WideOpenWest sees robust HSD ARPU growth and record low churn despite upcoming acquisition and competitive pressures in legacy markets.
In this transcript
Summary
- WideOpenWest is undergoing a definitive acquisition by Digital Bridge Investments and Crestview Partners, affecting all outstanding shares not already owned by Crestview.
- In legacy markets, WideOpenWest competes primarily against Comcast and Charter, with fixed wireless also posing competition, but reported strong high-speed data ARPU growth and near-record low churn.
- In greenfield markets, the company added over 15,000 homes this quarter, reaching a total of 106,000 homes, maintaining a 16% penetration rate despite competition from traditional cable and new fiber entrants.
- The company emphasizes a no-contract, no-data-cap service model with simplified pricing, which continues to resonate with customers against competitors' mobility-focused offerings.
- Operational highlights include the addition of 3,700 homes in legacy markets, with strong performance noted in both new and existing market vintages.
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OPERATOR - (00:00:23)
Good day and welcome everyone to the WideOpenWest third quarter 2025 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the Speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. At this time I would like to turn the conference over to Andrew Posen, Vice President Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Andrew Posen - Vice President Head of Investor Relations - (00:00:55)
Good morning everyone and thank you for joining our third quarter 2025 earnings call. Earlier this morning we issued a press release with our financial and operating results for the third quarter of 2025 which is now available on our Investor Relations website. We also published a trending schedule with additional historic and financial and operating metrics. On August 11, 2025, we announced that WideOpenWest entered into a definitive agreement under which a single affiliated investment funds of Digital Bridge Investments and Crestview Partners will acquire all of the outstanding shares of common stock of WOW not already owned by Crestview and its affiliates. In light of this pending transaction, we will not be making any comments on our results this quarter. However, we will take questions related to this morning's earnings release. I am joined this morning by our CEO Teresa Elder and our CFO John Rego who are here to answer questions. I would like to remind everyone that we may make some forward looking statements about our expected operating results, our business strategy and other matters relating to our business. These forward looking statements are made in reliance on the safe harbor provisions of the Federal securities laws and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual operating results to financial position or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied in our forward looking statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward looking statements. We disclaim any obligation to update such forward looking statements. For additional information concerning factors that could affect our financial results or cause actual results to differ materially from our forward looking statements, please refer to our filings with the SEC including the Risk Factors section of our Form 10K and most recent 10Q filed with the SEC, as well as the forward looking statement section of our press release. In addition, please note that on today's call and in the press release we issued this morning, we may refer to certain non GAAP financial measures. While the Company believes these non GAAP financial measures provide useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations between GAAP and non GAAP metrics for historical reported results can be found in our earnings releases and our trending schedules which can be found on our website. Operator, are there any questions in the queue?
OPERATOR - (00:03:33)
Yes, we do have one question from Frank Luthin at Raymond James.
Frank Luthin - Equity Analyst - (00:03:39)
Great. Hey, thank you. So when you guys are looking out at in the market, where are you seeing competition from? You know, who's kind of reared up? Is it more fixed wireless? Is it the cable companies or fiber? I mean, how should we think about what, you know, who you guys are up against? And I'm talking more about your legacy markets but versus the greenfield builds. Thanks.
Teresa Elder - Chief Executive Officer - (00:04:06)
Well, thanks, Frank. Yes, this is Teresa. And in our legacy market we have been since the day we first started at wow. A challenger brand. So we really challenged the cable companies. Comcast and Charter are our primary competitors in our legacy markets. We certainly also have competition from fixed wireless. What we have seen though in this last quarter is that we've been able to have strong high-speed data average revenue per user (HSD ARPU) growth and our churn is near record lows. So we're very pleased with how we continue to compete in our markets in Greenfield. We actually have been on a tear. We are also competing with the traditional cable companies new fiber entrance as well as fixed wireless. And in those markets We've added over 15,000 homes in this last quarter, bringing our total green Greenfield homes to 106,000. And the penetration keeps growing at a robust rate. We're maintaining that 16% in greenfield even though we're adding so many homes, also in legacy. Of course we have long had an edge out strategy and we added another 3,700 homes in our legacy markets and the 2025 vintage is already near 30%. And the former vintages also continue to perform extremely well. And that information is in our trending schedule. So it's somewhat the same mix of characters. But I think customers really resonate with our no contract, no data caps, reliable network, high speed, very best value with our simplified pricing. So that mix has continued to work for us.
Frank Luthin - Equity Analyst - (00:05:53)
Great. Are Charter and Comcast really leaning into their mobility product? Is that their main thrust, their marketing in your territories? Or is it something different that's having them get a little bit more traction?
Teresa Elder - Chief Executive Officer - (00:06:06)
You probably have to ask them. So I would just say it looks like they're doing a lot of national advertising that's consistent within our markets as well, emphasizing mobile. But we have found that the simple approach that we've had with ALL in pricing with an optional price lock has really cut through so customers don't have to be confused by how many mobile lines versus this versus that they have to have with WOW. You always get that same clear value at high speeds without having a bunch of other strings attached.
Frank Luthin - Equity Analyst - (00:06:40)
Great. Okay. Thank you very much.
OPERATOR - (00:06:45)
And there are no further questions. Perfect.
UNKNOWN - (00:06:48)
Thank you so much. As always, we appreciate all of you joining our call. And as always, I would like to thank the people of WOW who continue to wow our customers every day and provide the value to our customers and appreciate the time on this call this morning. Thank you.
OPERATOR - (00:07:09)
And this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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