megacable's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. With us this morning from Megacable, we have Mr. Enrique Yamuni, CEO, Mr. Raymundo Fernandez, Deputy CEO, and Mr. Luis Setter, CFO. Let me remind you that the information discussed in today's earnings call may include forward-looking statements on the company's future financial performance and prospects. which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Megacable undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Enrique Umunni so he may begin.

Thank you very much and good morning to everyone and thank you for joining us today. During the third quarter, the macroeconomic situation continued to generate a challenging environment for the industry and for Mexican families. including a raising inflation, the increase in the Mexican central bank reference rate, and lower annual growth expectations. In this context, Mercado continued to make steady progress in its business strategy and growing EBITDA. While entering new territories and reaffirming its commitment to offering quality services, adding the best value for the market. The remarkable subscriber growth achieved during this quarter confirms that the strategies that we have implemented are paying off. We are convinced that this is only the beginning of the positive trend and that increases for the coming period should be higher to meet the goals that we have set for the company. It is worth noting that successful sales strategy of the company, which continues to be reflected in the highest level of gross ads for a quarter, a proof of the subscriber preference and service position in this growth is coming from both legacy footprint as well as from expansion to new territories. In that regard, we have added 11 new cities at quarter end, and 30 more cities and towns will be announced before year end. Regarding financial results, continue to be very solid revenue figures for the period reflect an outstanding performance for the corporate segment. This revenue comes from a balanced mix, including the government, corporate, and enterprise markets. Regarding EBITDA margin, EBITDA margin erosion is mainly due to the higher costs and expenses inherent to the current operating volume. The EBITDA margin should bounce back as we continue to increase penetration in the new territories. Moving into our new generation video platform, the integration capabilities and the friendly user interface of XView continue to position our service on top of the subscribers' preference. We are certain that we have the best video product and the market's acceptance is being reflected in the close to 90 million interactions registered on a monthly basis. Regarding the GPON Evolution project, we can confirm it has been concluded with a progress of 100%. We are very satisfied with what we have accomplished with this initiative, since fiber deployment together with the evolution of HFC, including node partition to reach a lower number of homes per node, will ensure the quality of our services in all our footprints. As per our expansion plan, we can proudly say that we are finally seeing a sight of the total potential of the project. The contribution of the new territories is now visible on the subscribers and REUs for the quarter. It has been very challenging since we are subject to external factors that are raised in the market such as extended delivery times, electronic equipment shortages, and public safety. even to the contribution from the new territories, is not at the levels that we expected, we are confident that a more noticeable ramp-up is underway, starting in the fourth quarter, considering the current fiber rollout capacity of the company. We are aware of the challenges of our current macroeconomic environment, but we are confident that the measures we have deployed to contain those factors Together with the positive reception we have registered in new markets, by offering higher quality products and a great customer service will allow us to achieve greater operating traction in the next quarters. Regarding CapEx, it is important to clarify that even though we are behind schedule in terms of activated kilometers, The associated investments have already been reflected in the CAPEX figures. We have been working closely to overcome the delays we have been facing in the fiber rollout. As a result, we expect a substantial change in the activation of additional kilometers in the coming periods. Another aspect to highlight was the successful placement of 7 billion Mexican pesos in long-term local notes issued during this quarter with the participation of various players in the financial market, including brokerage firms, afforets, and investment funds. That, the oversubscription recorded, reflects the high confidence that the investors have in Megacablis. This transaction, which strategically allowed us to continue strengthening our operating and financial position by recognizing short-term debt and accelerate our online expansion plans, represented our first-time participation in the Mexican debt markets and the highest credit ratings from the PHR ratings. We are convinced that under the strategic path, we are not only overbuilding the foundations for growth, only building the foundations for growth in the coming periods, but we are also laying the grounds that will allow us to achieve our medium and long-term objectives with the consolidation starting in 2023 of the new territories that we have entered. I will turn the call now over to Raimundo to discuss our operational performance. Raimundo, please go ahead.

