Comcast Adds 209K Internet Customers

Comcast Corp. posted a slightly lower profit as strong growth at its internet and mobile business was offset by costs related to the acquisition of European pay-television provider Sky PLC and the continuing erosion of its pay-TV customer base.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Philadelphia-based company’s net profit inched 2.8% lower to $3.13 billion, or 68 cents a share, from a year earlier. The quarterly profit met FactSet analysts’ per-share estimates.

Overall, Comcast’s revenue increased 24% to $26.86 billion in the second quarter, due in large part to last fall’s acquisition of Sky. The company said, however, that the amortization of intangible assets related to the purchase of Sky affected its quarterly profit negatively.

Revenue from Comcast’s residential internet subscribers increased 9.4% to $4.66 billion, while its business services segment revenue rose 9.8%. The addition of 209,000 internet subscribers in the second quarter was lower than the 260,000 it added a year earlier.

Comcast said it had 224,000 pay-TV subscriber losses in the second quarter, compared with 140,000 a year earlier. That marked Comcast’s ninth consecutive quarter of TV-subscriber decline.

The cord-cutting trend has been a larger pain point for many of Comcast’s peers. AT&T Inc. on Wednesday said it experienced a net loss of 778,000 “premium video” subscribers, which are mostly DirecTV customers. It also said it lost an additional 168,000 streaming DirecTV Now accounts, the service that provides a cable-like package of channels via the internet.

Comcast said it added 181,000 Xfinity Mobile phone lines during the second quarter, bringing its total to about 1.59 million, more than doubling the number of subscribers compared with last year. Mobile service has become a new way for cable operators to retain TV subscribers and increase revenue.