Comcast, the largest U.S. cable service provider, posted a higher quarterly profit as it gained market share in Voice over IP (VoIP) phone and ISP customers while controlling expenses, sending shares up 6 percent.
The company said free cash flow rose 216 percent rise to $1.163 billion — an increase largely due to lower spending on expanding its cable systems to new communities, a development prompted by a slowdown in U.S. homebuilding.
While that slowdown contributed to weaker video subscriber growth, analysts said Comcast’s (NASDAQ: CMCSA) VoIP service was winning market share from phone competitors including AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ).
“Free cash flow was better than we expected and that was partly due to the fewer customer adds, so they didn’t incur costs of adding new subscribers,” said Tom Eagan, an analyst at Collins Stewart.
Comcast said it added 278,000 high-speed Internet subscribers and 500,000 VoIP subscribers during the second quarter. Seven analysts polled by Reuters had on average expected Comcast to add 327,000 new Internet subscribers and 579,000 new phone subs.
Steve Burke, Comcast’s chief operating officer, told analysts on a conference call that the company’s faster Internet access speeds are helping to win over phone company DSL customers as they want to watch more online video.