Thanks, Enrique, and good morning, everyone. The first nine months of the year have been marked by the beginning of the execution of the most important project for the company. This ambitious expansion project has been undergoing for several months now, and we are currently offering our innovative services in 11 additional cities and towns with the expectation of increasing that number significantly before year's end. Despite the many challenges that we have found along the way, the company continues to move forward with our plan to consolidate the national presence and take advantage of the opportunities that the market presents. In line with our expectations and as we mentioned in previous calls, this quarter reflects the growth of subscribers coming from the new territories. coupled with the contribution from our existing footprint, has resulted in the highest net add figure in the last two years. In this regard, please be assured that we are conducting all necessary studies to strategically select the regions where we plan to enter, without losing focus on our main operating and financial metrics to guarantee sustainable growth. There is still a lot to do. And despite the fact that we have already added close to one million new home paths during the last nine months, the pace should pick up significantly in the coming periods once we have fine-tuned our building strategy to reach the growth we're looking for. Moving into the results. IUs rose to more than 10.8 million, which represents net additions of 278,000 during the quarter, compared to only 66,000 recorded during the second quarter of 2022. In the same comparison, unique subscribers record 84,000 net ads during the quarter, compared to 11,000 on the previous quarter, reaching almost 4.3 million subs. On an annual basis, IUs grew 7%, while unique subscribers grew 4% when compared to the same quarter of last year. As a result, IUs per unique subscriber reached 2.54 this quarter, comparing February with the 2.49 in the third quarter of 2021. Internet shops exceeded the 4 million mark during the quarter, due to more than 100,000 net ads recorded on the quarter. On an annual basis, 260,000 subscribers were added, which represents a 7% growth when compared to the third quarter of 2021. The investments that we have carried out since 2020 to migrate subscribers to fiber technology, as well as to increase the bandwidth capacity of our network, resulted in 54% of our customer base getting a 50 max speed or higher. compared to only 18% a year ago. In the same line, at quarter end, 45% of our subscribers are receiving their service through our FTTH network. The video segment added 49,000 attacks during the quarter, totaling 3.6 million subs. While on the annual comparison, it increased by 2%. Our new generation platform, XView, recorded 650,000 annual net additions and 207,000 sequential net additions. To approach 3 million TV outlets, 60% of our subscriber base already joined this service in the compact. In the same line, Telephony subscribers grew 11% versus the third quarter of 2021, reaching almost 3.3 million and recording 129,000 net ads on a sequential basis, mostly due to the bundling strategy of the company. The MVNO service recorded 65,000 net additions in the last 12 months. It is important to mention that this represents a sequential decrease derived from the conservative approach we have maintained in recent quarters in terms of adding new subscribers, as we seek to prioritize ARPUs and therefore higher revenue generation over volume. In that sense, more than 82% of the total 410,000 active lines were post-paid customers. This mix has proven to support revenue generation, as postpaid customers have a higher ARPU than the rest of the MVNO market. On the churn side, following the normalization of several factors that affected the churn rate for the previous quarter, this indicator decreased on a sequential basis, with broadband at 2.3%, video at 2.4%, and telephony at 2.5%. This becomes even more important when realizing the challenges of the current economic situation. Regarding ARPU per unique subscriber, it contracted slightly on a sequential basis because under our commercial strategy, new subscribers have promotional rates during the first months of the services so that as these rates normalize, the contribution of new customers to revenues will grow and then will be reflected in ARPUs. By segment, ARPU grew 1.1% year-over-year at the internet service and 2.4% on video, while telephony was down 12.2% compared to the third quarter of 2021. Now, the corporate segment recorded its highest quarterly figure in the history of the company, reaching 1.2 billion pesos, and now outstanding 26% growth when compared to the third quarter of 2021. This was the result of double-digit growth across all the companies that integrate this segment, highlighting MetroCarrie's performance in the connectivity service for the B2B market, as well as the higher revenue in the corporate and government markets in order. To conclude, the results obtained this quarter show the greater growth trend that we expect for the following periods, as we continue to grow in those markets where we already have presence. and the contribution of new markets is gaining traction. In addition, our expansion strategy continues to make steady progress to reach more cities, same that will be soon announced. With this, I conclude my remarks. Now I would like to hand the call over to Luis, who will shed broader color on the financial results.

