What Should Charter Communications Stock Holders Take From The Third Quarter?
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Charter Communications (CHTR) stock fell 6.2% on November 6, 2026, when the company reported fiscal Q3 2026 results, compared with a 0.3% rise for the S&P 500. During the earnings call, management said Charter has not generated the customer growth it expects and launched a new operating model aimed at winning more internet customers. So how many internet customers is Charter losing, and is that getting worse?
Charter Lost More Internet Customers Than A Year Ago
Legacy Charter, the business Charter ran before the Cox deal, lost 156,000 internet customers in fiscal Q3 2026, more than the 109,000 it lost a year earlier. Cox, which Charter bought in a deal that closed on August 19, 2026, lost another 77,000 internet customers in the quarter. Management called internet competition intense and said it was not satisfied, though it added that higher internet sales since the Spectrum launch in Cox markets on September 16 had already cut Cox’s run-rate losses by half. It said that trend will vary after the launch period.
Revenue was $14.9 billion, coming in 2.7% below the consensus estimate. Industry peers fell far less on report day: Comcast lost 2.2% and Verizon 0.9%. Charter shares have since recovered. From the close before the report to November 10, the stock returned 6.5%, compared with 2.3% for the S&P 500.
Revenue was slipping before the deal. Reported revenue was below its year-earlier level in each of the four quarters from fiscal Q3 2025 to fiscal Q2 2026. In fiscal Q3 2026, the quarter Cox joined, reported revenue rose 9.1%. On management’s pro forma basis, which counts Cox as if the deal had closed at the start of the earliest period it presents, revenue fell 1.5%, and management said Cox’s 4.5% revenue decline came mainly from losing residential customers.
Charter Set Cost Targets But No Date For Growth
Management said its top priority is returning Charter to growth by winning more internet customers with a stronger, simpler offer. Internet is the company’s largest business, bringing in $23.8 billion of Charter’s $54.8 billion revenue in fiscal 2025.
Management is also aiming for $2 billion in annualized operating expense savings within 18 months. This target is in addition to the more than $1 billion in synergies expected from the Cox deal. Management called the savings a bottom-up plan, not an aspiration, and said the goal is for them to add to profit and, over time, to free cash flow.
Management said it is not giving any outlook for when Charter returns to growth. It also declined to say more about how it will win customers while holding on to revenue per customer, citing competitive reasons.
What Charter Will Report In January
Charter is expected to report its fourth-quarter results in January 2027. Management said it will say more about the combined plan for 2027 during that call. Executives also noted that Cox synergies will start to show in the fourth quarter. From then on, they will provide estimates of how much is captured each quarter, along with progress on the new savings plan.
The measure to watch is the change in Legacy Charter’s internet customers in fiscal Q4 2026, against the same quarter a year earlier, in the report expected in January 2027.
Does This Mean You Should Act On CHTR?
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