Optimum Communications Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 7, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Negative Sentiment: Broadband weakness: Q1 broadband net losses totaled 64,000 (56,000 excluding a prior-period adjustment) amid intense fixed‑wireless, ILEC and fiber overbuilder pricing pressure, and management expects near‑term ARPU pressure as it simplifies national entry pricing to stabilize volumes.
  • Positive Sentiment: Mobile & convergence momentum: Mobile delivered its best quarter in ~6 years with 52,000 line net adds (674k total lines, ~9% penetration), and the company introduced "convergence ARPU" which rose 1.2% to $79.32, highlighting cross‑sell gains and lower churn for broadband+mobile customers.
  • Positive Sentiment: Margins improving despite revenue decline: Q1 revenue was $2.1 billion (-4%) while adjusted EBITDA was $789 million (-1.3%) and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 38.2% (+110 bps), aided by ~13% lower programming costs and substantial video gross‑margin improvement year‑over‑year.
  • Negative Sentiment: Balance sheet pressure and non‑cash charge: The company reported a Q1 net loss of ~$2.9 billion that included a $2.7 billion non‑cash impairment of indefinite‑lived franchise rights, ended the quarter with $1.3 billion liquidity and ~7.5x leverage, and is actively pursuing a capital‑structure reset ahead of upcoming maturities.
  • Neutral Sentiment: CapEx and network focus: 2026 CapEx is guided to $1.2–1.5 billion with priority on new fiber builds (150k–175k passings expected), disciplined growth for Lightpath (double‑digit revenue/EBITDA growth), and targeted HFC upgrades rather than large‑scale migrations this year.
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Earnings Conference Call
Optimum Communications Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

There are 12 speakers on the call.

Speaker 7

Good day, everyone. Welcome to Optimum Communications conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session begins. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. This call is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to Sarah Freedman, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to Optimum's first quarter 2026 earnings call. I'm joined today by Optimum's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dennis Mathew, and Chief Financial Officer, Mark Sirota. Dennis and Mark will walk you through the first quarter results and then be available for a question-and-answer session. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements. Please take a moment to review the cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements included on slide 2 of our presentation, as actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. We will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures today. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release, which is available on the investor relations section of our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dennis.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Sarah, and good morning, everyone. As we entered 2026, we were clear that this needs to be a year of sharper execution, smarter competitive response, and continued transformation. To accomplish this, we laid out 3 priorities. Improve broadband trends, maintain financial discipline, and invest for long-term value creation. In addition to evolving our capital structure, in the first quarter we took deliberate steps to advance each of these areas, and our results reflect both the reality of an intense competitive environment and the impact of those strategic actions underway. Total revenue was $2.1 billion and adjusted EBITDA was $789 million. Broadband subscriber net losses totaled 64,000 in the quarter or 56,000 excluding a subscriber adjustment taken in the quarter related to prior periods.

Speaker 1

Mobile delivered its strongest quarter in the past 6 years with 52,000 line net adds. We saw progress on video churn, which improved by over 400 basis points year-over-year on an annualized basis, supported by the adoption of our tiered offerings and streaming solutions. Operationally, we are focused on improving the stability and quality of our subscriber base. Customers today are making more thoughtful choices about where they spend, and we're meeting that moment by continuing to adapt our go-to-market approach. We are remaining nimble and adjusting our offers to lead with value without compromising on quality. As I will cover in more detail shortly, we are simplifying our go-to-market model to compete more effectively on entry pricing. At the same time, we are focused on providing customers with more value, strengthening loyalty, expanding product penetration and mix, and increasing sell-through within the base.

Speaker 1

The clearest validation of this approach is the momentum we are seeing in convergence. Customers who take both broadband and mobile churn at a meaningfully lower rate and generate higher lifetime value compared to broadband-only customers. To better capture this impact, we are evolving how we measure performance through the introduction of convergence ARPU as a new metric this quarter, which reflects the value of these relationships. We believe this is the right lens through which to track our progress because it demonstrates the value that broadband plus mobile relationships create, value that is increasingly not visible in stand-alone product metrics. On cost, we remain disciplined. We are continuing to optimize direct costs and operating expenses and make targeted investments in AI and automation, reducing truck rolls, improving first call resolution, and enabling our teams to serve customers and manage our networks more efficiently and proactively.

Speaker 1

Together, these actions are what we expect to drive margin expansion and structurally lower our operating cost base over time. Lastly, as Mark will speak to in more detail shortly, addressing our balance sheet remains a top priority. As we move forward, we continue to evaluate opportunities to strengthen our capital structure to better position the business for long-term value creation. I'll cover each of our priorities in a moment, but the common thread is this: We are taking the right steps to build a more resilient business, and we remain focused on executing with the urgency that this environment demands. With that, let me turn to the 2026 priorities, which we introduced last quarter and provide more detail on the progress we are making. The theme across everything we are doing this year is applying simplification to drive acceleration.

