Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. (TV) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Grupo Televisa's Second Quarter 2026 Conference Call. Before we begin, I would like to draw your attention to the press release, which explains the use of forward-looking statements and applies to everything we will discuss today on the call and in the earnings release. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Alfonso de Angoitia, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Grupo Televisa. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Elsa. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Francisco Valim, CEO of our telecom operations; and Carlos Phillips, CFO of Grupo Televisa. Before discussing our second quarter operating and financial performance, let me remind you that we are celebrating the third anniversary since Francisco Valim and his team joined Grupo Televisa to lead the turnaround of our telecom operations. Therefore, we would like to take the opportunity to share with you what we believe have been our major accomplishments throughout this period. First, our strategy to focus on attracting and retaining value customers in Cable has allowed us not only to stabilize our Internet subscriber base, but to grow it sequentially for 5 consecutive quarters. The quality of our subscriber base has improved considerably throughout this period, allowing us to maintain churn below 2% also for 5 consecutive quarters. Moreover, during the second quarter of 2026, our churn rate was the lowest of the last 10 quarters, leading us to believe our value strategy is proving successful. Second, following several quarters with Cable revenue pressure, we experienced a turning point over the last couple of quarters. During the first half of 2026, our residential and enterprise revenue of MXN 23.7 billion increased by 2.6% year-on-year, and we are confident this pace of growth is sustainable. Third, we have been executing on the implementation of OpEx efficiencies and the integration between Izzi and Sky to materially reduce our OpEx structure and extract synergies. Evidence of this is that our annual OpEx of MXN 34.5 billion is 18.4% lower than the MXN 42.2 billion we spent 3 years ago despite the accumulated inflation of 14.7%. Most of these savings come from headcount efficiencies as we moved to about 25,000 employees from around 34,000 in mid-2023. This allowed us to cut labor costs by almost 8% despite cumulative minimum wage increases of more than 50% over the last 3 years. Moreover, our programming costs and expenses have also been cut by around 20% throughout this period. This contributed to expanding our annual consolidated operating segment income margin by around 260 basis points to 40.7% from 38.1% 3 years ago. Fourth, by the end of 2024, we decided to upgrade 100% of our 20 million homes network to fiber-to-the-home. Back then, we only had around 22.5% of our homes passed by an FTTH network. Still, 18 months after the launch of the upgrade, we already passed 12 million homes with FTTH and are on track to have a full FTTH network in the second quarter of 2027. Fifth, our CapEx deployment approach has been very disciplined to focus on free cash flow generation, which has been our absolute top priority. On average, our annual CapEx of MXN 11.3 billion has been 36.5% lower than the average of the 2 years before Valim joined the company, while our aggregate CapEx to sales ratio of 18.5% compares well to the 25.8% we used to have before. Excluding the upgrade of our network, these numbers look even better. On average, our yearly organic CapEx of MXN 9.1 billion would have been almost 50% lower than before, while our aggregate CapEx to sales ratio would have been only 14.9%. Sixth, over the last 3 years, Grupo Televisa's corporate expenses have declined by around 65% to an annual figure of around MXN 400 million compared with about MXN 1.2 billion before. We have been able to achieve this by further integration of several functions with our telecom operations, including back office, IT systems and procurement, among others. And seventh, over the last 3 years, free cash flow generation has been quite strong. As I mentioned, this is our top priority. Throughout this period, Grupo Televisa has generated a cumulative amount of MXN 16.4 billion in free cash flow, equivalent to $300 million per year. Excluding the upgrade of our network, the accumulated free cash flow would have been MXN 20.6 billion or around $375 million annually. This has been contributed for Grupo Televisa's leverage ratio to decline to 1.6x EBITDA from 2.4x at the end of the second quarter of 2023. I strongly believe we're on the right track here, and we have a great team headed by Valim. The results speak for themselves. Having said that, let me turn the call over to Valim, as he will discuss the operating and financial performance of our consolidated assets.

