The top 14 telecom companies, representing 95% of the U.S. high-speed internet market, added 945,000 customers in the first quarter, according to Leichtman Research Group.
That represents solid growth for the U.S. broadband services industry, which acquired just 815,000 users in the first quarter of 2018.
Cable operator continued to acquire market share in Q1, adding over 925,000 customers. Charter Communications led the sector with 428,000 customer additions. Notably, Charter was also the biggest loser of video subscribers among cable companies in the first quarter.
Cable operators now control 65.3 million customers in the U.S. compared to just 33.4 million for telco operators. Comcast remains the leading provided of high-speed internet services with nearly 27.6 million subscribers.
Among telcos, AT&T is the leader with 15.7 million customers. AT&T added 36,000 HSI users in the first quarter.
“Over the past year, there were about 2,595,000 net broadband adds, compared to about 2,000,000 net adds in the prior year,” noted Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for LRG.