Thank you, Raimundo. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. In the fifth quarter, 2022 consolidated revenue grew in the range of 10% on an annual basis to more than 6.7 billion pesos. Following the combined effect of a solid performance at the corporate segment, a larger subscriber base achieved in the mass market. Compared to the third quarter of 2021, the mass segment revenue was up 6% year over year. totaling 5.4 billion pesos, mainly due to the broadband and video growth of 8% and 5%, respectively, driven by a higher subscriber base, as this upsets the 2% decline in telephony revenue. Compared to the third quarter of 2021, the mass segment revenue was up 6% year over year, totaling 5.4 billion pesos, mainly due to broadband and video growth of... Sorry, I'm skipping a line. Regarding corporate segment, during this period, revenue grew 25%. This is the third quarter of 2021. The largest growth rate for a quarter since the end of 2019 to reach 1.3 billion pesos, supported by the strong performance of all businesses. Metro current revenue increased 34%, positioned at the highest growth rate in the segment. While OLA revenue rose 17%, MCM climbed 16%, and PCPB increased 12%. Metrocarrier revenue for the quarter includes one-time revenue contracts for around $50 million. Excluding those, pro forma revenue growth will have been a healthy 25% growth. Cost of services for the quarter stood at 13% year-over-year, reaching 1.8 billion pesos. This was due to the overall growth of the company, including higher bandwidth capacity and the growth of the MVNO business. In the same way, SG&A increased 15% versus the same period last year, totaling 1.7 billion pesos. due to the inflationary pressures, higher wages and utilities costs, coupled with the expansion of the company. Consolidated EBITDA went from 3 billion pesos in the third quarter 2021 to 3.2 billion pesos this period, growing 5% with a margin of 47%. As Enrique mentioned, margin is going through a pressure period effect inherent to our growth and investment strategies, as we have been increasing our operations capacity to support the growth of the following periods, thus having an upward effect on costs and expenses. Furthermore, despite registering a solid increase in the net add, most of them count on promotional rates that temporarily affect our profitability margin. Therefore, As we continue to add more subscribers and as promotional rates normalize, EBITDA generation will go up and margins should improve. Net income totaled 823 million pesos this quarter due to a higher depreciation and interest-based items. In line with the investment we have made and the higher level of debt recorded as of quarter end. Moving into the balance sheet, net debt increased from 4.3 billion pesos in the quarter in the third quarter of 2021 to 10.3 billion pesos at the end of this quarter as a result of higher gross debt and lower cash and cash in equivalence balance in line with the investment that megacab has deployed to drive this expansion plan because of the above net debt dividend ratio and interest coverage ratio stood at 0.81 and 11.18 times respectively. Regarding CapEx, following the investment required by our expansion plan, this reached 2.7 billion pesos, representing 41% of quarterly revenues and 39% year-to-date. Finally, the solid fundamentals of the sector, together with the positive recovery trend shown by the corporate segment and incremental results projected for the mass segment during the following periods, will not only allow us to overcome the challenges of the current economic situation, but also drive us a greater generation of value for the benefit of all our stakeholders. With this, I conclude my remarks. Now, let me turn back the call to the operator to open the line for questions and answers.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question over the phone, you may press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation to indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participating speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the start key. Our first question comes from the line of Marcelo Santos with JP Morgan. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I have two. The first is a comment. I wanted you to comment a bit deeper on – you said that the contribution of new territories is not what you expected. Is this because it's taking longer time to deploy the network? Because the economic situation is not as good as expected? Is it because of competitive environment? If you could just say more clearly what is behind your expectations and how do you see that affecting the whole plan? And the second question is on margins. So understand you are facing some margin pressure because you are deploying infrastructure, you have costs, you are bringing in users We've discounted ARPUs in the beginning. They have discounts to join. But could we assume that you're kind of reaching the bottom of margins because from now on, you're going to start adding subscribers at a faster pace and dilute those costs?

Or should we still see further margin pressure in the next couple of quarters? Thank you.

Thank you, Marcelo. Thank you for the question. This is Raimundo. Your first question regarding the status contribution of the new territories in the plan. Yes, we know you were expecting more than the 450,000 home paths that we have, but we can tell you, as Enrique mentioned in his opening remarks, we have much more kilometers built. And it's part of our CAPEX that is already settled. The problem we have, and we want to be very clear, is regarding the time of electronic equipment to be received and to be activated. So you can expect from the forequarters to have a much more larger amount of home paths and kilometers to be activated. We're very confident you will find that. And nothing has changed with the expansion program that the company has, not for the fourth quarter and not for 2023. What we expect is to have a much more larger pace of contribution to the kilometers that go back to the company. That one, you can count on that. So it's nothing we change because of competition and economics, nothing related to that. It's just a matter of execution regarding to the ability to have the hubs, the sites built, and those kilometers with electronic activated. Enrique was very clear. We already activated 11 cities as we speak. We are opening 30 more new territories with different sites of them. uh by year ends and those will be between october and december mostly will be in december because of all the electronic i'm telling you so being very clear you will have an increase in kilometers and compass for sure and you will continue to have that in 2023 because nothing has changed in our expansion plan okay the second one i will divide that between myself and and probably Luis, is regarding the margin pressure that we have. We always say that we will have pressure once we enter new markets. We have to get broadband, we have to pay We have to pay electricity, everything related to the fixed cost of the network with an operating system with few subscribers because we are beginning to sell. Even though I want to be clear that the response that we have in those markets has been really positive. And we will talk about that later on. We are very, very happy about the results of the expansion. But we're just opening those territories. So it's normal that the margin of those territories is below what we have. But those territories that will open in 2022 will recover the margin that we have and we normally have in the past. We will have new territories that will put pressure, so we don't expect to be below those two points of the margin that we already reflect in this report. And maybe you, Luis, want to say something else, or I was very, very... very detailed on my answer.

