Triple Play service bundles are driving growth at Comcast, said Brian Roberts, speaking at the Citigroup Entertainment Media & Telecommunication Conference, and new push into business services will extend this momentum. Growth in revenue generating units (RGUs) surged 85% in 2006 due largely to its Triple Play bundle, which provides voice, video and Internet access for $99 per month. Comcast aims to be a credible alternative to the ILECs in delivering services to small and medium businesses — a market valued at $25 billion per year. Some highlights of the presentation:
- Comcast now has 12 million digital cable subscribers, of which 1.7 million have the Digital Starter package ($50 per month), 6.2 million are Digital Cable subscribers ($65+ per month), and 4.1 million subscribe to Digital Cable + HD/DVR ($75+ per month).
- Comcast’s VOD library currently offers over 8,000 program choices, including some 800 film (300 available at no extra charge). Customers watched over 20 million of the free movies in December.
- There were 1.9 billion VOD views for all of 2006 — over 95% were for the free content. Customers typically use On-Demand viewing 27X per month.
- Comcast’s “PowerBoost” cable modem service is now delivering downlink rates in the 12~16 Mbps range.
- Comcast now has over 11 million high-speed Internet customers.
- Comcast’s Digital Voice service now has a 4% penetration rate. The company’s goal is to achieve a 20% penetration rate by year end 2009.
An archived version of the webcast is available on the company’s website.
http://www.comcast.com