Charter Communications Cable TV customers fall below 15 million amid mixed Q1 earnings

Charter Communications reported mixed results for its first quarter of 2023 on Friday as cord-cutting continued in the company’s cable TV business.

The cable giant reported net income of $1 billion, or earnings per share of $6.65, for the first quarter of 2023, compared to $1.2 billion, or earnings per share of $6.90, during the same period a year ago.

Total revenue grew 3.4% year over year to $13.7 billion. Residential revenue climbed 2.5% year over year to $10.8 billion, internet revenue grew 4.9% year-over-year to $5.7 billion and video revenue fell 2.1% to $4.3 billion. Voice revenue fell 4.6% year over year to $373 million, mobile service revenue grew 28.3% to $497 million and commercial revenue increased by 2.4% year over year to $1.8 billion. Advertising sales revenue declined 7.2% year over year to $355 million, primarily driven by lower political revenue.

Analysts were expecting the company to report earnings per share of $7.56 on total revenue of $13.6 billion.

Charter reported a total of 32.2 million residential and small and medium business customer relationships, excluding mobile-only relationships. Total residential and small and medium business internet customers grew by 76,000 to 30.5 million and total residential and small and medium business mobile lines increased by 686,000 to 6 million.

Residential video customers decreased by 237,000 to 14.3 million, partly driven by downgrades following a January pass through of higher programming expense, and small and medium business video customers fell by 4,000 to 646,000. Charter plans to begin deploying Xumo-branded streaming devices in late 2023.

“In the first quarter, we made significant progress on our three key initiatives — evolution, expansion and execution,” Charter president and CEO Chris Winfrey said in a statement. “Our customer-first strategy is focused on delivering a differentiated, converged connectivity product that delivers the fastest speeds and saves customers money, while simultaneously driving growth and creating long-term value for Charter shareholders.”

Shares of Charter Communications traded flat in pre-market trading following the earnings announcement. Yahoo!