Charter (CHTR) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Date

Friday, January 30, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. ET

Call participants

• President and Chief Executive Officer — Christopher L. Winfrey
• Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President — Jessica M. Fischer

Takeaways

• Revenue -- Consolidated revenue declined by 2% year over year, and by 0.4% when excluding advertising revenue and programmer streaming app allocation.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- Adjusted EBITDA dropped by 1.2% year over year in the quarter, while full-year EBITDA grew by 0.6%.
• Internet customers -- The company lost 119,000 Internet customers, an improvement versus the prior year fourth quarter driven by lower disconnects.
• Mobile lines -- Net additions totaled 428,000 mobile lines with higher gross additions, but were lower sequentially due to increased competitor device subsidies.
• Video customers -- Video customer base increased by 44,000, reversing a loss of 123,000 in the prior year, primarily from lower churn and enhanced product offerings.
• Residential revenue -- Residential revenue declined by 2.4% year over year, with a 1.2% drop in residential customers and a matching 1.2% decline in revenue per customer relationship.
• Commercial revenue -- Total commercial revenue increased by 0.3% year over year, with mid-market and large business revenue up 2.6%, and small business revenue down 1.3%.
• Advertising revenue -- Advertising revenue decreased by 20% due to reduced political advertising; excluding political, advertising revenue was flat year over year.
• Rural expansion -- The company added 46,000 net rural customer relationships and expanded subsidized rural passings by 147,000 for the quarter, exceeding its annual target.
• Operating expenses -- Total operating expenses fell 3.1% year over year, with programming costs down 8.4% and cost to service customers down 3.9%.
• Free cash flow -- Free cash flow for the quarter was $773 million, down roughly $200 million due to working capital changes and increased capital expenditures.
• Capital expenditures -- Fourth quarter capital expenditures totaled $3.3 billion, up $273 million relative to the prior year, with full-year 2025 capex reaching $11.7 billion.
• Capital guidance -- 2026 capital expenditures are estimated at $11.4 billion, with a multi-year downward trajectory expected after 2026, reaching sub-$8 billion by 2028.
• Leverage target -- The company updated its post-transaction leverage target to a 3.5x-3.75x range, anticipating reaching this within three years after the Cox acquisition closes.
• Cash taxes -- Fourth quarter cash taxes were $139 million, with 2025 at just under $900 million, and 2026 cash tax payments expected between $500 million and $800 million.
• Share repurchases -- The company repurchased 2.9 million shares during the quarter for $760 million at an average price of $259 per share.
• Network upgrades -- 50% of the network is expected to be upgraded to symmetrical and multi-gig service by year-end, with the remainder targeted for 2027.
• Cox integration -- Upon regulatory approval and closing of the Cox transaction, the combined company will cover over 70 million households with plans to introduce Charter pricing and boost mobile growth in the Cox footprint.
• Product guarantees -- The company will launch a new "Invincible Wi-Fi" product in February, along with a service guarantee promising at least $1,000 of annual savings for customers taking Internet and two mobile lines, offering a bill credit for any shortfall in the first year.

Need a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email pr@fool.com

Risks

• Jessica M. Fischer stated, "EBITDA growth has challenged in 2026 given the headwind from broadband subscriber declines."
• The company highlighted ongoing competitive pressures from fiber overbuilds and expanding fixed wireless access providers in residential Internet markets.
• Fourth quarter net income attributable to Charter shareholders fell to $1.3 billion from $1.5 billion, attributed to lower adjusted EBITDA and higher income tax expense.
• Residential revenue faces growing headwinds from rising costs allocated to programmer streaming apps, projected to impact up to $1 billion in 2026.

Summary

Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR) reported sequential declines in consolidated revenue and net income, with EBITDA growth described as challenged by management due to continued Internet subscriber losses and heavier competition from device-subsidizing telcos. Fiscal 2025 capital expenditures are at a peak but are projected to decline significantly after major network upgrades and rural build-outs are completed, which management claims will drive a substantial increase in free cash flow and support capital returns. Strategic initiatives include network modernization, a new Invincible Wi-Fi product, a service guarantee for substantial customer savings, and integration plans for the pending Cox transaction, which, if approved, will expand Charter's household reach and operational scale. The company also disclosed a lowered leverage target post-closing and expects material ongoing shareholder returns as capital allocation priorities shift towards reducing leverage and normalizing capex.

• The company’s updated methodology for customer relationship reporting now includes all mobile-only customers, which changes comparability with prior periods and may affect investor interpretation of subscriber trends.
• Approximately 89% of Spectrum Mobile traffic is now offloaded onto Charter’s owned network infrastructure, up from 88% last quarter, reflecting steady progress in self-provisioned wireless capacity.
• Management acknowledged that video net gains are not the primary objective, emphasizing instead the role of video in supporting broadband acquisition and retention amid ongoing industry ecosystem challenges.
• Product and app bundling, coupled with price adjustments and channel migrations, are being employed to maintain or grow average revenue per customer relationship, despite industry pricing pressures and tier mix headwinds.
• Capital structure changes, particularly the new 3.5x-3.75x leverage range, are intended to attract new types of shareholders and may facilitate improved debt ratings, with delevering expected to be achieved within three years of Cox deal completion.

