Altice USA Inc (ATUS) 2023 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the Altice USA First Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

您好，歡迎來到 Altice USA 2023 年第一季度業績電話會議。 （操作員說明）提醒一下，正在錄製此會議。

I would now like to turn the call over to Nick Brown, EVP of Corporate Finance and Development. Thank you. You may begin.

我現在想把電話轉給公司財務和發展執行副總裁尼克·布朗。謝謝。你可以開始了。

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining. We are joined today by Altice USA's CEO, Dennis Mathew; and our new CFO, Marc Sirota, who together will take you through the presentation and then be available for questions. As today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements, please read the disclaimer on Slide 2.

大家好。感謝您的加入。今天，Altice USA 的首席執行官 Dennis Mathew 加入了我們的行列；和我們的新首席財務官 Marc Sirota，他們將一起帶您完成演示，然後回答問題。由於今天的演示文稿可能包含前瞻性陳述，請閱讀幻燈片 2 上的免責聲明。

Dennis, please go ahead.

丹尼斯，請繼續。

Thanks, Nick, and hello, everyone. I'm pleased to be here to discuss Altice USA's Q1 2023 results. But before we begin, I want to take a moment to thank our employees across the entire organization. During the last 60 days, we've welcomed a new telecoms management team, and we continue to attract strong leadership talent across the organization.

謝謝，尼克，大家好。我很高興來到這裡討論 Altice USA 的 2023 年第一季度業績。但在我們開始之前，我想花點時間感謝我們整個組織的員工。在過去的 60 天裡，我們迎來了新的電信管理團隊，我們繼續在整個組織中吸引強大的領導人才。

We introduced a new mission and strategy and accelerated a culture of teamwork and accountability by putting the customer at the center of everything we do. And while we certainly have more work to do, I'm incredibly proud of how the team has rallied around our strategy to be the connectivity provider-of-choice across all the communities that we serve. And I thank everyone for their endless commitment, teamwork and energy.

我們引入了新的使命和戰略，並通過將客戶置於我們所做一切的中心來加速團隊合作和問責文化。雖然我們當然還有更多工作要做，但我為團隊如何圍繞我們的戰略團結起來成為我們所服務的所有社區的首選連接提供商而感到無比自豪。我感謝每個人的不懈承諾、團隊合作和活力。

So let's jump into the results, starting on Slide 3 with a summary of our first quarter performance. Last quarter, I shared that we were looking deeply into our go-to-market packages and that mobile would take on a more meaningful role. While I'm pleased to share that as you may have seen this week, we launched Optimum Complete, our exciting new internet and mobile-converged bundle offer.

因此，讓我們進入結果，從幻燈片 3 開始，總結我們第一季度的業績。上個季度，我分享了我們正在深入研究我們的上市套餐，移動將扮演更有意義的角色。雖然我很高興與您分享這一點，正如您本周可能已經看到的那樣，我們推出了 Optimum Complete，這是我們令人興奮的全新互聯網和移動融合捆綁產品。

This is an important milestone for us and something I've been heavily focused on with the team to ensure we bring to market a differentiated and customer-friendly offer that delivers real value and transparency. I'll go into more detail on this later in the presentation, but I'm pleased that even ahead of this launch, we started to see an acceleration in our mobile customer growth in Q1.

這對我們來說是一個重要的里程碑，也是我和團隊一直非常關注的事情，以確保我們向市場推出差異化且對客戶友好的產品，提供真正的價值和透明度。我將在稍後的演示中對此進行更詳細的介紹，但我很高興即使在此次發布之前，我們也開始看到第一季度移動客戶增長加速。

Turning to our network. We were fortunate to have very mild weather this winter, and that played into our advantage. We strategically pulled forward some of our budgeted annual spend to deliver network upgrades and accelerated passings earlier in the year so that we can begin to see customer benefits and accelerate our go-to-market strategies in these areas sooner.

轉向我們的網絡。我們很幸運今年冬天天氣非常溫和，這對我們來說是有利的。我們戰略性地提前了一些年度預算支出，以在今年早些時候提供網絡升級和加速通過，以便我們能夠開始看到客戶利益並更快地加快我們在這些領域的上市戰略。

This led to the delivery of an exceptional quarter in terms of broadband network construction, which is a key pillar of our growth strategy, setting us up really well for the rest of the year. Specifically, we expanded our fiber passings by 214,000 homes in Q1, ending Q1 with just under 2.4 million fiber passings and we're on track to deliver a record number of incremental fiber passings in Q2.

這導致在寬帶網絡建設方面交付了一個特殊的季度，這是我們增長戰略的一個關鍵支柱，為我們今年餘下的時間做好了準備。具體來說，我們在第一季度將光纖通過量增加了 214,000 個家庭，在第一季度結束時光纖通過量略低於 240 萬，我們有望在第二季度實現創紀錄的光纖通過量增量。

In light of this, we saw a corresponding acceleration in fiber customer growth with net additions of 38,000 in the quarter, which was our best fiber net add quarter ever. We ended the quarter with 210,000 fiber customers and expect this will continue to step up as we broaden the availability of multi-gig services and have Optimum Complete as our primary offer. Our goal is to meaningfully accelerate our fiber and mobile customer growth and penetration, and I'm very focused on this with the team.

有鑑於此，我們看到光纖客戶增長相應加速，本季度淨增 38,000，這是我們有史以來最好的光纖淨增季度。我們在本季度結束時擁有 210,000 名光纖客戶，並預計隨著我們擴大多千兆服務的可用性並將 Optimum Complete 作為我們的主要產品，這一數字將繼續增加。我們的目標是有意義地加速我們的光纖和移動客戶的增長和滲透，我和團隊非常關注這一點。

These are key metrics against which I will be measuring our success as they will be critical to getting our overall broadband customer relationships, revenue and cash flow back to growth. We also delivered 48,000 new build passings in Q1, well ahead of schedule for the year, which will also help us drive new customer growth.

這些是我將用來衡量我們成功的關鍵指標，因為它們對於讓我們的整體寬帶客戶關係、收入和現金流恢復增長至關重要。我們還在第一季度交付了 48,000 輛新車，遠早於今年的計劃，這也將幫助我們推動新客戶的增長。

Turning to subscriber metrics. Total broadband customer net losses were 19,000 in Q1, which was broadly in line with Q4 when we normalize for the benefit from the New York City Housing Authority program, also known as NYCHA, despite some incremental macro pressures that I'll come back to shortly.

轉向訂閱者指標。第一季度寬帶客戶淨損失總數為 19,000，這與我們為受益於紐約市房屋管理局計劃（也稱為 NYCHA）而正常化的第四季度大致一致，儘管我將很快回過頭來討論一些漸增的宏觀壓力.

On our financials, Q1 revenue declined 5.3% year-over-year mainly driven by continued pressure in our Residential and Advertising businesses.

在我們的財務方面，第一季度收入同比下降 5.3%，這主要是由於我們的住宅和廣告業務持續面臨壓力。

Adjusted EBITDA declined 12.4% year-over-year with a margin of 37.9%, reflecting both the revenue decline and the step-up in OpEx the company made last year to drive future growth. As Marc will outline later, I'm pleased to say that we've now stabilized OpEx, and we see many opportunities to drive efficiencies from here while executing against our growth strategy. And cash flow was impacted mainly by a peak in CapEx as we accelerated network investments in the past couple of quarters, but we fully expect this to reverse later in the second half so that we will be positive free cash flow for the year.

調整後的 EBITDA 同比下降 12.4%，利潤率為 37.9%，反映了收入下降和公司去年為推動未來增長而提高的運營支出。正如 Marc 稍後將概述的那樣，我很高興地說我們現在已經穩定了 OpEx，並且我們看到了在執行我們的增長戰略的同時從這裡提高效率的許多機會。現金流主要受到資本支出峰值的影響，因為我們在過去幾個季度加速了網絡投資，但我們完全預計這種情況會在下半年晚些時候逆轉，這樣我們今年的自由現金流就會為正。

Specifically, our annual CapEx target is unchanged, as Marc will outline in more detail later in this presentation. To close out the summary, we are pleased to announce that last week, we successfully closed on the issuance of a new $1 billion senior guaranteed notes. The main use of proceeds is to refinance existing debt, and following the earlier term loan refinancing we did in December, we're now in a strong position to manage all of our near-term maturity.

具體來說，我們的年度資本支出目標沒有改變，Marc 將在本次演講的稍後部分詳細介紹。最後總結一下，我們很高興地宣布，上週我們成功發行了新的 10 億美元優先擔保票據。收益的主要用途是為現有債務再融資，繼我們在 12 月進行的早期貸款再融資之後，我們現在處於有利地位來管理我們所有的短期到期債務。

Let's turn to Slide 4 for a recap of our Optimum strategy and review the significance of Optimum Complete. As I outlined last quarter, our mission is to make Optimum, the connectivity provider-of-choice across all our communities. The 4 pillars of this strategy focus around the best customer experience, the best customer relationships, the best network and the best people. And I'm pleased to say that we've begun to make progress against all of these areas and many of the key initiatives I previewed with you in February.

讓我們轉到幻燈片 4 來回顧一下我們的 Optimum 策略並回顧 Optimum Complete 的重要性。正如我在上個季度概述的那樣，我們的使命是讓 Optimum 成為我們所有社區的首選連接提供商。該戰略的四大支柱圍繞最佳客戶體驗、最佳客戶關係、最佳網絡和最佳人員展開。我很高興地說，我們已經開始在所有這些領域以及我在 2 月份與您一起預覽的許多關鍵舉措方面取得進展。

First, on customer experience. We're seeing significant improvements, thanks to our heightened focus on elevating quality and end-to-end CX. We had a 24-point NPS improvement in customer care during Q1 year-over-year as our teams performed better at addressing customer needs at the first attempt. As we continue to drive network improvements and enhancing troubleshooting tools, we have also seen service visit rates decreased 15% year-over-year in Q1.

第一，關於客戶體驗。由於我們更加關注提升質量和端到端 CX，我們看到了顯著的改進。由於我們的團隊在第一次嘗試滿足客戶需求方面表現更好，我們在第一季度的客戶服務方面比去年同期提高了 24 點 NPS。隨著我們繼續推動網絡改進和增強故障排除工具，我們還發現第一季度的服務訪問率同比下降了 15%。

In addition, technical troubleshooting call rates also decreased 15% year-over-year in Q1 as customers experienced fewer technical issues related to our devices and network. This reduction in transaction rates has a direct correlation on field, care and overall customer experience improvements. As I said last quarter, we are particularly committed to these initiatives as they will lead to both cost and growth optimization and will continue to drive CX improvements in everything that we do.

