Comcast Cable reported revenue of $4.987 billion, representing a 10.6% increase from the prior year quarter. Video revenue increased 5.9% during the period, reflecting the addition of digital cable subscribers and price increases to our video service. Comcast Cable added more than 250,000 digital cable subscribers during the fourth quarter to end the period with greater than 8.6 million subscribers. Comcast Cable added 60,000 basic subscribers during the seasonally strong fourth quarter of 2004, ending the year at 21.548 million. For full-year 2004, Comcast Cable reported revenue of $19.321 billion, a 10.4% increase from the same period in 2003.
Some highlights of the quarterly report:
- More than 8.6 million, or 40%, of subscribers now subscribe to Comcast Digital Cable. Comcast Cable added 8,000 basic subscribers during 2004, ending the year at 21.548 million.
- Comcasts’ ON DEMAND VOD service is taking off – customers ordered more than 560 million ON DEMAND programs during 2004. Comcast expects to exceed one billion VOD orders in 2005.
- Comcast added more than 437,000 cable modem subscribers to end the quarter with nearly 7.0 million subscribers. Revenues for this service increased 35.9% from the prior year quarter to $855 million, reflecting solid subscriber growth and slightly higher average monthly revenue per subscriber for the quarter of $42.07, an increase from $41.33 during the same quarter of 2003.
- Comcast High-Speed Internet service revenue increased 38.6% during the year ended December 31, 2004, to $3.124 billion, reflecting the record addition of 1.707 million new subscribers and stable average monthly revenue per subscriber for the year of $42.41 compared to $42.20 for 2003. Comcast High-Speed Internet service is now available to 40 million homes, almost all of Comcast’s footprint, as compared to 35 million homes at the start of 2004.
- For Q4, Comcast’s Cable phone revenue declined 12.5% during 2004 to $701 million, the result of a 3.4% decrease in subscribers and a 4.9% decrease in average monthly revenue per subscriber to $46.90. Cable phone results reflect the company’s ongoing focus on profitability, rather than unit growth, of its circuit-switched telephone business as it begins the transition to Comcast Digital Voice service using IP technology in 2005. Nevertheless, the company added more than 10,000 phone subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2004.
- The company is preparing to launch Comcast Digital Voice. The VoIP service will be integrated with Comcast’s video and High-Speed Internet services. Comcast expects to market Comcast Digital Voice service to 15 million homes by the end of 2005 with most markets launching in the second half of the year. Excluding phone revenue, which is expected to continue to decline in 2005, total revenue for Comcast Cable increased 11.5% during 2004 to $18.620 billion.
- Cable capital expenditures for the year ended December 31, 2004, declined 11.6% to $3.622 billion compared to $4.097 billion in the prior year.
- For 2005, Comcast expects consolidated revenue growth of approximately 10% and consolidated capital expenditures of approximately $3 billion.
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