Speaker 1

As we continuously evaluate both the business and competitive environment, we have taken a step back to identify where complexity is slowing us down across pricing, products, and operations, and we are consciously working to simplify the business so we can move faster, execute more consistently, and compete more effectively. Starting with broadband. The broadband environment in the first quarter remained as competitive as any we have seen. Across our footprint, ILECs, fixed wireless providers and fiber overbuilders all continue to lean aggressively into lower entry pricing, extended price locks, and promotional incentives. In the West in particular, the competitive profile has shifted considerably with the expansion of fixed wireless availability as well as fiber overbuilders further intensifying market dynamics in an already challenging landscape. This is the backdrop against which we are executing. That said, we remain focused on what we can control.

Speaker 1

Our response has been to simplify and establish a more consistent and competitive product and pricing structure across our footprint. While this may lead to near-term pressure on broadband ARPU from gross additions, it is a deliberate step to stabilize subscriber trends. In practice, our simplified approach is based on standardizing pricing and core offers nationally, while driving incremental sales of value-added services like mobile, our new video products, Optimum Whole Home Wi-Fi, and Optimum Total Care to partially offset this pressure. Our next priority, maintaining financial discipline, is embedded in how we run the business every day. We are focused on making consistent, deliberate decisions that protect and strengthen the economics of the business for the long term, even when that means absorbing near-term pressure.

Speaker 1

As Mark will highlight, we are focused on minimizing the rate of non-video revenue declines and are taking deliberate steps to improve video margins through driving higher attach of our new video packages, continuing our approach to analytic-based programming contract negotiations, and growing video ARPU. In the first quarter, adjusted EBITDA declined by 1.3%, while margins expanded year-over-year, reflecting revenue decline of 4% and a continued focus on cost management and operational efficiency. Within direct costs, we are benefiting from favorable programming cost trends and continued video ARPU growth, which is driving sustained video gross margin expansion of almost 350 basis points year-over-year and nearly 1,000 basis points in the last three years.

Speaker 1

Importantly, these efficiency gains have strengthened our cost structure without compromising the customer experience, as reflected in our transactional Net Promoter Score, which has remained at a two-year high. Finally, we ended the quarter with $1.3 billion of liquidity, providing us with the flexibility to continue executing on our key priorities and investing in the business in the near term. Building on that, the discipline we apply to how we operate also guides how we invest for long-term value creation. In short, we are prioritizing capital allocation in the areas with the strongest opportunity to drive sustained growth and returns. A big part of that, of course, is our award-winning network. We remain focused on building fiber, selling fiber, and continuing to migrate customers organically within our base, having expanded our network by over 500,000 homes passed over the past three years.

Speaker 1

As we think about where to direct our resources, growing broadband is the top priority, and our operational decisions reflect that. While fiber migration remains an important part of our long-term roadmap, we are currently prioritizing new builds and new broadband customer trends over migrations of existing customers to fiber. Over time, we expect to reengage more proactively to transition customers to fiber, but in the current environment, we are focused on investing where we see the highest near-term returns and greatest impact on long-term value creation. Lightpath remains a meaningful growth engine, delivering over 8% year-over-year revenue growth and almost 10% adjusted EBITDA growth. We are also investing in the customer experience by improving self-install capabilities, improving the My Optimum digital platform, and continuing to build tools that make it easier for our teammates to serve our customers and for our customers to do business with us.

Speaker 1

Taken together, our capital investments are targeted at the areas where the returns are clearest, and we continue to manage our overall capital intensity with the same discipline we apply across the rest of the business. Next, on slide 5, I'll spend some time on our go-to-market and base strategies around driving improved trends. On the acquisition side, it starts with making it easier for customers to understand our value through simpler offers and more competitive entry pricing. On the sales side, we are providing clearer pathways to upsell into higher speed tiers and value-added services and are beginning to leverage AI-driven performance management. While we are still in the early stages, this collective approach is driving channel improvements. Year-over-year gross add decline is moderating. Sales channel yield has improved meaningfully, and we're seeing relatively stable gross add ARPU, all reflecting a healthier acquisition model.

Speaker 1

Our lower, more competitive entry pricing serves as a strong acquisition generator, bringing in customers through lower speed tiers advertised while the majority continue to choose 1 gig speed at sign-up. You can see that pull-through in our residential broadband base. The portion of customers taking 1 gig or higher has grown to approximately 47%, up from 37% a year ago and 21% in 2023. We are leveraging a lower entry price point to drive multi-product upsell, increasing bundle adoption among new customers and supporting stronger lifetime value. At the same time, we are starting to take a more proactive approach to base management to improve churn. Over half of our residential broadband customers have been with us for more than 5 years, and over a third have been with us for more than 10 years.

Speaker 1

We are being deliberate about reinforcing customer loyalty and protecting our long-tenured base. We recently launched the Optimum Thanks You loyalty program, which focuses on customer engagement and value adds, such as speed upgrades and price lock offerings. We are beginning to see encouraging early indicators from these efforts, including improved customer perception and retention in select markets. Together, we expect that strengthening our competitiveness, combined with improved sales conversion, marketing execution, and better base management provide the right roadmap to improve subscriber trends over time. Turning to slide 6, our broadband and mobile convergence momentum continues to build as customers increasingly look for simplicity, value, and a single provider for their connectivity needs. Broadband remains the anchor product in the home, while mobile plays a critical role in enhancing that value. By bundling mobile with broadband, we're increasing customer stickiness, improving retention, and driving higher lifetime value.