In addition to these temporary less efficient operations on the new markets, you have to take in consideration that we are growing faster in lower margin revenues. I mean, the mobile business and the corporate business have lower margins than cable operators. operations. So that has to do also with the impact in margin for the quarter.

Perfect. Just to clarify, 30 new cities, 3-0.

3-0. You can count cities, everything that has houses, towns, and people living there. So without that joke, there are some important cities that you will see, and of course, other ones that are of a smaller size. But our first plan is to go for the main cities of our country that we did not have. So the majority are some large cities. around all the territory, not I don't want to say in the north, in the Bajio, in the central, it's all around, everything that makes economic sense and mid-sized cities that we feel and we believe that they are not well covered by our competition and where we have very successful being sell in the first phase of our expansion plan that we already opened this year.

Perfect. Very clear. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Marcelo. Our next question comes from the line of Alejandro Velostro with BBVA.

Please proceed with your question.

Hello, good morning. I have a few questions. First, I see that you connected 84,000 unique subscribers this quarter. What's the percentage of those new homes connected that come from legacy regions versus new regions? That's my first question. Thank you.

Yes, Alejandro, thank you for the question. From the subscribers that we have, what I can tell you is that out of the growth of the, and let me talk about the year end, what we have happened here. We have growth in the organic segment. We have not lost subscribers. We continue to present growth, and our growth in broadband and some of the unique subscribers, mostly broadband, is around 2% in the organic segments where we have. The rest is coming from the expansion plan that we have. Let me jump into broadband, for example. In broadband, we have around 100,000 subscribers coming from new territories. plus some other ones that we have before that we start with a little test on 2021. So you can count on 100,000. That means that 80,000 is coming from organic. So 45% is coming from organic, and 55% is coming from expansion plant.

So you mentioned one, I'm sorry, bring us an example. Broden, you said one, can you repeat the figures, I'm sorry?

Yeah, I went through numbers on the year. For this quarter, out of the 80,000 unique subscribers, as well, 60% is coming from expansion and 40%, 65% is coming from expansion and 35% is coming from organic.

Okay, got it, thank you. Thank you, Raimundo. Regarding my second question, I see that you have passed almost 1 million new homes this year. However, you previously mentioned that you plan to pass more than 2 million new homes in 2022. You even mentioned between 2 and 2.5 million new homes this year. Is this still your year-end target? And related to this question, you have spent $400 million in CapEx during the first nine months of 2022. How should we think about CapEx going into Q4?

Sure. You can expect, let's say that our floor is $750,000 HomePass, and we are targeting to reach that $1 million. So you can go between $750,000 HomePass and $1 million for four quarters this year.

That's it. I don't know if you want to say.

Luis, you want to go? Let me clarify about the active kilometers of the expansion plan. The kilometers, a lot of the kilometers are built already. The problem is the electronic and the size. The delay is there. The supply chain for the electronics is the one that has been affecting mostly the project. But we are starting to receive that delayed electronics already. So that's why we will activate those kilometers that are already built, but they are not active. That's why Raimundo is giving you somewhere between 750,000 new homes passed and 1 million new homes passed for this quarter. That doesn't mean that we will build those kilometers. We will activate those. A lot of them have been built already. And yes, for 2024, you should expect the same level of capex. For 23, I'm sorry.

And for the fourth quarter, it's in line with our expectation and our projections that will be around 40% for the year.

