WOW!’s revenue dipped in the fourth quarter of 2017, but the operator reported modest gains to its customer base.
Total revenue for the quarter was $292.8 million, down from $316 million in the year ago quarter. Residential subscription revenue was $227.4 million, down 6.6 percent year over year, while revenue from business services subscriptions was up 4.8 percent to $30.3 million. Other business services revenue dropped 37.7 percent to $8.6 million.
WOW! reported a loss of $2.2 million on income from operations, compared to a $64.2 million gain in the fourth quarter of 2016. The company netted a $116.1 million income tax benefit, which boosted net income to $84.2 million.
Total customers increased 0.6 percent year over year to 777,300, and was up sequentially from 776,400.
The operator added 2,700 broadband customers, up 1.9 percent from the year ago period and 0.4 percent sequentially, to end the fourth quarter with HSD 732,700 subscribers. WOW! saw its video subscriber base shrink by 9,900 in the last three months of 2017, for a total of 432,600 video customers.
“WOW! went into 2017 with very aggressive goals,” said Teresa Elder, CEO of WOW!, in a statement. “While we met many of our objectives, we are disappointed to report that we fell short in some key customer and financial metrics, which is unacceptable. We ended the year, however, with good momentum and have a strong plan in place to build on our rich heritage of putting the customer first and to drive growth in 2018.”
On Wednesday’s earnings call Elder said that in 2018 the company plans to invest in customer care, marketing, sales, products, and its employees, but cautioned that year over year comparisons of quarterly results will not be favorable as revenue benefits from those initiatives won’t begin to materialize until late in the year.
Elder said the operator is developing new digital platforms, as well as a mobile app, and making significant improvements to WOW!’s website.
As for achievements, Elder pointed to the success of WOW!’s network expansion through its edge out initiative that was restarted in 2016. Since then WOW!’s network has expanded to more than 104,000 incremental homes and the operator has added more than 26,000 new customers, representing a combined penetration rate of 25 percent. The company has an edge out goal of 40,000 additional homes passed for 2018.
WOW! recently completed rolling out its DOCSIS 3.1-powered 1 Gbps internet service offering to 95 percent of its footprint, and as a result, anticipates seeing an uptick in take rates of its 500 Mbps service tier throughout the year.