América Móvil: Riding the World Cup Wave, Fighting Brazil's Promotions, and Betting on Fiber
Mexico's Prepaid Engine and the World Cup Bump
América Móvil's Q2 2026 call opened with a familiar refrain—Mexico's prepaid business is accelerating, now with an extra twist: the World Cup gave a small but real lift to roaming and consumption. CEO Daniel Hajj noted, “The first, I think the World Cup impact but impacts a little bit, so I do not think it is too much. there is not the World Cup was not only Mexico, so only we have only like, 7 games, something like that. So there is people coming. We see more roaming here in Mexico, more people using.” — Daniel Hajj Aboumrad, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) · 2026-07-22 But the broader story is structural: prepaid subscribers are recharging more and moving to higher-value cards. “Our prepaid customers are consuming, are recharging more and are charging, higher cards, higher prepaid cards.” — Daniel Hajj Aboumrad, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) · 2026-07-22 This is a continuation of the recovery management had flagged last quarter, but now with concrete evidence: prepaid net adds in Mexico were 146k, better than the 83k a year ago. CFO Carlos Garcia Moreno tied this to the economy, pointing to record auto sales and booming restaurants as evidence of uneven but real recovery.
Brazil: Fighting Fire with Network and MVNO Strength
Brazil remains the battleground. The promotional intensity from TIM and Vivo has forced Claro to match, but the company is leaning on its network advantage and the Nucell partnership to keep portability trends positive. Hajj explained Nucell's accounting treatment: “Nucell is 1 of the ones that is 'acreditados', that they work like a commercial agent, and that those customers count as our base.” — Daniel Hajj Aboumrad, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) · 2026-07-22 This transparency matters for investors trying to parse subscriber quality. On competition, Hajj was candid: “The comparative between second quarter last year and second quarter this year is a little bit difficult because second quarter of last year the growth was, higher than it used to be in the other quarter.” — Daniel Hajj Aboumrad, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) · 2026-07-22 He expects a second-half recovery but warns it depends on rivals' behavior. The fixed side is a brighter spot—Brazil fixed revenue growth accelerated to 4.1% from 1.5% a year ago, driven by fiber and convergence.
Fiber-Driven M&A and a Patient Stance on Verizon
The biggest strategic news was the lot of synergies from the Wow acquisition in Peru, announced the day before the call. Hajj highlighted the logic:
This fits the pattern of buying fiber assets to cross-sell mobile and corporate services, echoing comments from prior quarters about consolidation in Latin America. On the Verizon stake, Hajj was firm but patient: “We are not going to hurry to sell that,” he said, signaling optionality for future capital needs. With leverage at 1.31x (after leases) and a clear capital allocation framework, the company is positioning itself to pounce on more opportunities while returning cash to shareholders.I think makes a lot of sense for us in Peru. it is some more fiber, more than 3 million houses passes with fiber. 500 thousand customers. And creates a lot of synergies with us.
What Changed, Really?
América Móvil is not pivoting; it's refining. The mobile portability gains in Brazil, the World Cup bump in Mexico, and the Wow deal all point to a management team that is executing on a familiar playbook—protect share through network quality, use fiber for growth, and stay disciplined on cost. The prior call had warned about a 'difficult' Brazilian market; this quarter acknowledges the promotional heat but doubles down on the long-term strategy. The fine on Telnor is a minor setback, but the company's willingness to discuss Nucell's accounting and the Wow acquisition shows a shift toward greater transparency on how they measure organic growth.