Altice USA to double the availability of multi-gig speeds across its network

Mathew reported that in 2025, Altice’s Optimum brand will focus on strong base management tactics, quality network enhancements, and improved go-to-market strategies to compete with new market entrants.

“Optimum’s unique attributes of size, speed to market, ability to act locally, and a robust expanding product set position us to act with greater flexibility and execute innovative strategies that will allow us to maximize both rate and volume based on the competitive landscape,” he said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call.

2024 was a transformative year for Optimum, which Mathew reported was driven by a relentless focus on improving every aspect of the business.

“Our operational and financial discipline is delivering measurable improvements,” said Mathew. “We’ve streamlined processes and improved decision-making through real-time data insights, which have strengthened efficiency, reduced costs, and positioned us for sustainable revenue and subscriber growth.”

The company also saw success with new methods of tailoring strategies to the competitive dynamics of each market.

“In Q4, we introduced new competitive pricing in select markets where we face intense competition, leveraging a hyper-local approach,” said Mathew. “Comparing the month before and after these pilot market launches, we saw growth in penetration, sales, connect rates, and market-level revenue.”

Altice plans to scale these hyper-local tactics in the coming months.

Expanding and enhancing fiber

Altice ended 2024 with 538,000 fiber customers, bringing in 57,000 net fiber additions in the fourth quarter, a 22% increase year over year. Broadband subscriber net losses were 39,000 in the fourth quarter, which Mathew attributed to the impacts of Hurricane Helene and falling home sales. The company added 210,000 passings in 2024, closing the year with 3 million fiber passings and 9.8 million total passings.

Fiber network penetration at the end of the quarter was 18.2%, up from 12.5% at the end of Q4 2023, and Mathew reported that churn remained low. 

Altice had total revenues of $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter, down 2.9% year over year. Residential revenues for the quarter were $1.7 billion, down 5.6% year over year.

Altice USA CFO Marc Sirota reported total revenues for 2024 of $9 billion, down 3.1% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA for the year was $3.4 billion, down 5.4% year over year. 

“Our full year 2024 revenue trend was driven by mobile service revenue growth of 52%, news and advertising growth of 8.6%, business services growth of 0.3%, and growth in other of 22.5%, primarily driven by growth in mobile equipment revenue, offset by residential revenue decline of 4.6%,” said Sirota.

Cash capital expenditures were $1.4 billion in 2024 and primarily funded fiber upgrades.

“In 2024, most of our fiber expansion focused on upgrading existing passings to fiber,” said Sirota. “In 2025, however, fiber net growth is expected to be driven primarily by new fiber builds, with a small portion dedicated to fiber overbuilds.”

He reported that this adjustment should enhance Altice’s capital profile by directing construction investments to overall footprint expansion and fiber network growth. He reported a capital spend target of approximately $1.3 billion in 2025, a figure that includes rolling out the multi-gig upgrade plan and maintaining the current rate of footprint expansion.

Currently, 96% of Altice’s footprint is enabled with speeds of 1 Gbps or higher, and nearly 30% of the footprint is enabled with multi-gig speeds of up to 8 Gbps.

“We see the demand for higher speeds continuing to grow with over 50% of new customers choosing 1 gig or higher download speeds, partially driven by price promotions in the quarter,” said Sirota.

Serving hyperscalers

Altice’s LightPath brand had revenues of $414 million in 2024, year-over-year growth of 5.5%. At the end of the year, the LightPath fiber network had about 16,000 connected locations and customers across its approximately 11,000-mile route.

“This revenue growth is driven partly by footprint expansion as well as an increase in net bookings,” said Sirota. “We’re incredibly excited by LightPath’s established presence in the hyperscaler customer segment, which brought in almost $110 million in contract value in 2024.”

Sirota reported that LightPath customers include enterprise and hyperscaler clients across fields like health care, finance, education, professional services, and communications, and Altice sees the brand as a strategic asset that will drive growth in the coming years.

“We anticipate LightPath capital spend in full-year ‘25 to be between $200 million to $250 million,” said Sirota, “of which we expect a LightPath will receive 20% to 25% in upfront payments from customers in 2025. And in 2024, about 80% of LightPath capital spend was driven by success-based growth capital driven by customer contracts.”