Charter Communications reported Q2 revenues of $1.217 billion, an increase of 7.0% over last year’s second quarter revenues of $1.137 billion. Income from operations totaled $112 million in Q2 2003, an increase of 31.8% from a year ago. Net loss was $38 million, or $0.13 per share. Charter said Q2 traditionally is weak in terms of subscriber growth due to disconnects from annual price adjustments and seasonality in many of its communities. Some highlights from the end of the quarter:
- Revenue generating units (RGU) totaled approximately 10,463,500, up 5% from a year ago, but down by approximately 10,900 units, or .1%, compared to Q1 2003.
Total advanced service RGUs, defined as digital, high-speed data and telephony units, increased by 748,300 units, or 23%.
A loss of 253,200 analog video customers, or 3.8% over the past twelve months. Charter now has 6,486,900 analog video customers compared to 6,740,100 a year ago. The estimated penetration of analog video homes passed is now 53% compared to 57% a year ago.
There was also a decline in digital video customers. At the end of Q2, Charter had 2,603,900 digital video customers, down from 2,682,800 at the beginning of the year. At this time last year it had 2,380,500 digital video customers.
Added approximately 76,700 cable modem customers in Q2, bringing its total to 1,349,000. Charter added 134,200 cable modem customers in Q1 2003. The estimated penetration of high-speed data homes passed is now 13%.
Cable telephony customers total 23,700, up from 22,800 at the end of Q1 and 17,600 a year ago.
Charter plans to introduce new pricing and service packages in many of its Top 25 markets during the second half of the yearhttp://www.chartercom.com
- In July 2003, Charter Communications ordered 100,000 units of the new Motorola Broadband Media Centers (BMCs) powered by Digeo’s Moxi Service. Motorola said the announcement marks the first widescale deployment by a cable operator of a digital cable media center with advanced features such as dual-tuner “watch and record” personal video recording (PVR), high-definition television (HDTV), and a progressive-scan DVD player.
