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Good morning. My name is Emily, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the América Móvil Third Quarter 2022 Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions]
Now I will turn the call over to Ms. Daniela Lecuona, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter financial and operating results. We have on the line, Mr. Daniel Hajj, CEO; Mr. Carlos García Moreno, CFO; and Mr. Oscar Von Hauske, COO.
Hi, Daniela. Good morning, everyone. Carlos is going to make a summary of the results.
Thank you, Daniel. Good morning, everyone. Well, the increasingly hawkish tone by the Fed's governors on the back of continued inflationary pressures brought about renewed increases in U.S. interest rates in the latter half of the third quarter after a lull in its first half with 10-year rates ending the quarter at 3.83%, just missing a break over 4% a few days earlier. That was the context of the third quarter for us.
In the quarter, we added 2.9 million wireless subscribers, of which 1.9 million were postpaid clients. More than half of the new postpaid clients came from Brazil, with Austria contributing 329,000 subs; Colombia, 215,000; and Peru, 155,000. Net subscriber gains in prepaid amounted to 1 million, with Mexico leading the way with 402,000 net adds, followed by Colombia with 300,000, and Central America and Eastern European blocks with approximately 135,000 each.
On the fixed-line platform, broadband accesses increased by 156,000 in the quarter with Argentina being the main contributor and the Central American and Eastern European blocks following suit. Mobile postpaid was our fastest-growing access group, increasing 11.9% year-on-year with 118 million, followed by mobile prepaid that climbed 8.2% to 190 million. In both cases, access growth accelerated in the third quarter. On the fixed-line platform, broadband access lines grows 2.1% to 31 million, while fixed-voice and PayTV accesses fell 1.6% and 1.3%, respectively. The latter appears to be on an improving trend.
Our third quarter revenue reached MXN 215 billion. It was up 1.8% year-on-year with service revenues rising 3% in Mexican peso terms. At constant exchange rates, service revenue expanded 5.9% as mobile service revenue jumped 9.7% and fixed-line service revenue remained almost flat by growing 0.2%.
Year-over-year, the Mexican peso appreciated strongly vis-a-vis the Colombian and Chilean pesos, 12.9% and 18%, respectively, and even more versus the euro, 16%. It remained practically flat vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar and the Brazilian real. The appreciation of the peso explains the difference between revenue growth in nominal and in constant exchange rates.
Mobile service revenue rose more than 9% year-on-year at constant exchange rates both in the prepaid and the postpaid segments. It was the fastest rate of growth observed in at least 5 quarters, with postpaid revenue growth accelerating in each of the last 2 quarters, partly buoyed by 5G services.
Brazil led the way in mobile service revenue growth of 22.5%, which includes the impact of the incorporation of part of Oi's mobile clients, followed by Mexico and Eastern Europe with 9.7% and 6.9%, respectively. At 3%, Colombia posted its best revenue growth in 5 quarters, as did the Central America block with 6.5%. Ecuador, on an improving trend for several quarters now, posted a 1.6% revenue increase in the period.
On the fixed-line platform, broadband revenue rose 3.4% at constant exchange rates and that of corporate networks increased 12.6%, also the fastest pace in at least 5 quarters, helping offset a 5.4% reduction in PayTV services and a 6.1% decline in wireline voice revenue. Eastern Europe, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico were the top performers with double-digit growth and revenue growth.
Corporate networks was our fastest-growing business line across the board with Brazil posting a 27.7% rate; Colombia, 14.4%; and Mexico, 8.1%. Fixed-broadband revenue increased between 4% and 5% in both Mexico and Brazil, with Eastern Europe's revenue surging 13.5%.
Our EBITDA rose 2.3% year-on-year to MXN 83.2 billion. It was an increase of 5% at constant exchange rates with the EBITDA margin, which has been on an improving trend all year, expanding to 38.8% from 38.6% a year before. Brazil and Eastern Europe were the main generators of EBITDA growth with 10.8% and 8%, respectively.
EBITDA expansion helped bring about a 5.7% (sic) [ 5.2% ] increase in our operating profit to MXN 44 billion, resulting in an MXN 18 billion net profit in the quarter after MXN 17 billion in comprehensive financing costs that were 33% below that of the prior year, mostly on account of the foreign exchange losses incurred then.
The increase in current and deferred taxes has mostly to do with our current book -- current and tax assets a year ago, which reduced the line item at the time. We didn't sustain that increase in profits. The difference is simple increased -- explained by the increase in profit that took place since then. Our operating cash flow allowed us to fully cover our capital expenditures of MXN 105 billion in the 9 months to September. The remainder, together with MXN 72 billion in net financing raised in the period, so 5 point -- MXN 45 billion -- MXN 46 billion in shareholder distributions, including MXN 21 billion in share buybacks; MXN 20 billion in labor obligations; and MXN 13 billion in the net acquisition of ownership interests coming from the acquisition of a portion of Oi's mobile clients on the one hand and the sale of our interest in Claro Panama on the other hand.
Our net debt, excluding leases, ended September at MXN 412 billion, equivalent to 1.39x our last 12 months EBITDAaL after leases. The spin-off of Sitios Latinoamérica in August resulted in the separation of 29,090 towers in 13 countries, but also brought about a reduction of MXN 47 billion in our net debt as it migrated over to Sitios.
With this brief summary, I will pass the floor back to Daniel Hajj. Thank you, Daniel.
Thank you, Carlos. We can start with the questions, please.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Diego Aragão with Goldman Sachs.
The first question is related to the tower spin-off. Can you help us to quantify the impact on your financial expenses...
I think you have a -- Diego, can you hear me?
Yes, you have a bad connection, Diego. Can you -- we don't hear you very well, please.
Is it better now?
That's a little bit better. But okay, so speak a little bit slowly because I don't hear you -- we don't hear you very well. Thank you.
Sounds good. So yes, I think, so one -- so the first question is related to the tower spin-off. I was wondering if you can help us to quantify the impact on your financial expenses related to the leases. And if you can also provide the cost of the towers for América Móvil. And secondly, I would like to understand your tax rate in the quarter, which was higher than the previous quarter.
We don't understand the first question. The second question on the tax ratio is what you are asking, Diego?
Yes. So the tax rate in the quarter as well cost of lease of the tower that you spun off recently.
Okay. Okay, Diego, on the tax rate in the quarter, the effective tax rate was high, was 40%. It was mostly to do with the tax regime in Mexico. As you know, we have an inflationary adjusted tax regime, which in essence will allow you only to deduct the "real" interest payments on the debt. So not the nominal interest that you pay in the debt, but the only -- the real payment, that is the nominal rates minus the inflation.
The inflation went up and has basically more or less matched the rates on the debt of América Móvil. The deductions for interest payments in Mexico have become much smaller, so that's basically what explained the situation in the quarter. It obviously also have to do with there being a smaller profit in this quarter, but it was basically to do with this inflationary accounting. Okay? There will be some changes in our setup, so we don't expect this to continue going forward.
On your first question, which had to do with the towers, we didn't quite hear it. So maybe you can repeat it again, please?
Okay. Apologies for the technical issue here. And if I may, we have observed that the [indiscernible], can you just give us some guidance around that?
Diego, you have a very bad line. Why don't you send me your question via text or e-mail, and we'll read it out loud? And while I get it, we can probably take the following questions.
Okay, I will do that.
Our next question comes from the line of David Joyce with Barclays.
Can you please help us understand if the wireline RGU weakness was more from a macroeconomic softening? Or was it from a step-up in competitors' offers? Or are you just seeing your own clients switch to mobile-only voice and video?
All overall, in the results of this quarter, you see a very good increase in revenue in mobile and a good trend in the fixed side, so we grow 156,000 subscribers in the fixed side. So we have a good increase. We used to have, in the first quarter and second quarter, negative trend in the revenue service in the fixed line. And today, we have 0.2% increase in the fixed side. So we are increasing and I think we're doing much better.