Industry glossary

• Passings: The number of individual homes or businesses that can be served by the company's network infrastructure.
• ARPU: Average Revenue Per User or unit, measuring the average revenue generated per customer relationship over a specific period.
• MVNO: Mobile Virtual Network Operator; an entity providing mobile services by purchasing network capacity from established carriers.
• CBRS: Citizens Broadband Radio Service; a spectrum band enabling Charter to deploy private and hybrid mobile networks.
• CapEx: Capital Expenditures; investments in physical assets such as network infrastructure and technology upgrades.
• ACP: Affordable Connectivity Program; a government initiative impacting customer churn through its subsidy for broadband service.
• BEAD program: Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program; a government-funded initiative supporting broadband line extensions in underserved areas.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Christopher L. Winfrey: In 2025, we continue to compete for customers by delivering great products. Video customers despite well-known headwinds. The video product improvements we've made over the past two years which improved connectivity relationships, are having an impact. In Internet, competition for new customers remains high, but customer losses improved year over year. Driven by customer losses, our revenue was down about 0.5% in 2025, and a challenging political advertising comparison. While EBITDA grew by about half a percent. The operating environment for new sales, in particular Internet, continues to reflect low move rates and higher mobile substitution. Along with both expanded cell phone Internet competition and fiber overlap growth similar to earlier in the year.

Collectively, that drove fourth quarter Internet sales slightly lower year over year. Churn improved year over year, as expected, given last year's ACP-related impacts. And Internet churn, including non-pay churn, remains at low levels. With 2026 in full swing, our shareholders should know that we are a highly competitive group, and we intend to win in the residential and business connectivity marketplace. In this environment, getting back to positive net additions is a game of inches. We're incredibly focused on one, while clearly messaging our superior value and utility and two, providing the best quality service in the market in a way that is recognized by our customers and our service is a competitive advantage.

Let me go through how I believe Fortinet Assuming regulatory approval of Cox, Spectrum will cover over 70,000,000 households, which gives us additional scale to develop new products and services serve more business customers, and save customers significant money. In 2026, we'll nearly complete our rural build-out providing us with over 1,700,000 new subsidized rural passings with growth for years to come. As well as upside from the densification of higher growth areas in places like Texas, Florida, and The Carolinas. We're gig capable everywhere. And by the end of this year, 50% of the current spectrum network will be upgraded to symmetrical and multi-gig service.

With significant work on the remaining 50% in flight and moving to completion in 2027. Those capabilities matter long term, as customer data usage continues to increase. And we're working with content owners in Silicon Valley to create applications and next-generation products like Spectrum Front Row, That's immersive content with Apple and the NBA, that makes full use of our ubiquitously deployed largely fallow fiber-based network. Bandwidth-rich products have always followed our network capability, And think of the last few 100 feet of our fiber-powered network as 1.8 gigahertz of contiguous spectrum. Delivered at full capacity to each individual home and business.

With the ability to place cellular radios nearly everywhere along the way, fiber deep, power, and right of way. We already have a fully converged connectivity service in 100% of our footprint. Now with expanding hybrid MNO capabilities, through CBRS and Wi-Fi to drive our seamless connectivity advantage, at gigabit speeds wherever you go. So data usage will continue to increase for both wired and wireless networks, and customers don't know or care which network they're on as they move about. It just has to work. That is the service we uniquely provide. In mobile, we have a structural and strategic mobile reselling agreement with Verizon for current and future services.

And we'll launch an additional MVNO for business with T-Mobile in the next six months. Nearly 90% of Spectrum mobile traffic goes over our network already at higher speeds, making us the fastest mobile operator with the best prices. Mobile's profitable, It'll continue to grow. And improves broadband churn meaningfully with the opportunity to drive more Internet sales. Our network carries more mobile traffic than any operator in our footprint. So we are a facilities-based provider of mobile services. With five gs macro cell towers as backup. Our owners' economics of a differentiated network create long-term advantage, which means we can save customers over $1,000 in a single year with Internet and mobile.

And now we can do the same with video. Our video product and platform is now a killer app. When our video customers activate their included apps, video and broadband churn improvement is meaningful. Our video product can become another unique selling tool. Seamless entertainment with all the key programmer apps included as part of our service over $125 of value per month. And finally, customers have a platform in Zumo that brings unified search discovery for all your live TV and apps. Utility and value. Competitive advantage. And we continue to invest in technology, including AI, to increase customer satisfaction through self-service where customers want and enhancing our employee service capabilities.

That's across sales, call center services, field operations, and the network itself. In 2026, for the first time, granule incentives will include net promoter scores. We have competitive advantage with our service capabilities, and we're gonna make sure we earn credit the reputation that reflects that significant investment from our customers one by one. And we're gonna guarantee all of it. Guarantee Internet service through a new invincible Wi-Fi product we'll launch in February. Symmetrical and multi-gigabit service with a Wi-Fi seven router and battery backup and backup five g service. Seamlessly switched on the same SSID for storms or outage. As well as Wi-Fi seven extenders for larger homes.

Invincible Wi-Fi is a market-first product combining Wi-Fi seven with five g and battery backup. Over a year ago, we deployed the nation's first wireline and wireless service commitment, guaranteeing transparency, reliability, and same-day installation and service. Internally, we're now moving that service window target to two hours. And one hour for business. At your doorstep from the time you call. None of our competitors match our service here. In addition to backing our customer service guarantee with credits, beginning in February, we'll now guarantee you a thousand dollars of savings per year when you take Internet and two lines of mobile from Spectrum.

If we can't save you a thousand dollars or more when compared to the big three telco carriers, we'll credit the difference on your bill during the first year. Guarantee connectivity, guaranteed service, and guaranteed savings. With the best products in The US, uniquely serviced by U. S. Employees 24/7. We want to be America's connectivity company. With hyper-local service delivered by your neighbors where our local employees and with community investment, including unbiased hyper-local spectrum news. All of this will expand to Cox following closing, assuming regulatory approvals.

