Liberty Latin America Reports First Quarter 2019 Results
- Rebased1 Revenue Growth of 4% to $943 million
- Record Q1 RGU Additions of 73,000; Improving Mobile Subscriber Trend
- Operating Income of $113 million, Improved by 15% Year-over-Year
- OCF2 of $366 million, 9% Higher YoY; Driven by Puerto Rico Recovery
- On-Track to Achieve FY 2019 Guidance
Denver, Colorado – May 7, 2019: Liberty Latin America Ltd. ("Liberty Latin America" or "LLA") (NASDAQ: LILA and LILAK, OTC Link: LILAB) today announced its financial and operating results for the three months ended March 31, 2019 ("Q1").
CEO Balan Nair commented, "Our first quarter performance reflects a good start to the year. We delivered record Q1 RGU additions of 73,000, with subscriber growth across all reporting segments. In particular, C&W added 32,000 RGUs, its best quarter since our 2016 acquisition, and we continued to add RGUs in Puerto Rico following the restoration of our network in 2018. We see relatively low penetration of high-speed connectivity across our markets and further potential for fixed subscriber growth as we deliver leading product propositions and expand our high-speed footprint. In Q1, we added or upgraded over 80,000 homes and are on-track to meet our full-year targets."
"In mobile, we added 11,000 subscribers, with gains in both C&W and Chile. In fact, our enhanced customer value propositions in Panama contributed to our best quarter in subscriber gains at C&W in two years. Besides Panama, we rolled out refreshed campaigns in the Bahamas in Q1, as well as Jamaica and other markets in April. We expect these launches to drive financial momentum in the coming quarters. High-speed penetration continued to grow in the quarter as we reached 40% of our subscriber base with LTE packages and invested in increasing our LTE coverage."
"Our rebased revenue and OCF growth of 4% and 9%, respectively, was driven by the strong performance in Puerto Rico. We also generated $48 million of Adjusted FCF3 in Q1, a significant improvement over the prior-year period."
"We remain committed to a disciplined and diligent approach in evaluating potential transactions and recently completed the accretive acquisition of UTS. This expands our product portfolio in Curaçao, creates a national champion, and enables us to deliver improved customer experiences while achieving cost benefits through additional scale."
"We continue to work on our five strategic priorities; driving financial and operational performance, transforming our business, creating a strong culture, driving inorganic growth, and optimizing our balance sheet. We believe delivery of these priorities will create meaningful value for our customers and shareholders.”
"As we look out to the remainder of 2019, our team is focused on subscriber growth and operational efficiencies, which we anticipate will benefit our financial results in the second half of the year."