Charter Loses Internet And TV Subscribers But Beats Rivals With Strong Mobile Line Gains

Charter Communications Inc CHTR reported its fiscal first-quarter 2025 results Friday, including quarterly revenue growth of 0.4% year-on-year to $13.74 billion, beating the analyst consensus estimate of $13.68 billion.

EPS of $8.42 missed the analyst consensus estimate of $8.67.

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The topline performance reflects revenue growth of 33.5% for residential mobile service, 1.8% for residential Internet and 13.4% for other revenue.

Charter lost 60,000 internet customers, including approximately 9,000 customer disconnects related to the wildfires in California in January, compared to a decline of 72,000 during the first quarter of 2024.

Comcast Corp CMCSA lost 199,000 broadband customers amid competition with telecom companies. AT&T Inc.’s T Consumer Wireline segment had 261 AT&T Fiber net additions during the quarter. Verizon Communications Inc. VZ had 339,000 broadband net additions during the quarter.

Charter’s residential video customers decreased by 181,000 compared to 405,000 in the previous year. Comcast also lost 427,500 video subscribers as streaming giants like Netflix Inc. NFLX gained traction.

Charter’s total mobile lines increased by 514,000 during the quarter, reaching 10.4 million as of March 31, 2025. AT&T’s 324,000 postpaid phone net adds (versus 349,000 a year ago). Contrastingly, Verizon’s quarterly postpaid phone net losses were 289,000 versus 114,000 net losses Y/Y driven by price hikes, intense rival promotional offers, and lower government support.

Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 180 bps to 42.0%.

The quarterly free cash flow of $1.56 billion increased from $358 million in the prior year, driven by higher net cash flows from operating activities and lower capital expenditures.

As of March 31, Charter served 30.02 million residential and SMB Internet customers.

Net cash flow from operating activities totaled $4.24 billion during the quarter. As of March 31, the company held $796 million in cash and equivalents.

2025 Outlook: Charter Communications reiterated a capex of $12 billion (versus $11.27 billion in fiscal 2024).

CHTR Price Action: Charter Communications stock is up 1.99% to $342.00 in the premarket at the last check on Friday.

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