Our plan there is to introduce spectrum pricing and packaging, rapidly grow mobile, similarly return to Internet growth, and giving Cox's low video penetration and our capabilities we expect to grow video in the Cox footprint for a period of time as well. I also believe the combination of our very complementary b to b will create gross synergies we didn't anticipate when we did the deal. Winning connectivity in a cyclical and newly competitive environment is a game of inches. I'm not projecting broadband relationship growth this year. We expect to see an improved trajectory from the investments we've made over the past three years. The recipe for winning here is Sybil.

Best connectivity, best overall value, with the best service. And we aren't perfect. We own our mistakes with customers. But we are improving the way we communicate our value, utility and quality service across our But I do believe we're the best-positioned company in the connectivity industry, and we will get better. From a financial perspective, we expect our operating plan to deliver EBITDA growth this year. And the investments we've made to lower service transactions and our efficiency programs including early benefits from customer and employee-focused AI tools, will continue to provide a tailwind for many years to come. 2025 was our peak year of capital expenditure. And capital expenditures after this year will decline significantly.

Free cash flow will take off from an already significant amount We expect our capital intensity to return to 13% to 14% of revenue by 2028 at Charter standalone. And we can probably do the same even with the Cox integration. One of the bigger debates around Charter has been about the best way to deploy our significant free cash flow. And that cash flow is meaningful. It's about to become much larger. Debating how to allocate that cash flow is a first-class problem to have my mind, and Jessica will provide an update on their balance sheet strategy and capital return priorities in a moment.

But the key focus for me real driver of the team and for value creation of our company is to make sure we deliver long-term customer EBITDA and cash flow growth and demonstrate that long-term growth rate for investors along the way. If we do that, rest will take care of itself. Now I'll pass it over to Jessica. Thanks, Chris.

Jessica M. Fischer: Before covering our results, I want to mention that we made several reporting changes to our customer and financial data this quarter, which are detailed in the footnotes to the trending schedule we issued today. To better reflect the converged and integrated nature of our business and operations, we now present our customer relationships statistics inclusive of all mobile customers, including mobile-only customers. We've also added a total connectivity customer section to the trending schedule, which represents all receiving our Internet or mobile connectivity services. We've also revised our mobile lines reporting methodology better align with how we report our other services.

Please also note that any forward-looking financial or customer information that we provide in today's discussion or presentation does not include Cox or any transition costs related to Cox integration planning consistent with how we reported during the TWC BHN transactions. Now let's please turn to our customer results on slide nine. Including residential and small business, we lost 119,000 Internet customers in the fourth quarter, better than last year's fourth quarter with lower connects year over year. More than offset by lower disconnects driven by last year's ACP-related disconnects. In mobile, we added 428,000 lines, with higher gross additions year over year and higher disconnects on a larger base.

Net adds in the quarter were lower due to heavy device sub subsidy activity by the big telco competitors, including the new iPhone 17 through the holiday sales cycle. Video customers grew by 44,000, versus a loss of a 123,000 in 04/2024. With the improvement primarily driven by lower churn year over year resulting from the new pricing and packaging we launched last fall Zumo, and seamless entertainment product improvements, including our programmer app inclusion packaging. New connects and upgrades to our fully featured video package with apps were up year over year. Our video customer results also include a small benefit related to the YouTube TV Disney dispute. Wireline voice customers declined by a 140,000.

With year over year improvement primarily driven by lower churn. In rural, we continue to see a strong customer relationship growth We generated 46,000 net customer additions in our subsidized rural footprint in the quarter. And in the fourth quarter, we grew our subsidized rural passings by 147,000. And by over 483,000 over the last twelve months. Above our 450,000 target. We expect subsidized rural passings growth of 450,000 in 2026. Our last large build year. In addition to continued non-rural construction and fill-in activity. Moving to fourth quarter revenue, on Slide 10. Over the last year, residential customers declined by 1.2%. And residential revenue per customer relationship also declined by 1.2% year over year.

Given the growth of lower-priced video packages within our base, a decline in video customers during the last year, dollars 165,000,000 of costs allocated to programmer streaming apps and netted within video revenue, versus $37,000,000 in the prior year period. And our free months promotion for new residential customers that we mentioned on our last call and which is no longer in the market. Those factors were partly offset by promotional rate step-ups, rate adjustments, the growth of Spectrum mobile lines, and $34,000,000 of hurricane-related residential customer credits in the prior year period.

By the way, the streaming app gap allocation headwind to residential revenue that I mentioned a moment ago should continue to grow over time as more customers authenticate into our streaming app offers. It could be as much as $1,000,000,000 for the full year 2026. And as a reminder, the GAAP adjustment is ultimately neutral to EBITDA. As an equal and offsetting benefit is applied to our programming expense line every quarter. As slide 10 shows, in total, residential revenue declined by 2.4% and was down by 1.2% when excluding costs allocated to streaming apps and netted within video revenue in both periods. Turning to commercial. Total commercial revenue grew by 0.3% year over year.

With mid-market and large business revenue growth of 2.6%. And when excluding all wholesale revenue, mid-market and large business revenue grew by 3%. Small business revenue declined by 1.3% reflecting modest year over year declines in small business customers and in revenue per small business customer. Fourth quarter advertising revenue declined by 20%, including the impact of less political revenue. Excluding political, advertising revenue was essentially flat year over year. Other revenue grew by 7.3%, driven by higher mobile device sales. And in total, consolidated fourth quarter revenue was down 2% year over year, and down 0.4% when excluding advertising revenue and programmer app allocation. Moving to operating expenses and EBITDA on Slide 11.

