By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Comcast stock (NASDAQ:CMCSA) was up 2% in premarket Thursday, the company enjoying a booming at its theme parks to beat estimates in the fourth quarter.
It also raised its dividend for the year, the 14th year in a row that it has done so. Revenue in the quarter through December rose 9.5% year-on-year to exceed $30 billion.
Theme Parks revenue almost tripled to $1.9 billion as guests in the U.S. thronged to its facilities after almost a two-year long pandemic. Visits were higher in Japan too. Guests in the two countries also spent more than last time, according to the company.
Driven by theme parks, revenue at NBCUniversal, the unit that houses the business, jumped nearly 26% to $9.4 billion. Universal Beijing opened in September and “essentially” achieved break-even, the company said.
Comcast’s revenue from the cable business, its biggest, rose 4.5% to top $16 billion. Overall cable customer accounts including broadband, video, voice and other services were higher by 3.3% and exceeded 34 million. However, last year’s pandemic-fueled expansion of its broadband subscriber base petered out, the company adding only 212,000 customers in the quarter, down nearly 61% from last year.
Monthly active accounts at its streaming service Peacock crossed 24 million in U.S by the end of December and the company launched the service in U.K. and Ireland.
Adjusted profit per share of 77 cents was over 37% higher than last time out.