Comcast 2Q net income rises 28 percent

Comcast 2Q net income rises 28 percent

	Published : Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:42 By : Agencies Print this Story

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable TV operator, reported a 28 percent increase in second-quarter profit Thursday as the cable television operator saw a surge in subscribers for digital TV and its promotionally priced package of TV, Internet and phone services reeled in customers.

The Philadelphia-based company posted net income of $588 million, or 19 cents a share, compared with $460 million, or 15 cents, in the same period a year ago.

Revenue rose 31 percent to $7.7 billion from $5.91 billion a year agp.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected, on average, profits of 19 cents a share on revenue of $7.71 billion.

Comcast, which has more than 24 million cable TV subscribers, said video, Internet and phone revenue combined rose 12 percent to $7.3 billion in the quarter. Operating cash flow rose by 13 percent to $3 billion.

Revenue generating units, an industry measure of performance, nearly doubled to 1.6 million, a second-quarter record at Comcast. RGUs count the number of individually subscribed services, so two customers each subscribing to digital cable and high-speed Internet would count as four RGUs.

Breaking down operations into business segments, cable TV revenue rose by 7 percent to $4.5 billion in the quarter.

Revenue received from each video customer on average -- what customers paid the company for cable TV and related services -- hit triple digits for the first time, to $101.02 from $90.76 per month. Eighty percent of digital subscribers pay $65 or more per month for services.

Comcast added 823,000 net digital subscribers, up 144 percent from a year ago, in part as the company stepped up shipments of its digital set-top boxes before July 1. The Federal Communications Commission had set the July deadline for cable companies to ship new set-top boxes with a separable cable card to encourage a retail market for set-tops. The card unscrambles the cable TV signal.

The number of basic subscribers fell by 95,000.

High-speed Internet revenue rose by 20 percent to $1.6 billion. Comcast added 330,000 net new customers, down 3,000 from last year. Revenue per subscriber was $43.37, up from $43.06.

Revenue for digital and circuit-switched phone services doubled to $420 million in the quarter, with the latter being a drag on sales as Comcast transitions to digital voice. The company doesn't expect the circuit-switched business to hamper the phone segment next year.

Net new subscribers to the digital phone service doubled to 671,000, but revenue per customer fell to $42.65 a month from $43.33. The number of circuit-switched phone customers fell by 117,000.

Content revenue, from cable channels and programming owned by Comcast, rose 22 percent to $334 million. Advertising revenue fell by 1 percent to $399 million in the quarter.

Comcast said capital expenditures rose by 65 percent to $1.6 billion in the quarter as the company invested in new products.

The company also bought back nearly 28 million shares, at a cost of $752 million.