In the fourth quarter, total operating expenses decreased by 3.1% year over year. Programming costs declined by 8.4% due to a higher mix of lighter video packages, a 2.2% decline in video customers year over year and $165,000,000 of costs allocated to programmer streaming and netted within video revenue versus $37,000,000 in the prior period. Partly offset by higher programming rates. Other costs of revenue increased by 2.4% primarily driven by higher mobile service direct costs. And mobile devices. Partly offset by lower advertising sales costs given lower political revenue. And lower franchise and regulatory fees.

Cost to service customers, which combined field and technology operations and customer operations decreased 3.9% year over year primarily due to lower labor costs and lower bad debt expense. Excluding bad debt, cost of service customers declined 3.2%. Marketing and residential sales expense was essentially flat year over year due to lower labor expense, offset by a change in sales mix to higher cost sales channels. Transition expenses related to the pending Cox transaction totaled $15,000,000 in the quarter. Finally, other expense declined by 3.1%. Primarily due to lower labor expense. Adjusted EBITDA declined by 1.2% year over year in the quarter. And for the full year 2025, EBITDA grew by 0.6%.

For the full year 2026, we are planning for slight EBITDA growth, excluding the impact of transition costs. Note that first half 2026 EBITDA will be more challenged than second half EBITDA, given the one-time benefits we saw in 1Q last year. And the benefit of political advertising that we expect in the 2026. Turning to net income, we generated $1,300,000,000 of net income attributable to Charter shareholders in the fourth quarter. Compared to $1,500,000,000 in the prior year period. Given lower adjusted EBITDA and higher income tax expense. Turning to Slide 12.

Fourth quarter capital expenditures totaled $3,300,000,000 $273,000,000 higher than last year's fourth quarter primarily due to two multiyear software agreements that were accrued in the quarter and higher network evolution spend, which lands in upgrade rebuild spend, 2025 capital expenditures totaled $11,660,000,000 slightly above our recent expectation for $11,500,000,000 given the new software agreements I just mentioned. Which will drive other benefits across the business. We expect total 2026 capital expenditures to reach $11,400,000,000 On Slide 13, we have provided our current expectations for capital at spending through the year 2029. And now including line extension spending associated with the Bead program. Which totals about $230,000,000 and is mostly in 2027-2029.

For the years 2025 through 2028, the outlook you see on Slide 13 is in line with what we have provided in January 2025. With the inclusion of Bead, some modified timing across years, and slight changes across categories. As I mentioned, we have added 2029 to our outlook and expect it to exhibit about the same amount of spend as we expected for 2028. Looking beyond 2026, we expect total capital spending in dollar terms to be on a meaningful downward trajectory. And after our evolution and expansion capital initiatives conclude, our run rate capital expenditures should be below $8,000,000,000 per year.

Just to highlight, that reduction in capital expenditures on its own from $11,700,000,000 in 2025 to less than $8,000,000,000 in 2028. Is equivalent to $28 of free cash flow per share based on today's share count. Turning to free cash flow on Slide 14. Fourth quarter free cash flow totaled $773,000,000 about $200,000,000 lower than last year given a less favorable change in working capital and higher CapEx, partly offset by lower cash taxes due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and cash paid for interest.

Turning to cash taxes, fourth quarter cash taxes totaled $139,000,000 And while year 2025 cash tax payments totaled just under $900,000,000 We currently expect that our calendar year 2026 cash tax payments will total between $500,000,000 and $800,000,000. We finished the fourth quarter with $95,000,000,000 in debt principal. Our weighted average cost of debt remains at an attractive 5.2%. And our current run rate annualized cash interest is $4,900,000,000 During the quarter, we repurchased 2,900,000.0 Charter shares totaling $760,000,000 at an average price of $259 per share. As of the end of the fourth quarter, our ratio of net debt to last twelve month adjusted EBITDA remains at 4.5 four 0.15.

And stood at 4.21 times pro forma for the pending Liberty Broadband During the pendency of the Cox deal, we plan to be at or slightly under 4.25x leverage. Pro forma for the Liberty transaction. As you may recall, when we announced the Cox transaction, we committed to move our target leverage to the midpoint of a 3.5 to four times range. We're very comfortable with our balance sheet. And our ability to pivot rapidly given our significant free cash flow generation. Which provides flexibility to reduce leverage by up to zero five turn annually over the next several years. But we have also heard our shareholders' preference for less leverage during a lower growth period.

So today, we are moving our post-transaction target leverage to the low end of a new 3.5 to 3.75 times range, which we expect to achieve within three years following close. Even with this delevering, we continue to expect significant ongoing capital returns to shareholders. Lower leverage will drive some impact to our weighted average cost of capital, which should in turn positively affect valuation. It should attract a broader constituency of holders to the stock, and open the potential for improved debt ratings, including an investment-grade corporate family rating. Although that is not an explicit goal. We will continue to generate very meaningful and growing levels of free cash flow.

And while we always reinvest in the business as our top capital allocation priority, there are no large-scale projects like RDOF or Network Evolution on the horizon. We expect to revert to normalized CapEx in the range of 7.5 to $8,000,000,000 per year by 2028. We will have significant additional capital available to return to shareholders. To overcome the perception of negative perpetuity growth implied in our valuation today, we need to win in the marketplace. And as Chris outlined, that's where we are focused. And where we believe we can drive value going forward. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for q and a. Thank you.

Operator: At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please click on the raise hand button, which can be found on the black bar at the bottom of your screen. When it is your turn, you will receive a message on your screen from the host allowing you to talk, and then you'll hear your name called. Please accept, unmute your audio, and ask your question. As a reminder, we are allowing analysts to ask one question today. We will wait one moment to allow the queue to form. Our first question will come from Craig Moffett with MoffettNathanson. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Craig Eder Moffett: Hi. Thank you. Good morning. Let me start with wireless. First, you signed a new agreement that both Comcast and Verizon have talked about. I wonder if you could just say anything about what that new agreement looks like and whether it has any impact on your strand mount and offload strategy, And then on that point, Chris, you said that you're close to 90% offload. I think you had previously said 85 a couple of quarters ago, and then last quarter, I think, said 88. That already is a 20% reduction.

In how much you're sending over the wholesale network that you're leasing from Verizon is the 90% just a reference to that similar to 88, or is it gotten even has the offload gotten even better since then? Sure. Look.

Christopher L. Winfrey: For obvious reasons, we'll stay consistent with what Comcast and Verizon have said as well. But you know, that's for the most part, we've amended and modernized our long-term MVNO agreement with Verizon, and continued to support profitable growth for both Charter and Verizon. It is a very good deal for them and a relationship for both. You know, as you know, it's long term, and, you know, the market evolves over time. And so it's just natural that you have, you know, partners inside of a deal take a look and want clarity on certain things. So I'd look at it more as in that context as opposed to anything else.

You know, we have a structural and long-term, you know, agreement that underpins everything that we're doing here, and that hasn't changed. On the 90%, you know, I think it's around 89% or something like that. It's bumping in that area. So it's moved up a bit. It's but it's on a steady climb. And as we've always talked about before, the reality is that we have a very attractive structure and partnership with Verizon and so we can be opportunistic here. But because of the favorable economics that we've always had with Verizon continue to have know, there's a balance there in terms of the pace of 23 markets last year that we talked about for CBRS.

Probably do, I think, maybe 20 or so more, but we'll be in all the states where we have you know, CBRS power licenses, you know, within this So we continue to roll out there at an opportunistic pace. Thanks, Craig. We'll take our next question, please.

Operator: Your next question from Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley.

Benjamin Swinburne: You know, Chris, you guys have been competing in the market with the converge strategy for a number of years now. I'm wondering if you could maybe assess the position of Spectrum Mobile in particular in the market with consumers. You guys have been marketing the product for a long time. You've got very attractive price points. But, you know, you've been building a new product and new brand for some time. Where do you think that sits with consumers today? Is there more work to do and maybe tie in how the how the sales force is, is executing in your mind on you know, selling that into the base, into new customers.

Obviously, it's core to the long-term growth of the company.

Christopher L. Winfrey: It is. So the conversion strategy is working. You can see that in our results. You would one hand, you would look and say, well, the net add rate ticked down a little bit, but it ticked down in an environment with a tremendous amount of, you know, flooding the market subsidies that we didn't match, and yet we continued to grow, which shows and demonstrates the value of the product that customers perceive that we have. I don't think that customers are ultimately, at the end of the day, fooled. They can be entertained with an offer at one point in time, but at the end of the day, you look at the total amount that's on your bill.

And if you compare that with our competitors to what our bill looks like, you can buy a lot of advanced telephone. Telephones, cellular devices, with that savings that we provide. So we're the all-in you know, best product for both speed as well as savings. Now your question about market perception, Spectrum Mobile is still a relatively new brand in the marketplace. And Yeah. And getting that product from your cable providers and, you know, still relatively new concept. So our brand awareness continues to go up every year. The reputation of the product continues to improve and settle in. The savings recognition and the word-of-mouth I think, is improving.

But it'll take time for that to continue to develop. And if you think back to some of the things that we did around video, there are other products broadband, video, and you can phone, can both be an asset as well as can be a liability to the mobile reputation a particular moment in time. And so, you know, when we have programming-related rate increases that go through on the cable bill and impacts the spectrum, customer there. It flows through a little bit to mobile. So that's a piece that we try to manage and think through as well. But I think the do I think there's more that we can do? Of course.

And but we're on a steady path to increasing brand awareness I think the increasing capabilities, the convergence, is recognized. Most customers still today haven't picked up on the fact that as you're moving around across the country, both inside our markets as well as other MSO cable markets that you're actually connecting to faster speeds through Wi-Fi. And for those of our investors who live in, for example, New York City or LA, I just encourage you as a Spectrum Mobile customer to drive around walk around, and what you'll notice is that you're actually attached not to a five g network, but you're attached to a Spectrum mobile.

At a vastly superior speed than you would have gotten with five g. And we haven't in my mind, we have work to do to really show and demonstrate that product capability in the way that we go to market, and I think that's upside for us. Because it is better speeds. It's at a better price. So eventually, word-of-mouth gets around that it is a great product. It's better than anything else out there, and it saves you money. So I'm positive. And the fact that we can do that in an environment that had so much, you know, as I said, flooding the market with subsidy know, I think gives us a lot of confidence.

Benjamin Swinburne: Got it. Great. So much.

Operator: Yep. Thanks, Ben. Operator, we'll take our next question, please. Your next question will come from Vikash Harlalka with New Street Research.

Vikash Harlalka: Hi. Thanks so much for taking my question. I have one for quick one for Jessica. Quick, could you just provide us any details on how your market share has trended in markets where you're competing against fiber operators for a few years now and how do you see that evolve over time? And then one for Jessica. Jessica, you said you expect EBITDA growth to be slightly positive this year. By our estimate, political advertising adds about a percentage point to EBITDA growth. Could you grow EBITDA higher than 1% this year?

