Cable and broadband giant Charter Communications, which reported its first-quarter results on Friday, posted another pay-TV user loss as the company added mobile phone users while Internet customer growth slowed.
The company, led by its new president and CEO Chris Winfrey, lost 241,000 pay TV subscribers in the last quarter, compared to a loss of 112,000 in the same period a year ago. Charter, in which John Malone’s Liberty Broadband has a major stake, ended the quarter with a total of more than 14.9 million pay-TV customers.
Charter continues to sell and market traditional video packages alongside its mobile and broadband products, but its pay TV bundle remains under pressure from competition from streaming platforms and cable cutting.
The number of residential internet customers in the first quarter increased by 67,000 amid fierce competition from existing broadband service rivals, compared to an increase of 164,000 customers in the first quarter of 2022. Charter added 686,000 new mobile phone subscribers in the last quarter compared to a year earlier 373,000 customers signed up as the mobile phone division continues to grow faster than anywhere else in the company.
Charter’s first-quarter revenue increased 3.4 percent to $13.7 billion, driven by higher mobile device sales. Net income attributable to Charter shareholders fell 15 percent to $1.02 billion, or $6.65 per share, from $6.90 in earnings per share in the first quarter of 2022.
Shares in Charter fell $13.00, or nearly 4 percent, to $329.75 in pre-market trading on Friday.
