“Furious 7” and “Jurassic World” were such big box office hits that they nudged up NBCUniversal parent company Comcast’s second quarter revenue and earnings per share (EPS) — at least partially.
Comcast reported its second quarter 2015 financials on Thursday, hitting EPS expectations on the nose at $0.84 apiece and topping revenue forecasts with $18.7 billion in sales. Both of those figures grew double-digits on a percentage basis from 2014’s Q2.
This time around, Wall Street analysts had projected EPS of $0.84 on revenue of $18.14 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.
As a cable provider, Comcast grew its customer base by 31,000 to 27.3 million — an improvement of 56,000 compared to the second quarter of 2014. The reversal of fortune was driven by increases in double and triple product relationships, the company said.
On the entertainment side, revenue for NBCUniversal increased 20.2 percent to $7.2 billion. That was mostly seen on the filmed entertainment side, which grew 92.7 percent year over year to $2.3 billion. Theme parks rose 25.7 percent this Q2 to $773 million in sales, driven in large part by the continued success of Orlando’s The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley.
TV was basically flat on both the broadcast and cable ends. That said, in Q2 2015, NBC finished the traditional TV season rated No. 1 among its broadcast competition for the second year in a row, so the baseline was solid.
“Our second quarter results, including 11.3 percent revenue growth and 8.0 percent operating cash flow growth, demonstrate the strength and momentum we are seeing across our businesses,” said Brian L. Roberts, chairman and chief executive officer of Comcast Corporation.
“In Cable, high-speed Internet and business services continued to perform extremely well, and, significantly, this was the best second quarter video customer results we’ve had in nine years,” he said. “Our focus on accelerating the deployment of our transformative X1 platform, as well as efforts to improve customer service, are clearly making a difference, with lower churn across all product categories.”
“NBCUniversal had an exceptional quarter, led by the record-breaking box office performances of ‘Jurassic World’ and ‘Furious 7’ and continued strong momentum in our theme parks,” he continued. “In addition, NBC won the 2014-2015 broadcast season for adults 18-49. Our teams are executing incredibly well across our strong and diversified portfolio, and I am excited for what we can deliver in the rest of 2015 and beyond.”
A Q2 earnings conference call with Comcast executives is set for 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday.