Yahoo Finance Charter (CHTR) Q1 Earnings Lag, Internet User Base Up Y/Y
Charter Communications CHTR delivered first-quarter 2023 earnings of $6.65 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 7.77%. The reported figure decreased 3.6% year over year.
Revenues of $13.653 billion increased 3.4% on a year-over-year basis, owing to the residential and mobile service growth. The top line beat the consensus mark by 0.58%.
Internet revenues grew 4.9% year over year to $5.72 billion. In the reported quarter, Charter added 76K Internet connections.
Segmental Details
Residential revenues totaled $10.84 billion in the first quarter, up 2.5% year over year. Residential revenue per residential customer totaled $120.56, up 2.5% year over year.
Video revenues of $4.25 billion in the first quarter were down 2.1% year over year.
Charter Communications, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
Charter Communications, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Charter Communications, Inc. Quote
Voice revenues of $373 million in the first quarter declined 4.6% year over year.
First-quarter mobile service revenues totaled $497 million, up 28.3% year over year.
Commercial revenues increased 2.4% year over year to $1.77 billion, driven by SMB and enterprise revenue growth of 2% and 3.1% year over year, respectively.
First-quarter advertising revenues decreased 7.2% year over year to $355 million.
Other revenues jumped 34% year over year to $683 million.
Subscriber Statistics
As of Mar 31, 2023, Charter had 29.97 million residential customer relationships, down 0.1% year over year. SMB residential customer relationships inched up 2.4% to 2.22 million.
The company lost 241K video customers and 220K voice customers. It also added 686K mobile lines in the reported quarter.
Operating Details
Total operating costs and expenses increased 3.9% from the year-ago quarter to $8.30 billion.
Programming costs decreased 6% year over year to $2.8 billion. Other costs of revenue were $1.33 billion, up 19.9% year over year.
Costs to service customers inched up 6.9% year over year to $2.10 billion. Sales & marketing costs were $946 million, up 7.6% year over year.
Adjusted EBITDA increased 2.6% year over year to $5.35 billion. Adjusted EBITDA margin contracted 30 basis points on a year-over-year basis to 39.2%.
Balance Sheet & Cash Flow
As of Mar 31, 2023, the total principal amount of debt was $97.8 billion and Charter's credit facilities provided approximately $3.3 billion of additional liquidity in excess of its $534 million cash position.
Cash flows from operating activities totaled $3.32 billion, down 8.9% year over year.
Free cash flow was $664 million compared with the previous quarter’s $1.1 billion and the year-ago quarter’s $1.8 billion.
In the reported quarter, the company repurchased 2.6 million shares of Charter Class A common stock and Charter Communications Holdings, LLC common units for approximately $1 billion.
Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider
Charter currently holds a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
CHTR shares have underperformed the Zacks Consumer Discretionary sector year to date. While Charter has gained 1.1%, the sector has increased 9.6%.
World Wrestling Entertainment WWE, WideOpenWest WOW and Marriott International MAR are some better-ranked stocks that investors can consider in the broader sector. All three carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
World Wrestling Entertainment shares have gained 54.2% year to date. WWE is set to report its first-quarter 2023 results on May 3.
WideOpenWest shares have gained 22.9% year to date. WOW is set to report its first-quarter 2023 results on May 4.
Marriott shares have declined 11.1% year to date. MAR is set to report its first-quarter 2023 results on May 2.
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