40% of the annual cap will be in the fourth quarter. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

And one quick question, if I may. Can you please give us more color on what's behind the year? significant quarter-on-quarter pressure in ARPUs. You mentioned that it's because of initial promotions in new regions and that eventually these ARPUs should recover. But if you continue entering new regions with initial promotions, we should continue to see pressure in ARPUs going forward for several years. Is that correct, or how should we think about that?

Remember that the promotional rate has appeared temporarily. So we have two steps. The first one was a very aggressive promotional rate that we put as we enter the market. That one has a period that is going to finish, and as soon as it finishes, the ARPU goes off. That's the study that we have now that we're facing in those systems where we already have more than six months. We will adjust our promotional rates a little bit higher than that. so we can increase our ARPUs. Of course, it's going to be pressure on ARPUs going forward because the amount of kilometers of the expansion plan for the fourth quarter of 2023, like Enrique said, okay, it's put a lot of new subscribers into promotional rates. But we plan to shorter the period of that promotional rate so the heat in the ARPU is not that strong. What I'm trying to say and what I want to say is that we expect the ARPUs to stay pretty much where we are right now, regardless of the pressures that we have for the new territories. How are we going to do that? We still have some room in the organic and on the subscribers that we acquired at the beginning of the period of 2022 to increase rates on those territories. I don't know if I'm clear on that, Alejandro.

Yes, very clear. Thank you very much, Fernando.

Our next question comes from the line of Ricardo Ovidio with GBM.

Please proceed with your question.

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Regarding the margin, this quarter's margin, could you, if we excluded the expansion cost, what would your margin look like this quarter? And additionally, I mean, your leverage has been going up. Do you have any maximum leverage ratio that you're willing to reach? Thanks.

Well, regarding the margin for the organic cities, there's always a reduction in the margin in the third quarter and the fourth quarter. It's a seasonal thing. But it will still keep close to the 50% that we have presented in previous years, 49 to 50%. Remember that we have been growing other lower margin operations in corporate and the mobile. And the leverage ratio. And the leverage ratio, we still think that the .81 times EBITDA is really low. So we think that we could reach, I don't know, if there's an M&A opportunity still in the country, which we don't see yet closed. We can go up to 3 or 3.5 times without suffering to start with. But that doesn't mean very much. No, no, no. That's what I'm saying. There's no M&A opportunity. That's what I'm saying. And we are not getting into those levels. But I think 1 to 1.5 will be very, very, very, you know, easy.

I'm going in addition with what Luis said. We want to be very clear of where is our mind as the top management of the company. We like our expansion plan. We like the leverage of the 40% that we have CapEx right now. And we expect that, like Enrique was very clear, to have that from 2023 and decrease in the year future. We foresee a company that will increase and double the amount of EBITDA and revenues in the future and will maintain a very healthy leverage of CapEx going below even 20%. That will put the situation of Mega Cable in 2025, 2026, 2027 on a much more different situation of what we have right now. That put pressure on margins? Yes. That put pressure on capex?

Yes.

But we foresee a company in 18 to 24 months really, really different from what we have right now. So if you take the leverage ratio, to increase a little bit, maybe. Maybe it will increase 5%, 10%, 15%, something like that. We're not afraid of that. That's what Luis is sending the message. We have room to do that, okay? But our priority and the leverage ratio should be that one needed to support the plan of the company, okay? And that's a plan that hasn't changed. It's been adapted, like Enrique said, because of electronic and electronics. Going more is everything. It's energy plants, it's electricity boards, it's anti-fire, everything related to science, not only the core access of the network that is there. Even though we have that, that's something we do not control for external factors, and it's affected, okay? But we're very confident that you will see something different for Fort Worth in 2023. So I just wanted to comment that in addition to the questions you have, Ricardo.

So, you expect CapEx to start decreasing by 2024, is that correct?

Sure. Yes, correct. Okay, gracias. Our next question comes from the line of Andres Callejo with Scotiabank. Please proceed with your question. Andres, your line is live. Sorry, excuse me. Can you hear me?

Yes. Okay, thank you. Enrique, we were a little bit surprised when we heard that Profeco filed a consumer class action against the company. We were surprised because we know that Megatable cares about quality and has a very a strong track record in terms of investment. So I think everyone was a little bit disconcerted by this announcement. I was wondering if you can give us any comments on this process and perhaps if you have any potential figure regarding a potential penalty or a potential settlement with Propeco. Thank you.