Speaker 1

We delivered strong mobile growth in the first quarter, reaching 674,000 mobile lines. This is supported by continued improvement in our go-to-market execution, including stronger sales quality, better experience, more competitive offers with everyday low pricing and discounts on broadband, and a focus on multi-line adoption, all of which are driving higher value customer additions. This is reinforced by our recently launched Unbig Your Bill campaign, which highlights meaningful annual savings compared to the major carriers. Mobile customer penetration in our broadband base reached almost 9% in the first quarter. While we have steadily grown convergence in our base, we still see significant runway to continue to drive mobile attachment and deepen penetration among existing customers. More broadly, our entry offer plus attach model is central to our strategy and how we go to market.

Speaker 1

Every new broadband customer is an opportunity to deepen the relationship and attach mobile as well as video, whole-home Wi-Fi, Total Care, or other value-added services. This approach allows us to balance more competitive entry pricing with stronger lifetime value. Moving to slide 7, video continues to play an important role in how we create value across customer relationships, helping drive retention and add value within the bundle. We recognize that customer behavior has evolved, and our approach reflects that. We're focused on giving customers more choice and flexibility while improving the overall economics of the business. We're seeing that shift play out in the adoption of our simplified video tiers, Entertainment, Extra, and Everything TV, which we scaled last year.

Speaker 1

These packages are better aligned with how people consume content today and represented the majority of sell-in during the quarter, with adoption within our residential video base increasing from 6% of the base in Q1 2025 to 17% in the first quarter of 2026. Importantly, these new tiers are demonstrating upwards of 20% churn improvement within video compared to legacy packages, reinforcing their role in improving retention and long-term customer value. We are also continuing to enhance how we merchandise these tiers, better showcasing the breadth of the included streaming apps and the inherent value customers receive as part of their Optimum TV subscription. For example, our top tier, Everything TV, includes access to over 50 apps, representing significant streaming value compared to purchasing these services separately.

Speaker 1

We are also emphasizing the simplicity of a unified login and billing relationship through Optimum, helping to drive greater engagement and product attachment across our base. By more tightly integrating broadband and streaming directly into our go-to-market approach, we are creating a seamless and connected customer experience that is beginning to show early retention benefits. With that in mind, we are optimizing the video business for margins and long-term value, while it continues to play an important role in reducing broadband churn. While video revenue continues to be under pressure, driven by a declining video subscriber base, we are, however, growing video unit economics on ARPU while stabilizing programming cost inflation per subscriber.

Speaker 1

As a result, we have seen an expansion of residential video gross margin by 1,000 basis points from approximately 14% in the first quarter of 2023 to 24% in Q1 of 2026. In summary, we've strengthened video subscriber trends by better aligning with evolving customer preferences while simultaneously enhancing profitability. Stepping back, we are focused on executing against what we can control, simplifying the business, strengthening our competitiveness, and taking a more proactive approach to improving retention and driving greater lifetime value. While the environment remains challenging and our near-term results reflect these headwinds, we're encouraged by early signs in go-to-market execution and continued convergence momentum. Combined with our ongoing focus on cost discipline and targeted investment, we believe these actions position us to improve trends and build a more durable, resilient business over time.

Speaker 1

With that, I'll turn it over to Mark to walk through our financial and operating results in greater detail.

Speaker 5

Thank you, Dennis. Starting on slide 8, I'll review our subscriber trends. Before going into the details, our first quarter of 2026 results include subscriber adjustments taken in the quarter which relate to prior periods. The impact of these adjustments was not material for any 1 period presented, and as such, prior period metrics were not restated. The performance presented on this slide excludes this adjustment, which affects broadband and video trends. The underlying trends I'll walk through are consistent with the performance we see in the business. While Dennis covered some quarterly subscriber results, I want to highlight a few additional points. First, on broadband, net subscriber declines 56,000 in the quarter, excluding the adjustment, ending the quarter with 4.1 million broadband subscribers.

Speaker 5

Trends in the quarter reflect continued competitive intensity, which resulted in muted gross add activity, as well as elevated churn year-over-year, amid intensified promotional activity across the market. In response, we're taking targeted steps, including remaining agile in our go-to-market approach, staying competitive in our pricing, and continuously evolving to meet the market dynamics. In mobile, we continued to build momentum in the first quarter. We added 52,000 net lines, our best quarterly performance in approximately six years, growing mobile lines by 33% year-over-year. Importantly, the quality of those additions is improving. We are seeing stronger multi-line attach, higher device financing rates, and more customers porting their phone numbers, all of which are indicators of deeper, more durable customer relationships. This is contributing to a meaningful churn improvement, with annualized mobile churn improving by over 790 basis points in the quarter.

Speaker 5

Video subscriber net losses were 51,000, excluding the adjustment noted earlier. Underlying trends remained improved from the prior year losses. As Dennis noted, these trends are consistent with our strategy to enhance customer choice and flexibility, while also improving margin profile on video. On fiber, we added 13,000 customers in the quarter, bringing our total to 729,000 fiber customers, up over 20% year-over-year. As expected, net additions moderated year-over-year, reflecting a more intentional and disciplined approach to migrations. We continue to see fiber as a meaningful long-term value driver and remain focused on deploying capital where we can generate the strongest returns. Moving to slide 9, I will review our Q1 financials. Total revenue of almost $2.1 billion declined 4% year-over-year.