Thank you, Alfonso. Good morning, everyone. Let me start by saying I'm very proud to be here and for the achievements of the team over the last 3 years. It has been a wonderful journey, full of accomplishments. Now let me walk you through the operating and financial performance of our Cable operations. We ended June with a network of 20 million homes after passing around 12,000 new homes during the quarter. In addition, we upgraded over 1.5 million homes to fiber-to-the-home technology, ending the second quarter with around 60% of our total footprint passed with FTTH. Moreover, as Alfonso mentioned, we are on track to upgrade another 8 million homes to FTTH technology over the next 12 months to have a full fiber network by the end of the second quarter of 2027. In the second quarter, our monthly churn rate remained below our historical average of 2% for the fifth consecutive quarter as we keep focus on value customers while working on customer retention and satisfaction. Our broadband gross adds is low due to: our price increase implemented in April; more aggressive promotions from our competitors; and an earlier-than-expected rainy season. This led us to have softer broadband net adds of 9,400 during the second quarter. However, looking at the last 4 quarters, we're able to deliver over 80,000 broadband net adds, which is in line with our annual internal goals. In video, we lost about 31,000 subscribers in the second quarter, which compares well to an average of around 38,000 disconnects over the last 4 quarters. Moving on, our mobile net adds of 72,000 subscribers during the second quarter remained solid, but slowed some compared to an average of about 92,000 net adds over the last 4 quarters. The new law requiring all mobile phone users to register their phone lines with photo ID and their official identification may be causing a generalized temporary slowdown in the Mexican mobile market. However, we are well positioned to face this new environment as all our new users are postpaid, making their registration automatic. During the quarter, net revenue from residential operations of MXN 10.7 billion increased by 1.8% year-on-year. This marks the best quarter of the last 2.5 years at our residential operations from a revenue growth performance standpoint and compares well to a full year revenue decline of 1.8% and 2.5% in 2025 and 2024, respectively. On a sequential basis, rent revenue from our residential operations grew again by 1.1%, solidifying our gradual recovery. Net revenue from our enterprise operations of MXN 1 billion increased by 0.8% year-on-year, slowing considerably relative to the strong growth experienced in the first quarter, as most of the revenue increase that we expected for this year at our enterprise operations already took place. Moving on to Sky's operating and financial performance. During the second quarter, we lost 279,000 revenue-generating units, mostly coming from prepaid subscribers that have not been recharging their services. While disconnections at Sky continue to be robust, we saw an improvement compared to the average disconnections of 326,000 revenue-generating units over the last 4 quarters, potentially driven by the World Cup transmission. Sky's second quarter revenue of MXN 2.5 billion declined by 20.3% year-on-year, mainly driven by a lower subscriber base. However, the pace of decline slowed some relative to a year-on-year contraction of 24.6% in the first quarter. To sum up, segment revenue of MXN 14.3 billion fell by 3% year-on-year, while operating segment income of MXN 6 billion increased by 5%, showing sustained momentum on the growth rebound experienced over the last 2 quarters, driven by an OpEx decline of 8%. Our operating segment income margin of 41.8% expanded by 310 basis points year-on-year, making it the best quarter of the last 3 years in terms of profitability, driven by efficiency measures that we have been implementing and the synergies that have been ongoing integration between Sky and Izzi. On a sequential basis, profitability expanded by 40 basis points. Regarding CapEx deployment, our second quarter total investments of MXN 3.6 billion accounted for 25.3% of sales. The main reason behind having higher total investments relative to the second quarter of last year was the FTTH upgrade of 1.5 million homes previously discussed. Finally, operating cash flow for Cable and Sky, which is equivalent to EBITDA minus CapEx, was MXN 2.4 billion in the second quarter, accounting for 16.6% of sales.

