Wednesday, August 1, 2012

New Broadband Customers Help Comcast Earnings

By AMY CHOZICK

Comcast added 156,000 high-speed Internet customers in the three months that ended June 30, helping to bolster its net income by 32 percent and underscoring the company's continuing transition from cable giant to broadband provider.

On Wednesday, the company, the nation's largest cable operator, said it lost 176,000 cable customers. That's a 26 percent improvement from the 238,000 cable customers it lost in the same quarter in 2011.

That's the seventh consecutive quarter that Comcast has reduced its rate of losses on the cable side, driven mostly by new apps and 38,000 video-on-demand offerings that encourage customers to pay the monthly bill. The average monthly bill Comcast customers paid increased by 8 percent in the quarter to $148.57.

The most significant growth came from $2.38 billion in revenue from high-speed Internet subscribers, an 8.8 percent improvement from 2011. Revenue jumped 34 percent at the compan y's services business, a growing division that includes Internet, voice and other services for mostly small businesses.

Comcast had $15.2 billion in revenue and $3.08 billion in operating income, representing a 6 percent increase in revenue and a 4.8 percent improvement in operating income from the same quarter last year. Net income was $1.35 billion. The company, based in Philadelphia, had free cash flow of $1.55 billion, representing a 2.2 percent increase.

One continued weak spot was NBCUniversal. Last year Comcast received government approval of its $13.8 billion bid to acquire a majority stake stake in the television, movies and theme park business.

In the April-to-June quarter revenue, NBCUniversal fell slightly to $5.5 billion. Operating cash flow fell 15 percent, to $982 million.

Comcast said part of the weakness at had to do with a Netflix deal the media company struck in the same quarter of 2011. That infusion o f cash made the most recent quarter look weak by comparison.

But NBCUniversal wasn't without its own mishaps. The $220 million Peter Berg science fiction movie “Battleship” did poorly at the box office contributing to a 1.8 percent decrease in revenue at the company's filmed entertainment unit.

The NBC broadcast network showed signs of improvement with $1.54 billion in revenue, a 9 percent increase. Advertising revenue at NBC was virtually flat, while advertising revenue for cable channels like USA, CNBC and MSNBC improved by 4 percent.

Comcast repurchased 26 million shares or $750 million worth of stock in the quarter, a 43 percent increase from 2011.



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