By Richard Francis and Helen Coster
(Reuters) – Comcast Corp’s second quarter revenue beat Wall Street estimates on Thursday, lifted by the NBCUniversal media business and a continued recovery in theme park attendance and box office ticket sales.
Broadband subscriber growth remained flat, after declining from the prior year in each of the previous three quarters. The company has attributed that slowdown, in part, to fewer people changing homes. Comcast saw record broadband growth during the beginning of the pandemic.
Comcast’s total revenue rose 5.1% to $30.02 billion in the quarter, beating analysts’ average estimate of $29.68 billion, according to Refinitiv data.
Revenue in the cable business, which includes broadband, was up 3.7% to $16.6 billion, the same as analysts’ estimates.
NBCUniversal revenue increased 18.7% in the quarter, to $9.45 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $9.02 billion. It was helped by strong performance in NBCUniversal’s studios business, driven by box office sales of Universal Pictures’ “Jurassic World: Dominion,” as well as attendance at theme parks.
Revenue at the theme parks division grew 64.8% despite the Universal Beijing Resort being shut for most of the quarter following an outbreak of COVID-19 cases in the Chinese capital.
Comcast announced it had 13 million paid subscribers to its Peacock streaming service, the same as last quarter, when Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts told investors that subscriber gains would be “more modest” until the back half of this year, when more movies and live sports will become available on the service.
NBCUniversal’s advertising sales declined 1.3% in the quarter, compared to a year ago when NBC had broadcast rights to National Hockey League games.
Net income attributable to Comcast fell to $3.4 billion, or 76 cents per share, from $3.74 billion, or 80 cents per share, a year earlier.
(Reporting by Richard Rohan Francis in Bengaluru and Helen Coster in New York; Editing by Chris Reese)
