Charter’s Growing Focus on Adding Internet Customers

In Q1 2019, Charter Communications (CHTR) added 398,000 broadband customers, beating analysts’ expectation of 344,000 additions. Its broadband customer additions rose YoY (year-over-year) from 334,000 and sequentially from 289,000, driven by lower churn thanks to improved products, billing, services, and collection. Its residential Internet customer base grew 5.1% YoY to 24 million customers in the first quarter.

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Charter’s Internet customers’ monthly data usage has increased to a median of ~200 gigabytes per customer. Further, more than 80% of its Internet customers now have packages delivering over 100 Mbps (megabits per second), and 30% have packages offering over 200 Mbps. Charter is now focusing on its Ultra product, which delivers a speed of 400 Mbps.

In the first quarter, Comcast (CMCSA), the largest cable company, had 25.4 million broadband subscribers. Meanwhile, Charter and AT&T (T) had 24.0 million and 14.5 million broadband subscribers, respectively. With faster Internet services, Charter and Comcast are expected to add more broadband customers.