Altice sees strong Q4 revenue on broadband gains
Details
Michelle Clancy
| 23 February 2019

The US subsidiary of French comms giant Altice ended the fourth quarter of 2018 with 15,000 fewer video subscribers; however, that’s an improvement over the loss of 25,000 pay-TV customers in the year-ago quarter.

Quarterly net income sank to $213.08 million, significantly down from $2.24 billion a year ago. But revenue meanwhile rose 4% to $2.45 billion, while cash flow was up nearly 8% to $1.1 billion -- mainly driven by ongoing growth in broadband.

The cableco, which operates the Optimum and Suddenlink brands in the wake of its acquisition of Cablevision, saw 22,000 new broadband signups in the period (versus 25,000 new customers a year ago).

"Altice USA has once again delivered great financial performance, meeting all of our guidance targets for 2018, and hitting many more operational milestones,” said Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei. “Throughout the year, we drove improved subscriber trends and accelerated revenue growth, achieved our highest-ever margins and generated material growth in free cash-flow. We enter 2019 continuing on our fast- paced journey defined by innovation and simplicity to deliver state-of-the-art connectivity services, advanced business solutions and high-quality content.”

On a quarter-over-quarter basis, the performance is in line with Q3 revenue, which rose 4.1% to $2.42 billion. Altice USA also reported an overall profit of $32.6 million, or 4 cents a share, a quarter ago.

For the full year, revenue rose 2.1% to $9.6 billion and cash flow increased by 4.6% to $4.2 billion, meeting expectations of 2.5% to 3% revenue growth. Capex came in at $1.15 billion for the year, also in line with its guidance of less than $1.3 billion.

For 2019, Altice USA said it expects revenue growth of 2.5% to 3%, while with capex is expected to come in between $1.3 and $1.4 billion.