Comcast Profit Jumps 28.6% on Growth of Broadband

The broadband Internet business continues to look bright for Comcast, which reported profit and revenue increases that surpassed analysts’ already sunny projections.

In the second quarter — Comcast’s first full quarter owning 100 percent of NBCUniversal, in which it had previously held a 51 percent stake — earnings rose to $1.7 billion, or 65 cents a share, from $1.35 billion, or 50 cents a share, in the period a year earlier. Wall Street analysts had been expecting earnings of 63 cents a share. Total revenue rose 7 percent, to $16.3 billion, from the second quarter of 2012, lifted by the continued growth of the company’s broadband Internet and business products. Free cash flow increased 25 percent, to $1.9 billion. Comcast was the first major television and Internet provider to report quarterly earnings, so its healthy results may augur more good news when others report in the weeks to come. It is broadband, not cable television, that is generally bolstering cable companies’ results these days, because nearly nine out of 10 American households already subscribe to some sort of TV, but only two-thirds subscribe to broadband. Comcast gained 187,000 new broadband subscribers in the second quarter. Comcast has been losing TV subscribers to DirecTV and Verizon FiOS for years.