Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) Beats Estimates as Subscriber Base Grows

Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA)’s investments on customer service are slowly paying off, having posted better than expected fourth-quarter earnings. Adding more video customers in more than eight years should help avert growing concerns over the company’s cable business prospects. Shareholders should be a happy lot the cable giant having confirmed new payouts in the form of dividends and buybacks.

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Stellar Q4 Earnings

The giant cable has since increased its annual dividend by 10% to $1.10 a share. It also plans to buy back stock worth $5 billion this year as part of a $10 billion buyback program. The confirmation of the payouts comes on Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) posting an 8.5% increase in revenue that came in at $19.25 billion. Analysts were expecting revenues of $18.76 billion.

Net income for fourth quarter increased by 2.4% to $2 billion, its services business unit posted a 19% increase in revenue that came in at $1.3 billion. High-speed internet business also continues to grow robustly as more people continue to stream content. The unit posted a 10% increase in revenue that rose to $3.2 billion. Internet customer additions also came in better than expected having increased by 23% to 460,000.

Growing Video Business

Comcast says it added 89,000 video subscribers in the quarter up from 6,000 new subscribers, added a year earlier. Adding such a number comes at the back of a fierce tussle with streaming networks for subscribers. More and more people are shunning the cord for streaming services a change that has significantly affected cable companies

Investing big on customer service and enhancing features on set-top boxes has turned out to be Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) play as it seeks to avoid further losses. The firm has also rolled out smaller exciting bundles as it bids to retain and add more subscribers.

Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) could enter the wireless market as one of the ways of shrugging weakness in its cable business. It has already confirmed its participation in the upcoming FCC spectrum auction as it seeks to buy wireless airwaves for its entry into the business.

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