Charter Communications focuses on long-term growth amid internet subscriber losses
Charter Communications is focused on long-term infrastructure improvements and rural expansion efforts, even as first-quarter results reflect ongoing headwinds in broadband subscriber growth. On the company’s Q1 earnings call, CEO Christopher Winfrey outlined a strategy centered not on short-term customer gains but on building a high-capacity, converged network that can efficiently deliver faster speeds at lower costs.
Charter lost 60,000 internet customers in Q1 but pointed to rising data usage as proof of continued demand. Winfrey reported that Charter’s average internet customer usage is approximately 825 gigabytes per month. Over 30% of customers now use more than a terabyte a month.
“Our fully converged network is the most efficient way to satisfy that growing demand for data,” said Winfrey.
Charter’s ongoing DOCSIS 4.0 upgrade is also central to its growth strategy.
“The upgrade effectively creates up to 1 GHz of spectrum acquisition across our 950,000-mile footprint,” said Winfrey. “That network spectrum expansion enables up to 10 Gbps of speed to each premise and can also power small cells for unlicensed and shared license spectrum nearly everywhere.”
In tandem with infrastructure upgrades, Charter is focused on improving service quality through employee and technology investments, which Winfrey reported has reduced service transactions and costs.
Rural expansion and market penetration
Despite net internet customer losses in Q1, Charter still managed to grow its presence in rural areas, adding 89,000 passings and 39,000 customer net additions in the quarter. Over the past twelve months, more than 400,000 rural passings were added, and Charter expects 2025 to be its biggest year yet for rural expansion, with approximately 450,000 new passings planned.
Though classified as rural, Charter expects many of these areas to transition into more valuable suburban markets over time.
“Unlike our competitors, we provide the very best of our products across 100% of our footprint with full marketing and service capabilities,” said Winfrey.
CFO Jenna Fischer reported capital expenditures of $2.4 billion in Q1, with a significant portion going toward these expansion efforts and network evolution projects.
Financial outlook
Charter had first-quarter revenues of $13.7 billion, up 0.4% year-over-year. Residential internet revenue grew 1.8%, and adjusted EBITDA rose 4.8% to $5.8 billion.
Operating expenses declined 2.6% year over year, and the cost to service customers declined 2.2%, which Fischer attributed to the results of long-term investments and lower labor costs.
Charter had $1.6 billion in free cash flow in the quarter, up from $358 million in Q1 2024. First-quarter capital expenditures of $2.4 billion were down about $400 million year over year.
“We continue to expect total 2025 capital expenditures to reach approximately $12 billion,” said Fischer, “and we have not changed our multiyear capital outlook.”
Regarding macroeconomic conditions, Charter reported working with vendors to minimize the effects of tariffs.
“We don’t currently expect tariffs to have a significant impact on our capital expenditures for this year and over the next several years,” added Fischer.
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Hayden Beeson
Hayden Beeson is a writer and editor with over seven years of experience in a variety of industries. Prior to joining Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, he was the associate editor of Architectural SSL and LEDs Magazine.