Christopher L. Winfrey: Sure. So I'll take the first question related to fiber competition. I mean, we've competed well against fiber for many years. We expect to continue to do so. The reality is that's been going on for fifteen years, so we have a lot of experience, and we have a lot of data and trends there. We have greater penetration than our fiber competitors, even in mature fiber markets. And, you know, when it happens, overbuild impact tends to be limited to a few percentage points Internet penetration during the first year. Of a new overbuilt vintage, as it were, coming online. It's not ideal for us, but, you know, the pace of that's tied to the pace of overbuild.

And that's been, you know, fairly consistent. And the meantime, as a result of all that, you know, we really don't see overbuilders reaching their ROI goals within our footprint now or in the future. The piece that I would, you know, add to that is you know, and I know you've done some analysis around this. Obviously, the introduction of fixed wireless access you know, has impacts on everyone's penetration. I think that needs to be factored in as well. But inside of our footprint where we have a lot of experience, a lot of years of fiber overlap, As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, that's not new.

And while it is new competition and that in and of itself presents some challenges, it's one that we've dealt with over time. The bigger issue over the past three years is the macro environment in terms of housing, low moves, and the introduction of even though it's an inferior product, it's a brand new competitor in the marketplace with expanding footprint through phone, Internet, or fixed wireless access.

Jessica M. Fischer: So on your second which I think is will we grow EBITDA when excluding advertising, think the answer is maybe. It's certainly our goal. Look. EBITDA growth has challenged in 2026 given the headwind from broadband subscriber declines. But we think we can overcome that with the combination of mobile growth changing mix of Internet driving positive ARPU growth, continued operational improvements, and attentive expense management in addition to what we see from the from the political advertising space.

Vikash Harlalka: Thank you.

Operator: Operator, next question. Your next question will come from Jessica Reif Ehrlich with BofA. Thank you. I guess two questions. Of course, I'm gonna ask on video. Chris, what do you think the sustainability of the video sub gains are? And is there any color that you can provide on first quarter trends And then just to follow-up on your comments, just something really quickly about Silicon Valley. Can you give us some color on what the what you're doing you know, what the endeavors are, what's the goal, and, you know, what's the timing of maybe some products coming out?

Christopher L. Winfrey: Sure. Look. For video, I wanna be really clear. Our north star here, our goal is not to have net gain of video just for net gain stakes. Our goal is to have a video product supports broadband acquisition and broadband retention, and I think it's a powerful tool to do that if we can provide value and utility for customers. I do and I know you spend a lot of time in this space. I do think it's good for the ecosystem, everything that we've done. And, you know, of course, we pleased about that, but that's you know, that's not what our shareholders ask us to do, and so it's a nice side benefit.

But in getting there, I think does help broadband You know, I think it's important to thank the programmers here. And particularly some of the key execs. I'm not gonna name them out, but it's a handful, and they know who they are. They leaned in, and they continue to lean into help us. I think they believed in what we were doing. It wasn't easy to get there, but, you know, eventually, you know, did believe what we're doing. And the reason is because you know, again, with the viewpoint of solving for our broadband customers, we're really solving for customers first and providing that value. And we're unique.

In a relationship with the programmers because we bring a broadband distribution capability that most others don't have, and that means we can serve all of these customers with the programmers product, whether that's a skinny bundle, whether that's the full expanded product with apps. You know, we get to put in ad-free upgrades that, you know, benefits the customer at a much lower incremental cost as well as the programmer. Then you know, from their perspective, the direct to consumer apps that we sell a la carte to our 30,000,000 customers now. And that's gonna be an increasing component.

And so what we've been able to do with video is create the best economics and choice for the customer which means that we're actually I think we're the best channel distribution path to maximize the opportunity for the programmer as well. And so back to your question about video growth. I mean, the ecosystem is still really challenged. Programming costs, you know, continue to go up and particular retrans is a real problem. And but around that, I think you'll see us continue to innovate We do have some new product ideas. You know, we'll talk to the programmers about that in the course of this year.

But the key, you know, for us to go back to, you know, connectivity, you know, acquisition insurance. So I on your net gain question, it's not the goal that you're on the razor's edge. You know, if you use that parallel, There's and you say, well, what happened in Q4? Q4 was really no different than Q3. So You know, there's a slight difference between Q3 and Q4 that went from net loss to net gain. So can just as easily, you know, float back into the net loss category and it's you know, the net gain isn't our goal.

I think the parallel there is you know, when you're on the edge, and you have a high amount of gross adds and a high amount of you know, gross or disconnects, it's a dangerous place to be in terms of volatility. I think there's some parallel there to Internet in a way that we need to get ourselves out of that space. And when I talk about game of inches, you know, that really applies to all subscription businesses. And you know, if you can get a more commanding lead through the things I talked about, the ways I think we win, I think that helps us in Internet, which really is the goal here together with mobile.

Silicon Valley, the big overarching thing that we're trying to do there is communicate to the people who develop products and software that they should stop developing to the least common denominator in terms of network capabilities. That because the cable ecosystem covers nearly the entire country, unlike fiber overbuilders who do a lot of cherry-picking redlining, You know, we upgrade everywhere. We have already, we have a gigabit everywhere we operate. We're upgrading to symmetrical and multi-gig speeds. Effectively nationwide. And that's the platform with low latency, by the way. And that's the platform that software developers and product developers should be developing to. They have, you know, unfettered access to that network.

Convergence multi-gig, and the product capabilities that come about as a result of that I think, are significant, and our networks put us in, you know, a unique place to go deliver that. And so the product that we supported Apple in the NBA with Spectrum Front Row Do we need to own those rights? Do we need to own that product? No. Absolutely not. In fact, what we're just trying to do is show the way that a ubiquitously deployed network in The US exists that can carry that type of eight k or 16 k product provides an immersive experience.

