Charter earnings beat Street, but broadband subscribers decline
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Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR) topped Wall Street expectations with its second-quarter earnings - but as with cableco rival Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA), it posted a decline in Internet subscribers.
Total residential and small/medium business Internet customers fell by 21,000 in the second quarter, to 30.3M total. Excluding some 59,000 disconnects tied to the end of a subsidy for low-income households, subs would have risen by 38,000.
Meanwhile, business on Charter's mobile phone offering is booming, as residential and SMB lines increased by 344,000, bringing the company to 4.3M mobile lines.
Total customer relationships (excluding mobile-only) landed at 32.1M.
And mobile growth helped feed overall revenues that rose by 6.2%, to $13.6B, beating consensus.
With only a negligible increase in expenses (to $10.37B), attributable net income jumped more than 44%, to $1.47B.
Revenue breakout: Internet, $5.56B (up 6.5%); Video, $4.48B (up 2.4%); Voice, $398M (up 1%); Small and Medium Business, $1.08B (up 3.7%); Enterprise, $669M (up 4.9%); Advertising sales, $460M (up 12%); Mobile, $726M (up 39.8%); Other, $219M (up 8.8%).
Net cash flows from operations came to $3.7B, down from a prior-year $4.0B. Free cash flow fell 20% to $1.7B, due to higher cash taxes and expenses from rural construction.
While Charter (CHTR) stock is flat in reaction to its earnings beat, rival Comcast (CMCSA) is 6.8% lower today after Thursday's report showed it failed to add net broadband customers for the first time.