Shares of Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR), the cable and internet company behind Spectrum Internet, tumbled 15.7% through 12:45 p.m. ET on Friday after the company reported a big miss on its fourth-quarter earnings this morning.

Heading into the quarter, analysts had forecast Charter would earn $8.68 per share on sales of $13.7 billion. Charter nailed the sales estimate, but missed badly on earnings, reporting a profit of only $7.07 per share.

Charter reported a 61,000-customer decrease in residential and small and medium-sized business internet customers in the quarter, but offset those sales by adding 546,000 mobile phone customers. Ultimately, sales held relatively stable at $13.7 billion. Adding the mobile customers helped a lot with that. Mobile phone revenue grew 36%. Higher prices on internet service also helped to offset customer losses, with revenue there rising 3%.

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Source Fool.com