Comcast Tops Q4 Consensus; Hikes Share Buyback to $10 Billion; Raises Dividend by 8 Percent

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Comcast Corp. reported fourth-quarter FY21 revenue growth of 9.5 percent year-on-year to $30.34 billion, beating the consensus of $29.74 billion.

Segments

Revenue for Cable Communications rose 4.5 percent Y/Y to $16.4 billion, driven by increases in broadband, wireless, business services partially offset by decreases in advertising, video, and voice revenue.

Customer Relationships increased by 169,000 to 34.2 million. Broadband customer net additions were 212,000, and total video customer net losses were 373,000.

The company’s Cable Communications added 312,000 wireless lines.

Revenue for NBCUniversal increased 25.6 percent Y/Y to $9.3 billion. Revenue from Media increased 8.4 percent Y/Y to $5.8 billion, reflecting higher advertising distribution revenue, and Studios increased 36.4 percent Y/Y to $2.4 billion, primarily reflecting higher content licensing revenue, home entertainment, theatrical revenue.

Theme Parks’ revenue increased by $1.2 billion to $1.9 billion, reflecting improved operating conditions.

Revenue for Sky decreased 2.4 percent Y/Y to $5.1 billion. Total Customer Relationships increased by 61,000 to 23 million.

Adjusted EPS of $0.77 beat the consensus of $0.73.

Margin

Adjusted EBITDA margin of Cable Communications expanded 130 ps to 43.4 percent. Sky’s adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 640 bps to 9.1 percent.

Comcast generated $7.7 billion in operating cash flow during the quarter. It held $8.7 billion in cash and equivalents.

Comcast paid dividends totaling $1.1 billion and repurchased shares worth $2 billion during Q4.

Cable Communications’ capital expenditures increased 3.7 percent to $2.2 billion, NBCUniversal’s capital expenditures increased 33.2 percent to $502 million, and Sky’s capital expenditures increased 7.1 percent to $332 million.

Share Buyback

The board raised the share buyback authorization to $10 billion, effective as of January 1, 2022.

Dividend

Comcast increased its dividend by 8 percent Y/Y to $1.08 per share on an annualized basis for 2022. The company’s declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.27 per share is payable April 27, 2022, to shareholders of record on April 6, 2022.

By Anusuya Lahiri

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