此外，由於客戶遇到的與我們的設備和網絡相關的技術問題減少，第一季度的技術故障排除呼叫率也同比下降了 15%。交易率的下降與現場、護理和整體客戶體驗的改善直接相關。正如我在上個季度所說，我們特別緻力於這些舉措，因為它們將導致成本和增長優化，並將繼續推動我們所做的一切的 CX 改進。

Second, our customer relationships. We have been deeply analyzing our go-to-market strategy to drive profitability, long-term customer value and customer growth. As I said earlier in my summary, I'm pleased that this week, we launched Optimum Complete. With Optimum Complete customers have access to our award-winning Optimum Internet plus Optimum Mobile services, delivering fast, fiber-rich internet and WiFi in the home and 5G nationwide wireless coverage on the go with 1 simple, transparent price point providing complete connectivity, simplicity, peace of mind and exceptional value.

第二，我們的客戶關係。我們一直在深入分析我們的上市戰略，以推動盈利能力、長期客戶價值和客戶增長。正如我之前在總結中所說，我很高興本週我們推出了 Optimum Complete。通過 Optimum Complete，客戶可以使用我們屢獲殊榮的 Optimum Internet 和 Optimum Mobile 服務，在家中提供快速、光纖豐富的互聯網和 WiFi，以及移動中的 5G 全國無線覆蓋，只需 1 個簡單、透明的價格點，提供完整的連接、簡單性，安心和非凡的價值。

But Optimum Complete is more than just an offer, there's a new value proposition to meet evolving customer needs by bringing them a full lineup of connectivity solutions through 1 provider. It marks a shift in how we position and communicate about our products and packages and will help us foster deeper relationships with our customers as they rely on us for all their connectivity needs and choose to stay with us for the long term.

但 Optimum Complete 不僅僅是一種產品，它還有一個新的價值主張，可以通過一家供應商為客戶提供全套連接解決方案，從而滿足不斷變化的客戶需求。它標誌著我們對產品和套餐的定位和溝通方式的轉變，並將幫助我們與客戶建立更深層次的關係，因為他們依賴我們來滿足他們所有的連接需求，並選擇長期與我們合作。

Given our increased investments over the last 12 to 18 months in better customer experience, enhanced network, expanded distribution channels and more progressive sales plans and 1 unified Optimum brand now is the right time to launch this offering and utilize our customer-facing channels to promote and market Optimum Complete without significant incremental investment. This is truly our greatest offer of all time, and you should see a lot of GOAT related marketing in the coming weeks to underline this point.

鑑於我們在過去 12 到 18 個月中增加了對更好的客戶體驗、增強的網絡、擴展的分銷渠道和更先進的銷售計劃以及 1 個統一的 Optimum 品牌的投資，現在是推出此產品並利用我們面向客戶的渠道來促進並在沒有顯著增量投資的情況下推銷 Optimum Complete。這確實是我們有史以來最大的優惠，您應該會在接下來的幾週內看到很多與 GOAT 相關的營銷活動來強調這一點。

Third is delivering the best network. As I noted in the summary, we had a best-in-class network expansion quarter given our strategic decision to expedite our build and investments in plants and network upgrades across our whole footprint to ensure every market we serve has reliable and quality broadband. Our network is our foundation, and we believe these investments will be a major catalyst for broadband and customer growth.

第三是提供最好的網絡。正如我在總結中指出的那樣，我們有一個一流的網絡擴展季度，因為我們的戰略決策是加快我們在整個足跡中的工廠建設和投資以及網絡升級，以確保我們服務的每個市場都擁有可靠和優質的寬帶。我們的網絡是我們的基礎，我們相信這些投資將成為寬帶和客戶增長的主要催化劑。

And finally, a moment on our people. We've made great strides in opening new feedback channels to give our employees the opportunity to share escalations and suggestions against our 4 pillars. Thanks to their feedback, we are enhancing our frontline tools and processes, driving deeper engagement and prioritizing communication to connect our people to our mission.

最後，花點時間談談我們的員工。我們在開闢新的反饋渠道方面取得了長足進步，讓我們的員工有機會分享針對我們 4 大支柱的升級和建議。由於他們的反饋，我們正在改進我們的一線工具和流程，推動更深入的參與並優先考慮溝通，以將我們的員工與我們的使命聯繫起來。

These changes are driving tangible improvements in our customer experience and helping us lay the foundation for sustainable growth. No one knows our customers and communities more than our people do, so employee engagement and employee experience continues to be a key focus area for us. Now I want to go into more detail on the network pillar of our strategy on Slide 5.

這些變化正在推動我們客戶體驗的切實改善，並幫助我們為可持續發展奠定基礎。沒有人比我們的員工更了解我們的客戶和社區，因此員工敬業度和員工體驗仍然是我們關注的重點領域。現在我想在幻燈片 5 上更詳細地介紹我們戰略的網絡支柱。

First, on the right-hand side, you can see we've executed on about 1/3 of our targeted new build network extensions in the first quarter with 48,000 additional passings. So we are well on track to hit 150,000 for the full year. This remains a great source of new customer growth as we consistently are reaching 40% plus penetration in the first year of marketing to new homes.

首先，在右側，您可以看到我們在第一季度執行了大約 1/3 的目標新構建網絡擴展，額外傳遞了 48,000 次。因此，我們有望在全年達到 150,000 人。這仍然是新客戶增長的重要來源，因為我們在新房營銷的第一年始終達到 40% 以上的滲透率。

With our fiber network, you can see on the left-hand side that we ended Q1 2023 with just under 2.4 million fiber passing, adding 214,000 in the quarter, which is up about 50% from the same period last year. We remain on track to deliver over 900,000 fiber passing this year and expect a meaningful pickup in incremental fiber passings next quarter.

通過我們的光纖網絡，您可以在左側看到我們在 2023 年第一季度結束時有近 240 萬光纖通過，本季度增加了 214,000，比去年同期增長了約 50%。我們仍有望在今年交付超過 900,000 根光纖，並預計下個季度光纖傳輸增量將出現有意義的回升。

We should add more than 321,000 we reached in the third quarter of last year. So our current pace of fiber construction is at record high levels. The majority of these fiber upgrades have been focused in Optimum East across the New York tri-state area given the competitive landscape and conditions. As noted last quarter, across our Optimum West footprint, we will continue to be more opportunistic about where we upgrade for fiber in the near term. Focusing on areas that give us the best return on investment as we have many levers to pull here to drive growth, including our new converged offer and speed increases through the network upgrades without an immediate need for fiber.

我們應該增加超過去年第三季度達到的 321,000。因此，我們目前的光纖建設速度處於歷史最高水平。考慮到競爭格局和條件，這些光纖升級中的大部分都集中在紐約三州地區的 Optimum East。正如上個季度所述，在我們的 Optimum West 足跡中，我們將繼續在短期內對光纖升級的地方更加投機。專注於能給我們帶來最佳投資回報的領域，因為我們有很多槓桿來推動增長，包括我們新的融合產品和通過網絡升級提高速度，而無需立即使用光纖。

Turning to Slide 6. I want to dive deeper into fiber. As our network construction engine works hard to deliver the upgrades and expansion that we just discussed, we are hyper-focused on commercializing and maximizing these investments to drive growth. As I said before, I'm a big believer that fiber is the best broadband technology for the long term, and that belief is reinforced by signs of performance benefits we've seen from fiber customers in Q1.

轉到幻燈片 6。我想更深入地研究光纖。由於我們的網絡建設引擎努力提供我們剛才討論的升級和擴展，我們非常專注於商業化和最大化這些投資以推動增長。正如我之前所說，我堅信光纖從長遠來看是最好的寬帶技術，而且我們在第一季度從光纖客戶那裡看到的性能優勢跡象進一步強化了這種信念。

For example, we are consistently seeing gross add ARPU for customers taking our fiber product about $10 to $15 higher compared to HFC, including 7% higher internet-only ARPU as of Q1, especially as new fiber customers are typically taking higher symmetric speed tiers right now.

例如，我們一直看到，與 HFC 相比，使用我們的光纖產品的客戶的總 ARPU 增加了約 10 到 15 美元，其中包括截至第一季度的純互聯網 ARPU 高出 7%，特別是因為新光纖客戶通常選擇更高的對稱速度層現在。

Tracking customer cohorts of the same tenure, we are now seeing over 10 percentage point improvement in customer stickiness or survivability in the first 12 months on fiber compared to HFC on an annualized basis, which translates to better churn rates across our fiber base.

跟踪相同任期的客戶群，我們現在發現，與 HFC 相比，光纖在前 12 個月的客戶粘性或生存能力提高了 10 個百分點以上，這意味著我們光纖基礎的客戶流失率更高。

Remember, last year, the improvement we were seeing here was about 5 percentage points annualized. So we're now over double this level. And even though our overall customer NPS scores are increasing as we improved the experience for all customers, it's important to call out that we're still seeing fiber broadband NPS about 50% higher than HFC. We have also seen a significant increase in fiber net additions to a record 38,000 in Q1, which is almost 4x higher than the same period last year as we're seeing both higher gross adds and migration. We have a lot of opportunity to extract value out of our network upgrades in a way we haven't in the past.

請記住，去年，我們在這裡看到的改進年率約為 5 個百分點。所以我們現在是這個水平的兩倍多。儘管隨著我們改善所有客戶的體驗，我們的整體客戶 NPS 得分在增加，但重要的是要指出，我們仍然看到光纖寬帶 NPS 比 HFC 高出約 50%。我們還看到第一季度的光纖淨增加量顯著增加，達到創紀錄的 38,000 根，比去年同期高出近 4 倍，因為我們看到總增加量和遷移量都增加了。我們有很多機會以過去從未有過的方式從網絡升級中提取價值。

And our growth, product, sales and marketing teams are working diligently so we can start to realize the benefits of our network investments and drive even faster fiber broadband growth. This includes long-term reduced network operations, customer operations and maintenance costs that will allow us to structurally reduce our OpEx and CapEx.

我們的增長、產品、銷售和營銷團隊正在努力工作，因此我們可以開始實現網絡投資的好處，並推動更快的光纖寬帶增長。這包括長期減少網絡運營、客戶運營和維護成本，這將使我們能夠從結構上減少運營支出和資本支出。

Recall, fiber is an all-passive network, and when you take out all the active pieces of equipment, which is normally where things may go wrong, with legacy networks, you end up with a much more reliable, resilient network service and a much better customer experience. which, for example, will lower the number of required technical service visits, calls into our call center, and help us significantly reduce churn.

回想一下，光纖是一個全無源網絡，當你去掉所有有源設備時，對於傳統網絡，這通常是出現問題的地方，你最終會得到一個更可靠、更有彈性的網絡服務和更多更好的客戶體驗。例如，這將減少所需的技術服務訪問次數、呼叫我們呼叫中心的次數，並幫助我們顯著減少客戶流失。

In the HFC world, we have about 750,000 active pieces of equipment, including nodes, amplifiers and other pieces of equipment. In our network, we need to upgrade almost all of them every time we want to increase frequency on the network to move to a new DOCSIS generation. In the fiber world, we will have less than 10,000 active pieces of equipment that need upgrading when we want to move to the next generation. So it's a lot more scalable and a lot more cost effective to maintain.