Speaker 5

As with recent quarters, the decline is concentrated in residential video, which declined approximately 10%. Excluding video, revenues declined 1.6% year-over-year. Business services revenue of $364 million grew slightly year-over-year, driven primarily by Lightpath revenue growth of 8%. News and advertising revenue grew approximately 17%, driven by advertising strength related to the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics. Residential connectivity and all other, which includes residential broadband, mobile telephony, as well as all other revenue, declined year-over-year by 4.1%, reflecting broadband subscriber pressure partially offset by mobile revenue growth. As we expect total subscriber volumes to continue to impact our top line performance, we anticipate total revenue to decline mid-single digits in the full year of 2026.

Speaker 5

Turning to ARPU, residential ARPU of $132.32 declined by 1.2% year-over-year, or by $1.61, driven primarily by product mix shift away from video. Video's contribution to the year-over-year decline was $2.36, which was partially offset by non-video ARPU growth of $0.75, mainly tied to convergence. This quarter, we introduced convergence ARPU as a metric that captures our underlying focus of selling more products to our broadband customers. Specifically, it captures broadband and mobile service, as well as our other high margin broadband products, such as Whole Home Wi-Fi. As Dennis mentioned, we are driving multi-product selling, which is allowing us to maintain ARPU discipline while remaining competitive on our go-to-market broadband pricing.

Speaker 5

Given the increasing importance of convergence in our strategy, we believe this provides a more meaningful view of customer value by capturing the combined economics of the relationship and the impact of bundling on unit economics. Convergence ARPU grew 1.2% year-over-year to $79.32. Convergence ARPU is calculated by dividing the average monthly revenue from broadband and mobile services by the average number of residential broadband relationships and excludes mobile-only customers. We expect convergence ARPU to become an increasingly important metric on how we evaluate the business. That said, we will continue to balance rate and volume throughout the course of the year. As we push to improve the underlying trends on broadband customer results, we do anticipate pressure on ARPU in the full year, particularly from broadband growth additions, as we focus on prioritizing volume stabilization and multi-product penetration.

Speaker 5

We believe this shift will ultimately drive stronger attach and improve the overall value of the customer relationship, supporting more durable revenue and ARPU growth over time. As a result, we would expect both broadband ARPU and convergence ARPU to decline on a year-over-year basis for the full year. We will remain nimble and adjust our rate strategy based on the individual market dynamics we see throughout our footprint and over the duration of 2026. Continuing on slide 10, gross margin reached 69.4%, expanding 60 basis points year-over-year.

Speaker 5

This reflects both a product mix shift towards higher margin products such as broadband, as well as disciplined execution to improve all product margins, particularly in video. Adjusted EBITDA of $789 million declined 1.3% year-over-year, and Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 110 basis points to 38.2%. This reflects lower revenue, partially offset by lower programming and direct costs and lower operating expenses. Programming and direct costs declined by almost 6%, driven by programming costs down almost 13% year-over-year. Other operating expenses, excluding share-based compensation, was down 5% year-over-year in the first quarter. We maintained tight controls over operating expenses, driven by meaningful operational efficiencies. Call volumes declined by 23%, contributing to 39% fewer truck rolls and a 16% reduction in service visits.

Speaker 5

In addition, salary costs were reduced by over 13% year-over-year. Building on this momentum, we are deploying additional tools and initiatives to further optimize operating expenses over time, with a continued focus on enhancing the customer experience. Net loss in the quarter was approximately $2.9 billion, which includes a non-cash impairment charge of $2.7 billion related to our indefinite-lived cable franchise rights. This was a non-cash charge and does not affect our cash flow, liquidity, or ongoing operation. A full reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to net income is available in the earnings release posted on our website. Given the expected declines in revenues, partially offset by continued discipline on both direct costs and OpEx, we expect adjusted EBITDA to decline low to mid-single digits in the full year.

Speaker 5

Turning to slide 11, I'll walk through our CapEx and network investment. As we execute on our strategic priorities and focus on strengthening the balance sheet, capital efficiency remains a key priority. Consistent with that approach, we anticipate total CapEx in 2026 in the range of $1.2 billion-$1.5 billion. This quarter, we've broken out our CapEx between maintenance, growth, and Lightpath capital. As you recall, in prior years, we had a more significant fiber overbuild program across our existing footprint. We have since pulled back on that activity as we have shifted our investment focus. As a result, growth capital, excluding fiber overbuild, and maintenance capital have remained relatively steady over the last few years. We expect similar ranges in the full year 2026.

Speaker 5

On Lightpath, we continue to invest in growth, with expected annual capital expenditures in the range of $200 million-$300 million, primarily supporting construction tied to recently announced hyperscale contracts. Looking ahead, our broader capital envelope will remain focused on building fiber in new markets, simultaneously growing our fiber footprint and our total footprint, which will continue to be recaptured in growth CapEx. Alongside this, where we do not have fiber, we are investing in our HFC network, leveraging mid-split frequency allocations to increase bandwidth, and we are testing new technologies and architectures to improve the efficient use of capacity to enable higher speeds across certain markets. Our fiber network offers up to 8 gig symmetrical speeds, and we have a path to deploy multi-gig speeds across portions of our HFC network.

