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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Altice USA, Telephone and Data Systems, United States Cellular, Frontier Communications and Windstream Holdings

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – March 5, 2018 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include Altice USA Inc. (ATUS - Free Report) , Telephone and Data Systems Inc. (TDS - Free Report) , United States Cellular Corp. (USM - Free Report) , Frontier Communications Corp. and Windstream Holdings Inc. .

Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1Stock of the Day pick for free.

Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

Telecom Stock Roundup: Solid Q4 Earnings & More

The telecom industry witnessed strong earnings performances by most of the key stocks last week. Altice USA Inc., Telephone and Data Systems Inc., United States Cellular Corp., Frontier Communications Corp. and Windstream Holdings Inc. delivered strong financial results in the fourth quarter of 2017, wherein both the top and bottom line outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

Total customer relationships of Altice USA in fourth-quarter 2017 were 4.9603 million, including 4.535 million connections for the Residential segment and 0.3713 million connections for the SMB segment. In the Residential segment, the subscriber count was 3.4055 million for Pay TV, 4.0462 million for Broadband and 2.5574 million for Telephony business. Average monthly revenue per user (ARPU) in the reported quarter was $140.2, up 1.5% year over year.

At the end of fourth-quarter 2017, Telephone & Data Systems had 567,700 residential wireline connections compared with 585,400 in the year-ago quarter. The company exited the reported quarter with 310,100 commercial wireline connections, down 5.9% year over year. Total cable connections were 315,100, up 7.8% year over year.

United States Cellular exited the fourth quarter of 2017 with a subscriber base of 5,096,000 compared with 5,031,000 at the end of 2016. Postpaid subscriber base totaled 4,518,000 compared with 4,482,000 at the end of 2016. Prepaid subscriber base totaled 519,000, compared with 484,000 at the end of 2016.

As of Dec 31, 2017, Frontier Communications had 3,938,000 high-speed broadband subscribers, down 7.8% and 961,000 video customers, down 16.1% year over year. The number of consumer segment customers decreased 10.1% year over year to 4,397,000. Commercial segment customers decreased 9.8% year over year to 453,000. Frontier Communications currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

As of Dec 31, 2017, Windstream had 1.2688 million household customers, down 6% year over year. High-speed internet customer base was 1.0066 million, down 4% while the digital TV customer base was 0.2779 million, down 13%. ILEC small business customers totaled 0.1281 million, down 8%. Enterprise customers were 0.1335 million, down 1% year over year. CLEC consumer customers were 0.6621 million compared with a mere 0.7 million in the year-ago quarter.

Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1 Stock of the Day pick for free.

About Zacks Equity Research

Zacks Equity Research provides the best of quantitative and qualitative analysis to help investors know what stocks to buy and which to sell for the long-term.

Continuous coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.


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United States Cellular Corporation (USM) - free report >>

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