Millicom International Cellular NASDAQ: TIGO reported what management described as a solid start to 2026, with first-quarter revenue and cash flow boosted by recent acquisitions and continued growth in its core mobile business.
On the company’s earnings call, CEO Marcelo Benitez said Millicom delivered “one of the strongest growth performances in recent history,” citing organic service revenue growth of 4.9% year over year. Total service revenue reached nearly $1.9 billion, while adjusted EBITDA totaled $857 million, representing a margin of 43.2%.
Benitez said the margin reflected integration and restructuring costs tied to the company’s Colombia transactions. Excluding Coltel, adjusted EBITDA margin would have been 47.9%, he said.
Equity free cash flow rose $48 million year over year to $225 million, which CFO Bart Vanhaeren described as a first-quarter record for Millicom. Excluding certain transaction-related effects, Benitez said equity free cash flow would have increased $90 million year over year.
Mobile Growth Leads the Quarter
Millicom’s mobile business continued to drive growth during the quarter. Benitez said the company’s underlying customer base grew 4% year over year, while reported growth was 38% after including the addition of Coltel in Colombia.
The company continued to shift customers from prepaid to postpaid plans. Postpaid customers increased 25%, while prepaid customers were largely flat, a trend Benitez attributed to prepaid-to-postpaid migration, seasonal factors and customer base cleanup initiatives. Postpaid customers now represent roughly 29% of Millicom’s mobile base.
Benitez said nearly seven out of every 10 postpaid sales are migration sales, up more than 10 percentage points from a year earlier. Mobile service revenue totaled $1.1 billion, including a $120 million contribution from two months of Coltel operations. Excluding inorganic growth, mobile service revenue grew 7%, or $63 million year over year.
Millicom’s home business also expanded, with the organic customer base rising 4.6% to 4.2 million customers. Including Coltel, the home customer base reached 5.7 million. Home service revenue was $374 million, flat year over year on an organic basis.
Benitez also highlighted fixed-mobile convergence, saying almost 36% of customers now have both fixed and at least one mobile line with Millicom. He said churn for convergent customers is almost 50% lower than for non-convergent customers.
Colombia Integration Takes Center Stage
A major focus of the call was Millicom’s expanded position in Colombia. During the quarter, the company completed the purchase of EPM’s 50% ownership stake in Tigo Une and Telefónica’s two-thirds stake in Coltel. Benitez said Millicom also finalized the purchase of the remaining Coltel stake from La Nación two weeks before the call.
Millicom is now fully consolidating Coltel’s results. Vanhaeren said Coltel contributed approximately $243 million in service revenue and $33 million in adjusted EBITDA during the quarter.
In Colombia, total service revenue reached $653 million. Excluding Coltel, service revenue rose 8.4% year over year. Benitez said organic postpaid customers in Colombia increased almost 9%, while mobile ARPU rose 4.4%. In the home segment, Tigo Une’s customer base grew 8.3% organically to 1.7 million customers.
Benitez outlined three priorities for the Colombia integration:
- Resetting the cost base: Millicom has identified more than $100 million in expected year-one savings through contract renegotiation, company rightsizing and sponsorship rationalization.
- Improving the network: The company plans to quadruple 5G coverage in 2026 and add more than 1,000 new sites over the next 24 months.
- Commercial uplift: Millicom plans to simplify offers, accelerate prepaid-to-postpaid migration, improve ARPU and expand cross-selling across fixed networks.
During the Q&A, Vanhaeren said management expects Colombia’s top-line growth of roughly 8% to be sustainable during the year. He also said the company believes Coltel will be a net contributor to equity free cash flow in 2026, offsetting restructuring and acquisition financing costs.
Benitez said Millicom recorded $65 million of Colombia restructuring costs in the first quarter and expects about $100 million more for the rest of the year, which he said should be offset by savings.
Acquisitions in Chile, Ecuador and Uruguay Show Early Progress
Millicom also discussed progress in Chile, where it acquired Telefónica’s operations jointly with NJJ on Feb. 10. Benitez said the company appointed new leadership, began applying its operating playbook and implemented an approximately 30% headcount reduction. The company also reduced debt by $85 million, lowering leverage by about 0.4 times.
Vanhaeren said the Chilean business generated approximately $200 million of revenue in the first two months of ownership and delivered positive equity free cash flow. He said the operation had been losing $500,000 per day when Millicom took control.
In Ecuador, service revenue reached $110 million, up about 1% from the prior year reference period. Adjusted EBITDA totaled $56 million, corresponding to a 48.3% margin. Vanhaeren said the company had reversed Ecuador’s prior negative revenue trend under former ownership.
Benitez said margin gains in Ecuador and Uruguay came from applying Millicom’s playbook, including a zero-based review of costs, focusing investment on networks and sales channels, simplifying organizational structures and renegotiating supplier terms. He said Ecuador’s margins could be affected later in the year by one-time marketing expenses related to a planned Tigo brand launch.
Guidance Remains Unchanged
Millicom maintained its 2026 financial targets, including equity free cash flow of at least $900 million and leverage of around 2.5 times by year-end.
Vanhaeren said the company’s net debt was $7.6 billion at quarter-end, reflecting Coltel’s opening balance sheet, acquisition payments, dividends and foreign exchange effects. He said leverage may increase slightly in the second quarter due to the remaining Coltel acquisition from La Nación and extraordinary dividends paid in April, but management remains confident leverage will decline to around 2.5 times by year-end.
On capital allocation, Vanhaeren said management recommended maintaining the dividend policy at $3 per share until leverage reaches 2.5 times. He said the company has sought flexibility for additional shareholder remuneration through dividends or share buybacks if leverage falls below that threshold.
Asked about potential further acquisitions, Vanhaeren said execution remains the priority. He noted that Peru and Venezuela remain “good targets to look at” from a menu perspective, but emphasized that the company is focused first on integrating and improving the assets it has recently acquired.
Vanhaeren said Millicom is not updating guidance yet, despite a stronger start to the year and more constructive foreign exchange trends. He said the company expects to be in a better position to revisit its outlook on the second-quarter earnings call.
About Millicom International Cellular NASDAQ: TIGO
Millicom International Cellular SA, trading under the TIGO brand, is a Luxembourg‐headquartered telecommunications and media company that provides a range of mobile, cable broadband, digital television and enterprise services. Through its integrated infrastructure, the company delivers voice and data connectivity, high‐speed internet access and pay‐television packages to millions of customers, supported by ongoing investments in network coverage and capacity.
Established in 1990 by Swedish investor Jan Stenbeck, Millicom has grown into a multi‐regional operator focused primarily on Central and South America.
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