Thank you, Valim. Great job. Now let me walk you through TelevisaUnivision's second quarter results. The company's revenue of $1.3 billion increased by 10% year-on-year, including the impact from the appreciation of the Mexican peso, driven by our exceptional results in Mexico. During the quarter, Mexico's revenue surged by 53% year-on-year to $605 million as the FIFA World Cup was an extraordinary success, serving as a catalyst for multi-platform growth across our advertising, subscription and licensing businesses, while in the U.S., revenue of $722 million fell by 11%, reflecting anticipated domestic advertising headwinds, including the fact that we did not air the World Cup. While revenue growth was strong during the quarter, total operating expenses increased by 16% or 11%, excluding the appreciation of the Mexican peso, driven by the anticipated sports-related costs associated with the World Cup in Mexico and Latin America. As a result, adjusted EBITDA of $388 million declined by 3%. Moving on to the details of our revenue performance. During the quarter, consolidated advertising revenue decreased by 9% year-on-year. In the U.S., advertising revenue was 29% lower, reflecting cyclical softness in our linear business and lower ViX advertising revenue, both of which were impacted by us not having the World Cup. Although advertiser spending shifted during the quarter, we continued to grow audience ratings leading into the tournament and we expanded CPMs year-on-year while successfully navigating a dynamic counterprogramming environment. Our core business demonstrated resilient underlying trends, and we saw growth in recurring sports-related revenue driven by emerging categories such as sports betting. In Mexico, advertising revenue increased by 23% year-on-year, driven by the strength of both our linear and DTC platforms, which offered 39 consecutive days of premium World Cup coverage. During the quarter, we delivered an unprecedented total reach of approximately 415 million across 79 matches, nearly doubling our closest competitor by underscoring the dominance of our multi-platform ecosystem. We saw strong demand for the World Cup inventory, and our scale, combined with strategic execution across our linear and digital platforms, unlocked new revenue streams that monetized viewership. During the quarter, consolidated subscription and licensing revenue increased by 40% year-on-year, driven by approximately $90 million in World Cup sublicensing revenue in Latin America, continued growth in ViX's premium tiers and higher linear distribution revenue. In the U.S., subscription and licensing revenue grew by 8%, reflecting higher average rates, incremental distribution revenue from Hulu Live TV and growth in ViX. In Mexico, subscription and licensing revenue increased by 157%, supported by the previously discussed World Cup sublicensing revenue and continuing growth in ViX's premium tier. ViX delivered exceptional engagement and record subscriber growth as the platform was the exclusive streaming destination for the tournament. Our World Cup strategy significantly outperformed expectations as we posted record ViX subscription revenue and the highest quarterly subscriber additions in the platform's history. ViX continues to scale, and we remain focused on driving subscription revenue growth and DTC profitability, which are our primary operating priorities. Moving on to our balance sheet. TelevisaUnivision ended the quarter with $766 million in cash, driven by seasonality and timing of advertising upfront collections in Mexico amplified by the World Cup. In addition, we have around $770 million of available capacity under our credit facilities. CapEx for the quarter was $36 million compared to $23 million last year, but we continue to expect full year 2026 CapEx to be consistent with full year 2025 levels. Looking at our leverage, we ended the quarter with a net debt-to-EBITDA of 5.5x, a modest improvement from 5.7x in the prior quarter. Going forward, we remain prudent on the U.S. advertising market. We expect third quarter U.S. advertising trends to be broadly consistent with the second quarter, reflecting macroeconomic conditions and a competitive sports programming slate. We anticipate continued World Cup momentum in Mexico and Latin America, together with fourth quarter U.S. political advertising, to partially offset near-term U.S. advertising pressures through the second half of 2026. To wrap up, Bernardo and I are confident that Grupo Televisa's strong balance sheet and the solid financial performance at our telecom operations position us well to consolidate our undisputable position as the second largest telco operator in Mexico after the incumbent and to create greater value for our shareholders. Now we are ready to take your questions. Elsa, could you please provide instructions for the Q&A?

The first question will come from Alejandro Gallostra with BBVA.

Excellent. Alfonso, I'd like to ask you a few questions about your strategy about your intention to potentially consolidate the telecom market. The first question, Alfonso, is -- I'd like to know what do you think is more likely to happen? Do you think that Televisa is more likely to try to consolidate the market on its own, going with it alone? Or it's more likely to bring a strategic partner for this journey? The second question that I would like to ask is, what is your intention? Are you looking to acquire 100% of whatever assets you are interested in? Or you would be happy with a 51% controlling stake? And finally, Alfonso, I also like to know, what would be the leverage that you would be comfortable with at a consolidated level after consolidating any potential assets?