The competition is high, the competition in some countries higher than in other countries. In the fixed side, you know that there's a lot of companies that are putting fiber all around Latin America. But I think we have a good service, a good combo, and we're offering mobile convergence, and it's helping us to maintain and to have a better rate, less disconnections with this. We have mobile, fixed and broadband together in a combo, and it's helping us.
PayTV is also very important. We are growing. Also, it's been less the rate on disconnections on the PayTV. So I can say that overall, in mobile, we do very good in the revenue growth. And in fixed, the trend is going better. We're growing 0.2%, and we used to have negative as the growth in the fixed side in the other quarters.
And could you please update us on your plans for your 5G and fiber rollouts, where you expect to be by the end of this year and end of next year on your key markets?
Again? Again, please? 5G and growth on fiber is what you're asking?
Yes, how much of your plant do you expect to be upgraded by the end of this year and next year for 5G and for fiber?
You see, our -- it's different in each country. But I can tell you that from September last year to September this year, we have been putting around 7.5 million houses in fiber. So I think we do a very good increase in houses in fiber. I think it's one of the highest that we have been having in the last year. And it's helping us to give more speed, better quality and to have more customers. So we are upgrading, and part of this is upgrading our network, the other part is going to new cities, greenfields there. So that's what we're doing. So it's different in each country, but that's more or less what we have been doing.
In 5G, in countries where we have licenses, let's say, in Mexico, in Mexico, we already have 64 cities, the main cities in 5G. We have been covered more than 60% of the population in 5G. You could see that the Mexico 5G is helping us to increase our ARPU in postpaid. We increased our ARPU 7.6% in Mexico, so 5G is helping. The ARPU in 5G is higher than the ARPU that we have in 3 and 4G. So 5G has been very successful in countries where we are putting 5G. In Brazil, we are developing, we are still starting to grow in 5G. So in the countries where we have license, 5G has been with a very good result.
I don't know if Oscar wants to talk a little bit more about the fixed part.
As mentioned, we are -- the home passed will be higher, as we mentioned. [ But how is it that we operate other cable network with the speed of 1, so we could either 1-gigabit speeds to possibly on par where we have service ].
So we're upgrading the network plus putting more fiber. It's what -- yes.
I have Diego's question, so maybe we can continue with that one. About the tower spin-off, can you help us quantify the impact of your financial expenses in 3Q '22 related to the leases? It will be great if you can provide the cost of these towers for AMX as well.
The question is more or less the cost in terms of EBITDA or in terms of the rent?
The rent.
So the rent would be probably, at an annual rate, approximately USD 350 million, let's say.
The rent that we're going to pay to Sitios is going to be around $350 million.
$350 million.
And then there's a follow-up question. AMX continues to reduce its stake in KPN. Can you give us some guidance about it?
Well, we have been selling at a point where the prices were quite -- we thought were good. I don't think that we have any specific objective or any target in terms of getting -- with doing away with the shares any time soon. I think it's just very opportunistic. As we have said in the past, this is for also financial investment, and we will be taking profits when we think it's convenient.
We can proceed with the questions from the audience, please.
Our next question comes from Alejandro Chavelas with Credit Suisse.
Margins in Chile were very low this quarter. Was there anything in particular that explains this? And should we -- do you have any estimate on the level of margins that we should expect going forward and also on the potential cost synergies that could be achieved in this region with the VTR merger in the long term?
Well, in Chile, I think, finally, we got the authorization, and we are starting at the -- with this joint venture. In my view -- well, first, I have to say that in Chile, the conditions in the market are really aggressive, so there's a lot of competition. Prices has been going down. And for the size of the country, there are a lot of competitors in fixed; in broadband, a lot; and very aggressive in the mobile side. In terms of the economic situation of the country, Carlos can tell us that the exchange rate has been going high and the inflation also is high.
