Time Warner Cable profit tops Street as subscriber additions rise

[LONDON] Time Warner Cable Inc on Thursday posted a better-than-expected adjusted profit in the third quarter as it added more high-speed data customers.

The company, which is being bought by Charter Communications Inc, added 232,000 high-speed data subscribers in the third quarter compared with 172,000 additions in the second quarter.

Wunderlich Securities analysts were expecting 191,000 subscriber additions.

Time Warner Cable also said it lost 7,000 residential video subscribers in the three months ended Sept. 30, far less than the 45,000 it lost in the second quarter.

Cable companies have been grappling with declining subscriber numbers as viewers shift to cheaper and more flexible streaming services offered by Netflix Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Hulu and others.

Net income attributable to Time Warner Cable shareholders fell to US$437 million, or US$1.53 per share, from US$499 million, or US$1.76 per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, it earned US$1.62 per share, beating analysts average estimate of US$1.57 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue rose 3.6 per cent to US$5.92 billion, slightly short of analysts average estimate of US$5.96 billion.

Charter in May said it would buy Time Warner Cable in a cash-and-stock deal that values the larger rival at US$78.7 billion, to compete with the Comcast Corp.

The deal is slated to close by the end of the year, but is also subject to a lot of regulatory scrutiny. Regulatory obstacles had earlier sunk Comcast's bid for Time Warner Cable.

REUTERS