Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Charter announced their revenue and net income for the first quarter of 2016.
Comcast revenue reached $18.79 billion (+5.3 percent).
Time Warner Cable revenue touched $6.19 billion (+7.2 percent).
Charter Communications revenue closed at $2.53 billion (+7.1 percent).
Comcast
Comcast said the rise in Q1 revenue is attributed to growth in its business services, high-speed internet and entertainment units, adding to which it also posted the biggest first-quarter gain in pay-TV customers in nine years.
The Philadelphia based company said the revenue came from the 53,000 pay-TV subscribers added to the customer base of the company in the recently passed first quarter of the year. Last year Comcast lost about 8,000 of its subscribers and hence has been trying to invest more to improve customer service and enhance features of its set-top boxes and TV interface in an effort to retain and attract subscribers. The internet revenues of the company increased to $3.3 billion or 8 percent, with a 438000 customer addition figure.
Revenue was also generated from Universal theme parks, which went up 58 percent to become $1.03 billion, triggered by Harry Potter attractions and the addition of Universal Studios Japan, that was acquired by Comcast for $1.5 billion in September.
The broadband and business services domains let out a sales growth figure with an increase in revenue by 6.7 percent to $12.2 billion. Comcast also debuted OTT site Watchable in September and streams Xfinity services to some Samsung televisions too.
The recorded quarterly profit of the company, owning the CNBC network also, rose to $2.13 billion from the $2.06 billion profit made a year ago.
After the failure of the Time Warner Cable deal last year, Comcast has been investing in many digital media companies and theme parks. Wall Street Journal recently reported that the company is in the process of entering into a deal with DreamWorks Animation SKG for more than $3 billion.
Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable reported a 7.2 percent rise in the first quarter revenue of 2016. The company, which is in the process of being bought by Charter Communications, owed the rise in figures to the signing up of more customers than expected for its high-speed data services.
The company added 314,000 subscribers to its high-speed data services in the Q1 2016.
The revenue of the company rose to $6.19 billion in the first quarter, compared to the $5.78 billion that the company made a year earlier.
The net income elevated to $494 million in the first quarter from $458 million.
Time Warner Cable could only add 21,000 residential video customers in the quarter.
Charter
Charter found its first-quarter revenue to be up by 7.1 percent to $2.53 billion. Even in the midst of higher costs and expenses, the company’s quarterly loss has deepened from $81 million to $188 million.
The company said that the reason behind the loss was related to a $165 million increase in its interest expense, which was further driven by the financing of Charter’s pending transactions with Time Warner Cable Inc. and Bright House Networks.
The capital expenditures added up to $429 million in the first quarter, seeing an increase from $351 million in the year-ago period.
First quarter residential revenue per customer relationship came to be $111.04, which hiked by 1.4 percent as compared to the last-year period, driven by higher product sell-in, promotional rate step-ups and rate adjustments, which was partially triggered by continued single play Internet sell-in.
Charter, presided over by the CEO Tom Rutledge, has 15,000 video subscribers additions, alongside 10,000 residential business and 5,000 small and medium business unit additions. The company had lost 12,000 video subscribers in 2015.
Charter improved its video product by including more HD channels and video on demand offerings, alongside attractive packages of advanced services, better selling methods, and focus on service quality, which led to the addition in the video subscriber base.
The net customer relationships rose to 119,000 during the first quarter, versus 90,000 during the first quarter of 2015. Residential and SMB primary service units increased 218,000 during the 2016 period, versus 173,000 in the year-ago quarter.
Charter has an overall customer base of 6.8 million overall which contains of more than 4.33 million residential video subscribers.
Vina Krishnan
editor@telecomlead.com
