FLOW Jamaica’s mobile network has been fully restored following Hurricane Melissa but the telecoms operator faces a longer and more financially consequential rebuild of its fixed-line infrastructure — particularly in western Jamaica where more than half of customers remain without service.

“Through the course of the year we will continue to restore homes and B2B [business-to-business] customers with a focus on return on investment and innovation. We look forward to building back stronger in Jamaica and, on a run rate basis, targeting a return close to pre-hurricane levels of profitability by the end of 2026,” said Balan Nair, chief executive of Liberty Latin America Limited (LILA), during an earnings call on Thursday.

LILA, the parent company of Flow Jamaica which operates locally as Cable & Wireless Jamaica Limited, said mobile data traffic increased from 2.9 million petabytes before the hurricane to 3.3 million petabytes by the end of 2025. That growth corresponded with a rise of 100,000 in mobile data subscribers, bringing the total to 1.2 million.

Flow worked with Phoenix Tower International to rapidly restore damaged cell towers, supporting the recovery in mobile usage.

“We feel good about the outlook for our mobile business in Jamaica, seeing not only the opportunity to maintain this recovery, but to further build upon it,” Nair said.

With a greater influx of prepaid customers following the storm, the company plans to migrate higher-value prepaid users to postpaid plans while continuing network upgrades through improved spectrum positioning and increased site density.

The fixed-line network, however, remains under pressure. While approximately 75 per cent of broadband customers nationwide are back online, restoration varies by region.

In Surrey county — Kingston, St Andrew and other eastern parishes — operations have largely normalised. In Middlesex county — including St Catherine, St Ann and Clarendon — rebuilding is expected to be completed in the first half of 2026.

The most significant disruption is in zone three — St James, St Elizabeth and other western parishes — where reconstruction will follow priority restoration of homes and businesses. The damage prompted LILA to remove 133,000 homes from its tracking metrics, reflecting management’s view that fixed service in those areas will not resume in the near term.

“Our plans are to rebuild in the parish of St James where Jamaica’s second city, Montego Bay, is located. Once complete, this should move the needle in terms of bringing customers back online,” Nair said.

Hurricane-related disruption reduced revenue by US$20 million in the final two months of 2025 and cut operating income before depreciation and amortisation (OIBDA) by US$27 million over the same period.

Despite the storm’s impact, the Jamaican segment’s full-year revenue declined only marginally from US$415.2 million in 2024 to US$409 million in 2025. Revenue for the nine months to September rose three per cent, from US$308.4 million to US$317.8 million, underscoring the resilience of the mobile segment prior to the hurricane.

Chris Noyes, LILA’s chief financial officer, cautioned that the next several quarters would remain challenging for Jamaica. However, the company benefited from weather derivatives that paid out US$81 million — a form of parametric insurance that provides rapid compensation following severe weather events based on predefined triggers such as wind speed.

At the group level, LILA’s consolidated revenue dipped slightly to US$4.44 billion for 2025 while adjusted OIBDA rose nine per cent to US$1.7 billion. The company reported operating profit of US$108.2 million compared with an operating loss of US$76.8 million in 2024.

Higher financing costs and increased taxes, however, contributed to a consolidated net loss of US$554.3 million, with US$611.2 million attributable to shareholders.

Total assets declined four per cent to US$12.23 billion, largely due to lower intangible asset valuations. Total liabilities fell to US$11.16 billion while equity attributable to shareholders decreased 49 per cent to US$555.6 million, reflecting the continued pressure on earnings and balance sheet strength.

Separately, LILA signed a five-year strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services earlier this week, aimed at accelerating cloud transformation and artificial intelligence adoption across Latin America and the Caribbean.

“No doubt the full recovery will take time and impact our reported results in the coming quarters, but we anticipate that we will be running at a much fuller tempo by 2027,” Nair said.