在 HFC 世界中，我們有大約 750,000 件活動設備，包括節點、放大器和其他設備。在我們的網絡中，每次我們想要增加網絡頻率以遷移到新一代 DOCSIS 時，我們都需要升級幾乎所有這些。在光纖世界中，只有不到 10,000 台現役設備需要升級才能升級到下一代。因此，它的可擴展性更高，維護成本更低。

On the left-hand side, you can see how we're bundling our fiber multi-gig Optimum Complete bundles with unlimited mobile with really attractive offers available to both new and existing customers.

在左側，您可以看到我們如何將我們的光纖多千兆 Optimum Complete 捆綁包與無限移動捆綁在一起，為新老客戶提供真正有吸引力的優惠。

Our approach is up tier customers to higher symmetrical Internet speeds and combine that in-home connectivity experience with mobile service positions us to take more share. In light of this new converged strategy, our focus is on driving improved average revenue per account and customer lifetime value rather than individual product ARPU. You can expect to see more on this in the quarters to come. We currently offer up to 5-gig symmetrical speeds across 65% of the Optimum East fiber footprint, where we are the fastest residential broadband operator.

我們的方法是讓上層客戶獲得更高的對稱互聯網速度，並將家庭連接體驗與移動服務相結合，使我們能夠獲得更多份額。鑑於這種新的融合戰略，我們的重點是推動提高每個賬戶的平均收入和客戶生命週期價值，而不是單個產品的 ARPU。您可以期待在接下來的幾個季度看到更多這方面的信息。目前，我們在 Optimum East 光纖足蹟的 65% 上提供高達 5 gig 的對稱速度，我們是最快的住宅寬帶運營商。

That's 5x faster than Fios across the majority of where we compete with them. But with this Optimum fiber network, we have tremendous runway. In the second half of this year, thanks to our recent accelerated investments, we will unveil 8-gig symmetrical speeds across 100% of the East fiber footprint. With this launch, we will leapfrog other broadband providers as we are expecting to have the widest availability of 8-gig symmetrical speeds in the country, cementing our position as by far the fastest residential broadband operator in our service area across the New York tri-state region.

在我們與之競爭的大多數地方，這比 Fios 快 5 倍。但是有了這個 Optimum 光纖網絡，我們就有了巨大的跑道。今年下半年，由於我們最近加速投資，我們將在 100% 的 East 光纖覆蓋範圍內推出 8 gig 對稱速度。通過這次發布，我們將超越其他寬帶提供商，因為我們期望在該國擁有最廣泛的 8-gig 對稱速度可用性，鞏固我們作為紐約三重服務區迄今為止最快的住宅寬帶運營商的地位。州地區。

This will give us a huge marketing advantage, and we're positioning ourselves to be at the forefront of technological innovation for many years to come. This again demonstrates the power of the XGS-PON fiber network that we've built, as it's very easy for us to step up the highest speed tier like this without a huge incremental capital spend. I was just in Portugal last week with our Altice Europe partners, and I can tell you that we're already significantly advanced in our plan to take this to a 25GS-PON network that can offer 25-gig symmetrical speeds as soon as the equipment is commercially practicable.

這將給我們帶來巨大的營銷優勢，我們將自己定位為在未來許多年內處於技術創新的前沿。這再次證明了我們構建的 XGS-PON 光纖網絡的強大功能，因為我們很容易像這樣升級到最高速層級，而無需增加大量的資本支出。上週我剛剛和我們的 Altice Europe 合作夥伴在葡萄牙，我可以告訴你，我們的計劃已經取得了顯著進展，將其引入 25GS-PON 網絡，該網絡一旦設備可用就可以提供 25-gig 對稱速度是商業上可行的。

This is our current 25-gig plan, which will deliver true fiber 25 gig speeds both on the upstream and downstream once again highlighting the superiority of our fiber network. We have a 50-gig and 100-gig plan we're working on as well via channel bonding and using time and wavelength division multiplexing with the critical point being that we can very easily leverage our existing fiber network infrastructure that we're building today. So it's really future-proofed. And really scalable in a way that legacy network technologies are not, but I'll save that for a later date.

這是我們目前的 25-gig 計劃，它將在上游和下游提供真正的光纖 25 gig 速度，再次凸顯我們光纖網絡的優勢。我們有一個 50-gig 和 100-gig 計劃，我們正在通過通道綁定以及使用時分和波分複用進行工作，關鍵是我們可以非常輕鬆地利用我們今天正在構建的現有光纖網絡基礎設施.所以它真的是面向未來的。並且以傳統網絡技術所不具備的方式真正可擴展，但我會把它留到以後再說。

Looking ahead, we have a long runway to extend our market leadership in delivering the best network and a truly differentiated and reliable broadband service.

展望未來，我們還有很長的路要走，以擴大我們在提供最佳網絡和真正差異化且可靠的寬帶服務方面的市場領導地位。

Turning to Slide 7. In Q1, we reported a total customer broadband net loss of 19,000 and residential broadband losses were also 19,000. Note this number and the charts here includes our SMB broadband customer adds, which were flat in Q1.

轉到幻燈片 7。在第一季度，我們報告的客戶寬帶淨損失總數為 19,000，住宅寬帶損失也為 19,000。請注意這個數字，這裡的圖表包括我們的 SMB 寬帶客戶增加，這在第一季度持平。

I want to note that going forward on earnings, we will combine Residential and SMB in our headline figures as I see opportunity to drive penetration across our entire network, not just on the residential side. Our fiber network and MVNO relationship are also extremely valuable marketing tools in the SMB market, and I want to use this much more to deliver better customer trends in aggregate.

我想指出，在收益方面，我們將在我們的標題數據中結合住宅和 SMB，因為我看到有機會推動我們整個網絡的滲透，而不僅僅是在住宅方面。我們的光纖網絡和 MVNO 關係也是 SMB 市場中非常有價值的營銷工具，我想更多地利用它來總體上提供更好的客戶趨勢。

We see B2B as a significant opportunity for us with more disciplined execution. That's an area where we are dedicating more management attention by expanding the product portfolio, leveraging best practices across both our SMB and Lightpath businesses and enhancing our mid-market and enterprise business in the West. But to summarize on overall trends similar to the last quarter and in line with our peers, we continue to be impacted by relatively low market activity with moves declining further given the rate environment and current housing market conditions.

我們認為 B2B 對我們來說是一個更嚴格執行的重要機會。這是我們通過擴展產品組合、利用 SMB 和 Lightpath 業務的最佳實踐以及增強我們在西方的中端市場和企業業務來投入更多管理注意力的領域。但總結與上一季度相似並與我們的同行一致的總體趨勢，我們繼續受到相對較低的市場活動的影響，考慮到利率環境和當前的房地產市場狀況，市場活動進一步下降。

Despite this in the broader competitive environment, which is unchanged with continued pressure from both fixed wireless and competitive fiber operators, our subscriber trends were generally in line with Q4 when excluding the 9,000 benefit from the NYCHA program last quarter. However, we did see a bit of an uptick in non-paid churn in the quarter, which we attribute to macro-related factors, which suggests that our underlying threads are improving more than this comparison to Q4's just.

儘管在更廣泛的競爭環境中，固定無線和競爭性光纖運營商的持續壓力並沒有改變，但我們的用戶趨勢在排除上個季度 NYCHA 計劃的 9,000 人福利後，與第四季度基本一致。然而，我們確實看到本季度非付費客戶流失率有所上升，我們將其歸因於宏觀相關因素，這表明我們的基礎線程比第四季度的改善要多。

And when we look at how we fared versus our cable peers compared to Q1 last year, we also take some comfort that we're doing relatively well given the additional macro headwinds and seeing more benefits from our recent investments than maybe the headline numbers imply on first look. I want to remind you that Q2 is normally seasonally weaker for broadband trends because of our college town exposure in the West. But when we get past this, I remain optimistic that we'll be able to show you a more meaningful improvement in our customer trends given all of the positive forward indicators we're seeing right now.

當我們查看與去年第一季度相比我們與有線電視同行的表現時，我們也感到欣慰的是，考慮到額外的宏觀逆風，我們做得相對較好，而且我們最近的投資帶來的好處可能比標題數字所暗示的更多第一眼。我想提醒您，由於我們在西部大學城的曝光度，第二季度寬帶趨勢通常季節性較弱。但是當我們克服這個問題時，我仍然樂觀地認為，鑑於我們現在看到的所有積極的前瞻性指標，我們將能夠向您展示我們的客戶趨勢的更有意義的改進。

Finally, on the right side of the slide, we highlighted our accelerated Mobile line net adds of 8,000 in the quarter on a reported basis, ending Q1 with 248,000 mobile lines. However, if we adjust for the loss of some free 1-gigabyte customers who are rolling off after the promotion we ran last year, Recall that we disclosed, we added about 36,000 of these free customers in the first quarter and second quarters of last year, our mobile net adds would have been 15,000 in Q1. So you can see the underlying growth of paying customers is accelerating. Going forward, I will be focusing on the paying mobile customer trends and how we use mobile as a tool to reduce broadband churn as this is what is going to have the biggest impact.

最後，在幻燈片的右側，我們強調了我們在報告的基礎上在本季度加速移動線路淨增 8,000 條，第一季度結束時移動線路達到 248,000 條。但是，如果我們調整一些在去年推出促銷活動後流失的免費 1 GB 客戶的損失，回想一下我們披露的情況，我們在去年第一季度和第二季度增加了大約 36,000 個這些免費客戶，我們的移動網絡在第一季度增加了 15,000。所以你可以看到付費客戶的潛在增長正在加速。展望未來，我將重點關注付費移動客戶趨勢以及我們如何使用移動作為減少寬帶流失的工具，因為這將產生最大的影響。

And although we are having some success now in converting some legacy customers to paying status, our promotional focus now is going to be around Optimum Complete, as we expect this new value proposition will help us accelerate mobile growth by driving stickiness and greater customer lifetime value. Before turning it to Marc to walk you through our financials in more detail, let me close by saying that I remain optimistic and encouraged by the trends that we're seeing and the work being done by our teams against our 4 key strategic pillars.

儘管我們現在在將一些老客戶轉變為付費客戶方面取得了一些成功，但我們現在的促銷重點將圍繞 Optimum Complete 展開，因為我們預計這一新的價值主張將通過推動粘性和更高的客戶生命週期價值來幫助我們加速移動增長.在轉向馬克更詳細地向您介紹我們的財務狀況之前，讓我結束時說，我對我們所看到的趨勢以及我們的團隊針對我們的 4 個關鍵戰略支柱所做的工作保持樂觀和鼓舞。

By continuing to drive disciplined execution centered around the best network, best customer experience, best customers and best people, we will return to long-term sustainable customer revenue and free cash flow growth.

