Comcast Beats Street 2Q Forecasts, Revenue Rises

Comcast’s second quarter was stronger than Wall Street had expected, as the company narrowed the loss of video subscribers and revenue took off.

For the period ended June 30, Comcast Corp. earned $2.03 billion, or 83 cents per share. A year earlier the Philadelphia company earned $2.14 billion, or 84 cents per share.

That’s a penny better than what analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research had forecast.

Revenue increased to $19.27 billion from $18.74 billion. Analysts polled by Zacks anticipated $19.04 billion in revenue.

Comcast lost 4,000 video customers, which was the best second-quarter number in more than a decade, according to the company.

At the same time, the company booked an increase in residential high-speed internet customers and small business customers. It added 220,000 high-speed internet customers in the period, the best performance for the quarter in eight years.

In trading Wednesday afternoon, Comcast stock rose 75 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $67.93.