Charter Communications fourth-quarter results are below estimates

Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) reports $8.93 EPS in the fourth quarter, which is $1.97 better than the $6.96 estimate made by financial analysts. However, revenue in the quarter came to about $13.2 billion and was also slightly lower than the $13.25 billion estimates.

Charter Communications missed on fourth-quarter consensus earnings estimates. 

The $13.2 billion revenue represented a 4.7% year-over-year increase in the fourth quarter. This growth was driven by a 5.1% increase in residential revenue, a 47.55 increase in mobile revenue, and a 4.85 increase in commercial revenue. However, it was partly offset by the 28.2% decrease in advertising sales revenue.

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Charter Communication’s Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Tom Rutledge, said:

We continued to execute well in 2021, with solid customer growth and strong financial growth. We added over 1.2 million Internet customers and we grew full year revenue and EBITDA by 7.5% and 11.4%, respectively.

The CEO continued to say:

In 2022, we remain focused on driving additional customer growth by offering better services while saving customers money on their total communications spend, driving EBITDA growth, free cash flow growth and shareholder value.

Charter committed to driving additional customer growth 

The company added about 172,000 residential internet customers in Q4 2021. However, this was less than the 216,000 reported in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year. The minimum internet speed the company currently offers to new Spectrum Internet consumers is 200 Mbps.

Almost 75% of all the internet customers subscribed to packages that offered 200, or more, Mbps in the 2021 fiscal year.

The company also has the Spectrum Internet Gig package across its whole footprint. In addition, Charter Communications’ Advanced Home Wi-Fi is available to almost all its Spectrum Internet customers. This tier is a managed Wi-Fi service it uses to provide its customers with an optimized home network.

Residential video customers reduced by around 71,00 in Q4 2021, which was also a lot more than the 66,000 declines they reported in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year. Residential wireline voice customers also declined by about 163,000.