通過繼續推動以最佳網絡、最佳客戶體驗、最佳客戶和最佳人才為中心的嚴格執行，我們將恢復長期可持續的客戶收入和自由現金流增長。

With that, I'll hand it over to Marc to walk you through our financials in more detail.

有了這個，我會把它交給馬克，讓你更詳細地了解我們的財務狀況。

Thank you, Dennis. It's a pleasure to be here this afternoon for my first earnings call as CFO of Altice USA. I look forward to getting to know you all more in the days and weeks to come. Let me begin with a financial overview on Slide 9. Total reported revenue in Q1 declined 5.3% year-over-year, driven by declines in Residential and News and Advertising. Residential revenue was down 5.6% year-over-year, mainly driven by the impact of the cumulative video and broadband subscriber losses we've seen over the last year.

謝謝你，丹尼斯。很高興今天下午來到這裡參加我作為 Altice USA 首席財務官的第一次財報電話會議。我期待在接下來的幾天和幾週內能更多地了解你們。讓我從幻燈片 9 的財務概覽開始。第一季度報告的總收入同比下降 5.3%，這是受住宅、新聞和廣告收入下降的推動。住宅收入同比下降 5.6%，這主要是受到我們在去年看到的累積視頻和寬帶用戶流失的影響。

As Dennis highlighted, we are focused returning to broadband customer growth with our new Optimum Complete converged bundles. We believe we are striking the right balance between volume and rate. Business Services revenues declined 1.1% year-over-year, although excluding about $3 million in onetime Sprint early termination fees from the prior year in the Lightpath business, this would have been closer to flat.

正如丹尼斯強調的那樣，我們專注於通過我們新的 Optimum Complete 融合捆綁包恢復寬帶客戶增長。我們相信我們正在數量和利率之間取得適當的平衡。商業服務收入同比下降 1.1%，儘管不包括前一年 Lightpath 業務中約 300 萬美元的一次性 Sprint 提前終止費用，這將接近持平。

Our SMB division, excluding enterprise and carrier revenue was flat year-over-year on a flat customer and ARPU growth. But as Dennis mentioned earlier, we are heavily focused on accelerating growth here. News and Advertising was down 13.9% year-over-year in Q1 or down 11%, excluding political revenue. We are seeing some overall softness in the advertising market and less political spend. But on top of this, remember, this time last year, we saw strong growth in gaming revenue tied to legalization in New York, which has slowed down. We've also seen less COVID-related spend in the Healthcare segment.

由於客戶和 ARPU 增長持平，我們的 SMB 部門（不包括企業和運營商收入）同比持平。但正如丹尼斯之前提到的，我們非常專注於加速這裡的增長。新聞和廣告在第一季度同比下降 13.9% 或下降 11%，不包括政治收入。我們看到廣告市場整體疲軟，政治支出減少。但除此之外，請記住，去年這個時候，我們看到與紐約合法化相關的博彩收入強勁增長，但這種增長已經放緩。我們還看到醫療保健領域與 COVID 相關的支出有所減少。

Now turning to Slide 10. Our cash CapEx was up approximately 47% year-over-year at $583 million in Q1, mainly driven by increased investments in fiber upgrades and new builds as we really stepped on the gas here since Dennis joined to try and bring forward the customer benefits. We are reiterating our guidance for a range of between $1.7 billion and $1.8 billion of cash CapEx for 2023, but it will clearly be more front-end loaded this year as we've had fewer delays in our fiber and new build construction plans than we typically see during the first quarter due to favorable weather.

現在轉到幻燈片 10。我們的現金資本支出在第一季度同比增長約 47%，達到 5.83 億美元，這主要是由於對光纖升級和新建項目的投資增加，因為自從丹尼斯加入嘗試和帶來客戶利益。我們重申我們對 2023 年現金資本支出範圍在 17 億美元至 18 億美元之間的指導意見，但今年顯然會有更多的前端負載，因為我們的光纖和新建築建設計劃的延誤比我們少由於天氣有利，通常會在第一季度出現。

Without fiber and new builds, capital intensity would have been about 14% of revenue. More broadly, if you include B2B and customer premise equipment, our total growth capital represented about 72% of total CapEx. I wanted to just show you a breakout of CapEx categories here. And as you can see, it's predominantly growth in expansion-related capital that drives the recent increases, as well as a higher network infrastructure spend on the HFC side as we look to complete our DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade of the West footprint. We've invested to upgrade an incremental 50,000 passings in the West to DOCSIS 3.1 in the fourth quarter, reaching 86% of this footprint.

如果沒有光纖和新建，資本密集度將佔收入的 14% 左右。更廣泛地說，如果包括 B2B 和客戶端設備，我們的總增長資本約佔總資本支出的 72%。我只想在這裡向您展示資本支出類別的突破。正如您所看到的，推動近期增長的主要是與擴張相關的資本增長，以及在我們希望完成西部足蹟的 DOCSIS 3.1 升級時 HFC 方面更高的網絡基礎設施支出。我們已投資在第四季度將西部的 50,000 次遞增通行證升級到 DOCSIS 3.1，達到這一足蹟的 86%。

So we are on track for about 200,000 DOCSIS upgrades this year to strengthen the network everywhere we can to compete more effectively and win back share. Recall, we are already 100% upgraded to DOCSIS 3.1 in the East. So our focus here is on fiber upgrades. We've also seen a step-up in Lightpath CapEx within the Business Services segment as we're building out in Miami and Boston from which we should see a greater revenue benefit next year. As a reminder, the fiber build we're targeting for this year will include more MDUs in the East and more [R-Pod] conversions in the West at a lower cost per passing.

因此，我們有望在今年進行約 200,000 次 DOCSIS 升級，以加強我們所有可能的網絡，以更有效地競爭並贏回市場份額。回想一下，我們在東方已經100%升級到DOCSIS 3.1。所以我們這裡的重點是光纖升級。我們還看到，隨著我們在邁阿密和波士頓的建設，我們在商業服務部門的 Lightpath 資本支出有所增加，明年我們應該會從中看到更大的收入收益。提醒一下，我們今年的目標光纖建設將包括東部的更多 MDU 和西部的更多 [R-Pod] 轉換，每次通過的成本更低。

So while we expect to add similar numbers of new fiber homes in 2023, as we did in 2022, our full year CapEx still will come down below 2022 levels. Slide 11 shows a bridge of free cash flow for the first quarter. In alignment with goals that Dennis mentioned earlier, our focus is returning to consistent customer revenue and free cash flow growth that will enable us to return to our targeted leverage levels. Free cash flow for the quarter was negative $166 million due principally to higher CapEx spending in the quarter and the working capital outflow related to higher crude capital in the prior quarter.

因此，儘管我們預計 2023 年會像 2022 年那樣增加類似數量的新光纖家庭，但我們全年的資本支出仍將低於 2022 年的水平。幻燈片 11 顯示了第一季度自由現金流的橋樑。與丹尼斯之前提到的目標一致，我們的重點是恢復穩定的客戶收入和自由現金流增長，這將使我們能夠恢復到目標槓桿水平。本季度的自由現金流為負 1.66 億美元，這主要是由於本季度資本支出增加以及與上一季度原油資本增加相關的營運資金流出。

However, I want to reiterate that we expect positive free cash flow for the full year anticipating much stronger performance in the second half. To be more specific, the increased spend in capital is timing-related, and we expect it will continue to decline throughout 2023. I want to emphasize that this is a peak in CapEx for us in the year and not a new run rate. Without the additional $200 million of fiber CapEx in the first quarter, free cash flow would have been positive $34 million. We do view the overall fiber build as a fixed time-based spend. And clearly, when we get to the end of this upgrade program, we could realize significant overall savings.

但是，我想重申，我們預計全年的自由現金流為正，預計下半年會有更強勁的表現。更具體地說，資本支出的增加與時間有關，我們預計它將在整個 2023 年繼續下降。我想強調的是，這是我們今年資本支出的峰值，而不是新的運行率。如果第一季度沒有額外的 2 億美元光纖資本支出，自由現金流將達到 3400 萬美元。我們確實將整體光纖構建視為基於固定時間的支出。很明顯，當我們完成此升級計劃時，我們可以實現顯著的整體節省。

Not just from reduced plant build costs, but we expect plant maintenance and legacy HFC capacity investments to drop significantly. Second, I want to also remind you typically the first quarter is seasonally our lowest quarter for EBITDA, given programming step-ups at the beginning of the year before we pass through any related rate increases, but this will step up through the year as CapEx steps down. In the first quarter, we're also annualizing all of the additional growth in customer experience OpEx investments we made last year.

不僅僅是因為降低了工廠建設成本，而且我們預計工廠維護和遺留 HFC 產能投資將大幅下降。其次，我還想提醒您，通常第一季度是我們 EBITDA 的季節性最低季度，因為在我們通過任何相關的利率增長之前，我們會在年初進行編程升級，但這將在今年逐步增加，因為資本支出下台。在第一季度，我們還將對我們去年進行的客戶體驗運營支出投資的所有額外增長進行年度化。

So the year-over-year trends should also improve as we go throughout the year. Lastly, we're heavily focused on OpEx control right now and removing transactional volumes, as Dennis discussed earlier. To that end, we've already taken down run rate spend from the fourth quarter levels, which is a good start, and we should expect those trends to continue throughout the year. Separately, it's worth noting our cash interest costs are up year-over-year with recent rate increases in refinancing activities, but we should see some stabilization now around this level.

因此，隨著我們全年的發展，同比趨勢也應該有所改善。最後，正如丹尼斯之前討論的那樣，我們現在非常關注 OpEx 控制和刪除交易量。為此，我們已經從第四季度的水平上降低了運行率支出，這是一個良好的開端，我們應該預計這些趨勢將在全年持續。另外，值得注意的是，隨著最近再融資活動利率的上升，我們的現金利息成本同比上升，但我們現在應該看到在這個水平附近有所穩定。

Finally, Slide 12 is an update of our debt maturity profile pro forma for recent refinancing activities. Last week, we successfully closed the issuance of a new $1 billion senior guarantee note due May 2028 issued at CSC Holdings. With the proceeds, we have temporarily repaid outstanding borrowings drawn under our revolving credit facility, but our intention is to use the additional liquidity to help cover the senior notes we have maturing in 2024 Since they are non-callable today. Recall in December, we successfully extended the maturity of approximately $2 billion or 50% of our shorter-dated term loans to 2028 within an incremental Term Loan B-6.

最後，幻燈片 12 更新了我們近期再融資活動的債務到期概況備考。上週，我們成功完成了在 CSC Holdings 發行的新的 2028 年 5 月到期的 10 億美元高級擔保票據的發行。有了這些收益，我們暫時償還了循環信貸額度下的未償還借款，但我們打算使用額外的流動性來幫助支付我們將於 2024 年到期的優先票據，因為它們今天不可贖回。回想一下 12 月，我們在增量定期貸款 B-6 中成功地將約 20 億美元或我們短期貸款的 50% 的期限延長至 2028 年。

Pro forma for this $1 billion guaranteed notes offering, we will have sufficient liquidity to address the 2024 maturity and together with expected future free cash flow generation, we'll be in a strong position to manage the remainder of the '25 and '26 maturities. Pro forma for this recent transaction, net leverage remains unchanged. The weighted average life of our debt pro forma for this transaction will be 5.5 years since the revolving credit facility balance has been reduced, although this will increase once we repay the '24 notes. As we again demonstrated recently, we will continue to proactively manage our debt maturity profile.

