Charter Communications' Stock Drops On Missed Revenue Estimates

In missing analysts' quarterly revenue estimates, Charter Communications' stock price crumbled in early Friday morning trading.

Charter was down 8% to $292.51.

Although revenue gained 4.2% to $10.9 billion in the period -- from $10.5 billion a year ago -- it missed analysts' consensus estimate of $10.93 billion. Net income grew to $493 million from $48 million in the same quarter a year before.

The cable company’s key residential video subscribers had declines of 66,000 -- somewhat better than expected. That resulted in a 1.6% decline to 16.14 million subscribers.

But added to this was 107,000 losses in its phone/voice business -- a 1.8% drop to 10.2 million subscribers. On the positive side, Charter added 266,000 net new Internet subscribers -- a 4.9% improvement to 23.3 million.

Video revenues grew 2.9% to $4.3 billion, while internet business was up 7% to $3.8 billion, with phone/voice down 16% to $512 million. Charter’s average monthly residential revenue per customer inched up 0.4% to $111.13.

Advertising revenue was up a big 18.3% to $440 million, attributable to big political advertising gains. Taking out political, advertising grew 4.1%.

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