Well, yes, we heard that. We have not received any notification from any authority about it. It's only been a press scandal, pretty much. And we're surprised. And we're surprised. And we are pretty sure that there's somebody behind it, not subscribers. I mean, the number of... of complaints that our subscribers file Profeco in a monthly basis is not high. One is something that we don't want, not only one. As you said, we are very worried about it. We care about our subscribers' complaint. We just don't ignore them. We solve them. We are the company that solves the highest percentage of complaints that are filed in the Propeco. And we are attending that, and we will attend it when we get any notifications. I think that Raymundo has additional comments on that.

You were very clear, Enrique. Mostly, Andres, I am surprised, too. the number of complaints that we have as a company has not increased in Profeco. We expand the company to new territories on a very, very aggressive manner. We have more than 100,000 subscribers in those territories. We are a company that built 24,000 kilometers of GPON, like some of you clearly identified. We replaced 1.5 million modems and 2.5 million set-top boxes we migrate to GPON. On that part, in clearly benefit of the subscribers, keeping the lower rate and the best video product of the market. We are out of that small amount of complaints that we have in Profeco, which is It's ridiculous. It's not more than 500 a month, 400 something. It varies. Out of everything I'm telling you, we're also the company, because we reach the highest percentage of coverage in our city and the lowest economic levels, we have the highest amount of growth and sales every month. So if you account the number of operations between sales and everything that we have, we have the lowest amount of complaints looking into the level of operations that we have. So clearly, we are open to answer any possible or any demand once we are notified, but we are very prepared with our numbers and the way we present and operate the company. We shouldn't be looking into a serious problem, but we'll see. We are open to discuss that, and we are, like every public company, we are subject to have investigations from any authorities, but we are very confident that we are doing the right things. I'm very surprised, again, like Enrique said, to receive that in the middle of our expansion plan.

Right. I think that Prosecco was referring to the new Swadio webpage in Isatel's website. And if you look at those numbers, there was an increasing complaint for the entire industry, but including MediCable. I mean, MediCable apparently has even more complaints in that webpage. And I'm telling you, so I don't know if there's any problems in terms of data, Prosecco versus Isatel. But I was wondering, for what you just said about the migrations, do you think that when you migrate a subscriber to Fiverr to the home, that migration may cause some technical problems that may explain the complaints? Do you think that there's something behind that?

Well, it's not that it causes a technical problem. I mean, that subscriber has to be migrating. Some subscribers, they don't. They don't want to. And you have to go and do it. Of course, when you operate 4 million operations of set-top boxes and models, you are subject to have more problems than if you don't do anything, Andres. The only thing that doesn't put anything in risk in life is to stay yourself below your bed. But when you move as a company, like we do, and very aggressively, you're subject to everything. And some subscribers, they just don't want to move from the old traditional digitalized receptacles that they have and don't be migrated because of the age, because they don't want to be bothered, whatever you want to call it. So some of them have that problem. The other one is regular stuff in the company. But as I said, if you consider everything we do and you say that we have 20 for every 100,000 subscribers, solving complaints compared to 19 of Telmex, when we have 12 or 11 before, you know, in that part, and we just migrate from solving those problems in our situation, in our offices to Profeco, we have an increasing number of Profeco. And they have the numbers, even though we've never seen them tell you. And 88.3% of those subscribers, we solve that immediately once they reach there and we get them into agreement when they get to the Profeco offices on that part. So we're very open on that. I can tell you that, of course, migration contributes to that part, but I also can tell you that we have, we're very surprised that Profeco has some complaints in the Mexico City part. And we don't have any complaints in Profeco in Mexico City. So still, we're open to any investigation. We're open to answer every question and to defend ourselves to something that we believe we're doing right. And close that caption and go forward to the big expansion plan that we want for the company.

Thank you. That was very clear. Thank you, Ramon. Our next question comes from the line of Alejandro Chavellas with Credit Suisse.

Please proceed with your question.

Hi, Miracle Team. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to understand a little bit on churn. Churn fell significantly from the second quarter to the third quarter. I was wondering if this had to do with the promotional pricing that you mentioned or something in particular about the second quarter that affected And just to follow up on, I think, the question from Marcelo Santos about ARPU and the pace of ARPU for upcoming quarters, I did not understand very well what the pace of ARPU you expect to be. Does promotional activity have a lesser impact going forward, or how are you seeing the pace of ARPU for the next quarters? Thanks a lot.

