By Samrhitha A and Helen Coster
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Comcast’s quarterly revenue topped Wall Street estimates on Thursday, as growth in its streaming and theme parks businesses, including a widely watched NFL playoff game, more than offset further losses of broadband subscribers.
Revenue rose 2.3% to $31.25 billion in the fourth quarter, beating analysts’ estimates of $30.51 billion, according to LSEG data.
Shares of the media giant rose more than 4% in trading before the bell.
Comcast lost 34,000 broadband customers in the quarter, less than the loss of 61,000 customers that had been forecast, according to FactSet but exceeding the 18,000 broadband customers it lost in the previous quarter.
During the company’s October call with investors, finance chief Jason Armstrong had said it expected “somewhat higher” broadband subscriber losses in the fourth quarter.
The company has faced pressure from wireless carriers such as Verizon and T-Mobile, which offer broadband services that target lower-income customers.
Revenue at the company’s Peacock streaming service rose 56.5% from a year earlier, surpassing $1 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time to $1.03 billion. Paid subscribers increased by 3 million in the fourth quarter, to 31 million.
The company has been investing in live programming in an effort to draw more viewers to Peacock. This month, Peacock was the first streaming service to exclusively air an NFL playoff game. The Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins game averaged 23 million viewers and became the most-streamed event in U.S. history.
Comcast reported a 5.7% rise in revenue in its content and experiences segment, which includes NBCUniversal, to $11.5 billion.
Hits like “Oppenheimer”, “Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Fast X” drove Comcast’s Universal Pictures to the number 1 spot at the worldwide box office for 2023 – the first time since 2015 that Walt Disney was not the leader.
Revenue in its theme parks business rose 12.2%, to $2.37 billion, boosted by attendance at the Osaka, Japan and Hollywood, California parks.
The company raised its dividend by $0.08, to $1.24 per share on an annualized basis for 2024.
(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York and Samrhitha Arunasalam in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gregorio)
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