Consolidated Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CNSL) Q2 2023 Results Conference Call August 8, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Philip Kranz - Senior Director of Investor Relations

Bob Udell - President and Chief Executive Officer

Fred Graffam - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Michael Rollins - Citi

Operator

Good morning. My name is Sarah, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Consolidated Communications Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded [Operator Instructions].

I will now turn the call over to Philip Kranz, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Philip, you may begin your conference.

Philip Kranz

Good morning. And thank you for joining the Consolidated Communications second quarter 2023 earnings call. Our earnings release, financial statements and presentation are posted on the Investor Relations section of our Web site at ir.consolidated.com. Please review the safe harbor provisions on Slide 2 of the presentation. Today's discussion includes forward-looking statements about expected future events and financial results that involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed today. A discussion of factors that may affect future results is contained in Consolidated's filings with the SEC. In addition, during this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are defined and reconciled in our earnings presentation and press release. With me today are Bob Udell, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Fred Graffam, our Chief Financial Officer. Following their prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. I will now turn the call over to Bob.

Bob Udell

Thank you, Philip, and good morning, everyone. I'll dive right into some of the key highlights from our second quarter. First, we achieved yet another record quarter in our consumer channel with over 18,600 fiber net adds, demonstrating strong growth of our Fidium Fiber. This represents a 51% sequential increase for fiber net adds. Second, we achieved nearly 7,000 positive total consumer broadband net adds as fiber net adds have offset DSL declines. This increase in consumer broadband net adds is roughly 7 times greater than the prior year and reflects 190% sequential growth from the first quarter. Third, our consumer fiber Internet revenue grew 58%, which contributed to overall consumer broadband revenue growth of over 8%. Fourth, consumer broadband fiber ARPU is up 5.1%. And finally, our fiber churn continues to be low at 1.3%. We continue to see favorable trends for Fidium Fiber with record breaking monthly results. In June, we closed the quarter with 6,600 fiber net adds and in July, we set a new record of nearly 7,300 fiber net adds in the month. This ramp positions us to again exceed our record Q2 fiber net adds results in the third quarter. In addition, we reached an agreement to sell our Washington State assets, resulting from the ongoing review of our market portfolio and supporting our commitment to focused fiber expansion in our core markets.