Another take on it....
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050428/bs_nm/media_comcast_earns_dc_4
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq:CMCSA - news), the top U.S. cable operator, said on Thursday its quarterly profit surged 380 percent boosted by growth in high-speed Internet subscribers and surging demand for new digital video services.
Comcast, based in Philadelphia, said its board of directors authorized the repurchase $2 billion of its stock.
Shares rose 2 percent in pre-market trading.
First-quarter net profit rose to $313 million, or 14 cents a share, from $65 million, or 3 cents a share, a year earlier.
Revenue rose 9.2 percent to $5.36 billion.
Analysts polled by Reuters Estimates expected the company to post a profit of 11 cents a share and revenue of $5.38 billion.
"Comcast had an impressive balance of customer and financial growth," said Thomas Eagan, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. "Often, cable operators have to grow their customers at the expense of higher marketing costs. But they were able to (manage) both."
Cable operators have sought to push new digital services such as phones, video-on-demand and digital video recorders to bolster its defenses against competition from telephone and satellite television companies.
Comcast, which sealed a joint deal last week with Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news) to buy bankrupt cable operator Adelphia Communications Corp. (Other OTC:ADELQ - news), is expected to add 1.8 million new video subscribers as a result of the deal and related transactions with Time Warner.
Comcast added 414,000 net new high-speed Internet subscribers in the first quarter, ending the period with 7.4 million subscribers.
Demand for digital video recorders built by Motorola (NYSE:MOT - news) that record high-definition programming rose sharply in the quarter. Comcast added about 428,000 new digital video recorder customers.
It lost about 29,000 basic video subscribers, ending the quarter with 21.5 million subscribers, flat from last year.
Wall Street is keen for any information regarding Comcast's recently launched digital phone service, a key initiative designed to bolster financial growth in the future as the business of high speed Internet services mature.
"Clearly there will be a lot of time spent on the telephony product and what the pace of roll-out should be," said Jeffrey Bray, managing director of Babson Capital Management, referring to digital phone services. Babson owned nearly 7 million shares of Comcast as of Dec. 31, 2004.
Comcast added 7,000 new digital phone customers in its first quarter selling the product, but revenue declined 3.1 percent to $173 million as it shed some traditional phone subscribers it had inherited from AT&T.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 17 percent to $2.03 billion and free cash flow rose 82 percent to $722 million.
Looking ahead, Comcast raised its full-year operating cash flow growth to a range of 14 percent to 15 percent, from an earlier expectation of 12 percent.
Full-year 2005 capital expenditure is expected to rise between $200 million and $300 million to a range of $3.2 billion to $3.3 billion.
It reiterated expectations for full-year revenue growth of about 10 percent and expects to add about 2.5 million orders for its services for the year.
Shares of Comcast rose 73 cents to $32.65 on Inet, from a close of $31.92 on Wednesday on the Nasdaq.
Based on Comcast's closing price on Wednesday, the company would be able to buy back about 6.3 million shares under the authorization to repurchase $2 billion of stock. Comcast as of Dec. 31 had 1.36 billion shares outstanding, according to Reuters Data.