That can actually have caching you know, at the local edge in a way that hasn't been thought of before. And given the fact that just a charter loan, we have a thousand hubs or data localized data centers. That provide local edge compute. And so we have a lot of assets that aren't being used today Our experience has been once people understand that these networks exist and their capabilities there, that they'll develop products to go do that. And so our time out in Silicon Valley has really been spent around making people understand that this platform has been built for them There are things that we can do with it.

If you take a look at what we've done with you know, Amazon in terms of convergence and offloading. Think about the things that we could do in the electrical vehicle market in terms of offloading. In a way that's attractive for them and really make use of the tools that we have So that's the major goal. The biggest one is, you know, we've internally, we've called it the fill the pipe tour. And to go really explain to people that this network's available there for them, and they should develop to

Jessica Reif Ehrlich: Thank you. Thanks, Jessica. Operator, we'll take our next question.

Operator: Your next question will come from Michael Ng with Goldman Sachs.

Michael Ng: Hey, good morning. Thank you so much for the question. I wanted to ask about operating expense growth next year and investment opportunities. You guys are obviously seeing really good momentum on the video side and streaming app inclusions and obviously, also with convergence and Spectrum Mobile. So how are you balancing the commitments to EBITDA growth with the potential to invest to drive these opportunities a little bit faster And, you know, how do you balance that with efficiencies that you could potentially realize? Thank you.

Christopher L. Winfrey: I think Jessica can chime in for a second. But if you know, strategically, if you step back we've made the investments. So if you think about the place we're coming from, we've made the investment by keeping our pricing low We've made the investment by having a fully US-based in-source sales and service capability across the country. We've made the investment in our technology platforms And so that gives us the ability to have increasing efficiency through the business and still be able to innovate and develop new products along the way and to be able to manage both your foot on the gas and foot on the brake at the same time.

Jessica M. Fischer: Yeah. I think that's right. And if you think about how that translates into you know, something like cost to service customers, like, ultimately, I expect that to service customers to be slightly down over the year. In the year versus last year. But a big chunk of that is related to improvements in operating efficiency, and in the way that we utilize technology to make our services more efficient.

I guess top of that, you know, in marketing and resi sales, last year, we had seen some substantial growth in the year over year I expect that to be meaningfully slower this year than what we saw last year, largely related to of investment that we already made sort of bringing the expense rate up and then changes that we've made that I think Chris talked quite a bit about inside of last quarter. To really try to find the right way to drive our message into the marketplace. And to do so efficiently.

And so I think with those you know, we believe in our ability to generate EBITDA growth while still doing the right things for the business. To drive medium and long-term growth, which ultimately has always been sort of the strategic goal of the management team.

Michael Ng: Great. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Jessica. Appreciate the thoughts.

Operator: Thanks, Michael. Operator, we'll take our next question, please. Your next question will come from Michael Rollins with Citi.

Michael Rollins: Thanks, and good morning. There's been a bit of discussion lately around pricing strategies for these services, and what are companies should move to everyday value pricing versus that you know, lower, higher promotional stack? And just curious, Charter's latest views on how you're approaching pricing in that strategy and the sustainability for what

Christopher L. Winfrey: Sure. You know this, but by way of background for everybody else, in September 2024, we introduced new pricing and packaging Bundled. At those lower prices. And despite that, we've been able to maintain consistent ARPPUR in many cases growing. And in parallel, use that to first reactively and then proactively migrate good portions of the existing base to lower product pricing. And but in the meantime, maintain or actually grow customer relationship ARPU through that process. Absent some of the video tier mix that is well known. Because people are taking more products per household.

And so that's been a long-held strategy at Charter that can keep your product pricing low and you can have higher customer relationships ARPU by getting higher product penetration And that's that was the goal of that pricing and packaging. At the end of 2025, we were about 40% of our footprint had that new pricing and packaging. We'll probably be at 60% at the end of this year. And so we've been able to manage an environment where you are really lowering your broadband pricing at promotion and at retail. Both in standalone, but more importantly, in bundled pricing and packaging in a way that creates significant savings for customers.

And whether that's mobile where we save you, you know, over a thousand dollars a year, or it's in video where actually now we can also save you over a thousand dollars a year because the inclusion of the apps We're using these tools that we have that are really unique in the marketplace. We can offer mobile everywhere, we can offer video everywhere. And I know, you know, you didn't ask it, but so I was thinking about mobile everywhere. I know one of our large competitors the other day mentioned that in a in their wireline footprint, you know, which is limited to where they offer mobile, they thought they could get mobile penetration to 75% to 80%.

I thought that was interesting because if that's true, and it was said by one of our large competitors, I mean, the implications for Charter and Comcast are, I think, dramatic. If you can get 75 to 80% penetration, you know, on our broadband footprints and that's sustainable. You know? You would say, well, you know, maybe to the earlier point, we don't have the brand you know, to go do that. But we have a structural advantage without the same macro cell tower and spectrum investments that's required out of the big telcos. And 90% of our traffic goes on a much faster multi-gig network.

So yeah, we have a we have a product advantage and we have the ability to offer those products. You just ubiquitously. We cover all of our DMAs, essentially. And so that provides a marketing and service advantage. And then we can save customers a lot of money with the pricing strategies that we have back to your original question. So we're pleased with where we're heading. It's you know, there's this is a you know, it's a tough migration path to manage, but we've got a lot of experience doing it, and we've done it many times.

