Millicom reached 37.8 million mobile subscribers in Latin America at the end of June, after losing 1.7 million in the second quarter, particularly in Bolivia, Colombia and Honduras. The impact of the health emergency was also seen in the mobile ARPU, which decreased 12.9% year-on-year to US$ 6.4, also impacted by the weakness of the Colombian and Paraguayan currencies against the dollar.
In the fixed segment, 59,000 new homes were added to the network to meet the new demand for broadband services as a result of the quarantine, although the deployment was less than in previous quarters. As a matter of fact, IGUs decreased 95,000, reaching 4.3 million in the second quarter. In any case, Millicom clarified that in June there was a recovery in hiring, after the stoppage in April and May. The ARPU of the Home segment decreased 6% to US$ 27.6 due to the depreciation of the Colombian and Paraguayan currencies.
Millicom's revenues in Latin America between April and June were at US$ 1.4 billion - a 6.9% decrease year-on-year, mainly driven by a 6.4% drop in service revenues. This last aspect showed drops in all the subsidiaries: Bolivia (-15.9%), Honduras (-12.4% s), Panama (-12.5%), Guatemala (-1.6%), Colombia (-3.9%) and Nicaragua (-4.0 %).
On the subject of the mobile business, sales decreased 10.8%. In the fixed, the decrease was 1.2%, thanks to an increase of 1.7% in the Home segment. The B2B segment also showed a drop of 8.4% and the sale of mobile terminals and equipment suffered a decrease of 12.9% to US$ 90 million.
The EBITDA of Millicom’s Latin American unit fell 5.7% year-on-year to US$ 544 million, since only Colombia and Nicaragua registered growth in this regard.