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Comcast stock was rising on Thursday after the cable and entertainment company beat Wall Street’s earnings and revenue targets, even as its all-important broadband division bled more subscribers.
Shares climbed 3.3% to $24.29 ahead of the opening bell. Futures tracking the S&P 500 were 0.4% lower as a rally in oil prices revived investors’ fears about higher inflation.
Comcast reported second-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.04 a share, as revenue fell 1.2% from a year ago to $29.9 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of 97 cents a share on revenue of $29.2 billion, according to a FactSet poll.
The company lost 167,000 residential broadband customers over the period, a touch above what Wall Street was looking for.
This is breaking news. Read a preview of Comcast’s earnings below and check back for more analysis soon.
The Odyssey’s blockbuster movie debut and spinoff plans for NBCUniversal have put the spotlight on Comcast’s media business, but earnings due Thursday will remind investors—for better or worse—what really matters.
Comcast is due to report quarterly results before the opening bell on Thursday, just weeks after it announced plans to spin off NBCUniversal and Sky as a stand-alone media business while retaining the core broadband, wireless, and technology operations.
Investors are hoping that the spinoff, which will happen in around a year, could help the beaten-down stock—one of the cheapest in the S&P 500—shine.
The shares have lost almost 30% over the past year amid pressures from internet providers like Verizon Communications, AT&T, T-Mobile, and even SpaceX, but splitting up may help Comcast more effectively compete.
Yet Comcast’s broadband, wireless, and technology business remains at the core of the company and its greatest driver of free-cash flow. This is what matters for investors, no matter how many blockbusters NBCUniversal racks up, and the business remains under intense pressure.
Analysts are expecting 165,300 net domestic broadband subscriber losses for the quarter, per FactSet. That’s been a key metric to watch in recent quarters and will be again Thursday.
Wall Street expects that the screws kept tightening in the second quarter, with analysts eyeing sales down 3.6% to around $29.3 billion with earnings per share falling almost 18% to 97 cents.
While these expectations don’t exactly spell success, they could mark a low bar for Comcast to beat at a time when it seems like Wall Street is turning more positive on the stock.
Analysts are already broadly optimistic about the spinoff plans: Deutsche Bank, in late June, said it sees some 30% upside over the next 12 months as a result of the “value unlock.”
Write to Jack Denton at [email protected]