And we'll actually end up doing the same thing with Cox and look forward to doing that assuming we get regulatory approval there. And Chris, maybe that'd be helpful there and translate

Jessica M. Fischer: a little bit of that into financials as well because I know folks are focused on sort of what does that mean for ARPU across the business. And we don't often talk about product ARPUs, but I'm gonna go there because I think it's helpful in this context as we're sort of doing the pricing migration. Ultimately, I think we expect Internet ARPU grow this year, though more slowly than it has in prior years. As we drive spectrum pricing and packaging through the footprint. I think mobile ARPU has been declining as more customers take our gig product, which includes unlimited press plus at unlimited pricing.

And as we see some contra revenue from phone balance, dial plan, I think that we're at a low point there. And so there might be additional mobile ARPU declines in the year over year going forward. But sequentially, I think that we've we've bottomed out on that front. And then, you know, there are multiple headwinds that impact video ARPU. That make that one difficult. You've got programmer streaming app allocation which continues to accelerate. You have some more unfavorable bundled revenue allocation. And you have a higher mix of skinnier video tiers.

If you think about that together with programming and programming cost per video sub, I expect that programmer cost per video sub will be up in low single digits when you that program or streaming app allocation. And we did pass through some programmer costs in our video pricing at the beginning of this year. So ultimately, what happens then, you know, to think about it in March, instead of individual costs. So you might have video ARPU continuing to decline But it's really based on those impacts.

Michael Rollins: Very helpful. Thanks. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Michael. Operator, we'll take our next question, please.

Operator: Your next question will come from Steven Cahall with Wells Fargo. First, Chris, just going back to fiber. You know, you said you don't expect the fiber overbuilders to reach their ROI goals, and we haven't necessarily seen that pressure translate into a slowdown, especially from the telcos. Don't know if that's due to lower cash taxes or something else, but I was wondering if you could just speak to how you expect you know, the competitive environment to play out when we might actually see a slowdown in that activity that could lessen some of the competitive pressure?

And then also just on the promotional environment, I thought slide five was interesting with, maybe a $40 gig offer in the market. Was just wondering if you see a really attractive to be more promotional this year or if I'm misreading that slide, But if you are, what you think that could do to subscriber trends as we move through the year? Thank you.

Christopher L. Winfrey: Yeah. So let me start with that one first. The $40 gig is when bundled with either two mobile lines or video. That's been in the market since you know, since September 2024. So that's our, you know, everyday pricing that's out there that's been in the market. And clearly, it's had a big impact on the percentage of gig uptake in amongst acquisition. So it's not new, and we agree with you. We think it's positive. The ROI question I mean, I've said this for twenty-five years that when we take a look at ROI, we think about classic IRR cash from cash payback. You know, years for that return to take place.

And I guess the danger is always that other people's ROI may be based on a going concern, That as opposed to a real financial ROI. I'm not sure that you should be investing for growing concern ROI because I think most shareholders would say, you know, we'd rather have that capital back as opposed to deploying it in a poor return way. But that's not new. I mean, that's existed in with telcos for at least I've been in it for almost thirty years, and it's always been the case. So that makes it dangerous.

When your competitor isn't focused on traditional financial returns, and shareholders are, you know, either confused or willing to look the other way and not insist on, you know, understanding what those ROI ROIs are. I think that's and know, that's not me complaining. That's just saying I think that's what the case is. I don't think it's gonna change, and we have to be able to compete irrespective of that. And we do. And we've been doing that, you know, for know, for a really long time. So you know, given what I just said, I don't know when the competitive slowdown occurs I do know that as you get deeper into the market, density gets lower.

And the cost per passing ultimately has to increase when the density gets lower so there's a natural throttling mechanism that exists there relative to what they've done in the past. You know, whether it's taxes or interest rates that, you know, put an additional lever on that, I'm not sure. But we're that's not that's not our job. And so our job is to go compete against whatever's you know, being brought to us, and that's what we've been doing since fiber's been doing overlaps for the overbuilds for the past fifteen years or so.

Steven Cahall: Thank you. Operator, we will take our last question please.

Operator: Your last question will come from Frank Louthan with Raymond James. Great. Thank you. When you looking forward here, on as far as some of the promotional activity that you have, how long do you see the need for price locks? And what is sort of your thoughts on that as a long-term solution? And then how quickly do you think you can get the charter the Cox customers up to levels wireless penetration that you experience in your base footprint? Thanks.

Christopher L. Winfrey: Look. We don't have any change you know, plans to change our pricing strategy. I think the price locks is both a good competitive reaction on our part it's something that gives customers a lot of comfort and the ability to switch. And so I think that's here to stay. You know, could you see over time that you know, we evolve that further into a next evolution? Yes. But we're not at that stage today. You know, we actually think what we have is working and will work. But we'll always continue to modernize our pricing strategies So I don't see any big change today.

On the wireless or the mobile penetration at Cox, I think you should take a look at you know, maybe not our early days of spectrum mobile penetration, because we were still putting the product together, getting, you know, larger brand awareness. So but I think you can take a look at the Spectrum mobile penetration at CharterCurve, I think that's a good indication. I would expect the earlier days to be much faster. Than that simply because we were a better operator in that space than we were whatever it is six, seven years ago. In terms of our platforms, our sales channel, our marketing, our, you know, national brand awareness it's all in a much better place.

But I think an improvement to that original curve is probably a good starting point for people to think about how we can get into the market there.

Frank Louthan: Alright. Great. Thank you.

Christopher L. Winfrey: Thanks, Frank. Operator, I'll pass it back to you to close out. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.

Christopher L. Winfrey: Thank you all.

This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. Parts of this article were created using Large Language Models (LLMs) based on The Motley Fool's insights and investing approach. It has been reviewed by our AI quality control systems. Since LLMs cannot (currently) own stocks, it has no positions in any of the stocks mentioned. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.

The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.