Liberty Latin America, the communications company with operations in Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and other parts of Latin America announced its financial and operating results for the three months ended March 31, 2024. During this period, the company achieved significant milestones, such as adding 45,000 organic broadband and postpaid mobile subscribers. There was also strong growth in Adjusted OIBDA across Panama, Costa Rica, and the Caribbean regions. Moreover, the successful completion of the migration process in Puerto Rico suggests an expected improvement in performance. Additionally, the company showed confidence in its direction by repurchasing 5% of outstanding shares and expanding its buyback authorization.
CEO Balan Nair provided a comprehensive overview of the period:“We delivered strong operating and financial results across Panama, Costa Rica and C&W Caribbean in the first quarter. In Puerto Rico, we have achieved the significant milestone of migrating all our mobile customers to our own operating platform and are now positioned to drive sequential improvement throughout the year following significant integration-related expenses during the first quarter. We remain on track for significant Adj. OIBDA and cash flow expansion in the second half of the year," explained.
Following that, the executive highlighted the subscriber additions, underscoring their significance within the period's achievements: “The focus on our broadband and postpaid bases continued to drive subscriber additions through the first quarter. All of our reporting segments added broadband subscribers in Q1, led by our Jamaica and Panama markets. In postpaid mobile, Costa Rica was our strongest performer with Puerto Rico impacted by migration efforts. We have implemented price increases in our largest C&W Caribbean markets and Costa Rica which are expected to support our revenue growth ambitions," commented.
Finally, the executive provided a perspective on the potential direction for the company's business development moving forward: “In Puerto Rico, while we are incurring increased costs related to the final stages of customer migration and transitioning to new IT systems and a wireless core network, we believe we have the right strategic assets and team to be successful. Looking forward, we expect synergies, operating cost improvements and top line sequential growth will drive Adj. OIBDA to more than $45 million per month at some point in the second half. We are confident for a bright future and are well positioned for meaningful operating and financial expansion in 2025 and beyond. We see a significant value opportunity in our equity. In the first quarter, we acted aggressively, repurchasing 9 million shares or about 5% of our equity. In addition, we increased our share repurchase authorization by $200 million," he stated.