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Telecommunications provider Flow Jamaica earned flat revenues in the September 2024 amid the passage of Hurricane Beryl, which cost its parent millions in damage.
The Jamaica operations of C&W Caribbean generated US$103.1 million ($16.5 billion) in revenue from July to September, which was US$100,000 less than the previous year, according to ultimate parent company Liberty Latin America.
Over nine months revenue from Jamaica grew 2.0 per cent year on year to US$308.4 million.
“In July 2024, Hurricane Beryl impacted our Jamaica operations and certain smaller operations within C&W Caribbean, resulting in varying degrees of damage to homes, businesses and infrastructures in these markets. Hurricane Beryl triggered a claim pursuant to the weather derivatives, which resulted in net proceeds of US$44 million during the third quarter of 2024,” said Liberty Latin America CEO Balan Nair in the company’s newly released financial report.
Nair said the hurricane negatively affected home broadband internet additions in Jamaica, Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines.
“We anticipate further impacts to net adds in the fourth quarter, but are working hard to minimise them,” he said. “Postpaid mobile adds, although positive, were lower sequentially and year-over-year as Beryl impacted sales efforts. There was, however, an increase in prepaid adds as customers wanted to ensure access to mobile networks in the event of any outages, particularly in Jamaica.”
In Jamaica, customers using fixed and broadband internet declined by 20,000 during the September quarter, relative to the June quarter, while mobile users grew by 18,000.
Jamaica now has 1.2 million Flow mobile subscribers, while big rival Digicel Jamaica has a subscriber base of over two million.
Liberty Latin America group’s quarterly revenue slipped to US$1.09 billion, compared to US$1.13 billion a year earlier. Over nine months ending September, total revenue was US$3.3 billion, having slid from US$3.35 billion.
“Although C&W Caribbean experienced adverse operational impacts from Hurricane Beryl during the quarter, financial performance was resilient, outperforming our expectations,” said Nair.
Liberty expects Beryl’s adverse impacts on its businesses to persist into the December fourth quarter.
“Currently, we estimate that Hurricane Beryl will negatively impact revenue and adjusted [earnings] during the fourth quarter by between US$5 million and US$10 million, mainly driven by subscriber losses,” the telecoms said.
“Together with the third quarter impacts, we expect that the aggregate impact from Hurricane Beryl during 2024, for revenue and adjusted [earnings], will be between US$10 million and US$20 million and towards the high end of our expected range of US$10 million to US$20 million for property and equipment additions,” Liberty added.
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