Stamford, Connecticut – Charter Communications reported its second-quarter results on Friday, revealing a mixed performance as it navigates a highly competitive landscape. The cable and internet giant narrowed its loss of TV video customers to 21,000, a significant improvement from the 80,000 it lost in the same period of 2025, as subscribers continued to upgrade to entertainment products. However, the company shed 172,000 internet customers, a steeper decline compared to the 117,000 it lost in the year-earlier period, as competition from fixed wireless and fiber connection services intensifies.
“We expect to stabilize and return to broadband growth over time, with our better converged connectivity product and pricing,” CEO Chris Winfrey told analysts during a morning call. The subscriber losses, particularly in traditional broadband and video services, weighed on investor sentiment, with shares falling by $6.49, or 5%, to $120.01 in pre-market trading. Overall revenue slipped 0.7% to $13.5 billion, while net income attributable to Charter shareholders rose 5.7% to $1.29 billion. TV video revenue fell 9.7% to $3.1 billion, offset by a 3.2% decline in internet revenue to $5.8 billion.
The losses were partially offset by strength in mobile services, with Charter adding 406,000 mobile line subscribers, though this was down from the 500,000 added in the year-ago period. The results come as legacy cable companies face increasing competition from YouTube and other streaming-era competitors, driving the decline of traditional TV. Earlier, Charter added programmers’ streaming applications to its Spectrum expanded basic packages to reduce churn and saw a slight bump in signups when Disney channels were temporarily unavailable for YouTube TV subscribers. Charter ended the quarter with 12.52 million pay-TV customers, down 0.8% from a year earlier.
Winfrey also addressed reports of Charter’s talks with SpaceX to use Starlink satellites for mobile services, stating, “It’s natural for us, we talk to many industry players… I don’t think it makes any sense to get into the details.” The results follow Charter’s announcement of a $34.5 billion merger with Cox Communications, which Winfrey expects to close in mid- to late August. He forecast transaction expense synergies of around $800 million, potentially growing to $1 billion over time, and expressed confidence in executing the integration “well and at a faster pace than previous integrations.” The merger aims to create a cable behemoth with substantial scale in broadband and video.