Speaker 5

We began launching these capabilities in select communities late last year and now offer download speeds of up to 2 gigabits per second in parts of our West Virginia HFC markets. Overall, we're taking a disciplined and return-focused approach with growth capital, making strategic investments support long-term top-line performance while retaining the flexibility to adjust the pace of investment as operating conditions evolve. For Q1, capital expenditures of $308 million represented approximately 15% capital intensity. We ended the first quarter with approximately 10 million total passings and 3.1 million fiber passings, with 190,000 total passings added over the last 12 months. We expect total passing expansion in the full year 2026 to be consistent with prior year trends of 150,000-175,000 passing additions.

Speaker 5

Finally, I want to turn to our capital structure, which remains a critical priority for us and one we are actively working to advance. We ended the quarter with approximately $1.3 billion in liquidity, giving us the financial flexibility to run operations, serve our customers, and invest in our key priorities without disruption in the near term. Over the past several quarters, we have taken a series of deliberate steps to strengthen our balance sheet and extend financial flexibility. In January, we completed a $1.1 billion refinancing of our asset-backed loan facility through a transaction with JP Morgan. In addition, in March, Lightpath closed on an approximately $1.7 billion ABS transaction. The proceeds of the transactions were used primarily to repay existing Lightpath indebtedness and extend maturity.

Speaker 5

At the end of the first quarter, our weighted average cost of debt is 6.8%. Our weighted average life of debt is 3.1 years. 81% of our total debt stack is fixed. Our leverage ratio is 7.5x the last two quarters' annualized adjusted EBITDA. Looking ahead, we are aware of the upcoming maturities. We are focused on addressing them proactively and with urgency. Our priority is putting the right long-term capital structure in place, one that supports our operating goals, reduces leverage.

Speaker 1

Maximizes value for all stakeholders. While we are not in a position to share specific details today, this is an active process, and we will provide updates as there is news to share. We continue to believe that meaningful debt reduction and a balance sheet reset are essential to the next phase of our transformation, and we are committed to getting there. While we continue to operate in a highly competitive environment, we remain focused on the disciplined execution and the actions within our control to drive more consistent and sustainable performance, supported by the evolution of our go-to-market approach and our base management strategy. Underpinning this is a continued focus of ARPU discipline, cost management, capital efficiency, and strengthening of the balance sheet, alongside a more deliberate approach to capital allocation investment to support long-term value creation.

Speaker 1

Taken together, these actions reflect the progress we've made over the past several years in gaining greater command of the business and positioning it for more durable performance over time. While there is more work ahead, we are confident in the strategy we have in place and the progress we are making, and we remain committed to consistent execution as we move through 2026. With that, we will open the line for questions.

Speaker 7

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question and have joined via the webinar, please use the raise hand icon, which can be found at the black bar at the bottom of the webinar application screen. When you hear your name called, you will be prompted to unmute your line and ask your question. We will now take a moment to allow the queue to form. Our first question is from Frank Louthan from Raymond James. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you. Can you give us a little more color on the overlap of fixed wireless in your territory and specifically, the overlap of fixed wireless in the West? That would be my first question. Given the importance of the pay TV base, you know, I understand ARPU is up a little bit, but, you know, talk to us about how you can continue to use that base to minimize churn, and is there any way to lean into that and maybe expand that base to reduce churn going forward? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Frank. Fixed wireless and the competitive intensity remains high. As we think about the overlap, it's about 85% overlap of our footprint in the East, almost 80% in the West. We have all the players across the board, T-Mobile, and AT&T Internet Air, as well as Verizon. We compete very heavily with T-Mobile in the East and AT&T in particular, and T-Mobile in the West. That being said, you know, we feel really good about our product portfolio. You know, we see that customers are demanding quality and value and pricing transparency, and we're providing that. We've invested heavily over the last few years in terms of investing in the network and now winning awards for the quality and the speeds that our network is providing.

Speaker 1

You know, our new go-to-market strategy has helped us simplify our pricing and packaging to provide great value and to provide great transparency with the 5-year price locks that we're making available to customers. The intensity is high, but we are in the early innings with our new strategy, and we know that customers are demanding faster speeds. We're selling at the point of sale gig plus multi-gig speeds at 50% plus, which is great, and we see that usage as at higher than ever. We're going to continue to drive that, and we're excited about our video strategy. We've taken a lot of time to reimagine video. We've improved profitability.

Speaker 1

We've also had a focus on customer, the evolving customer needs, and we've developed these new E-tiers that are resonating with our base and at the point of sale. The new tiers are delivering 20% churn benefit relative to the legacy tiers. You know, we're making available streaming products, the streaming products are resonating with our customers, we're excited about how we're able to meet the customer needs as well as drive profitability. As we mentioned, we are driving higher gross margins across the video portfolio, we're delivering churn benefit and value to our customers. We're gonna continue to lean into that across both the East and the West.

