Charter Communications reported higher first-quarter profits despite continued cord-cutting and competition for broadband customers.
Stamford, Connecticut-based Charter said it lost 72,000 residential and business interest customers, leaving it with 30.5 million. A year ago, the company added 67,000 broadband subscribers.
Despite the customer drain, residential broadband revenue grew 1.9% to $5.8 billion.
Cord-cutting accelerated, with Charter losing 392,000 Spectrum video customers, compared with a loss of 237,000 in the year-ago quarter.
The company finished the quarter with 13.7 million video customers, including 13.1 million residential customers.
That kept it ahead of Comcast as the largest cable pay TV provider in the country. Comcast on Thursday reported having 13.6 million total video customers.
Revenue from residential video fell 8.1% to $3.9 billion for Charter. Programming costs decreased 8.2%.
Charter’s Spectrum Mobile customer base grew to 8.3 million lines with the addition of 486,000 in the quarter.
Overall, first-quarter net income was $1.1 billion, or $7.55 a share, up 8.4% from $1.02 billion, or $6.65 a share, a year ago.
Revenue rose 0.2% to $13.7 billion, driven by growth in residential mobile revenue growth of 37.8%.
The financial results were below analysts’ expectations.
”Our differentiated converged connectivity products provide us with significant competitive advantages that position Charter for sustainable customer and financial growth,“ CEO Chris Winfrey said.
