Altice USA, Inc., including its affiliated companies, offers a comprehensive range of broadband communication and video entertainment services across the United States, ...
Altice USA, Inc. (ticker: ATUS) was established to deliver broadband communication and video entertainment services at scale across the U.S. footprint. The company’s customer base—reported as approximately five million residential and business customers—reflects a legacy of cable and telecom service operations consolidated under the Altice platform. Core consumer offerings center ...Altice USA, Inc. (ticker: ATUS) was established to deliver broadband communication and video entertainment services at scale across the U.S. footprint. The company’s customer base—reported as approximately five million residential and business customers—reflects a legacy of cable and telecom service operations consolidated under the Altice platform. Core consumer offerings center on broadband internet, television/video programming, landline and VoIP-based telephony, and mobile connectivity (data, voice, and text). Video services include both traditional linear broadcast/cable channel delivery and modern OTT experiences such as streaming and on-demand programming, along with features commonly associated with contemporary pay-TV platforms (for example HD options, digital video recording, and pay-per-view).
In parallel with consumer connectivity, Altice USA addresses business customers with enterprise-grade networking and communications solutions. These include Ethernet and dedicated internet access, IP-based virtual private networks (VPNs), and telephony options spanning hosted telephony, VoIP and multi-line systems, international calling, and toll-free services. The company also supports enterprise operations with managed IT solutions such as Wi‑Fi management, desktop and server backup, and collaboration capabilities including audio and web conferencing.
Beyond services delivered over existing infrastructure, Altice USA participates in infrastructure buildout—such as fiber-to-the-tower arrangements supporting wireless carriers—and provides advanced data networking services including wide area networking, dedicated data access, and wireless mesh networking. Additional revenue streams are generated through offerings like email hosting, hosted PBX services, web space storage, and network security monitoring.
From a media and advertising perspective, the company expands beyond connectivity into audience-based and IP-authenticated cross-screen advertising solutions, as well as general television and digital advertising services. It also operates news channels (including News 12 Networks, Cheddar, and i24NEWS), which can help diversify content and advertising exposure relative to pure connectivity.
On scale and resources, the company reported about 9,500 full-time employees in the supplied dataset, placing it firmly in the large-cap telecom services category for workforce intensity. Financially, the dataset provided shows negative profitability margins on recent trailing-twelve-month measures (e.g., negative net and operating margins), which is consistent with a competitive, capital-intensive industry where ongoing network investment and operational costs can pressure short-term earnings. Valuation metrics in the dataset (e.g., enterprise-value-related multiples) further indicate that investor expectations and capital structure dynamics are important considerations.
Leadership is provided by CEO Dennis Mathew. The company has also indicated that it is no longer operating under the “Altice USA” name and is now associated with Optimum Communications, reflecting corporate branding and naming alignment over time.
YoYYoY means Year-over-Year. It compares the latest annual value with the previous annual value to show long-term trend strength.
QoQQoQ means Quarter-over-Quarter. It compares the latest quarter with the immediately previous quarter to show short-term momentum changes.
RevenueThe total money that came through the front door from selling things, before paying a single bill. Think of it as the grand total of every credit card swipe from customers. (YoY compares this year to last year's performance, while QoQ compares the current three months to the previous three).
$8.6B
-4.1%
-2.0%
Net IncomeThe absolute bottom line. If the company paid every single supplier, employee, banker, and tax collector, this is the actual money left in their pocket at the end of the day.
$-1.9B
-1716.0%
+89.9%
Gross MarginThe basic markup. If they sell a $100 pair of sneakers, this percentage tells you how much of that price tag is profit right after paying for the rubber and shoelaces, but before paying for things like store rent or TV commercials.
0.0%
-100.0%
—
Operating MarginThe 'day job' efficiency score. Out of every dollar a customer spends, this shows how many cents the company keeps after making the product AND paying for all the everyday corporate overhead (like salaries, marketing, and keeping the lights on).
-1.3%
-107.0%
+107.2%
Net MarginThe final take-home percentage. When you strip away every conceivable cost, tax, and interest payment, this is the exact number of cents the company truly gets to keep from every dollar in sales.
-21.8%
-1793.0%
+89.7%
Free Cash FlowThe holy grail of corporate cash. It's the spendable, physical money left over after the business pays for its daily operations AND buys the big, expensive upgrades (like new factories or servers) it needs to survive. This is the 'free' money they can use to pay dividends or buy back stock.
$1.2B
+722.3%
+33.1%
FCF MarginThe ultimate cash conversion rate. It shows how good the company is at turning regular sales directly into cold, hard, spendable cash. A high percentage means the business is an absolute cash-printing machine.
+14.3%
+757.2%
+31.7%
Debt / EquityThe financial risk gauge. It compares how much of the company's empire was built using borrowed money (loans) versus the owners' own money (shareholders). A high number means they are heavily leveraged and playing a riskier game; a low number means they are playing it safe.
-10.9%
+99.8%
+1.5%
Current RatioThe 12-month survival check. It simply compares the cash they have right now (plus things they can quickly turn into cash) against the immediate bills they absolutely must pay this year. A score above 1 means they have enough in the wallet to cover the upcoming bills without panicking.
0.56x
+73.9%
-62.4%
Total AssetsThe absolute size of the company's empire. It bundles together absolutely everything of value they own—from the cash in the register and the inventory in the warehouse, to the software patents in the vault and the factories on the ground.
Operator: Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Optimum Communications Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I'd now like to turn the call over to Sarah Freedman, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Sarah Freedman: Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to the Optimum's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. I am joined today by Optimum's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dennis Mathew; and Chief Financial Officer, Marc Sirota. Dennis and Marc will walk you through our second quarter results and then be available for a question-and-answer session. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements. Please take a moment to review the cautionary language regarding forward-looking statements included on Slide 2 of our presentation. We will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures today. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dennis.
Dennis Mathew: Thank you, Sarah, and good morning, everyone. Our second quarter results reflect disciplined execution. We generated total revenue of approximately $2 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $786 million. Broadband subscriber net losses improved sequentially to 40,000. We added approximately 50,000 mobile lines and convergence ARPU grew year-over-year. We expanded gross margin and adjusted EBITDA margin, including operating expense improvement of approximately $30 million year-over-year. We continue to operate in a challenging environment, but we are encouraged by our progress and remain focused on what we can control, maintaining disciplined cost management, while continuing to invest in initiatives that support long-term growth and position the business for sustained success. As we disclosed in our 8-K in June, we have a clear strategy in our long-range plan to do exactly that. While the transformation will take time and will require a meaningful reset of our balance sheet, we are actively executing against the strategic pillars that we believe will improve performance, delivering simple, broader offers with clear value propositions, richer customer experience, simplifying service delivery through operational improvements and investing thoughtfully in our network and capabilities. In the second quarter, we delivered against these pillars. We continued to execute on a simplified go-to-market strategy, strengthened customer retention efforts and sharpened base management to build high-value customer relationships and compete more effectively in the current environment. We advanced our customer experience transformation as we continued our rollout of Google CES, AI-powered network management, frontline tools and new billing solutions. We improved productivity through stronger …
