Comcast Planning 'Measured,' Bundled Wireless Product Rollout
Comcast's wireless offering will come as part of a multiproduct bundle and the company will be "measured" in its rollout, "learning and adapting along the way," CEO Brian Roberts said in a conference call Thursday as the company announced its Q4 results. Comcast said it plans to launch a wireless service by mid-2017 (see 1609200042).
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Roberts was circumspect about details on what role Verizon's MVNO is expected to play in Comcast's wireless offering, such as whether it's to be used just for market entry or it's to be part of the long-term strategy. "Stay tuned," he said.
Use of the MVNO "may be getting a bad rap" in the investment community, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote investors Thursday. He said Comcast, as well as Charter Communications, which also has wireless plans, may be aiming to use their own Wi-Fi networks plus whatever low-frequency spectrum they buy at auction, to use the MVNO as a roaming agreement. He said Comcast doesn't seem likely to be looking at mergers or acquisitions for its wireless plans: "With its current set of assets, Comcast needs a deal less" than other companies he's following. Charter, meanwhile, could possibly be sold to Verizon, though some downplayed that scenario (see 1701260032).
NBCUniversal CEO Stephen Burke said if there's an increase in the national broadcast TV cap, "we would certainly look at" increasing the company's national broadcast footprint. He pointed to Comcast's recent replacement of NBC affiliate WHDH Boston with its own owned-and-operated station as "a wonderful way to increase our footprint." He said the company doesn't see a necessity to expanding its footprint.
The company ended 2016 with an additional 1.37 million data customers, making for its best year in nine years, and now more than 50 percent of its residential customers have access to speeds of 100 Mbps or more, Chief Financial Officer Mike Cavanagh said. He said Comcast has "a lot of runway to continue to grow" high-speed data subscription numbers. The operator said the 161,000 net video customers added in 2016 made it Comcast's first year in a decade it had added video customers for a full year. Comcast had 211,000 net voice customer additions in 2016. Comcast as of year's end had 22.5 million video customers, 24.7 million high-speed Internet customers and 11.7 million voice customers.
Programming expenses were up 10.1 percent for 2016, driven by retransmission consent fees and sports programming costs, and are expected to ratchet up further to 13.1 percent this year, Cavanagh said. Starting in 2018, once past a spate of contract renewals, programming costs should normalize to a more typical growth rate in the high single digits, he said. NBCU saw its own retrans revenue hit $850 million for the year, and it's expected to hit $1.4 billion for 2017 due to various renewal agreements, he said.
Comcast stock closed Thursday at $75.50, up 2.8 percent. The company announced Thursday it would do a two-for-one stock split and that it was increasing its dividend 15 percent to $1.26 per share.