Comcast Corp., the country’s largest cable company, reported a 30% profit increase in the first quarter, beating expectations on the strength of Super Bowl advertising and its popular broadband service.
The Philadelphia-based cable company said Wednesday that its net income rose to $1.224 billion, or 45 cents per share, for the January to March period from $943 million, or 34 cents per share, a year ago.
Revenue rose to $14.9 billion, above analysts’ expectation of $14.4 billion. The increase was 9.6% compared with the combined cable and NBC Universal results a year ago.
Comcast’s acquisition of a majority stake in NBC Universal, which owns TV channels and movie studios, closed at the end of January last year.
NBC Universal’s results shone in the quarter. It accounts for a third of Comcast’s revenue, but grew much faster, at 18% from last year. Revenue at the NBC broadcast network grew 37% thanks to the Super Bowl. Fox broadcast the game last year.
Excluding the Super Bowl, NBC’s revenue grew 17%, helped by improving prime-time ratings and shows like The Voice and Smash.
Comcast’s more predictable cable business revenue grew at lower pace – 5.7% from last year.
CEO Brian Roberts has suggested that Comcast might be able to reverse the long-standing industry-wide trend of cable-TV subscribers cancelling in favour of satellite and phone-company TV services, but that prospect was not in evidence in the first quarter: Comcast lost 37,000 cable subscribers, roughly the same number it lost in the same quarter last year.
Comcast added 439,000 Internet subscribers. That was the best quarterly result in four years. Meanwhile other U.S. cable companies report a slowdown in the recruitment of new subscribers, since most households already have broadband. Comcast appears to be gaining subscribers from households with slower phone-company DSL broadband.
