Charter Communications Inc. is a leading broadband communications company and the fourth-largest cable operator in the United States. The company today announced preliminary results based on information currently available for revenues, operating costs and expenses, and customers for the quarter ended March 31, 2010.
The company said it expects revenues for the first quarter to be approximately $1.735 billion, an increase of 4.5 percent compared with the pro forma results of the first quarter of 2009. Revenues increased primarily as a result of digital video, high-speed internet, telephone and commercial customer growth.
Operating costs and expenses are expected to be approximately $1.098 billion, an increase of 5.1 percent compared to the pro forma results of the first quarter of 2009. The increase in operating expenses for the quarter is primarily due to increased programming expenses related to annual rate increases and higher labor costs.
Charter also announced that it expects capital expenditures for the first quarter to be approximately $310 million, compared with $269 million in the first quarter of 2009, and that capital expenditures for the full year will be approximately $1.2 billion. Charter continues to target deploying switched digital video to more than 60 percent of its footprint and DOCSIS 3.0 to about half of its footprint by year end 2010.
The company has liquidity of about $1 billion. This includes cash of $254 million and access to credit under a $1.3 billion revolving credit facility of about $760 million. Total principal amount of debt was approximately $12.8 billion at the end of the first quarter.
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