Charter Q4 Earnings Beat, Residential Revenues Drive Top Line

Charter Communications CHTR reported fourth-quarter 2024 earnings of $10.10 per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 5.9%. The reported figure jumped 43% year over year.Find the latest EPS estimates and surprises on Zacks Earnings Calendar.Revenues of $13.93 billion increased 1.6% on a year-over-year basis, driven by growth in residential mobile service and residential Internet revenues. The top line beat the consensus mark by 0.3%. Charter Communications, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Charter Communications, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Charter Communications, Inc. Quote CHTR’s Segmental DetailsResidential revenues totaled $10.69 billion in the fourth quarter, which decreased 0.4% year over year.Fourth-quarter 2024 monthly residential revenues per residential customer totaled $121.40 and increased 1.7% year over year. Internet revenues grew 0.9% year over year to $5.86 billion.Video revenues totaled $3.62 billion in the fourth quarter, reflecting a decrease of 7.4% year over year. Voice revenues decreased 10.4% year over year to $353 million. Fourth-quarter mobile service revenues totaled $860 million, up 37.4% year over year. Commercial revenues increased 1.9% year over year to $1.82 billion. Enterprise revenues, excluding wholesale, rose 5.2% year over year, mostly reflecting PSU growth. Fourth-quarter advertising sales were $540 million, which increased 26.4% year over year, primarily driven by higher political revenues. Excluding political revenues in both periods, advertising sales revenues decreased 8.2% year over year due to a more challenging advertising market. Other revenues totaled $884 million in the fourth quarter, reflecting a rise of 14.6% compared to the third quarter of 2023, primarily driven by higher mobile device sales.CHTR’s Subscriber StatisticsFourth-quarter total residential and SMB Internet customers decreased 2% year over year to 31.473 million. Fourth-quarter total Internet customers decreased 177,000. As of Dec. 31, 2024, Charter had 30.1 million total Internet customers. Total video customers decreased by 123,000 in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to a decline of 257,000 in the year-ago quarter. As of Dec. 31, 2024, Charter had 12.892 million total video customers. During the fourth quarter of 2024, total voice customers decreased 274,000 compared to a decline of 251,000 in the year-ago quarter. As of Dec. 31, 2024, Charter had 7.2 million total voice customers. Charter added 529,000 total mobile lines compared to 546,000 in the year-ago quarter. As of Dec. 31, 2024, Charter served 9.9 million mobile lines, with 2.1 million mobile lines added in 2024.Operating DetailsTotal operating costs and expenses increased 0.3% year over year to $8.17 billion. Fourth-quarter programming costs decreased 9.1% year over year due to fewer video customers, a higher mix of lower-cost packages within Charter’s video customer base and $37 million of costs, which accounting principles require to be allocated to programmer streaming applications and netted within video revenues.  Other costs of revenues increased 16.2% year over year, primarily driven by higher mobile device sales and mobile service direct costs, and higher advertising sales expense related to political revenue. While field and technology operations increased 0.9% year over year, customer operations decreased 2.6% year over year, primarily due to lower labor costs.Sales and marketing expenses increased 3.2% year over year, given Spectrum's continued focus on driving growth and the launch of its new brand platform, Life Unlimited. Other expenses decreased 0.7% year over year.Adjusted EBITDA increased 3.4% year over year to $5.8 billion.Balance Sheet & Cash FlowAs of Dec. 31, 2024, total principal amount of debt was $93.8 billion and Charter's credit facilities provided approximately $6.3 billion of additional liquidity in excess of its $459 million cash position.During the fourth quarter of 2024, net cash flows from operating activities totaled $3.5 billion. Capital expenditures totaled $3.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024, an increase of $206 million from the figure reported in the year-ago quarter.Free cash flow in the fourth quarter of 2024 totaled $984 million, representing a decrease of $77 million compared with the fourth quarter of 2023. The year-over-year decline in free cash flow was primarily driven by lower net cash flows from operating activities and higher capital expenditures.In the reported quarter, Charter purchased 292 thousand shares of Charter Class A common stock and Charter Holdings common units for $113 million.Zacks Rank & Stocks to ConsiderCharter currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).Fox Corporation FOXA, News Corporation NWSA and Roku ROKU are some better-ranked stocks that investors can consider in the Zacks Consumer Discretionary sector. While NWSA sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present, FOXA and ROKU carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) each. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.Fox Corporation is scheduled to report its second-quarter fiscal 2025 results on Feb. 4. News Corporation is set to report second-quarter fiscal 2025 results on Feb. 5, while Roku is scheduled to report its fourth-quarter 2024 results on Feb. 13.Zacks' Research Chief Names "Stock Most Likely to Double"Our team of experts has just released the 5 stocks with the greatest probability of gaining +100% or more in the coming months. Of those 5, Director of Research Sheraz Mian highlights the one stock set to climb highest.This top pick is among the most innovative financial firms. With a fast-growing customer base (already 50+ million) and a diverse set of cutting edge solutions, this stock is poised for big gains. Of course, all our elite picks aren’t winners but this one could far surpass earlier Zacks’ Stocks Set to Double like Nano-X Imaging which shot up +129.6% in little more than 9 months.Free: See Our Top Stock And 4 Runners UpWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report News Corporation (NWSA): Free Stock Analysis Report Charter Communications, Inc. (CHTR): Free Stock Analysis Report Fox Corporation (FOXA): Free Stock Analysis Report Roku, Inc. (ROKU): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks