Windstream Revenue Drops in Second Quarter Earnings as Bankruptcy Exit Nears

Windstream reported a loss of more than $162 million in its second-quarter earnings as its exit from chapter 11 bankruptcy approaches later this summer.

Total revenue and sales were down from $1.28 billion a year ago to $1.18 billion in the second quarter. Enterprise service revenue was $577 million, down from $673 million for the year-ago quarte

Tony Thomas is Windstream’s president and CEO. He said Windstream delivered “solid” earnings bolstered by “strong consumer broadband growth and increasing demand for enterprise strategic products and services.”

Windstream’s Tony Thomas

“With our plan of reorganization confirmed by the court, we are poised to emerge later this summer from restructuring stronger than ever to expand broadband to rural America and help businesses succeed in the digital transformation,” he said.

Strong Growth in SD-WAN, UCaaS

Enterprise strategic revenue grew 24% for the first six months of the year compared to a year ago. Sales of strategic products and services, including SD-WAN, UCaaS and OfficeSuite UC now represent  $334 million in annual revenue.

“Windstream remains the nation’s largest SD-WAN service provider with 3,200 SD-WAN customers under contract representing over 29,000 endpoint locations,” Thomas said. “OfficeSuite demand also remains strong as we now have approximately 550,000 UCaaS seats installed.”

During the quarter, Windstream added more than 22,000 Kinetic broadband customers. That’s the most growth in more than 10 years.

For the first six months of the year, Kinetic added more than 40,000 net-new broadband customers. That surpassed the company’s prediction of 40,000 new broadband customers for all of 2020. As a result, Windstream now predicts 60,000 net-new broadband customers for the year.

Wholesale service revenue was $85 million last quarter, down from $88 million a year ago.

Windstream will emerge from chapter 11 as a privately held company.

When it emerges, the company will reduce its debt by more than $4 billion, or about two-thirds. And it will have access to about $2 billion in new capital to expand 1 gigabit internet service in rural America. It also said it plans to maintain its product and software leadership in SD-WAN and UCaaS for enterprise customers.