Charter Communications Inc at Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : I'm sure over the next few days we'll be talking a lot at the conference about convergence and converged offers you just mentioned what you guys are working on at least high level. Can you talk a little bit specifically about your products and packaging that how you've evolved those, particularly on the convergence front and why you think it positions Charter to win with customers?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : We're going to talk about the product specifics and competition and all that stuff in a minute. I just wanted to stay high level. You guys also updated the market on your long-term CapEx plans--

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : --on the last earnings call, and the changes from the prior guidance weren't massive, but still I think worth touching on. Can you talk about the outlook, what these investments are doing for the business, and your confidence and conviction in the decline in capital spending that you outlined for us. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MARCH 03, 2025 / 6:00PM, CHTR.OQ - Charter Communications Inc at Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : That's great. Thank you for making those comments. All right, why don't we talk about broadband for a minute. You mentioned ACP, so last year you guys, I think, lost around 450,000 customers that were tied to the ACP program. I think I asked you on your earnings call if you expected a better year in broadband in '25, and the direct quote was, quote-unquote, it better be.

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Yeah, well, let's talk about a little bit of the math, so sitting here today, here we are March '25. Talk about the headwinds and the tailwinds to broadband customer growth, especially relative to last year.

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Yeah, okay. How is Charter being impacted by fixed wireless on one hand and fiber on the other hand, and how are you now responding to those ongoing competitors?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : I know --

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : I want to make sure everybody knew what we were talking about.

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : We keep hearing a lot on the fiber side about more and more investment into new fiber builds. Are you concerned at all that we might see some markets in the US with gig capable cable like Charter and then two fiber players and we end up in a market where no one can earn a real return.

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : What we're talking about how you compete with fiber and fixed wireless, you talk about investing in the network and delivering the best speed. So you've got some I believe some high split markets done now. Can you give us a little bit of a sense of whether you're seeing benefits to the business, whether it's in churn or penetration rates or anything else?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : I think, Chris, I think it was a couple of years ago you on Spectrum One, which is your real push into wireless from a promotion and pricing point of view. Q4 mobile service revenue was up about almost 40%, so you're definitely seeing nice financial performance from what you've been doing in wireless, but you did migrate from Spectrum One to now this Spectrum Life Unlimited. Can you talk a little bit about that evolution from a marketing and planning point of view? What's different about them and the overall strategy in wireless?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : And the fact that it allows you to have a lower headline price on broadband help from a competitive (multiple speakers)--

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : I know you guys certainly going back to the Tom Rutledge years, very market share focused company--

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : However, you have seen wireless ARPU -- really start to grow nicely as Spectrum One free lines have rolled off. I'm just wondering, I know there's a lot of [gap] allocation noise in these numbers, but is mobile ARPU maybe a real opportunity from a revenue growth point of view in the next couple years?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Yeah, I'm in New York, so I'm in a Spectrum market. I see Spectrum Mobile advertising all the time, but I have wanted to ask you for a while of how the brand is positioned from a consumer point because you're building major wireless brand from scratch, and a lot of your competitors like to talk about cables wireless growth coming from prepaid, which sounds like (multiple speakers)--

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : So how would you size up the brand position, your retail distribution, and your wireless position in the market?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Is marketing an area of investment for you guys?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : It's interesting we've been talking about wireless and broadband, which is what I don't know 90% of my investor conversations are regarding Charter, but you guys have been really hard at work on the video front, for the last, well, many years, but particularly publicly in the last 1.5 years, and you've done a lot to really reposition that entire product. I don't think we've really seen that fully at the consumer level yet, but what do you think this all means if you're successful from a video point of view? We've started to see losses come down. What do you think that means for Charter and the consumer over time? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MARCH 03, 2025 / 6:00PM, CHTR.OQ - Charter Communications Inc at Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : I want to ask you about also the commercial business at Charter. $7-billion run rate business, it's about 15% of revenues last year, but pretty generally pretty high margin. But how do you reaccelerate that business because it's been slowing more subdued growth over the last couple of years?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Some of your competitors more on the telco side have talked about an opportunity around providing fiber connectivity and really maybe some other ancillary opportunities in relations with hyper scales and leveraging all this investment in AI. Is there something for Charter and you think about enterprise or your asset base that you think could be interesting?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Got it. Great. Well, we can revisit these topics next year (multiple speakers)-- So last year you guys were, there were a lot of concerns early in the year around your ability to grow EBITDA. You actually had a pretty healthy EBITDA growth year in 2024, and part of that was Jessica and the team finding efficiencies on the cost side. When you look at this year, I think you've talked about cost of service to be flat to down. What's allowing you guys to keep the expense base from growing is you are obviously a very competitive marketplace.

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : I was going to ask you, is AI a net benefit to the P&L today? Are you guys investing in AI from a cost point of view?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Let's spend a couple of minutes here and the time we have left on your rural expansion. This is a huge project. It's a big part of why your CapEx is elevated, so to speak. You've guided, I think, to an additional 450,000 subsidized new passings in '25, mostly ARDOF related. Is this -- is '25 the max build year and do you have any concerns over supply chain or labor costs or anything like that at this point?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : I know we're still early in seeing the customer base build in your rural footprint or subsidized rural footprint, but we have noticed the ARPU has been growing. I think it was about 5% last year. What's happening there? People taking video? (multiple speakers)--

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : What is your perspective on Starlink as a competitor because I see a lot of focus from the marketplace and rural is where they're, I think, probably having the most success.

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Does it change the opportunity that you see in terms of the returns for your rural build as a competitor?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : I want to ask you about BEAD, which is, also filled with uncertainty, especially now. I felt like you guys -- you went a little further than I was expecting on the earnings call in terms of letting us know your appetite here, but maybe just fill us in on where your head's at on BEAD spending and how that going back to your commitment to those CapEx numbers how those may fit into that?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : All right, my last question, Chris, I wanted to ask you about the wireless side. So you have some of your own spectrum CBRS which you've been trialing and I think deploying. You talk about how meaningful that could be and maybe in your answer, just talk about the MVNO model as one that's working for Charter and whether there'd be a situation where it might lead you to look to build or acquire your own [MNO].

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : That's very clear, Chris. Anything you'd like to wrap up with as we close it out?

Question: Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley - Analyst : Great. Well thank you for that upbeat presentation and thank you for being here.