- Charter gained wireless subscribers in the quarter
- But it lost 120,000 broadband subs
- A big part of Charter’s earnings call today revolved around its upcoming purchase of Cox
Charter Communications kicked off its Q1 2026 earnings call today, bragging about the one bright spot — it gained 368,000 Spectrum Mobile lines in the quarter, bringing its total mobile lines to more than 12 million. That's 1.8 million new lines over the last 12 months for growth over 17%.
Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said, “We're pleased with that growth given the continued intensity of mobile subsidies from the three big telcos.”
But then, the company delivered the less good news that it lost 120,000 broadband customers in the quarter.
“Cable industry internet growth has been pressured for several years now, given new competition, a challenging housing environment and other factors like mobile substitution,” said Winfrey.
Similar to Comcast, which reported yesterday, Charter is focusing on improved customer service and changes to its broadband pricing, albeit not quite as aggressively as Comcast.
Charter is incentivizing customer service within the organization, starting at the highest levels. “Service-related metrics now drive a meaningful part of our overall annual incentive structure,” said Winfrey.
BNP Paribas analysts led by Sam McHugh, wrote, “Charter is clearly taking a different path to Comcast right now, with more of a focus on protecting EBITDA as opposed to trying to stabilize the base through a more aggressive re-investment strategy, which in our view leaves them in a more precarious position on future subscriber/ARPU growth.”
McHugh said that more broadly, cable broadband revenue trends are deteriorating, and “without significant re-investment (a la Comcast), the industry will continue to struggle to keep a lid on subscriber losses.”
Purchase of Cox
Charter announced in May 2025 that it was purchasing Cox Communications, whose 6.2 million customers will join Charter’s nearly 32 million customers. Once the deal is finalized, the company will change its name to Cox Communications but retain Spectrum as the consumer-facing brand.
In February, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved Charter’s purchase of Cox. The companies are now waiting for final approval from the California Public Utilities Commission, which they expect this summer. Cox has a large presence in California.
Winfrey said within a couple months of closing, the company will launch the Spectrum brand within the legacy Cox footprint. “Cox's low mobile and video penetration rates are major opportunities,” he said.
Charter CFO Jessica Fischer said the company expects run-rate, operating expense synergies after the Cox acquisition of at least $800 million. “Those estimates do not include the benefits of applying Charter's operating strategy to create revenue and operating cost synergies over time or Capex savings," she said. "We believe those operating synergies will also be significant."
Charter has also recently hired former Frontier Communications CEO Nick Jeffery as its new chief operating officer. Jeffery will join the company in September.
Network upgrades
Winfrey said by the end of this year, about 50% of the current Spectrum network will be upgraded to symmetrical and multi-gig service, with significant work on the remaining 50% already in flight. He also said Cox's mid-split process is nearly complete, and it gives Charter plenty of competitive runway to implement high split and DOCSIS 4.0.
Interestingly, Winfrey said, “We're also deploying other B-to-B products with Edge Cache and GPU-as-a-service. Our network and data assets really lend themselves to future B-to-B and B-to-C applications, which require proximity and low latency, under 10 milliseconds, which we now provide.”
Other tidbits from the earnings call
An analyst on today’s call asked if Charter is looking at more acquisitions. Winfrey said the company isn’t eyeing anything, currently, other than closing the Cox transaction.
For years, Charter, Comcast and Cox have enjoyed limited competition because their broadband footprints don’t overlap. But Winfrey said, “Each of the cable companies is a regional competitor. We don't have overlap. And all of us are competing against national and global competitors. That's never been the case more than it is today when you think about fiber over-build, when you think about national telcos with both wireless, mobile, fixed wireless access. And each element of the space that we operate in, it's much more competitive than it was five, or certainly, 10 years ago.”