Comcast broadband subs surpass video subs

Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA, CMCSK) now has more subscribers taking its broadband services than its video services. The cable MSO (and owner of NBC/Universal) made the revelation today as it reported results of its second fiscal quarter, which ended June 30, 2015.

The company has been shedding video subscribers due mainly to increased competition from both telco and over-the-top (OTT) service providers. Comcast ended the quarter with approximately 22,306,000 video subscribers by the end of June, a decrease of almost 150,000 year-on-year. Nevertheless, Comcast expressed satisfaction that it only lost 69,000 video customers during the quarter, 52% less than it had lost in 2Q14. The company described the lower loss rate in a press release as "the best result for a second quarter in nine years."

Conversely, the company added 180,000 high-speed Internet customers during the quarter. While that number did not equal the gains of the year-ago quarter, when Comcast gained about 203,000 new subscribers, the result continued the company's broadband momentum.

The countervailing trends left Comcast with 22,306,000 video subscribers and 22,548,000 Internet customers. And thus the cable TV provider could be considered primarily a broadband services and content company.

Unless you're just counting the money. Comcast said it derived $5.43 billion in revenue from video during 2Q15, compared with $3.1 billion from its greater number of Internet subscribers. But, not surprisingly, the revenue gap between video and broadband has narrowed slightly. For the first six months of this year, Comcast says it received about $4.62 billion more from video than Internet ($10.762 billion versus $6.145 billion). Over the first six months of last year, the gap was $4.85 billion.

Comcast reported a 20.4% year-on-year improvement in business services revenue as well. That segment contributed $1.16 billion to the quarter's totals.

Overall, Comcast reported $11.73 billion in revenues from cable operations, up 6.3% from 2Q14. Consolidated revenues (including NBC/Universal) were $18.7 billion, up 11.3%.

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