Speaker 2

Great. That's very helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 7

Thank you. Our next question is from Vikash Harlalka from New Street Research. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Speaker 11

Hi. Thanks so much for taking my question. Two, if I could. Dennis, I just wanted to clarify one of your key priorities. You mentioned that you're targeting an improvement in broadband subscriber trends this year. Are you targeting an improvement in broadband subscriber losses compared to last year? If that's the case, how do you get there given 1Q was worse than last year? On EBITDA, seems like EBITDA decline is going to be similar to last year or maybe slightly worse. Is the reset in broadband pricing impacting EBITDA growth this year? Where are you on the cost reduction of 4%-6% that you outlined last year for us? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yeah, the good news is that, you know, three and a half years in, we have more command of the business than ever. As I mentioned, in the last quarter, you know, our objective was to land our EBITDA objectives and really drive efficiency in the business so that we could reinvest and get back to broadband growth. You know, we're excited about the strategy that we've launched. It's very early innings. Very early. We have some key success metrics that we're focused on in terms of driving call volume, driving shoppers on the site, driving conversion in our sales channels, which is at the highest levels ever, particularly in inbound sales and retail. Being able to manage our base more effectively.

Speaker 1

Our objective is absolutely to get back to broadband growth, and we are thoughtfully investing so that we can get there. The EBITDA, you know, decline and where we are is absolutely something that we're in command of because we invested in ARPU to be able to drive a different result. We know our customers are demanding more quality, more value, more pricing transparency, and part of that was, you know, providing value with mobile, providing value with Total Care, with Whole Home Wi-Fi, with the new video products. We are executing that play, and I'm really proud of the team in terms of how we're executing. As I mentioned last quarter, we had to take a step back on mobile, and we really had to evolve that playbook, and we see the results now.

Speaker 1

You know, the highest quarter in mobile in the last six years. We're going to continue to be disciplined in terms of driving our go-to-market strategy, but doing that in a financially disciplined fashion. I'll throw it over to Marc if you want, Marc, if you want to share a little bit more on the EBITDA and cost reduction plan.

Speaker 5

Sure. We are pleased on how we're managing gross margin. You see that accelerating in the quarter, up 60 basis points year-over-year. We continue to drive down costs from both direct costs and our OpEx costs, down 5% year-over-year. I think our guidance of suggests that we continue to believe that we'll see a continued discipline around both of those. As you know, video is a main contributor of what's weighing down some of the video top-line revenue pressure. We're being deliberate there and offsetting most of that decline and improving gross margins in the video space. Pleased how the teams are operating, we expect to continue to drive efficiency into the business. We're launching and continue to launch AI technologies.

Speaker 5

We're seeing meaningful reductions in call volumes, truck rolls, service visits rates. We're managing our workforce more efficiently. Costs down 13% year-over-year. Pleased on how we're managing the bottom line. Again, we'll continue to update you as we go throughout the year.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Speaker 7

Thank you. Our next question is from Kutgun Maral from Evercore. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Speaker 4

Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Two if I could. Maybe first on mobile. You know, results there continue to be quite strong. You're already at almost, I think, 9% penetration of the broadband base. This might be a hard question to answer since we don't get a lot of visibility into mobile profitability, but I'd be curious, you know, at what level of penetration or scale do you think you need to be at for the mobile strategy to have a more meaningful uplift to consolidated EBITDA? Is there any color you could provide on free cash flow for the full year? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Sure. I'll start, then I'll let Mark jump in. Just in terms of our strategy for mobile, we're very pleased with the progress. As I had mentioned, we needed to take a step back to ensure that we were delivering the highest quality sales and highest quality customers. We laser focused on driving porting phone numbers, device financing, you know, unlimited plans, and we see that in the results. We see a meaningful improvement in our churn. In the mobile churn, we also see a meaningful impact more broadly in terms of impact on broadband churn. A 20% churn benefit when folks take both broadband and mobile. We're still in the early innings.

Speaker 1

We're almost at 9% penetration, but we're not taking the foot off the accelerator. We have all of our channels now participating, and we're doing it in a way that's really high quality, and we're excited for the growth potential and the churn benefit and the value that we can provide to our customers. As Mark mentioned, we're really focused on converged ARPU because that is a key indicator of how we're managing the business, selling in broadband, selling in mobile, selling in these value-added services, to provide the most value to our customers. Mark, do you want to talk a little bit about the profitability piece?

Speaker 5

Sure. I mean, we're pleased on the trajectory. As we grow scale, we do continue to see that our margins are improving within the product line of mobile specifically. As we gain scale, we expect that trend to continue. Specifically under free cash flow question, we did see slight improvement year-over-year in the quarter. Again, weighing down free cash flow is really tied to the interest costs that we're bearing. We're not gonna provide specific guidance on full year free cash flow. There's a lot of factors at play, we'll certainly update you as we go throughout the year.

Speaker 1

Understood. Thank you both. Yep, thank you.

