Comcast earnings 2Q 2022
NBCUniversal kicks off it’s new Peacock streaming service.
Todd Williamson | Peacock | NBCUniversal | Getty Images
Comcast reported second-quarter revenue and earnings that topped analyst estimates, but the cable provider didn’t add broadband customers in a quarter for the first time ever.
Comcast’s high-speed internet customers in the quarter were flat, trailing the 84,000 average analyst estimate, according to FactSet. Revenue rose 5.1% to $30.02 billion from a year prior, helped by NBCUniversal’s theme parks and studios businesses. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, rose 10.1% to $9.8 billion.
Shares of Comcast fell more than 6% in premarket trading.
Comcast is seeing growing competition for high-speed broadband, its most lucrative product. For more than a decade, the cable industry has dominated the home broadband market, but wireless companies such as T-Mobile are now competing by offering 5G home internet products. T-Mobile added 560,000 broadband users in the second quarter, well above its first-quarter total of 338,000.
Here are the key numbers:
- Earnings per share: $1.01, adjusted vs. estimate of 92 cents, according to Refinitiv
- Revenue: $30.02 billion vs. $29.68 billion estimate, according to Refinitiv
- High-speed internet customers: 0 vs. 84,000 net additions, according to the average estimate among analysts surveyed by FactSet.
Comcast Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts, in a statement, called the dip temporary as macroeconomic conditions such as higher inflation limit the number of new connects for the company. Broadband revenue rose 6.8% year over year to $6.1 billion in the quarter on increased rates and a higher number of residential customers than a year earlier.
“We achieved our highest adjusted EBITDA margin on record even amid a unique and evolving macroeconomic environment that is temporarily putting pressure on the volume of our new customer connects,” Roberts said.
Since March 2020, Comcast has added more than 3 million broadband customers.
Video customers fall
Comcast lost 521,000 video customers in the quarter and lost 1 million video subscribers in the first six months of 2022. Consumers are shedding traditional pay-TV subscriptions at accelerated rates in favor of streaming options, such as Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and NBCUniversal’s Peacock.
Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Voice customers fell by 286,000 in the quarter, though wireless subscribers jumped by 317,000. Wireless revenue rose nearly 30% year over year to $722 million. Business services rose 10% to $2.4 billion.
NBCUniversal
NBCUniversal revenue rose 18.7% in the quarter to $9.4 billion. NBCUniversal adjusted EBITDA climbed 19.5% to $1.9 billion.
Studios revenue increased more than 33% to $3 billion, driven by “Jurassic World: Dominion,” which has topped $900 million in global box-office sales.
The Universal theme park business continued to recover from last year’s Covid pandemic slowdown. Revenue jumped about 65% to $1.8 billion. Adjusted EBITDA increased 187% to $632 million, the parks’ division highest ever EBITDA for a second quarter.
Peacock paid subscribers stayed flat at 13…
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