Yes, I think the country has developed a very major client account [ tearsheet ], and that has been driving the loss of FX reserves, and that has already been going hand in hand with the pressure on the peso. We think that this will be more contained going forward. But certainly, it has been a part of the first -- in the first few months of the year.
So I think we're happy to do the joint venture. We are more focused -- we were more focused on the mobile and in the corporate side. Liberty -- or VTR has been more focused on the broadband and on the TV. I think together, we do, I think, a very good combination. And what we're going to do, you're going to see in the next year that we're going to have good synergies in the company. We're going to invest synergies in CapEx, synergies in cost synergies. We already put a new management there.
So I think for me, I'm confident that the next year, we're going to see good improvements in the Chile operation. Together, we have more or less the size of big companies, so it's going to help us, economy of scale over there. So I'm sure that in the next year, we're going to see good improvements in Chile.
Perhaps a follow-up just on Brazil. Have you already adjusted prices for the postpaid subscriber base for inflation? How high was the adjustment in postpaid for you?
I don't remember. I think we adjust some prices in postpaid in Brazil. I don't know exactly how much. I don't think that's exactly one price adjustment, depending in the plans maybe. But yes, we do adjustments only on the postpaid subscribers in Brazil.
Our next question comes from Fred Mendes with Bank of America.
I have 2 questions as well. The first one, on Mexico, and I guess it's a follow-up from a previous question, on Telmex, there was an important improvement in this quarter, growing 4.7% year-over-year. And I just wonder if this is an impact from your fiber deployment and how it's -- you're containing churn and it's getting harder to, let's say, poach our clients? Or if for any reason, competition is easing a little bit or it's something related to price? Just trying to understand the dynamics. That will be my first one.
And then the second one in Brazil. On mobile, you are doing very well in terms of net adds, and your performance has been solid on the mobile front. But my question here is, you increased the number of clients on postpaid by close to 25% year-over-year, including Oi. If this, at some point, could be a challenge in terms of billing, in terms of collecting the receivables from these postpaid clients, anyway, changing the structure of your clients in Brazil in a very fast way, how could that eventually be -- could be a challenge for the operation in Brazil?
Well, I'll start on Brazil. I don't think there's a challenge over there. I think we have been preparing to take all these customers in prepaid and not only on postpaid, also in the prepaid side. And we were working and we're going to still work on that to bring these customers to our billing system, to our network and to have that. We already do that in the Nextel acquisition that we have, and we were very successful.
So I think we're going to have good synergies. We're on target on the synergies, and we feel comfortable passing these subscribers to our billing network, customer care and everything. So we have a good experience. Brazil do that very good, and we're confident that we're going to have a successful transit.
And in Mexico, Oscar?
Yes. About Mexico, as we mentioned before, we've been deliberating plans on products in fiber. Almost 68% of our customer base is already with fiber. And we will continue the migration of every one of the customers to fiber and getting into new areas of greenfields. So we are building this year of almost 2.9 million homes passed with fiber. And another good thing, revenues in Mexico in the corporate side, we've been growing, selling products like cloud, like SD-WAN, like security. It has a very good development this year. So I think the combination gives us a way to compensate the decline that we have in voice revenues, and we will continue to grow in the next [ quarters ].
Our next question comes from the line of Carlos de Legarreta with ITAU.
I have 2, actually. The first one, just going back to the spin-off of the towers. Now that the CapEx required for the tower deployment has been mostly moved to Sitios LatAm, should we expect any changes in the CapEx guidance on a yearly basis for you guys?
And secondly, on this same issue, I understand you ended up keeping some of the towers, I understand, in Peru and Dominican Republic. Is there a possibility that you will divest those towers to Sitios LatAm down the road? And if so, could you perhaps pay an extraordinary dividend with those proceeds?
On Sitios LatAm, we -- I think the CapEx for this year, we are not going to have it. The -- we have only 3 months, 4 months without Sitios, so this year is no change. And for next year, we're still working our -- on our budget. We haven't finalized that, but we still see very good options to grow.
