Altice USA said its capital expenditures will be less than $1.3 billion in 2020 as against the earlier target of $1.3-$1.4 billion.
Capex of $299 million in Q1 2020 represented 12.2 percent of revenue. The first quarter Capex of Altice fell 12.1 percent, or less than 9 percent of revenue excluding FTTH and new home build investment.
Altice said its revenue grew 2.2 percent in Q1 2020 to $2.45 billion, driven by broadband revenue growth of 14.2 percent. Residential revenue grew 0.5 percent, Business Services grew 3.9 percent and News and Advertising revenue grew 11.4 percent.
The company has withdrawn its revenue and Adjusted EBITDA margin guidance due to current market uncertainty.
“The macroeconomic impact from the pandemic may affect operations, particularly in our News and Advertising and SMB businesses. This reduces revenue and EBITDA visibility,” Dexter Goei, chief executive officer of Altice USA, said.
Residential customers grew 0.6 percent and residential revenue per customer was flat at $143.39. Residential revenue grew 0.5 percent.
Altice added 50,000 plus residential broadband customers in Q1 2020 vs 37,000 in Q1 2019.
Altice lost 42,000 residential video customers in Q1 2020 vs 10,000 lost in Q1 2019.
Business Services revenue grew 3.9 percent with growth in Enterprise & Carrier revenue of 0.5 percent and SMB growth of 6 percent.
Altice Mobile has ~110,000 mobile lines since the commercial launch in September 2019 as the company added 41,000 connections in Q1 2020, generating revenue of $18 million for the quarter. Altice Mobile offers unlimited data, talk and text on a nationwide network with LTE coverage for $30 per line per month.
The company achieved 93 percent increase in residential broadband speed between February 2020 and March 2020 and total data usage increased 24 percent averaging close to 400GB per customer in March.
The average broadband speeds taken by Altice USA’s customer base has now increased more than threefold in the past three years to 222 Mbps at the end of Q1 2020.
As one of the main drivers of increased data usage, Optimum video streaming increased 23 percent, and other popular applications such as gaming and VPN services also saw marked increases in usage.
Altice made investment in the expansion of 1 Gbps broadband speed coverage. Its Gigabit broadband service is available in more than half of the company’s New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut (Optimum-branded) footprint.
The company expanded Gigabit broadband service in its Suddenlink service area across Texas, Arkansas, Arizona and more than a dozen other states, where it already offers Gigabit speeds to more than 75 percent of households it serves in those regions.
Altice said the number of 1 Gigabit gross additions increased 56 percent between February 2020 and March 2020. Only 2 percent of the company’s total customer base currently take Gigabit speeds, representing a further growth opportunity for the company.
