By Harshita Mary Varghese
April 23 (Reuters) – Comcast topped first-quarter estimates on Thursday, as a blockbuster sports lineup boosted subscriber growth and engagement, while its core broadband business shed fewer customers than feared, sending its shares up 7%.
A packed live sports calendar, capped by the Winter Olympics, Super Bowl and the return of National Basketball League games, drove stronger advertising sales and user growth at the company’s Peacock streaming service.
Comcast has revamped its broadband pricing, packaging and customer experience, including promotional offers such as free wireless lines, a push that has helped ease customer losses.
The company lost 65,000 broadband customers in the first quarter, less than the estimated loss of 175,500 users, according to analysts polled by FactSet.
Comcast’s wireless push drove a record addition of 435,000 such customers, way ahead of the estimated 361,600 additions.
During the January to March period, Peacock added 2 million paid subscribers to reach 46 million overall, but losses in the segment widened to $432 million.
The media segment also reported a loss of $426 million as Comcast stepped up spending around NBA programming.
“NBCU experienced an advertising bonanza that will be nearly impossible to replicate,” said Ross Benes, senior analyst at Emarketer. “The biggest challenge ahead will be shrinking Peacock’s recurring financial losses.”
Comcast’s finance chief Jason Armstrong said Peacock is expected to approach profitability for the first time in the second quarter.
The company’s theme park business posted a 24% increase in revenue, led by higher attendance at its Epic Universe park in Orlando.
Its total revenue was $31.46 billion, up 10.9% excluding contributions from cable assets that were spun off into Versant Media in the first quarter. Analysts on average estimated $30.43 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Adjusted per-share profit of 79 cents also beat the estimate of 73 cents.
(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
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