Speaker 7

Thank you. Our next question is from Sam McHugh from BNP. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Speaker 8

Morning, guys. Sorry about that. Just 2 questions if I can. One on the EBITDA decline this year. Does that include the benefit of the sale of i24NEWS? If we strip out political advertising, is it fair to think about underlying EBITDA as declining maybe high single digits? Secondly on the ARPU side, is kind of the Q1 decline of 1.7% a pretty good run rate to think about for the rest of the year? Any extra color there would be helpful. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Sure. I'll throw it to Mark.

Speaker 5

Sure. The EBITDA guidance again reflects mainly the revenue pressure that we see from volume losses, again, tied mainly to the video subscribers. Our focus continues to be on driving gross margins on video. Certainly, as Dennis Mathew mentioned, we're taking deliberate steps around stabilizing broadband, so that may, in the near term, continue to weigh on ARPUs. Our focus there is deliberate. We're driving multi-product sell-in, including mobile convergence and other value-added services to mitigate some of that pressure. Certainly the volume pressures will continue to weigh on revenue. Certainly as we talked about, EBITDA will benefit from disposing of the i24NEWS asset. Last year our guidance contemplates that as well.

Speaker 5

The advertising business we had some strength in the quarter, tied to the Super Bowl and the Olympics. We expect political in the back half of the year to kick in as well with the midterms. That's how we're thinking about it.

Speaker 1

Ultimately, as we had mentioned coming off of the last call, we're investing to stabilize broadband, that's a deliberate strategy and plan. You know, we have made a thoughtful decision that we're gonna get back to broadband stabilization, we've learned a ton over the last year. As we see the competitive landscape continue to evolve, we made a thoughtful decision to invest in our pricing and our packaging at the same time ensure that we have the discipline of being able to upsell mobile, upsell value-added services, drive in our new E-tiers, that ultimately we can moderate that investment as we see, as we learn, as we look at the data, as we see stabilization. We're gonna remain flexible and nimble. The good news is that we have more command of our OpEx than ever.

Speaker 1

We have clear line of sight as to where we can continue to drive efficiency, and we're gonna do that leveraging AI, driving down contact rate, driving down truck rolls. Our dispatch rate is at an all-time low. We're investing in self-install. That's another opportunity to improve the customer experience while driving efficiency. Customers want simplicity, they want transparency, they want value, and we can provide that, and we'll manage that in a financially disciplined fashion.

Speaker 8

Can I just follow up on i24NEWS? Is the assumption that that deal closes in the first quarter? I apologies if it's already closed.

Speaker 5

Yeah, that deal has actually closed already.

Speaker 7

Thank you. Our next question is from Kannan Venkateshwar from Barclays. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Speaker 3

Hi, guys. Maybe just on the balance sheet side, could you give us a sense for, you know, the cash that you have, the $1.3 billion that you mentioned? I mean, how long can that last to run, you know, operations? I mean, when do you need to refinance? Then the debt maturity coming up, I mean, I know you can't talk a lot about it. Conceptually, when you think about the way you're thinking about alternatives to refinance, you know, your maturities, should we broadly think about more asset-based options rather than other alternatives? Any sense that you can give us will be helpful. Thanks.

Speaker 5

Yeah, I can take that, Dennis. Yeah, we ended the quarter with about $1.3 billion liquidity. That does give us the financial flexibility to run our operations, serve our customers, invest in key priorities, without disruption in the near term. As it relates to debt, certainly as we've communicated, it's one of the company's key strategic priorities is really ensuring that we have the right capital structure to support our long-term objectives.

Speaker 5

As we've mentioned, we believe a meaningful debt reduction is required and a reset of the balance sheet are essential to this continued transformation, giving us the ability to compete effectively, invest thoughtfully to maximize, really value for all stakeholders. Beyond that, kind of, we're not going to today in a position to share more specifics, but we'll certainly update the market when we have something to share.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 7

Thank you. Our next question is from Craig Moffett from MoffettNathanson. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Operator

Hi, good morning. We all focus a lot on the broadband ARPU trend of percentages and that sort of thing. I wonder if you could just comment on what your long-term expectation is for broadband price levels. You've got prices now in the market in the sub $50 range that are promotional, not clear where they're going to end up in kind of long-term pricing. What do you think is kind of the North Star that you think about for where prices are likely to settle out in your markets?

Speaker 1

Yeah. We have launched this new strategy to ensure that we are hyper-competitive across our footprint, both in the East and the West. As you've seen, we are competing at the highest level, also making sure that we're disciplined about driving mobile, driving value-added services, and really driving convergence ARPU. We're in the early innings in terms of being able to drive attach of these products. I think we have a lot of upside opportunity when we look at convergence ARPU and how we can even more effectively in the days to come attach mobile at the point of sale, attach mobile into our base, be able to drive these new value-added services like Optimum Total Care, like Optimum Whole Home Wi-Fi, also leverage our video products even more effectively as we move forward.

Speaker 1

Now that we have streaming also available, just making it very simple for our customers to be able to have one relationship for their connectivity in the home, outside the home, and also for their entertainment purposes with robust video solutions. We'll find the right balance in terms of being able to manage converged ARPU as a whole and making sure that we're maximizing customer lifetime value. That's what this is all about. We need to be able to show up differently than we have in the past. There's been this focus on, of course, broadband ARPU, but ultimately our customers are looking for value.

