Comcast rises 7% as profits beat despite cable TV customer drops
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Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) was up 6.5% late Thursday morning, an unusual move for the typically calm stock, after the morning's third-quarter earnings report brought a profit beat as price hikes shored up revenue even amid ongoing TV customer losses.
The stock is continuing a late-October mini-bounce off a six-year low of $28.46 it hit on Oct. 13; Comcast is up 18% in the two weeks since.
Revenues fell just 1.5% to $29.85B, as growth in its Cable Communications unit (2.6%, to $16.54B) softened the blow at its media enterprises, NBCUniversal and Sky.
NBCUniversal posted a 35% drop in ad sales against a tough comparison quarter (vs. the Olympics).
The company posted a net loss of $4.6B vs. a year-ago profit of $4B, though it took an $8.6B goodwill impairment at Sky. On an adjusted basis, net income rose 4.5% to $4.22B.
"We delivered solid growth in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted (earnings per share), generated significant free cash flow, invested in our businessesâ future and returned a record amount of capital to our shareholders," said an upbeat CEO Brian Roberts.
Video subscribers saw a record loss, with a worse-than-expected net change in adds of -561,000. High-speed Internet subscribers rose slightly better than expected, up 14,000.
Rival Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR) is also among top Communications gainers Thursday, +4.7% and bouncing off its own 52-week low from late September.