Second-quarter sales up, income and customers down at Charter Communications

Charter Communications posted mixed second-quarter results.

Second-quarter sales at the Stamford-based telecommunications company were $10.36 billion, a 3.9 percent increase over the second quarter of 2016.

Second-quarter net income, however, fell to $139 million from $248 million last year. The cable television provider attributed the drop to a pension curtailment gain in the second quarter of 2016 and an increase in depreciation and amortization costs in the recently ended second quarter.

Total consumer TV subscribers fell by 90,000 in the quarter, Charter reported. That was still an improvement over last year”™s second quarter, when the company lost 152,000 subscribers.

Charter in the second quarter completed the rollout of its Spectrum pricing, packaging and brand across the legacy Time Warner Cable and legacy Bright House residential footprints with the June launch of Spectrum in Hawaii.

Charter added 231,000 residential high-speed internet customers in the second quarter, compared with a net gain of 236,000 high-speed internet customers in the second quarter of 2016. It ended the quarter with 22 million total residential broadband customers.

“We are now offering a simple, high-value product across our 50 million passings under one brand, Spectrum,” Charter Communications Chairman and CEO Thomas Rutledge said. “That product is working in the marketplace and we continue to see higher year-over-year customer connect volumes across our new footprint.”