Well, Alejandro, great questions. I could spend an hour answering them, but I will try to make that shorter. I guess what I would say is we have been trying to consolidate the cable industry for a very long time. I think it's the right thing that we have to do as an industry. I think if you look at other cases throughout the world, a 4-player market is a complicated market. So we have been trying. Unfortunately, we have been unable to accomplish that. As the telecommunications sector in general, I would say that we always analyze strategic opportunities. This is all the time as they come. These are opportunities that we see would strengthen our competitive position and of course, create shareholder value within our sectors. We have always tried to be disciplined as to our capital allocation and returns over the investment. So it depends on the particular opportunity to determine whether we bring in strategic partners or not. So it depends on the possibilities, the opportunity, the company itself, the part of the sector that we're talking about. So it all depends on that, on the particular opportunity as it comes. I would say, as to the level of leverage that we feel comfortable in having, I guess it all depends also on the opportunity and the cash flow generation that opportunity would bring or not and how we would deleverage in a particular acquisition. So it all depends on how we see a particular opportunity.

And Alfonso, also, regarding the stake that you're looking to acquire, any comments on that? Are you happy with a 51% stake or always looking to acquire 100% of whatever assets you're interested in?

Yes. I would say it depends on the particular opportunity as well. So in some instances, we would not have -- I mean, we would like to control and operate the company. But in some instances, it would depend, and we could have less than that as well. So it depends. It all depends.

And I would only add, Alejandro, to your point about leverage that as you've seen, since we changed our strategy in Cable, we've generated a lot more cash. And we've been able to delever the company significantly, below 2x. So our balance sheet is very strong. In case of any M&A opportunities, like Alfonso was saying, it's going to depend on the opportunity, but we -- our balance sheet today is pretty strong to be able to deal with them.

The next question will come from Marcelo Santos with JPMorgan.

I want to go more on the operational side, probably more to Valim. The first question is, how much more space do you think there is to extract synergies between Cable and Sky? I mean, I think Alfonso mentioned a lot of these gains are coming from headcount reductions. At what point do you reach kind of a steady state? I know costs always have to keep cutting and improving, but probably, I wanted to more structural changes. How far are we there? That's the question number one. The question number two would be, could you expand a bit more on your comment regarding increased competition on broadband? Because I think you gave 3 reasons for the broadband adds, like price increase, more competition and early rainy season. So I was interested in the second one, if you could just say a bit more about that?