There's not too many sites that we have been doing every year. So we have a big amount of sites, but there's not big ones that we have been doing in the last year. And Mexico was out with Telesites. They were doing the sites. So -- and we have been seeing good opportunities on growth, on broadband, on 5G. So I don't know exactly if there is going to be a small reduction on the CapEx or not because of sites, but we still see very good opportunities in growing in Latin America. So that's important, and we're going to see and we're looking very carefully to have a very efficient CapEx also for next year.
And the other question?
The Dominican Republic and Peru.
Dominican Republic and Peru, yes, we're going to sell to -- the towers to Sitios. I think as we put it in the release that we think we are going to sell them. And maybe at the beginning of next year, we think that we can concrete those operations. Still not -- depends also on the site management and what they decide, but we think that we're going to sell Dominican Republic and also Peru.
And if I may, a follow-up. Just on Argentina, if you could comment what is going on in terms of the competitive environment? I mean you guys are adding subscribers both in wireless and fixed. However, the results are, I mean, in real terms, as you present them, are being pressured. I understand this is given that the pricing is very aggressive currently. But if you could comment on that, that will be great.
No, I don't think we are changing our plan in fixed or in mobile. I think in some quarters, we have more increase on prices because of the inflation. In other ones, we have a little bit less price increase and we fell short of inflation in some months, so it doesn't depend on that. I think we are aggressive because we are doing households with fiber. Our plans and our -- are good. Our quality is also very good. And we're -- I think in Argentina, we are doing exceptionally good in broadband, growing in TV and doing good in the mobile side.
So I'm not -- if you think we are not reducing prices or doing big promotions to have this growth, I think we have been stable on the prices and increasing, maybe not increasing at the months that we need, but maybe in the next month, we do those increases, and that's been okay for us. So we are growing. And we are doing -- also, it's important for us, we used to be only mobile; today, we're doing combos. And our customers, with this combo in Argentina, has been very happy with the combo, having TV, having broadband and mobile prepaid or postpaid there. So that's also very good for us to have less churn in the future. So we're happy with the development in Argentina.
Just to add to what Daniel said, I think that the contribution of Argentina, I mentioned in the note, to the growth of broadband accesses was enormous. So I think they added nearly 100,000 broadband accesses alone. So I think the momentum is very -- clearly there. We have had a very good cash flow in Argentina. And I think that the issue with Argentina that they have inflationary accounting, and it's very difficult to discern exactly what is going on from the accounting. But from the point of view of the growth of the business in terms of accesses, from the point of view of market share, from the point of view of cash flow, it's doing really well.
And another important thing is we still see very good opportunities in the fixed side in Latin America. I think there's specific -- some countries that we think that the growth will be good. There's a good opportunity, still good prices over there. And with everything that we have in the country, easy for us to increase our participation in the broadband and TV side. So that's what we're looking for next year budget and to, also, to still do this fiber to the house and to upgrade our cable that we have in each country.
Our next question comes from Lucas Chaves with UBS.
So the first one is we noticed a reduction in the KPN investment over the quarters from 20% to 17% something. How these sales were made? And do you expect to continue with that in the next quarters?
And if I may ask a second one, what are the main cash -- free cash flow improvement do you expect for 2023? And how could that affect shareholder distribution going forward?
The second question, we don't hear you. What was the second question?
So the second question was about free cash flow improvement, so what do we expect for 2023? And how do you expect that to affect your cash flow going forward?
Well, we haven't finished our budgets for 2023. We're still looking, as we said, on the CapEx, on the growth. Cost reductions is important. Inflation in some countries, also it's important because the pressure on prices has been high. But we're working on that, and I think we're going to finish that end of November, no? So that's more or less where we finish our budget for next year. But still, as I said, still seeing good opportunities in 5G and broadband in Latin America.
And on the KPN side?
