Comcast halts sub losses
January 29, 2014
US cable giant Comcast has revealed that profits soared 26 per cent in Q4 2013, and that it had finally put the brakes on a trend of customer losses.
For the three months ended December 31st, Comcast added 43,000 net video subscribers – marking the first time in nearly seven years that the company did not lose more customers than it gained during a quarter.
Profit increased to $1.91 billion compared with $1.5 billion in the year-earlier period.
“We really have strong momentum across all of our businesses,” Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts said in a conference call.
At NBCUniversal during Q4, cable channels USA Network and Bravo, the NBC broadcast network and the Universal Pictures movie studio sparked revenue gains of 7.5 per cent to $6.5 billion. Operating cash flow, Comcast’s metric for profitability, swelled 14.3 per cent to $1.3 billion.
“We feel great about improvement at NBCUniversal, which has exceeded our expectations,” Roberts said. “The turnaround in broadcast is happening even faster than we anticipated.”