對於這次 10 億美元的擔保票據發行，我們將有足夠的流動性來解決 2024 年到期的問題，加上預期的未來自由現金流產生，我們將處於有利地位來管理 25 年和 26 年到期的剩餘債券.對於最近的交易，淨槓桿率保持不變。自循環信貸額度餘額減少以來，我們此次交易的債務備考加權平均期限為 5.5 年，不過一旦我們償還 24 年的票據，該期限將會延長。正如我們最近再次展示的那樣，我們將繼續積極管理我們的債務到期狀況。

And with that, we will now take any questions.

有了這個，我們現在將回答任何問題。

(Operator Instructions) Our first questions come from the line of Phil Cusick with JPMorgan.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自摩根大通的 Phil Cusick。

A few on the same theme. Dennis, you said your goal is to meaningfully accelerate fiber growth and penetration to return to overall revenue and growth. When do you expect to get there? Can this business return to subscriber growth by year-end? Also, how do you expect seasonality this year? I think you mentioned some of your 2Q challenges in terms of colleges. And then finally, if you can talk about the sales initiatives you've implemented in the last few months since you got there and the potential timing of the impact from those.

幾個相同的主題。丹尼斯，你說你的目標是有意義地加速纖維的增長和滲透，以恢復整體收入和增長。你預計什麼時候到達那裡？該業務能否在年底前恢復用戶增長？另外，您如何看待今年的季節性？我想你提到了你在大學方面的一些 2Q 挑戰。最後，如果你能談談你在過去幾個月裡實施的銷售計劃，以及這些計劃產生影響的潛在時間。

Phil, thank you for your questions. I remain very optimistic that we are going to continue to see improvements in the business. We're heading in the right direction. As I look at the underlying trends, we continue to see improvements in terms of year-over-year reductions in key operational metrics like call-in rate, 15% less year-over-year; service visit rate, 15% less year-over-year; our NPS year-over-year, up by 24 points, and so that's why I am optimistic that we are laying the right foundation to ultimately get us to subscriber growth. And then as I look at the fiber trends, in particular, and I see that our ARPU trends are $10 to $15 ahead of HFC as I look at churn, 10 points better.

菲爾，謝謝你的提問。我仍然非常樂觀地認為我們將繼續看到業務的改善。我們正朝著正確的方向前進。當我審視潛在趨勢時，我們繼續看到關鍵運營指標（如呼入率）同比下降 15% 的情況有所改善；服務訪問率，同比下降15%；我們的 NPS 同比增長 24 個百分點，這就是為什麼我樂觀地認為我們正在為最終實現用戶增長奠定正確的基礎。然後，當我特別關注光纖趨勢時，我發現我們的 ARPU 趨勢比 HFC 領先 10 到 15 美元，因為我看客戶流失率高 10 個百分點。

And I'll also call out the West. Our tactics in the West are working. The last 3 out of 5 months, we have been positive broadband. And so I remain very optimistic that we have made the right investments. We've increased our door-to-door channels -- channel. We've continued to expand retail, and we're seeing strong output from these channels. We've also been very focused on driving performance in these channels. Our call center, for example, we've improved yield by 20% in the first quarter. And so we are still laying the foundation. We are still driving execution discipline, which is going to help us achieve ultimately growth.

我也會呼籲西方。我們在西方的策略正在奏效。過去 5 個月中的 3 個月，我們一直在積極使用寬帶。因此，我仍然非常樂觀地認為我們進行了正確的投資。我們增加了上門渠道——渠道。我們繼續擴大零售，我們看到這些渠道的強勁產出。我們也一直非常專注於推動這些渠道的績效。例如，我們的呼叫中心在第一季度將收益率提高了 20%。所以我們還在打基礎。我們仍在推動執行紀律，這將幫助我們最終實現增長。

But I don't want to speculate on exact timing at this right now, but I do expect seasonally lower Q2. I think it will be better than historic seasonality, but there is going to be a bit of a seasonally lower Q2.

但我現在不想推測具體時間，但我確實預計第二季度季節性下降。我認為這會好於歷史性的季節性，但第二季度的季節性會有所下降。

You asked about the sales initiatives. Our #1 initiative is Optimum Complete. We launched that on Monday, and we're already seeing the benefits. We had 2 of our best days selling mobile on Monday and Tuesday. And so that is all pointing in the right direction.

您詢問了銷售計劃。我們的 #1 計劃是 Optimum Complete。我們在周一推出了它，我們已經看到了好處。週一和周二是手機銷售最好的兩天。所以這一切都指向正確的方向。

Our next questions come from the line of Brett Feldman with Goldman Sachs.

我們的下一個問題來自 Brett Feldman 與 Goldman Sachs 的對話。

Obviously, we've seen your other cable peers have a lot of success with their converged offers. So it may seem like a bit of a naive question, but what gives you confidence that leading with the converged offer is what the market wants and that the incremental customer really is most likely to gravitate towards someone who can give them multiple services as opposed to maybe just a much better deal on broadband?

顯然，我們已經看到您的其他有線同行在融合服務方面取得了很大成功。因此，這似乎是一個有點幼稚的問題，但是是什麼讓您相信以融合產品為主導是市場所需要的，而增量客戶真正最有可能被能夠為他們提供多種服務的人所吸引，而不是也許只是在寬帶上有更好的交易？

And then as investors and analysts, what are we going to be monitoring to see that Optimum Complete is having the desired impact on your financials. Are we mostly looking to see an improvement in broadband subscriber trends? Or are there other metrics that may stand out sooner than that?

然後作為投資者和分析師，我們將監控什麼以確保 Optimum Complete 對您的財務狀況產生預期的影響。我們主要是希望看到寬帶用戶趨勢有所改善嗎？還是有其他指標可能比這更早脫穎而出？

Brett, thank you for the question. I'm confident that the market is looking for converged offers because we asked the market. We did the consumer research, and we found that customers are looking for converged offers, simple, transparent pricing, and we are providing that to our customers. We have the power of our fixed network, fiber and DOCSIS and then we have the power of our MVNO relationship with T-Mo that gives us the largest 5G network. And we're seeing it. I mean it's early days, and so I can't give you too much detailed information. But even before the Optimum Complete, as you can see, we started to see improvements in our mobile trends even in Q1.

布雷特，謝謝你的提問。我相信市場正在尋找融合的報價，因為我們詢問了市場。我們進行了消費者研究，發現客戶正在尋找融合的產品、簡單、透明的定價，而我們正在為客戶提供這些。我們擁有固定網絡、光纖和 DOCSIS 的力量，然後我們擁有與 T-Mo 的 MVNO 關係的力量，這為我們提供了最大的 5G 網絡。我們正在看到它。我的意思是現在還很早，所以我不能給你太多詳細的信息。但即使在 Optimum Complete 之前，正如您所見，我們甚至在第一季度就開始看到我們的移動趨勢有所改善。

And that was just by sheer discipline and focus of presenting broadband and mobile together in our sales channels and starting to get that muscle flexing. And now with Optimum Complete, we have not just -- we have now the marketing, the offers, the sales channels, and a simple, transparent pricing strategy for our customers. And so our focus going forward is household ARPU.

而這僅僅是通過在我們的銷售渠道中同時展示寬帶和移動並開始展示肌肉的純粹紀律和重點。現在有了 Optimum Complete，我們不僅擁有營銷、報價、銷售渠道，還為我們的客戶提供了簡單、透明的定價策略。因此，我們未來的重點是家庭 ARPU。

We are going to be driving household ARPU. And I know there's lots of questions on broadband ARPU, but our focus is household ARPU and then driving profitability, leveraging the new customer lifetime value model that we're implementing that will allow us to manage the base much more effectively going forward so that we can drive upsell of faster speeds so that we can sell in mobile so that we can ensure that the highest value customers are getting offers that are specific to them so that we can move them up the chain and fill out the product portfolio in their homes. And so that is kind of some of the metrics that you should be looking for, and that's our desired impact.

我們將推動家庭 ARPU。我知道寬帶 ARPU 有很多問題，但我們的重點是家庭 ARPU，然後提高盈利能力，利用我們正在實施的新客戶終身價值模型，這將使我們能夠更有效地管理基礎，以便我們可以推動更快的追加銷售，這樣我們就可以在移動設備上銷售，這樣我們就可以確保最高價值的客戶得到針對他們的優惠，這樣我們就可以將他們提升到鏈條的頂端，並在他們的家中填寫產品組合。因此，這是您應該尋找的一些指標，這就是我們想要的影響。

Our next questions come from the line of Craig Moffett with MoffettNathanson.

我們的下一個問題來自 Craig Moffett 和 MoffettNathanson 的對話。

I'll stay with the topic that Brett raised, which is pricing. So your Optimum Complete pricing does seem much more competitive for the bundle. But -- the -- your pricing for stand-alone broadband in particular, especially in year 2 and beyond is still quite high relative to competitors. Is there a scenario where you bring ARPU down faster or it looks like ARPU -- broadband ARPU is coming down about 0.5%. Is that fast enough to sort of really reverse the competitiveness of your what is actually a pretty good broadband product for customers that aren't ready for the bundle or for that large base of customers who are still stand-alone.

我將繼續討論 Brett 提出的主題，即定價。因此，您的 Optimum Complete 定價對於捆綁包而言確實更具競爭力。但是 - 特別是 - 您對獨立寬帶的定價，尤其是在第 2 年及以後，相對於競爭對手來說仍然相當高。是否存在這樣一種情況，您可以更快地降低 ARPU 或看起來像 ARPU——寬帶 ARPU 下降了大約 0.5%。對於還沒有準備好捆綁的客戶或仍然獨立的大量客戶來說，這種速度是否足以真正扭轉您實際上是一個非常好的寬帶產品的競爭力。

Craig, thank you so much for the question. I am very confident that we will be able to compete effectively and drive growth. We have the best network with the best products and services. We're investing in quality, we are investing to have the best go-to-market strategy and sales channels, in particular, to drive performance.

克雷格，非常感謝你提出這個問題。我非常有信心，我們將能夠有效競爭並推動增長。我們擁有最好的網絡，提供最好的產品和服務。我們正在投資於質量，我們正在投資以擁有最佳的上市戰略和銷售渠道，特別是為了推動業績。

We're investing in the best customer service. As I've mentioned previously, we're leaning into digital. We're leaning into communicating and providing simple tools for our customers. And now we have the best packaging and value propositions and leveraging some of the new tools that we're implementing with customer lifetime value, we are laser-focused on improving average revenue per account and that will allow us to continue to grow and be competitive. And so I do believe that we have the tools that we need to drive growth, and we're starting to see that in the core business.