So Marcelo, I think that synergies is a broad name to define many things. And in telecom, in this day and age with the amount of new technologies, especially helping in terms of efficiencies on the back end of the operations, I think we still see a lot of room for improvement. Obviously, the synergies are coming to an end in terms of the integration between Sky and Izzi, but it doesn't mean that we are not pursuing further improvements in terms of efficiency and do that on a daily basis. So I would not assume that we cannot find even more opportunities in terms of how we can streamline the operations. And like I said, technology has a lot to do with that. And we have been heavily invested in making sure that we have the best, most efficient operation, but at the same time, that provides the customers with satisfaction. So NPS is a key element of our business, but also making sure that we do that at the least possible cost is always part of the discussion. So from our day-to-day operations, like you're referring to, we see opportunities for improvement in many areas of the business. Still, telecom, especially in a large organization, they take time to mature. And we have several coming up in the future, so we should see still improvement in terms of margins moving forward. In terms of the competition, I think that is an interesting question because there are many levels of competition. So let's discuss our subscriber base in terms of different groups. So Sky is a technology that is, by definition, struggling when fiber is deployed all over the country. So most of the consumers are either migrating to us or some of the other players and also using more OTTs than they used to. So -- and the Sky customers typically had a higher ARPU. So obviously, the migration in Sky is something -- migrating out of Sky is something that will happen moving forward. So we see that as a competition in a sense. When you divide our subscriber base, the existing subscriber base, the customers that are with us for longer than 12 months, our churn there is significantly lower than the average. Where we see higher churn is at the front end. Why? Because there's a lot of competition for the bottom feeders, meaning those people that are going after MXN 50 discussion, I am MXN 50 cheaper than you, and et cetera, et cetera. So churn is higher at the entry level, but our churn is significantly lower at the end of the pyramid. So our subscriber base at the end of the -- so subscribers that have 12 months or more, we keep on improving subscribers. We keep on improving ARPU. And so those are our focus. So -- and why should we increase competition at this lower level doesn't make a lot of sense because it requires sales, CapEx installation. And definitely higher churn and lower payback for these customers. So we see some of the players in the market going after those low-end customers like crazy, you can see it reflects on their CapEx, which is significantly higher than ours for those acquisitions. So we are being very selective as to which channels and which clients we are going after because we can always go do this fight for this lower ARPU and have higher net adds. But the question is, how long they will stay on the subscriber base and how much they contribute to the subscriber base? And we don't want to go after those clients. We want to go after those clients that need more service, that are looking to a more resilient provider that not only provides broadband, but provides other services that are very appealing to them, not only in terms of the services and the quality of the services, but also in terms of the overall value proposition. So that's our approach. I understand some other players in this market have a different approach. We appreciate them, and we think that they are doing a good job, but we have a different strategy. And that reflects itself in growing subscriber base not at the rates that someone might think it's needed. We think it's more wise, what we are doing. And in terms of cash flow generation, just like Carlos mentioned, we are generating a ton of cash, and that's what we think drives the business in the long run. Telecom is not a sprint. This is a very long marathon.

The next question will come from Lucca Brendim with Bank of America.

I have two from my side. The first one, can you give us some color on the increase that we've been seeing in the last couple of quarters in lease payments? If there's a reason -- a specific reason behind that and if this trend will continue or not? And then the second one, on the regions where you are upgrading to fiber, are you already seeing benefits from that in terms of your competitive position in the region, if you're able to raise ARPU more there or if you're seeing lower churn? Any color on that would be great.

Thank you, Lucca, for your question. Carlos, can you take the first one, please?

Yes. Lucca, the main driver of the increase in leases, as you've been observing, has to do with one of the efficiencies that the team at Izzi has been executing, which is to -- we used to own most of the auto fleet in the company. And now we've been switching to leasing autos, which has generated a lot of savings in other lines. So that's really the main driver in terms of the lease increase.

And regarding the deployment of the network, the idea here is very simple. All of our new net adds are on fiber. And whenever a client has an issue or needs some service, we upgrade them from our existing network to the fiber network. So that's how we are approaching this. And what we are seeing is we are able to sell better products, higher prices and more solutions when we migrate to fiber. We do not do a side-by-side comparison because it's not -- it's the same subscriber base. As the client decides to see more speeds, better services, we migrate them to fiber, and that's easy. But this is an ongoing process. We do not have 2 parallel services independent. It's the same service that most of the clients actually do not know if it's fiber or not, okay? We have surveyed our subscriber base many times, and they do not know which technology they are using in their homes. So for us, it's basically a technological migration to allow us to be competitive in the long run. In the short run, the network that we have works okay. In the long run, obviously, fiber is the end game. So we are ready and working towards migrating the subscriber base to fiber. And we'll do that when the clients need or when we feel it's necessary to -- for a more robust or more sizable migration.

The next question will come from Phani Kanumuri with HSBC.

The first one is regarding the impact of Starlink. Are you seeing any potential disruptions from Starlink? Or do you see them as partners in the telecom sector? And the second one is regarding your strategy for TelevisaUnivision. Now that you are considering a much more active M&A strategy in Mexico, depending on the opportunity, do you plan to monetize TelevisaUnivision stake around the M&A to maintain your leverage?

