By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Comcast stock (NASDAQ:CMCSA) rose 2% Thursday after the company’s second-quarter revenue and earnings both came in ahead of estimates.
The company rode both the themes derived from the pandemic: people watching content and shopping online at home and those wanting to break loose after a year of being home. It reflected in the numbers for those businesses.
Record subscriber additions in broadband and cable businesses, big movie releases like F9 and Boss Baby 2 and a bounce back in theme park footfalls all contributed to the boost in the company’s revenue.
The largest cable operator in the U.S. acquired 354,000 broadband customers, the best for any second quarter. Comcast also reported 280,000 wireless line additions.
Total customer relationships increased by 294,000 to 33.8 million, making it the best second quarter on record.
Revenue at the company’s U.K. business, Sky, jumped 28%, to $5.2 billion.
Theme parks delivered their first profitable quarter since the first three-month period of 2020. Quarterly revenue from theme parks was $1.09 billion, up from $136 million from last year when pretty much all activity was shut.
During its earnings call, the company said it expects total broadband net additions for 2021 to increase “mid-teens” relative to 2019, according to Reuters.
Overall revenue rose 21% to $28.54 billion, surpassing the estimated $27.13 billion. Earnings per share at 84 cents topped the expectation of 65 cents.