Altice USA has revealed its financial performance and key achievements for the second quarter ending June 30, 2024.
The company reported a revenue of $2.2 billion, a 3.6 percent decline from the previous year. Residential revenue also saw a decrease, totaling $1.8 billion, down by 4.4 percent. The average revenue per user (ARPU) for residential services dropped slightly to $135.95, a 1.1 percent decrease.
In contrast, Altice’s Business Services segment experienced growth, with revenue reaching $369.3 million, up 1.3 percent. The company’s cash capital expenditures fell significantly by 26.6 percent to $347.7 million, with a capital intensity of 15.5 percent, or 12.9 percent when excluding Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) and new builds. Altice aims to keep cash capital expenditures under $1.6 billion for the year 2024.
A notable achievement for Altice was the significant improvement in Net Promoter Scores (NPS), reflecting enhanced customer experience (CX). Transactional NPS (tNPS) saw a remarkable increase of 34 points from Q2 2022 to Q2 2024. Key initiatives contributing to this improvement included:
Right-sizing speed for over 700,000 customers in the past eight months.
Reducing inbound calls by approximately 1.7 million in the last 12 months.
Decreasing truck rolls by about 235,000 in the same period.
Increasing the self-install rate by 56 percent in Q2 2024.
Altice also introduced Value Added Services, such as Direct-to-Consumer partnerships, Total Care, and Mobile Device Protection, aiming to create new revenue streams. Additionally, the company continued to enhance its broadband experience by expanding fiber penetration, increasing HFC broadband capacity, and right-sizing customer speeds.
Fiber customer growth was strong, with a total of 434,000 fiber customers, marking a 74 percent increase compared to Q2 2023. The second quarter saw 40,000 net fiber additions, driven by both migrations of existing customers and new fiber gross additions. Fiber network penetration rose to 15.3 percent from 9.4 percent at the end of Q2 2023.
In the mobile segment, Altice achieved 33,000 net additions in Q2 2024, a 2.0x year-over-year acceleration, reaching a total of 385,000 lines. Mobile customer penetration of the broadband base increased to 5.8 percent from 3.8 percent at the end of Q2 2023.
Despite these gains, Altice reported a net loss of 51,000 broadband primary service units (PSUs) in Q2 2024, compared to a loss of 37,000 in Q2 2023. These losses were mainly attributed to seasonal university disconnects, competitive and macro pressures, and reduced activity in the low-income segment due to the impact of ACP sunsetting.
Altice continued to invest in network enhancements, adding 62,000 fiber passings in Q2 2024 and reaching a total of 2.8 million fiber passings. The company targets approximately 3 million fiber passings by the end of 2024. Total passings increased by 67,000, reaching 9.7 million, with a goal of over 175,000 additional passings for the full year.
Dennis Mathew, Chairman and CEO of Altice USA, commented on the quarter’s performance: “We elevated product and network quality, introduced refreshed go-to-market strategies, which are starting to gain traction.”