Thank you, Alejandro. I talk too much, and sometimes I'm not so clear. The question of Charlie's new one, and it's also the other one's a very good question. As we state in our previous conference calls, second quarter has for us what we call a perfect storm. We have a rate increase. We have a post-pandemic effect. We have a macroeconomic condition that was felt. Everybody going out and spending in something else. So we suffer an increase in the trends. I can tell you that this quarter, we did not change anything of our commercial and promotional policy. We're always aggressive. We don't want our subscribers to leave. But what we saw... is that our subscribers have a much more higher rate of reconnection once we disconnect because of lack of payment, and they came by itself. The number of subscribers that we have to go for them did not affect the numbers related to our joint winning the quarter. It was a good quarter. It was more of the seasonal effect. of the going back to school and what we believe is going to stay that way after the perfect storm that we have in the second quarter where we have all those factors that I'm trying to explain to you. Regarding the ARPU, the ARPU has two different variants. One is new territories and promotionals. Every subscriber that gets it has a promotional rate for a certain period of time. the more sales that we have related to the active subscribers, the more pressure is put in the ARPU. On the other hand, ARPU's pressure to increase comes from XU, increases in speed, okay, and the increasing rates that we have. And they are used, of course, in that part. So that's when we say that we can expect ARPUs to remain pretty much where we are because we will continue to have new subscribers with promotionals and we will, on the existing subscriber base, we will continue to sell new products and looking into increased rates to compensate not only inflation but also to try to compensate the new subscribers with lower output. So it's two different sides. One on our side to increase the output, and the other one pressures to decrease the output. So that's why we call it to be pretty much in the level where we are.

Thanks so much. Perhaps a follow-up question on the churn. I did not understand. So do you mean that back-to-school programs benefited churn in the third quarter or positively affected churn in the third quarter, or do you mean that it was a negative effect for the second quarter?

No, it's a positive effect, okay, but it's always been like that. What we believe is that our systems in that part already came back to the level of churn where we feel it's going to be and it's comfortable, and that's what we expect. Fourth quarter is also good. seasonal, so it shouldn't be any different to go on that path. What I was trying to tell you is that second quarter, we have effects that make second quarter the different one, the one that put pressure, and that's why we did not increase significantly in subscribers. If you can recall, Last quarter, we had a very good result in terms of revenues and EBITDA, and it wasn't so good in terms of subscribers because of the churn that we have, and because we didn't have all the effects of the new market. So you can expect, being really direct, that we feel comfortable with the level of churn that we have in this quarter right now and going forward, okay, and that we already passed the perfect storm that we have in the second quarter, Alejandro.

Thanks so much and congratulations.

Our next question comes from the line of Luca Brenham with Bank of America.

Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, everyone. My question, I think, is in a similar line to the last one. If you look at the past two years, the third quarter was the best quarter in terms of net additions for Internet access. And then this year, third quarter was also really strong in this line. So my question here is, is there some sort of seasonality that we can expect for third quarters to be stronger going forward? Or should we see similar growth rates in terms of new subscribers in the fourth quarter as well? Thank you.

Good observation, Luca. Yes, indeed, the back-to-school campaign has always been a good promotional campaign and a seasonal effect for us. In that part, we take advantage of the going-back-to-school campaign on that. So we normally have. This year, besides that, it's not only that. It is also, as I explained, the subscribers coming from the new territory. And going into the future, you can expect subscriber growth coming from new territories as well as the organic where we believe we will continue to grow, but the majority of the growth will come in that proportion that I explained before from the new territories. So you can expect the growth to continue, the growth in subscribers to continue to be in the future with no doubt about that.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. There are no other questions in the queue. I'd like to turn it back to management for any web questions.

Thank you. We have the first one from Eric De La Cruz. Thanks for the call. Is there any specific reasons for the considerable growing of telephony?

No, telephony has a different base with telecommunications. that we have in broadband and the unique subscribers. So what we do, it is bundled with the subscribers. So the number of sales has a lower growth for broadband than it has for telephony. Plus, of course, we normally do and we try to do our sales to the existing subscribers to have more video, broadband, and telephony as well. And that's the result. It comes from the bundle of the rest of the systems. of the rest of the subscribers that we have. It goes on a bundle of that and some existing subscribers, but by far 90%, 95% comes from the bundle of selling sales of products, sales of product.

