Comcast beat Wall Street’s profit forecast Thursday as Peacock posted a second consecutive quarterly profit and “The Odyssey” pushed Universal Pictures past $5 billion at the global box office. The company reported adjusted earnings of $1.07 per share, against analysts’ consensus of about $0.98. Revenue fell 6.1% to $29.3 billion from $31.2 billion a year earlier, and net income rose 3.5% to $3.45 billion. Co-CEOs Brian Roberts and Mike Cavanagh said Comcast is taking “decisive steps” to strengthen its businesses.
Peacock delivered the headline. The streamer earned $261 million in adjusted EBITDA on $1.8 billion in revenue, up 34%, after a $217 million loss in the same quarter last year. Paid subscribers rose 17% to 48 million but held flat from the second quarter, when Peacock first turned a profit at $189 million. Price increases and lower programming costs helped the turnaround. The FIFA World Cup added $224 million in incremental advertising revenue as the final games aired at the start of the period.
Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” became Universal’s highest-grossing film ever, with nearly $1.8 billion worldwide so far. “Minions & Monsters” and the Focus Features horror hit “Obsession” also contributed. Even so, studio revenue slipped 1.1% to $2.97 billion because television studios licensed less content. Comcast’s media division grew revenue 13% to $5.36 billion, and the broader Content & Experiences group, which includes theme parks, rose 6.5% to $10.54 billion. Cable remains the weak spot. Comcast lost 144,000 broadband customers in the quarter, deeper than the 91,000 it lost a year ago and worse than analysts had forecast. The theme parks business also faced pressure.
Comcast generated $4.2 billion in free cash flow, down 14.8% from last year. It said the planned separation of NBCUniversal and Sky into independent companies remains on track for next year. The split would leave NBCUniversal carrying a profitable streamer, a record-setting studio and a parks division under strain, while the cable business would stay with Comcast and keep shrinking.
