Comcast is not impervious to the cable industry-wide trend toward bleeding video customers.
But Comcast overall seemed pleased with the 48,000 net video customer losses it posted during its third quarter. The operator said the number marked a 41 percent improvement annually and called the results the best third quarter it’s recorded in nine years.
Despite the ongoing video losses, broadband Internet customer growth continued to help ease the pain. Comcast added 320,000 broadband customers and grew its revenue by 10.2 percent.
Comcast said that 73 percent of its customers are now receiving speeds of 50 Mbps or greater.
The operator has also dramatically expanded its Wi-Fi network. It now counts 11.7 million total Wi-Fi hotspots, up from 4.9 million in the year-ago quarter. That speedy Wi-Fi network growth comes as rumors are surfacing about Comcast’s plans to launch an MVNO wireless service offering using its Wi-Fi network and Verizon’s cellular network.
When asked about the plans, CEO Brian Roberts said his company believes wireless is important to consumers and touted the success of his company’s Wi-Fi network.
He said it will take six months to activate an MVNO and that the company will trial services after that.
Comcast Cable CEO Neal Smit said the company is in a “test and learn mode.”
Aside from video, broadband and the spectre of wireless, the gold star for Comcast’s third quarter went to business services. The segment’s revenue grew 19.5 percent and Comcast is calling business services the second largest contributor to cable revenue growth for 18 of the previous 19 quarters.
“We feel great about the runway for business services,” CFO Michael Cavanagh said during Tuesday’s earnings call, encouraged by Comcast’s recent addition of a business services unit focused on Fortune 500 customers.
Overall, Comcast’s cable operations revenue grew 6.3 percent and revenue per customer for the segment was up 4.3 percent.
With the cable revenue growth came cable capital expenditures growth for Comcast. The operator reported an increase of $207 million to cable capex, taking the third quarter total to $1.9 billion, or 15.8 percent of cable revenue.
Comcast attributed some of the extra costs to the roll out of its new customer premise equipment (CPE), the X1. The operator says that the X1 is now out to 25 percent of its customers.
In terms of video competition, Comcast cited the X1 as a platform for growth in that area, particular around VOD. In all, Comcast said it was confident in its video product and talked up the voice control remotes that it’s rapidly sending out to customers.
On the heels of the quarterly results, Comcast’s shares remained mostly stable, getting a slight boost in pre-market trading.