Okay. Next one comes from Bradford Jones from . Hi. Could you please give us an update on the Profeco class action and any range of fitness you can expect? I think that we. We already answered that. We'll move to the next one. Can you disclose what is the contribution to EBITDA of the wireless business? I understand that it might still be ramping up, but I think that it's important to understand what the cable margin will be without that contribution.

Well, the margin that is handling mobile business, It still is in the range of 15% to 20% on every demand. So it's still a working process, but we consider it can grow in the future also.

It has a lower market, of course. It's not our network, but we have the highest, not the highest, the highest, yes, we have the highest ARPU of all the MVNOs. We are the second company that has the highest growth of postpaid subscribers in the quarter, just below Telcel. We are growing postpaid, and good thing we're not selling prepaid right now until we find a way to make prepaid profitable and steady subscribers. And as long as it contributes on the growth of EBITDA and revenue to the company, we will continue to push that business unit within the company. We expect 2023 to pick up both on the hands of Altan and on the hands of AT&T. We already launched AT&T service in several systems that we did not have Altan presence. So we will have some expectations to continue to grow in that, and hopefully you'll be happy with the results, even though it has a lower price. What else?

Okay, we have the next one from Patrick Brennan. You have talked about your confidence in the strength of your core business and your confidence in achieving a strong return in new-built territories. Despite this, you still continue to trade among the year valuation lows. And in past calls, you have noticed that you are not planning on a repurchase program. If your business can handle more leverage from M&A, should it be able to handle a small amount of additional leverage to repurchase stock when it's trading far below any estimate of fair value? Can you remind investors why you believe buybacks will be inappropriate for Megacable versus paying out a dividend? Have you calculated the IRR or share pre-purchase at current prices or even prices of 20% to 30% above current levels? If yes, can you share what this looks like versus the IRR of acquisition you have looked in Megacable's history?

Well, thank you for the question. That's very interesting, and it's been recurrent for us, not only in these conferences, but in other conferences we've talked. individual investors or people interested. Mercado is not a financial business. Mercado is a telecom business. So we're focused now in the growth of the company to double the size, investing in our network, investing in growth. And we don't want to be distracted in repurchasing the stock and leveraging the company to It is a very good business to buy the stock at these levels in the middle term or long term. It's obvious that the company, the trade of the stock is, I don't know, a little bit below 50% of what was the price of the stock five years ago. But the company EBITDA is maybe 50% higher than five years ago in the number of subscribers that we have and the investment we have done. And the company will still grow the EBITDA and the revenues and the subscribers and the assets and everything in the next three or four years. So if you buy whoever buys at these levels, We have, obviously, a big price. But we don't plan to distract ourselves or distract resources or leverage the company to buy stock. I mean, even though it's one of the best investments you could do. We have talked about that in our board. The board says, no, we will keep investing. given the dividend that we have been distributing in the past years. In the coming years, we will do the same thing. And we have talked about maybe doing a dividend, a stock dividend, because that's what you do when you repurchase stock in Mexico. Basically, you are giving a dividend to the current shareholders. But the board says, no, we will keep giving a cash dividend in the coming years. And we know that the price of the stock will go up in the future. It should. We don't see why not. I'm giving you numbers. You know the numbers. The stock is half of what it was five years ago. And the EBITDA is 50%. The fundamentals of the company are much better. So the stock should rise. But we will not distract ourselves in trying to lower the purchase or higher the purchase program of the stock.

Not at this moment. OK. We have another one from Sanji Capital. Is EBITDA at approximately 20% of last year's EBITDA sustainable going forward during expansion plan? Any chance it could fall into lower end or dividend policy of 15% of EBITDA? Any chance it will be scrapped altogether during the expansion plan?

We don't want to scrap that, but as I just said, we will keep doing the dividend. currently, I mean, the last year, the policy is 15%. We've been able to do a 20%. Maybe we'll go back. Maybe we'll go back, but who knows? I mean, it's not that we have in our mind right now. I think according to the finances of the company, the balance sheet, we could still have the 20%.

Okay, we have no more questions, so I'll pass it over to Mr. Yamouni for final remarks.

Yes, thank you very much, Saúl, and thank you all for attending this conference. As always, it's a pleasure to discuss our results with you. Please contact our investor relations department if you have any questions or concerns regarding the company. Have a wonderful day, and we will be always at your kind orders in case you need more information.

And mostly before the end of the year, whatever you want to talk on that, because this is our last conference for this year. Whoever we don't talk, you know, have a happy New Year. We're very happy with our results and open to your questions whenever you want. See you in the next call. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.