我們正在投資最好的客戶服務。正如我之前提到的，我們正傾向於數字化。我們傾向於為我們的客戶溝通和提供簡單的工具。現在我們擁有最好的包裝和價值主張，並利用我們正在實施的一些與客戶終身價值相關的新工具，我們專注於提高每個客戶的平均收入，這將使我們能夠繼續發展並保持競爭力.因此，我確實相信我們擁有推動增長所需的工具，並且我們開始在核心業務中看到這一點。

Our next question comes from the line of Doug Mitchelson with Credit Suisse.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞士信貸的 Doug Mitchelson。

I was hoping for a clarification on the fiber ARPU, the $10 improvement over non-fiber, is that just the new customer cohort or does that include the migrations into fiber? I just want to make sure we don't have a selection bias [so really just] want to understand if there is or isn't. And then -- on the wireless strategy, you'll correct me if I'm wrong, the base tier, the $45 offer is for a metered line and I think you've got availability where you have symmetrical fiber, but maybe less so in the HFC areas. Can you just clarify for me the strategy around the wireless bundling and how broad it is? Is it fiber-focused? And is it a mix of metered and unlimited? And what's the thought process there?

我希望澄清光纖 ARPU，比非光纖提高 10 美元，這只是新客戶群體還是包括遷移到光纖？我只是想確保我們沒有選擇偏見 [所以真的只是] 想了解是否存在。然後——關於無線策略，如果我錯了，你會糾正我，基本層，45 美元的報價是針對計量線路的，我認為你在有對稱光纖的地方有可用性，但可能更少在 HFC 領域。你能為我澄清一下無線捆綁的策略及其範圍嗎？它是纖維聚焦的嗎？它是計量和無限的混合嗎？那裡的思維過程是什麼？

Doug, thanks for the question. On your first item, the $10 to $15 increase is for new gross add fiber connects. And so that is a new gross add number. Our number historically or in the last quarter has been about 50% gross adds and 50% migrations. And so we're going to continue to lean into our fiber go-to-market as we go forward. We're going to be leaning into our -- not just our gross add strategy, but also focusing on the base and driving migrations there.

道格，謝謝你的提問。在您的第一個項目中，增加 10 到 15 美元用於新增總光纖連接。所以這是一個新的總增加數。我們歷史上或上個季度的數字約為 50% 的總添加量和 50% 的遷移量。因此，在我們前進的過程中，我們將繼續專注於我們的光纖上市。我們將傾向於我們的 - 不僅僅是我們的總增加戰略，而且還將關注基礎並推動那裡的遷移。

And so that goes back to the CLV model and making sure that we have a disciplined approach of managing the base and getting them on to our fastest speeds where fiber is available. I'll pass it over to Marc to talk a little bit more about the bundles.

因此，這又回到了 CLV 模型，並確保我們有一種規範的方法來管理基地，並讓他們在光纖可用的地方以我們最快的速度運行。我會把它轉交給馬克，讓他多談談捆綁包。

Just on the fiber ARPU around the migrations versus new customers, we are seeing when customers do migrate, we're seeing significant lift upwards of $30 per transaction. And then in retention, we're actually seeing less dilution out of the retention transaction tied to fiber. And Den, do you want to take the wireless...

就圍繞遷移與新客戶的光纖 ARPU 而言，我們看到當客戶確實遷移時，我們看到每筆交易顯著提高 30 美元以上。然後在保留方面，我們實際上看到與光纖相關的保留交易的稀釋較少。還有 Den，你想帶無線...

And the bundle is -- the Optimum Complete is offered across the footprint, both in fiber -- across the Optimum East, fiber and non-fiber and across the entire West. And we do have various options across depending on how many lines that you take.

捆綁包是——Optimum Complete 的覆蓋範圍包括光纖——Optimum East、光纖和非光纖以及整個西部。我們確實有多種選擇，具體取決於您乘坐的線路數量。

This comes from the line of John Hodulik with UBS.

這來自 John Hodulik 與 UBS 的合作。

Great. I just want to follow up on some of the comments Marc had at the end of the prepared remarks. Just you guys have had -- it looks like about 3 quarters of EBITDA declines in the sort of 12% range. But it sounds like you guys think that, that gets better as we move through the year. If you could sort of sort of pull out the drivers of that?

偉大的。我只想跟進馬克在準備好的發言結束時發表的一些評論。就你們而言——看起來大約有 3 個季度的 EBITDA 下降了 12% 左右。但聽起來你們認為，隨著我們這一年的推移，情況會變得更好。如果你能把它的驅動程序拿出來？

I think you said that you get a one-time -- you get a step up in your programming cost. There are some other issues, maybe some costs coming out. But if you could help us quantify how big of an improvement do you think we get as we move through the year and maybe where we exit the year in terms of EBITDA declines, that would be helpful.

我想你說過你得到一次性的——你的編程成本增加了。還有一些其他問題，也許會產生一些成本。但是，如果你能幫助我們量化你認為我們在這一年中取得了多大的進步，以及我們在 EBITDA 下降方面可能在今年結束的地方，那將是有幫助的。

Thanks, John. We won't get specific as far as exact numbers as far as where we think we'll land the full year. But as we've previously mentioned, certainly, prior year subscriber losses will continue to weigh on current year results. And we're optimistic about the improvements we've made, but we still don't want to commit to a specific number around EBITDA growth.

謝謝，約翰。至於我們認為全年將達到的確切數字，我們不會給出具體的數字。但正如我們之前提到的，當然，前一年的用戶流失將繼續影響今年的業績。我們對我們所做的改進感到樂觀，但我們仍然不想承諾 EBITDA 增長的具體數字。

I will say that we are very confident now though, we have the new team in place. We've launched Optimum Complete. As you heard, we have the best fiber network in the business and the accelerating trends in CX and OpEx mix just gives us really strong confidence that we have a path to improve EBITDA in the second half of the year compared to the first half.

我會說我們現在非常有信心，我們有新的團隊。我們推出了 Optimum Complete。正如您所聽到的，我們擁有業內最好的光纖網絡，CX 和 OpEx 組合的加速趨勢讓我們非常有信心，與上半年相比，我們有辦法在今年下半年改善 EBITDA。

I mean the only other thing I'll add, John, is that Q1 was the first quarter where we had a step down in OpEx sequentially since the pandemic. And so we do think that we are heading -- we've stabilized OpEx, and we're heading in the right direction.

我的意思是，約翰，我要補充的唯一一件事是，第一季度是自大流行以來我們在 OpEx 連續下降的第一季度。因此，我們確實認為我們正在前進——我們已經穩定了 OpEx，並且我們正朝著正確的方向前進。

Can that sequential decline in OpEx continue, Marc?

馬克，運營支出的連續下降能否繼續？

Yes. So as you look, we did drop $26 million of OpEx, excluding share-based comp. That gives us confidence that we'll have an annualized cost of about $2.6 billion. If you look at the fourth quarter, the annualized cost of that would be about $2.7 billion. So as we discussed, as we pull transactions out of the business, we do feel that there is potential to continue to drive cost out of the business, but we like where we're heading.

是的。因此，如您所見，我們確實減少了 2600 萬美元的運營支出，不包括基於股份的補償。這讓我們有信心，我們的年化成本將達到約 26 億美元。如果你看一下第四季度，其年化成本約為 27 億美元。因此，正如我們所討論的那樣，當我們將交易從業務中撤出時，我們確實認為有可能繼續將成本從業務中剔除，但我們喜歡我們前進的方向。

Our next questions come from the line of Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自 Ben Swinburne 與摩根士丹利的對話。

A couple of questions. Maybe first, in Optimum West. You mentioned some of the tactics that are working. What's going on competitively in that market? I think a couple of quarters ago, you were -- at least my interpretation was that was a market you were seeing some pretty aggressive competition, I think both fixed wireless and fiber builds. Has anything changed there? Or is it all entirely changes that you guys have made to improve the trend line? I would love some more color on that.

幾個問題。也許首先是在 Optimum West。你提到了一些行之有效的策略。那個市場的競爭情況如何？我想幾個季度前，你是 - 至少我的解釋是你看到了一個非常激烈的競爭市場，我認為固定無線和光纖構建。那裡有什麼變化嗎？還是你們為改善趨勢線所做的全部改變？我想要更多的顏色。

Thanks, Ben. Thanks for the question. The competitive environment remains intense, as I've described in the previous calls, 25% overbuilt by fiber, 50% of that is AT&T, a very mature fiber provider and then the other 50% is the fiber overbuilders. Our overall footprint, we're estimating 40% fixed wireless competition. And so we have started to operate in a much more hyper-local fashion because the way we compete in Texas versus Arizona versus Oklahoma versus North Carolina, it has to be different.

謝謝，本。謝謝你的問題。競爭環境依然激烈，正如我在之前的電話會議中所描述的那樣，25% 的光纖超建，其中 50% 是 AT&T，一個非常成熟的光纖供應商，另外 50% 是光纖超建商。我們的整體足跡，我們估計有 40% 的固定無線競爭。因此，我們開始以更加本地化的方式運營，因為我們在德克薩斯州與亞利桑那州、俄克拉荷馬州與北卡羅來納州的競爭方式必須有所不同。

And so we are staffing up a little bit in terms of regional leadership teams that are laser-focused on driving performance, understanding the competitive landscape, driving customer experience, employee experience, and then developing hyper-local marketing strategies to give us a much more of a local impact to help us drive our go-to-market.

因此，我們在區域領導團隊方面增加了一些人員，這些團隊專注於推動績效、了解競爭格局、推動客戶體驗、員工體驗，然後製定超本地營銷策略，為我們提供更多對當地的影響，以幫助我們推動我們的上市。

And that is starting to show benefits, and that is allowing us to win. And now we think with Optimum Complete, we have even more tools in our toolkit to drive Optimum West.

這開始顯示出好處，這使我們能夠獲勝。現在我們認為有了 Optimum Complete，我們的工具包中有了更多工具來推動 Optimum West。

And then a follow-up, if I could, just on broadband ARPU. I mean, if you guys could reverse the trend there of declining year-on-year, I think it was down like 3% this quarter, that obviously would do a lot for your goals around revenue. Can you just talk about what's happening in broadband ARPU to put pressure on that line? And do you have visibility into sort of stabilizing and improving that because obviously, that would help quite a bit on the revenue front.

然後是後續行動，如果可以的話，只是關於寬帶 ARPU。我的意思是，如果你們能夠扭轉同比下降的趨勢，我認為本季度下降了 3%，這顯然會對你們圍繞收入的目標有很大幫助。您能否談談寬帶 ARPU 正在發生的事情以對該線路施加壓力？您是否了解某種穩定和改進的情況，因為顯然，這對收入方面有很大幫助。

Yes, Ben, I'll take that one. Actually, when you look at implied broadband ARPU, we were actually down about 0.5% year-over-year, which was in line with the guidance we previously provided around flat to stable ARPU. But if you -- more importantly, if you look sequentially, we actually have stopped the erosion of broadband ARPU significantly. We're only down $0.05 quarter-over-quarter.