Yes, on the KPN, we had mentioned in the previous question. But it's basically, as we have said before, this is a financial investment for us. And we don't have any specific target in terms of where we would want to be going forward in terms of net reductions. We did have some opportunistic sales in the quarter, and that's basically quite expensive. But we don't really have any target, and it will very much be a function of the prices that we have seen in the market.
Our next question comes from Marcelo Santos with JPMorgan.
I have 2. The first one is regarding the opportunity you just mentioned that you saw on the LatAm fixed line. So you said you see a lot of room for growing broadband. Would you rank the main countries that you see most opportunity to specifically grow their broadband?
And the second question is regarding ICMS in Brazil. So you passed only to postpaid. I wanted to understand better, how is the behavior on prepaid? Did you capture higher revenues? Did clients -- do you give more allowance to clients? How has the prepaid business done with the ICMS reduction in Brazil?
Well, I think on the opportunities that I'm seeing in Latin America, there are, I think, good opportunities for us in some countries because we are not so strong. Let's say, Central America, I think we see good opportunities. Penetrations are low. Ecuador is also good opportunity. Peru is a good opportunity for us because we're still rolling out fiber and growing very good. Dominican Republic is also doing good. In Mexico, we have been very strong rolling the last 2 years. We're doing a lot of new fiber and moving some customers to that. It's very good.
Also in Europe, in all the Eastern countries in Europe, we are also moving from only being mobile to being mobile and fixed, and it's also good. In Austria, we have a new regulation, very, very -- let's say, taking out a lot of restrictions that we have for the fixed side. And it's also -- it's going to help us to increase our broadband and our fixed share there. So there is a lot.
In Brazil, we're doing good. We haven't entered in some -- the new areas. And every time that we enter in new areas, we are doing also very good. We have more competition in the areas where we have. But when we put fiber in other areas, there's good growth for -- good growth and new net adds for us, good net adds for us. So that's more or less how we see.
In the other sites, next year, we have also 5G in some countries. I think there is some -- we're going to improve Brazil in 5G. Maybe we have -- in Colombia, we don't have the license, but if we get the license in 5G, then we're going to do that. Chile, I think we're going to start to roll out 5G also. So Austria, we're going to do more on 5G because it's increasing. So there's big opportunities in each country. So we are really working on very detailed and where we want to put the CapEx and where it's more profitable the CapEx that we're putting.
On your question on that, on prepaid in Brazil, let me just point out because this is really interesting. Revenue growth in prepaid in Brazil in the quarter was [ I think 2% -- I think 2.3% ], which already -- yes, it incorporates a little bit impact of Oi, which was already in the second quarter with 25%. But we also incorporate, we think, the issue of the reduction in the ICMS, which is basically leading people to spend a bit more on the product.
And I think it's not only in Brazil. In every place, if you take some taxes from telecommunications from the people, then the people is going to use more. They're going to use this money to use more our products, and it's exactly what is going to happen. It's happening and it's going to happen in Brazil with this reduction on the ICMS.
Our next question comes from Walter Piecyk with LightShed Partners.
Daniel, just following up on those comments about Brazil. And also, if you look at ARPU in general, in Mexico, it's obviously very good. Doesn't really seem like any signs of recession. Have you seen anything beyond that? I know some economists are expecting some recession in 2023. How do you think that could impact your business? Or is it possible that this has become such a necessary service for your customers that you won't see an ARPU impact or other impacts in 2023?
I think -- well, we don't know exactly. I think everybody is talking that there's going to be a recession for next year. We don't know exactly how deep it's going to be in Latin America and in which country that we're going to have higher recession or for more time. But telecommunications has been very resilient, has been a product that people is using, and I think they need that. We see that in the pandemia, in the COVID, and people moving to their houses and using more.
And all of these things has been making everything more digital for us. So all those things are making that people is every day more connected and needs to be more connected. So I still think that telecommunication is a product that people is going to need with recession or without recession.
And just to give you a reference, the latest outlook that we have for Latin America, including the latest IMF forecast, but also the one from investment banks, the only country in Latin America that is expected to be in recession this year is going to be Chile, as of today.
