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Comcast's earnings jump 64 percent

Comcast Corp. reported Tuesday that second-quarter profit rose 64 percent as its video and high-speed Internet businesses gained steam.
/ Source: The Associated Press

Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable television operator, reported Tuesday that second-quarter profit rose 64 percent as its video and high-speed Internet businesses gained steam.

Net income rose to $430 million, or 19 cents per share, from $262 million, or 12 cents per share, a year ago. Revenue rose 10.5 percent to $5.6 billion from $5.1 billion last year.

The results easily beat analysts' estimates for profit of 15 cents per share on revenue of $5.54 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

In the quarter, video revenue increased 5.9 percent to $3.4 billion, driven by higher monthly revenue per basic subscriber and a 13.3 percent increase in the number of digital cable customers.

Comcast added 284,000 new digital customers in the second quarter of 2005 and now has more than 9.1 million. High-speed Internet revenue increased 28.8 percent to $982 million, and Comcast ended the quarter with more than 7.7 million high-speed Internet subscribers.

However, the company added only 297,000 subscribers in the latest period, down from 327,000 in the year-ago quarter.

Comcast acknowledged that local phone companies have been aggressive in cutting prices on their digital subscriber line, or DSL, service. SBC has lowered promotional prices on high-speed Internet service to $14.95 a month and Verizon has been aggressively cutting rates as well.

Among all its business units, the only revenue decline occurred in Comcast's phone service, which fell 4 percent to $170 million. Comcast has been behind other cable companies in signing up digital phone customers.

Brian Roberts, chief executive of Comcast, said the company is continuing to improve programming.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Comcast was considering plans to set up a major sports network, but Comcast executives insisted they have no plans to establish a sports network to rival ESPN.

As for getting into cellular phone service, Roberts said Comcast wants to add mobile phone service not for its own sake but as a complement to its home phone and cable TV bundle.

"We're mostly focused on trying to bundle and enhance wireless service that would have a seamless relationship" with other technologies at home, he said.