The company lost more broadband subscribers than expected, although it hauled in more than 400,000 new mobile lines
Charter added 406,000 mobile lines in the second quarter but saw pressure on video and internet subscribers.
Charter Communications' latest earnings results highlight the increasingly competitive broadband market, which has proved challenging for established cable providers.
The company posted further broadband subscriber declines in the second quarter. It shed a net of 172,000 internet accounts, more than the 116,000 it lost in the same period a year before.
Citi Research analyst Michael Rollins flagged that Charter's $(CHTR)$ average revenue per broadband user came in at $70 for the second quarter, down 1.5%. He called this a greater "erosion" of broadband revenue than what had been expected. What's more, the results "infer a further erosion" in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization this year, he said.
Ebitda fell 4.3% in the second quarter, or 3.2% when excluding transaction expenses.
Charter's stock was dropping 11% in premarket action.
See also: Verizon's stock rises as earnings show the company is no longer a 'hunting ground'
The broadband market has gotten more crowded and more competitive, with the major wireless companies stepping up their investments in home-internet plans through both fiber offerings and fixed-wireless-access offerings that leverage their existing cellular networks. Charter has been seeing pressure on subscriber trends for years as a result of this heightened competitive environment.
"While Charter is continuing to push converged service penetration and has improved video performance, broadband performance has not followed and continues to experience headwinds," Rollins wrote.
"Convergence" is the hot buzzword in telecommunications these days, as companies see opportunities to sell consumers on a bundled suite of offerings. AT&T $(T)$, for instance, said it had a 42.5% convergence rate in the second quarter, a reference to the portion of households with its home-internet offerings that also use AT&T for wireless service.
While AT&T, Verizon Communications $(VZ)$ and T-Mobile $(TMUS)$ are stepping on the toes of cable providers, Charter and Comcast $(CMCSA)$ are making inroads in the wireless market. Charter added 406,000 Spectrum Mobile lines in the second quarter, a performance that Rollins called "surprisingly better" that what was forecast.
Charter shed 21,000 net video subscribers in the period, although that was a narrower loss than the 80,000 one posted in the year-earlier quarter.
-Emily Bary
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July 24, 2026 09:30 ET (13:30 GMT)
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