Shenandoah Telecommunications Company (NASDAQ:SHEN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Hamed Khorsand: Can you just talk about the Glo Fiber adds in the quarter? I think in my math, it was up about 3,180 if I’m right, and that was down from the prior quarter, from Q3 adds and also lower than the Q2 adds. So is there seasonality involved? Is it just timing versus what your build-out schedule?

Edward McKay: Hamed, that’s a good question there. That is primarily seasonality. Fourth quarter is typically slow. We typically see more gross adds in the second quarter and the third quarter.

Hamed Khorsand: Okay. And then the ad spending that you’re doing now in those markets, obviously, didn’t generate the increase in subscribers. So what is your marketing strategy on that front given the seasonality?

Edward McKay: So we have shifted our strategy somewhat. We are putting more marketing dollars into advertising, particularly digital advertising, and the goal there is to shift more sales to our web channel. And we’ve seen a significant increase in web traffic with those new marketing initiatives. That’s our lowest cost sales channel. Over 30% of our gross adds are now coming through the web for Glo Fiber. So we’ve made significant progress there.

Hamed Khorsand: And on the markets that you’ve already started to build out and enter commercially, is — are there any one of them where you think that you could see a quick ramp in the number of subscribers this year?

Edward McKay: Yes, I think the ramp we’re expecting is fairly consistent with what we’ve seen over time. Slide 17 of the deck shows you the ramp. I think the markets we’re entering now, the ramp should be fairly consistent to that, and that’s what we’re seeing so far.

Operator: . There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to our presenters for final remarks.

James Volk: Yes. I’d just like to thank everyone for joining us this morning. We look forward to updating you on our fiber-first growth plan in 2023. Take care.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.