Starlink -- can you put your mic on mute? Thank you, Phani. So as to your first question, we believe it will be a mistake to underestimate Starlink and what they're doing in terms of launching 800 new satellites with much higher capacity. However, in our market, with the pricing and the ARPU we experience, we believe it's not a threat in the short term in the mass market. Francisco, can you describe what we're doing with that?

Yes. We have basically two approaches with Starlink. We have a B2B approach. We have signed an agreement with them early last year, and we are ahead of the curve. We are using them as a complementary and sometimes a backup to other services to corporate clients. So Starlink is happy, we are happy. We have been moving forward very quickly with that deployment. We are also starting a new phase with Starlink which is a B2C phase, which is also complementary to what we offer. So when we have fiber, obviously, fiber provides a very -- is an excellent solution. But where we do not have and combining that with the content that we offer is where we are going with Starlink. So together with Starlink in both B2B and B2C, we see a lot of room for improvement. And I think that's a very profitable partnership for both sides.

And on the TelevisaUnivision stake thing?

Well, the strategy, as we have communicated in the past is basically what we see as the future is growing ViX as our streaming service. I think we gained a lot of strength, and we moved in the right direction using the World Cup as leverage. In Mexico, ViX was the only streaming platform that had 104 games. So that was the total amount of games of the World Cup. We, in essence, launched a product that had all those games, and we were very, very successful with it. We sold around 1 million add-ons of that service. So we're gaining ground and speed of growth. So we're very happy with the prospects of ViX. We believe that to be an essential part of our strategic future. So it's all around ViX, and of course, maintaining the strength and our market share on linear television.

The next question will come from Matthew Harrigan with Benchmark.

A European telecom peer of yours, Liberty Global, had some really interesting presentation numbers from the study that McKinsey and Google did on AI-related OpEx savings. They really broke down the cost buckets, where they're applicable, and some pretty substantial percentage cost reductions to realize over a period of time. I know you probably have done similar things. I know TelevisaUnivision has -- obviously, Google is an owner there, as I recall. What do you think the long-term AI benefits are just on kind of the blocking and tackling, operational side? And is there any concern over token costs increasing? Because that's certainly an issue with some U.S. companies that are involved with the hyperscalers.

Thank you for your question, Matthew. It's a great question. I'll answer in respect to TelevisaUnivision. And then Francisco is doing a lot of stuff that has to do with AI on the Izzi side, so he can answer that part. I would say that as to TelevisaUnivision, we're doing all types of things with AI. We're working on the production side. This is with several companies, specialized companies. We're working on the production side. We're working on the set designing side. We're working with special effects. We're working with the musicalization of our programs and shows. We're working with a great company called ElevenLabs in what has to do with dubbing. Now you can do great dubbing with the voices of the actors and actresses with AI. And this company is providing us an excellent product where we can dub, for example, a telenovela into Portuguese or into Korean, and then very efficiently taking the great products that we have, those telenovelas and launch them in Korea or in Turkey or in all over the world. So we're working on all fronts as to what we can do with AI. And we have seen this brings tremendous efficiencies to our -- especially to our production, to our, as I mentioned, set designing, special effects, musicalization, et cetera. So we're very happy with the prospects there in terms of not only on the cost side, but also on the revenue side, as I mentioned, and being able to dub into different languages and take those products to different countries throughout the world.

In terms of Izzi, we also have deployed AI in several processes, from sales to collections. And so it's already embedded in all of those processes. One of the questions people ask is what about the cost of tokens. We took an approach that many companies have taken in, bringing the infrastructure internally. So we don't go outside. So we don't pay, in essence, tokens. We have storage, cloud storage, and GPUs that do that internally. And that has two advantages. One, we manage the cost precisely so we don't have to go just guessing what's going to happen. And two, it also prevents any leakage of potential -- of data. So -- and so because of those two, so we do already have infrastructure and already AI in all of our processes from sales to collections. Obviously, this is an ongoing process and an ongoing evolution. Like you said, we -- and I think Marcelo has asked the same question earlier. In terms of evolving costs, we see that as improvement moving forward as well.

Thank you for participating in our call. If you have any questions, please give us a call, and have a great weekend.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.