Time Warner Cable Misses Earnings Expectations; Strongest Q2 Subscriber Growth Since 2008

Cable company pays $0.75 per share dividend to stockholders; profit drops 8 percent year-over-year

Time Warner Cable Inc (TWC) unveiled its second quarter 2015 financials on Thursday morning before the stock markets opened, falling well below Wall Street expectations as subscriber additions saw a seven-year A2 high.

The cable company delivered EPS of $1.54 on $5.93 billion in revenue. Wall Street analysts had forecast EPS of $1.81 on $5.94 billion in revenue, according to Yahoo Finance. Profit dropped to $466 million, down from $499 million year-over-year; an eight percent drop.

In the second quarter, the U.S. cable operator had its strongest Q2 subscriber increase since 2008, adding 172,000 high-speed data customers. This comes after a first quarter that saw the company’s best subscriber growth since 2007.

TWC also saw the least amount of video declines since 2008’s second quarter, with just 45,000 losses. Operating expenses were up year-over-year to $3,896,000 from $3,672,000. The company cited  higher programming, employee, content and maintenance costs.

Profit was down year-over-year, coming in at $458 million, down from $479 million the same time last year.

The quarter saw Comcast officially drop its bid to take over Time Warner Cable on April 24, as the FCC aligned with the Department of Justice in opposing the deal on the grounds that the merger wasn’t in the public interest.

“We delivered very strong operational results in the second quarter, providing yet another clear indication that our plan is working,” CEO Rob Marcus said. ” We achieved record Q2 subscriber results across nearly every category, setting us up for accelerating financial performance as we look forward to the next phase of our plan. We intend to use the time between the signing and closing of the Charter deal to further strengthen our operations.”

TWC kicks off its earnings call at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Comments