Comcast felt the impact of the coronavirus shutdown in the second quarter as the media giant posted double-digit declines in revenue and profits.
The parent company of NBCUniversal stated that its fledgling Peacock streaming service has generated 10 million “sign-ups” since it debuted in April for Comcast Xfinity customers and on July 15 nationally.
All told, Comcast revenue slid 11.7% year-over-year for the quarter to $23.7 billion. Adjusted net income dropped 12.2% to $3.17 billion. On the plus side, Comcast units saw expenses decline as business activity was curtailed amid the quarantine conditions forced by the pandemic.
Comcast also said its cable division delivered its highest volume of new customers for a Q2 in 13 years, fueled by high-speed internet additions of 323,000. Comcast’s video subscribers declined by 477,000 across business and residential customers.
NBCUniversal saw a whopping 25.4% drop in revenue for the quarter to $6.1 billion compared to the year-ago benchmark. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization sank 29.5% to $1.6 billion, driven by a 167.7% plunge in revenue for the theme park division as its Universal Studios parks in Hollywood, Orlando, Fla., and Japan were shuttered by the pandemic.
Lower programming and production costs because of canceled or postponed sporting events and content production helped offset a steep 27% year-over-year decline in advertising at NBCU’s cable networks and a 27.9% plunge at broadcast networks NBC and Telemundo.
Theatrical revenue for the filmed entertainment unit disappeared to the tune of a 96.8% quarter-to-quarter decline as movie theaters around the world were also forced to close due to quarantine conditions.
“Our response to COVID-19 has been extraordinarily fast and effective, and our products and brands continue to resonate strongly with our customers across all segments and all geographies. The solid results that we delivered in the quarter highlight the resilience of our company. Cable delivered record second quarter customer relationship net adds, driven by the best second quarter high-speed internet net adds in 13 years. NBCUniversal successfully launched Peacock in Cable’s footprint in April, ahead of the streaming service’s U.S. nationwide launch earlier this month, with 10 million sign-ups to date. NBCUniversal also just recently announced a deal with AMC Theatres in the U.S. that allows Universal to release titles across PVOD platforms after a 17-day exclusive theatrical window. At Sky, our flexible strategy helped retain customers until key sports returned in May and June. Overall, based on our results and the many organic growth opportunities that we have across our company, I am confident in our ability to continue to successfully navigate the impact of COVID-19, and emerge from the crisis even stronger. I could not be more proud of how our teams across Comcast Cable, NBCUniversal and Sky are together managing the business,” said Brian Roberts, chairman-CEO of Comcast.
More to come