是的，本，我要那個。實際上，當你查看隱含的寬帶 ARPU 時，我們實際上同比下降了約 0.5%，這符合我們之前提供的關於持平至穩定 ARPU 的指導。但如果你 - 更重要的是，如果你按順序看，我們實際上已經大大阻止了寬帶 ARPU 的侵蝕。我們僅比上一季度下降了 0.05 美元。

Last quarter, that was a much larger over $1.20 sequentially in the fourth quarter decline. So we've pretty much stopped that. I'll say the way we've done that is just using a financially disciplined approach and having a balanced way of going to market with revenue and rate and that's really starting to pay dividends.

上個季度，第四季度跌幅超過 1.20 美元。所以我們幾乎已經停止了。我會說我們這樣做的方式只是使用一種財務上有紀律的方法，並以一種平衡的方式進入市場，收入和利率，這真的開始帶來紅利。

Additionally, we're leveraging AI in our centers around how to treat customers differently. And that is -- that's yielding some favorableness in the rates. So we feel like we're on a clear path to stabilize the erosion of broadband ARPU.

此外，我們在我們的中心利用 AI 來解決如何以不同方式對待客戶的問題。那就是——這在利率上產生了一些優勢。因此，我們覺得我們正走在一條穩定寬帶 ARPU 侵蝕的清晰道路上。

Our next questions come from the line of Jonathan Chaplin with New Street.

我們的下一個問題來自 Jonathan Chaplin 和 New Street 的台詞。

Two sort of minutiae questions. I'm sorry to say. So on EBITDA, if we annualize 1Q, we come out at about $3.5 billion. It sounds like from your comments, you think the full year would be better than that because we get improvements in EBITDA dollars as we progress through the year. And I'm just wondering if you could confirm that. And then on ARPU, it's great to hear that trends are starting to stabilize sequentially.

兩種細節問題。我很抱歉地說。因此，在 EBITDA 上，如果我們對第一季度進行年化計算，我們得出的收益約為 35 億美元。從你的評論來看，你認為全年會比那更好，因為隨著我們在這一年的進展，我們的 EBITDA 美元有所改善。我只是想知道你是否可以證實這一點。然後在 ARPU 上，很高興聽到趨勢開始連續穩定。

But when I look at where you're pricing your 1-gig product, which I assume is your flagship product, it's well below where your average ARPU is, your average ARPU is sort of well above where Comcast and Charter are. And I'm wondering if you can give us some insight into sort of the demographics and the difference in your go-to-market proposition that you feel allows you to sustain an ARPU above your peers and your competitors.

但是，當我查看你為 1-gig 產品定價時，我認為它是你的旗艦產品，它遠低於你的平均 ARPU，你的平均 ARPU 有點遠高於 Comcast 和 Charter。我想知道您是否可以讓我們了解一些人口統計數據以及您認為可以讓您維持高於同行和競爭對手的 ARPU 的市場定位的差異。

Jonathan, thank you. I'll let Marc take the first one, and I'll take the second question.

喬納森，謝謝你。我讓 Marc 回答第一個問題，然後我回答第二個問題。

Yes, Jonathan, on EBITDA, although we're not providing specific guidance here for the full year EBITDA trends, but you said it correctly. We see that the second half of this year, we have a real [flat] to have improved EBITDA trends in the second half versus the first half, all tied to the things that we talked about, the new team, the best network, the CX and OpEx reductions that Dennis mentioned, so we're optimistic that there is a path for improvement in EBITDA. With that, let me just turn it over to Dennis.

是的，喬納森，關於 EBITDA，雖然我們沒有在這裡提供全年 EBITDA 趨勢的具體指導，但你說得對。我們看到，今年下半年，與上半年相比，我們有一個真正的 [持平] 來改善下半年的 EBITDA 趨勢，所有這些都與我們談論的事情有關，新團隊，最好的網絡，丹尼斯提到的 CX 和 OpEx 減少，所以我們樂觀地認為 EBITDA 有改善的途徑。有了這個，讓我把它交給丹尼斯。

Yes. And Jonathan, to your question, as I've mentioned, I'm very bullish on focusing on customer household ARPU. And so we're focused on selling in Optimum Complete. And we -- there's a lot of upside in terms of selling in lines as well. Historically, we've sold about 1.3 lines, and I know that we can do significantly better than that. And so as we drive customer household ARPU and then focused on profitability as we stabilize erosion in overall ARPU by just being much more sophisticated in the way that we go to market and being much more disciplined in the way that we go in the offers that we provide.

是的。喬納森，對於你的問題，正如我所提到的，我非常看好關注客戶家庭 ARPU。因此，我們專注於在 Optimum Complete 中銷售。而且我們——在排隊銷售方面也有很多好處。從歷史上看，我們已經售出大約 1.3 條生產線，而且我知道我們可以做得更好。因此，當我們推動客戶家庭 ARPU，然後專注於盈利能力時，我們通過在進入市場的方式上更加複雜，在我們提供的產品中更加自律，從而穩定整體 ARPU 的侵蝕提供。

We've pulled back on some of the gift with purchase and gift cards and are really driving sales performance and yield and performance management and aligning compensation so that we can execute better in the sales channels, we believe that we can continue to drive profitability in the business and growth.

我們已經撤回了一些帶有購買和禮品卡的禮物，並真正推動了銷售業績、收益和績效管理，並調整了薪酬，以便我們能夠在銷售渠道中更好地執行，我們相信我們可以繼續推動盈利能力業務和增長。

Our next questions come from the line of Kan Venkateshwar with Barclays.

我們的下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的 Kan Venkateshwar。

Dennis, firstly, you talked a lot about fiber and the potential to upgrade further to 8-gig and 25-gig service and so on. Why do you think speeds is a limiting factor to growth, especially when gig speeds are way more than what most consumers use and fixed wireless today is successfully even with lower speeds. Why not instead take the opposite path of maybe slowing down fiber investments and reinvesting it back into customer support and building the brand back to some extent? And I have a follow-up after that.

丹尼斯，首先，你談到了很多關於光纖以及進一步升級到 8 兆和 25 兆服務的潛力等等。為什麼您認為速度是增長的限制因素，尤其是當演出速度遠遠超過大多數消費者使用的速度，而今天的固定無線即使速度較低也能成功。為什麼不採取相反的方式，可能會放慢光纖投資並將其重新投資於客戶支持並在一定程度上重建品牌？之後我有一個跟進。

Kannan, thank you for your question. We are investing in the future, and we're investing in this network. We know that as we continue to launch faster speeds, customers are taking those speeds, using those feeds. Our average usage now is over 600 gigs and our highest users are using a terabyte and they're taking the fastest speeds. And so as we think about the future, we're building a network for the future that will ultimately unlock applications as we think about AR, VR, Metaverse, other elements, more streaming, all of these use cases, we're building our fiber network to be able to support, especially as I look at our Optimum East footprint, we are competing against a very mature fiber provider.

坎南，謝謝你的問題。我們投資於未來，我們投資於這個網絡。我們知道，隨著我們繼續推出更快的速度，客戶正在採用這些速度，使用這些提要。我們現在的平均使用量超過 600 GB，我們最高的用戶正在使用 1 TB，而且他們的速度是最快的。因此，當我們思考未來時，我們正在為未來構建一個網絡，當我們考慮 AR、VR、Metaverse、其他元素、更多流媒體以及所有這些用例時，我們正在構建我們的應用程序光纖網絡能夠支持，特別是當我看到我們的 Optimum East 足跡時，我們正在與一個非常成熟的光纖供應商競爭。

And so we need to have the best to go against the best. And then ultimately, that will -- if I look on the return on investment, well, we're not going to get into the details. We know, as I mentioned, the maintenance and the support of that network is apples and oranges versus a legacy HFC network. That being said, we're going to continue to invest in fiber strategically as we look at the competitive landscape as we look at the cost. And where it makes sense, we will continue to expand the fiber network.

所以我們需要最好的去對抗最好的。然後最終，這將——如果我看投資回報，那麼，我們不會深入細節。正如我所提到的，我們知道，與傳統 HFC 網絡相比，該網絡的維護和支持是蘋果和橘子。話雖這麼說，我們將繼續在戰略上投資光纖，因為我們會在考慮成本的同時看待競爭格局。在有意義的地方，我們將繼續擴展光纖網絡。

And so we believe that we are building for the future, and we're bullish on the network that we're building out, that it will allow us to compete effectively. We're also investing, you mentioned in a brand and things like that, that's our investments in customer experience. That's our investments in quality. That's our investments in making sure that we are, by far, providing the best service to our customers as we optimize our care centers as we optimize our field operations as we drive digital.

因此，我們相信我們正在為未來而建設，我們看好我們正在建設的網絡，它將使我們能夠有效地競爭。我們也在投資，你提到了一個品牌和類似的東西，這是我們對客戶體驗的投資。這就是我們對質量的投資。這是我們的投資，以確保我們在優化我們的護理中心以及在我們推動數字化的同時優化我們的現場運營時，到目前為止，為我們的客戶提供最好的服務。

And so we're doing both. We're building out the best network. We're also building out -- we're upgrading DOCSIS so that we can compete effectively there. And then on the brand side, we're investing in quality. And quite frankly, on fixed wireless, as I look at the usage, 600-plus megs, people that are taking the faster speeds using a terabyte, I'll wait and see how as capacity gets filled up on fixed wireless networks, how that performs.

所以我們兩者都在做。我們正在建立最好的網絡。我們也在擴建 - 我們正在升級 DOCSIS，以便我們可以在那裡有效競爭。然後在品牌方面，我們正在投資於質量。坦率地說，在固定無線網絡上，當我查看使用情況時，600 多兆，人們正在使用 TB 來獲得更快的速度，我將拭目以待，看看固定無線網絡上的容量是如何填滿的，那是如何施行。

Got it. And just as a follow-up on the guidance for net adds for Q2. I mean you did mention seasonality but when I look at Q1, seasonally, it tends to be stronger than Q4 sequentially, but it looks like net adds were basically the same across both quarters. And you attributed some macro pressure. Could you just help us understand what that impact was in the quarter? Because your bad debts are still quite low versus, I think, most of the cable and telecom folks.

知道了。就像第二季度淨增加指南的後續行動一樣。我的意思是你確實提到了季節性，但當我看第一季度時，季節性往往比第四季度強，但看起來兩個季度的淨增加基本相同。你歸因於一些宏觀壓力。您能否幫助我們了解該季度的影響？因為我認為，與大多數有線電視和電信公司的人相比，你的壞賬仍然很低。

I'm going to let Marc talk a little bit about non-pay and some of the macro trends.