Yes, that's true. Carlos, can I also ask you about the share repurchase? Obviously, Oi took some cash. So if I look at the share repurchase activity for Q1, Q2 and Q3, it was obviously lower than Q4 of last year, but you also spent a lot of cash on Oi. Now that Oi is paid for, maybe you have to kind of amortize it into the fourth quarter. Should we expect the share repurchase to kind of return to Q4 2021 levels within the next couple of quarters now that Oi is behind us?
See, Walter, I think it's important not only to look at share buybacks, but the total distributions. But we have -- which we didn't have last year, that we made all the dividend payment in one installment in August, and that was roughly equivalent of $1.4 billion. So it was quite major. If you look at total distributions to shareholders year-to-date through the third quarter, I think we're very much in line with what we did last year, okay? So I think that we will try to remain on track more or less with the distributions based on the outlook that we have for free cash flow for the year.
Our next question comes from Soomit Datta with New Street Research.
I just got one question at this point, and it is on -- it's back to Chile. Given the tough macro and the tough trading conditions in that market, I wondered if you can give any thoughts onto how you are looking to fund the JV going forward? Presumably, your thoughts on that may have changed with the operating environment. And I wondered, is there a possibility that you'll have to put more equity into that JV in the near future?
I think we already agree on the funds that we're going to put this year for Chile. I think synergies is going to give us a good improvement in cash flow also there. But always, we can talk. There's not any luck on that, and we need to do something else. So we need to sit down with our partners and decide what to do. So it's going to depend how things are going and how things are evolving there. But in my view, I think Liberty and us are really committed to Chile and to do a very good -- and do -- and have a successful on Chile. So that's more or less what we agree and it's what we're working for.
And our final question today comes from Megan McDonald with Barclays.
Congratulations on the results and the 2 deal closings and spin-off. Just a few quick questions. Jumping back to Chile, I wanted to know when we could expect more detailed guidance or an update on next steps? I would assume that's probably post-Liberty results.
And then the other question on Chile, would you evaluate bringing in other partners? I know you have a connection to Telefónica, for example, with subsea. And any detail you could provide on subsea would be helpful as well.
And then finally, any color that you guys can provide on liquidity at Claro Chile? And particularly, how much cash and as well debt is at Claro Chile level and additional available liquidity, if you have any?
Thank you. We don't have any talks with nobody. I don't think we want to have a third partner in Chile. I don't think there is a space to have another partner on the authorization. So I think the company there is very close to second place in terms of revenue and first play. So we have the size in Chile. Consolidation in Chile, I think it's very good, and that's what we have.
We have been working of what we can on the synergies that we can get together, so we need to speed up on that. We need to work very hard and to do all the synergies for end of this year and all the next year to have all the synergies there. That will give us much better results and savings. We think -- I think what we said last time is that the savings could be, in synergies, more than $100 million -- $180 million in 3 years. So that's more or less what we are looking in terms of synergies.
Good synergies that we could have also is that they are not going to take our customers and we are not going to take. So this churn is going to help us a lot in cost and expenses, in people, so -- in the network. So there's a lot of things that we can do, and we need to work on that. So we are focused on working, on operate and not to get a third partner right now.
And in terms of the liquidity, the only thing that I agree that we already have committed funds for this year. And if we need more funds next year, we need to sit down with them and to review the business cases and see what we can do. So we -- I cannot say any more because until today, we already have committed for this year. So next year, we need to sit down and to review what we are going to do if we need more funds. So that's really what is happening in Chile.
Those were all the questions we have for today. So I will now turn the call over to Mr. Daniel Hajj for final remarks.
Thank you all for being in the call. Just to reiterate that I think the growth that we have in mobile was excellent in the quarter and that in fixed, we're improving and I think we're going to still improve more. Thank you very much, and thank you for being in the call.
Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. This concludes today's conference call, and you may now disconnect your lines.