Speaker 1

They're looking for value and transparency and clarity on their pricing. It's our job to earn the trust of our customers, which we've been doing over the last three and a half years of rebuilding quality, rebuilding the customer experience, and now making sure they have transparency into their pricing and packaging, and providing them not just broadband, but other incredible products to be able to drive our converged ARPU goals and objectives.

Operator

Thank you.

Speaker 7

Thank you. Our next question is from Stephen Cahall from Wells Fargo. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Speaker 10

Yeah.

Speaker 10

Thank you. Maybe first just to follow up on Craig's question, is there a way in dollar terms to think about where residential broadband ARPU needs to settle? I'm just thinking about where fixed wireless and fiber compete in the market today, especially some of those new ones, probably closer to $70-$75. Curious if that's right, and if broadband ARPU, you know, has that kind of trajectory over the next few years. Also, we're increasingly hearing about some of the plans of satellite and how satellite will compete in the market.

Speaker 10

Seems like a less likely competitor in your East footprint, but I'm wondering if in the West where I think you've seen more impact from fixed wireless, if you think satellite will be an incremental competitor or sort of just another layer in an already, you know, competitive market, so less of an impact. Thank you.

Speaker 1

I'll talk a little bit about satellite and let Marc talk to ARPU. On the satellite front, I have no doubt that satellite will be a fierce competitor in the future. As of right now, we're not seeing that satellite meaningfully across our footprint in the East or the West. You know, our primary focus right now and as we look at win share and loss share and flow of share, you know, we see much more prominently competitors like the fiber overbuilders, the telcos and fixed wireless. I have no doubt over time, we may see satellite, but at the end of the day, you know, our ability to compete with the incredible network and product portfolio is going to be what ultimately sets us apart.

Speaker 5

Stephen, just back on ARPU, again, I would just continue to reiterate what Dennis talked about around convergence ARPU being what we believe is the key metric to measure success in a pivot away from just looking at the individual product of broadband. It, it eliminates the noise between the allocations of revenue between those products as we sell bundle services in. It speaks to just directly how we're actually selling the product on the ground with our customers, with our agents. We're pleased with the growth that we saw in the quarter, up nearly $1 year-over-year at 1.2%. We won't give a specific target as far as dollars, again, we're gonna be nimble on how we manage convergence ARPU.

Speaker 5

We're making deliberate investments, as we talked about, to drive a better performance on broadband subscribers. Beyond that, we think convergence ARPU is the right metric to really anchor our business. That's how we're anchoring it and how we feel others should anchor.

Speaker 7

Thank you. Our final question is from Michael Rollins from Citi. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

Speaker 6

Hi. Thanks. Good morning, thank you for taking the questions. Two if I could, please. First, you have a lot of markets and a number of them, particularly in the East, have experienced fiber competition for a longer period of time than most. Within that context, are you seeing micro-market level turnaround where you're achieving stabilization or improvement in broadband that can inform you on the formula and the timing to get the broader portfolio to that, you know, opportunity? The second question is, what are you learning and this kind of relates, I think, to some of the past questions, but maybe to ask it this way. What are you learning about the long-term earnings power or EBITDA power for the Optimum portfolio when you evaluate all the things that you talked about today?

Speaker 6

You know, the investments in customer pricing, it could also be OpEx and CapEx and what you think you need to do to stabilize the broadband base and defend a reasonable share across your markets.

Speaker 1

Yeah, let me take the first portion of that, and then I'll throw it over to Mark. That's exactly right. You know, it's taken us some time, but we've had to build the infrastructure to be able to look at performance at the market level. We, you know, when I started, we formed six regions where we can have local level management and ensure that we have a local presence. The good news is that we are seeing improvements as we think about certain markets, particularly in the East. We're seeing that we are moving the needle exactly the way we want to move the needle, when we think about call volumes, when we think about shoppers, when we think about yield in our sales channels.

Speaker 1

This is the level of data that we have now and the level that we're managing at to help inform the broader strategy. You know, at the same time, as I think about year-over-year, the competitive intensity in the West has ratcheted up, we need to continue to look at what it's gonna take to win there and how we evolve. The good news is that in certain markets, again, we're seeing that the new pricing, the new packaging, the product portfolio is really starting to resonate.

Speaker 1

We do need to make sure that we're optimizing our media spend across the footprint, which is also very different when you think about the East versus certain markets in the West, to make sure that we're on the ground telling that story most effectively so that we can see a differentiated outcome, you know, market by market. That's the level that we're managing the business today. We're seeing some of those wins, we're working to extrapolate that across the footprint so that we can do that at scale in a meaningful fashion.

Speaker 5

Mike, we won't provide specific long-term guidance as far as EBITDA is concerned, but certainly we're trying to control what we can control. We're making deliberate steps to improve our broadband trends. We're controlling our direct costs and accelerating gross margin. We're controlling OpEx. We believe that there's continued runway to be more efficient, leverage AI to drive efficiency. Again, we'll control what we can control and we won't provide longer term guidance as it relates to EBITDA at this point.

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Speaker 7

Thank you. This concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to management for closing remarks.

Speaker 9

Thank you all for joining. Please reach out to investor relations or media relations with any additional questions.

Speaker 7

This call has concluded. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.

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