我要讓馬克談談非薪酬和一些宏觀趨勢。

Yes, Kannan. Good question. Yes, we have seen an uptick in non-pay disconnects, which we believe is really macro-related. The good news is we offsetting this pressure is really underlining improvements in other areas. So it's not had a material impact on our customer trust, thankfully. To be specific, we saw a [churn] of an additional about 9,000 additional customers related to non-pay in the first quarter compared to the same period last year. Again, this is just macro driven, and we feel this will subside.

是的，坎南。好問題。是的，我們已經看到非薪酬斷開連接的情況有所增加，我們認為這確實與宏觀相關。好消息是我們抵消了這種壓力，真正強調了其他領域的改進。所以它沒有對我們的客戶信任產生重大影響，謝天謝地。具體而言，與去年同期相比，我們在第一季度發現與非付費相關的客戶流失增加了約 9,000 名。同樣，這只是宏觀驅動，我們認為這會消退。

Our next questions come from the line of Peter Supino with Wolfe Research.

我們的下一個問題來自 Wolfe Research 的 Peter Supino。

I wondered if you would mind comparing churn and gross add trends in the East to the West. It was interesting to hear that you've had a few better months in Suddenlink. I think that's different than commonly perceived. I would love to hear you break down the different territories?

我想知道您是否介意比較東西方的流失率和總增加趨勢。很高興聽到您在 Suddenlink 度過了好幾個月。我認為這與人們普遍認為的不同。我很想听聽你打破不同的領土？

Peter, thanks for your question. We are seeing improvements in gross adds in the West, which is helping us drive overall performance. And as I mentioned, 3 out of the last 5 months, we've seen positive broadband growth, and that is on the back of stronger gross adds. We are seeing pressure on churn across the board as Marc just mentioned, non-pay is a challenge across the board. And there is overall gross add pressure across both the East and West as moves are down 6.5% and in both the East and the West as we looked at it. So that is providing overall pressure as well.

彼得，謝謝你的問題。我們看到西部的總增加量有所改善，這有助於我們推動整體績效。正如我所提到的，過去 5 個月中有 3 個月，我們看到寬帶正增長，這是在強勁增長的支持下實現的。正如 Marc 剛才提到的，我們看到了全面的流失壓力，非薪酬是一個全面的挑戰。東部和西部總體上都存在總增加壓力，因為我們觀察到，東部和西部的走勢都下降了 6.5%。因此，這也提供了整體壓力。

Please sneak in 1 more. I would love to ask you if you have thought at all about -- or how you think about the possibility of selling the portion of Lightpath that you still own as a way to pay down debt given the very high cost to borrow money these days.

請再偷偷進來1個。我很想問你是否考慮過——或者你如何考慮出售你仍然擁有的 Lightpath 部分的可能性，作為償還債務的一種方式，因為現在藉錢的成本非常高。

Peter, thanks for the question. We are not actively pursuing, but it's -- we're always listening to opportunities, but we're not actively pursuing anything right now.

彼得，謝謝你的提問。我們沒有積極追求，但我們一直在傾聽機會，但我們現在沒有積極追求任何東西。

Our next questions come from the line of Michael Rollins with Citi.

我們的下一個問題來自花旗的邁克爾羅林斯。

I was curious if I could revisit the discussion on EBITDA and margin in 3 parts. The first part would be, Dennis, as you've operated and studied cable assets. What are the portfolio attributes that you have found that have the highest correlation to better EBITDA margin performance? Is it in broadband revenue mix, ARPUs, penetrations, the size of the footprint? Just curious, what's the most causal factor?

我很好奇是否可以分 3 個部分重新討論關於 EBITDA 和利潤率的討論。第一部分是丹尼斯，因為你已經運營和研究了有線電視資產。您發現與更好的 EBITDA 利潤率表現相關性最高的投資組合屬性是什麼？它是在寬帶收入組合、ARPU、滲透率、足跡規模方面嗎？只是好奇，最起因的因素是什麼？

And then secondly, as you look at where your margin is going to be for this year versus some of your public peers, do you have a bridge of where Altice is seeing the greatest variance?

其次，當您查看今年與您的一些公開同行相比的利潤率時，您是否了解 Altice 看到最大差異的地方？

And then the final part of this is just your North Star. As you're looking at over the next few years, where can the margin get to over time?

最後一部分就是你的北極星。正如您在未來幾年所看到的那樣，隨著時間的推移，利潤率會達到什麼水平？

Mike, thanks for your question. In terms of the first item, and then maybe I'll let Marc take number 2 and then we can tag team number 3. But I've been in the industry for a long time, and it's no secret that broadband is where we can drive the most margin and profitability. And so that's why we are now a connectivity company. When I joined in October, I wanted to set a North Star, and that was to be the connectivity provider-of-choice in every community that we serve.

邁克，謝謝你的問題。就第一項而言，也許我會讓 Marc 擔任 2 號，然後我們可以標記 3 號團隊。但我在這個行業已經很長時間了，寬帶是我們可以做到的，這已經不是什麼秘密了推動最大的利潤率和盈利能力。這就是為什麼我們現在是一家連接公司。當我在 10 月份加入時，我想設置一個北極星，這將成為我們服務的每個社區的首選連接提供商。

And so we lead with broadband. We want connectivity in the home, but then we also have an MVNO relationship that we are very excited about. And so we want to lead also with connectivity outside the home. And so we lead with broadband and we put together Optimum Complete to allow us to drive our go-to-market as we go forward.

因此，我們以寬帶領先。我們希望在家中連接，但我們也有一個我們非常興奮的 MVNO 關係。因此，我們也希望在家庭外的連接方面處於領先地位。因此，我們以寬帶為先導，並將 Optimum Complete 放在一起，使我們能夠在前進的過程中推動我們的上市。

And we know that customers are looking for 2 things, quality and value, quality and value. And so for us to drive the highest opportunity of margin, profitability, we've got to be laser-focused on both of those elements. The value is there now with Optimum Complete. We have studied this, and we've done the research, and we're excited that this is an offer that we believe will allow us to compete and provide customers the value they're looking for.

我們知道客戶正在尋找兩件事，質量和價值，質量和價值。因此，為了推動利潤率和盈利能力的最高機會，我們必須高度關注這兩個要素。 Optimum Complete 現在具有價值。我們已經對此進行了研究，我們已經完成了研究，我們很高興這是一個我們相信將使我們能夠競爭並為客戶提供他們正在尋找的價值的提議。

On the quality side, we now need to make the strategic investments to ensure that our products, our service, network are providing the level of quality to allow us to drive maximum profitability in this -- in our portfolio.

在質量方面，我們現在需要進行戰略投資，以確保我們的產品、我們的服務、網絡提供的質量水平，使我們能夠在我們的產品組合中實現最大的盈利能力。

Yes, Michael, just on the margin this year, we're not going to give specific guidance. But as you see, our margins are compressed given the top line growth pressures in the video subscribers and the subscriber losses we've had over the past year. Coupled with that, we have made investments, as Dennis mentioned, in our sales teams and our CX teams to really improve the quality of what we can do as a company.

是的，邁克爾，今年只是邊緣，我們不會給出具體的指導。但正如你所看到的，鑑於視頻用戶的收入增長壓力和我們在過去一年中的用戶流失，我們的利潤率受到了壓縮。除此之外，正如丹尼斯所提到的，我們對我們的銷售團隊和客戶體驗團隊進行了投資，以真正提高我們作為一家公司所能做的事情的質量。

But we're pretty optimistic with the new team and Optimum Complete, this network, which is yielding just incredible savings on truck rolls and volumes. We're pretty bullish that we can return to normal levels over time. Again, I call attention to the OpEx reductions we've had quarter-over-quarter, the first time since the pandemic, $26 million or 4% reduction. And we also see our gross margins are also improving 60 basis points year-over-year.

但我們對新團隊和 Optimum Complete 這個網絡非常樂觀，它在上門服務和數量上產生了令人難以置信的節省。我們非常看好我們可以隨著時間的推移恢復到正常水平。我再次提請注意我們的運營支出環比減少，這是自大流行以來首次減少 2600 萬美元或 4%。我們還看到我們的毛利率也同比提高了 60 個基點。

So we're optimistic that there is a clear path to have a better second half EBITDA performance in the first half. And then in the longer term, again, we are focused on returning to sustainable customer revenue and cash flow growth, which will get us to where we need to be from a margin perspective.

因此，我們樂觀地認為，有一條清晰的道路可以在上半年實現更好的下半年 EBITDA 表現。然後從長遠來看，我們再次專注於恢復可持續的客戶收入和現金流增長，這將使我們從利潤率的角度來看需要達到的水平。

And you asked a question about peers, I believe, in bridging. And ultimately, we don't have the same scale. So on the programming side, we have a bit lower margins. And we're looking at the video business. I know we haven't talked about it at all, but we are looking at that business as well and figuring out how that fits into the portfolio going forward. We know people are watching video, obviously, more than ever.

你問了一個關於同行的問題，我相信，在橋接中。最終，我們沒有相同的規模。所以在編程方面，我們的利潤率要低一些。我們正在關注視頻業務。我知道我們根本沒有討論過它，但我們也在關注這項業務，並弄清楚它如何融入未來的投資組合。我們知道人們正在觀看視頻，顯然，比以往任何時候都多。

We know that there is interest in linear. There's an interest in streaming. And so we're looking at rightsizing that product in our portfolio, and evolving that go-to-market going forward. And so that will be a focus of ours as well.

我們知道人們對線性感興趣。人們對流媒體感興趣。因此，我們正在考慮在我們的產品組合中對該產品進行合理調整，並在未來推進該產品的上市。因此，這也將成為我們關注的焦點。

And just 1 quick 1 on that. Is it possible to consider outsourcing the video business? Is that an option for Altice?

並且只是 1 快速 1。是否可以考慮將視頻業務外包？這是 Altice 的一個選項嗎？

Anything is possible. So we are looking at all of these options as we build out into new build territories, we're actively having conversations of should we build out video infrastructure or should we be looking at partnering as some of our others have done. And so those are all options that we're looking at as we evolve the portfolio.

一切皆有可能。因此，當我們進入新的構建領域時，我們正在考慮所有這些選項，我們正在積極討論我們應該構建視頻基礎設施，還是應該像其他一些人那樣考慮合作。因此，這些都是我們在發展投資組合時正在考慮的所有選擇。

That is all the time we have for questions today. I would now like to hand the call back over to management for any closing comments.

這就是我們今天提問的全部時間。我現在想將電話轉回給管理層，徵求任何結束意見。

Thanks, everyone, for joining. Don't hesitate to reach out if you have any follow-up questions. Thank you. Thank you.

謝謝大家的加入。如果您有任何後續問題，請隨時聯繫我們。謝謝。謝謝。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Enjoy the rest of your day.

謝謝。今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。此時您可以斷開線路。享受你剩下的一天。