Comcast's Q1 income up 30% on Olympics, Internet demand

Comcast, the media giant that owns NBC, Xfinity and Universal Studios, said Tuesday its first quarter net income jumped 30% from a year ago to $1.87 billion as broadcasting the Winter Olympics generated more than $1 billion in revenue and customers continue to clamor for broadband Internet.

The quarterly earnings per share of 71 cents beat analysts' consensus estimate of 64 cents, as compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Shares of the Philadelphia-based company rose 2.97% to $51.36 in morning trading.

With its proposal to buy rival Time Warner Cable for $45 billion still being reviewed by federal regulators, Comcast's revenues at all major business lines, including cable video, grew during the quarter. The company-wide revenue totaled $17.4 billion, up 14% year-over-year and beating estimates.

"Our operating momentum is continuing as we enter 2014 and is highlighted by our second consecutive quarter of video customer growth," said Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts, in a statement. "Comcast has tremendous momentum right now."

Revenue at its largest unit -- Cable Communications, which includes Internet and cable TV -- increased 5.3% to $10.8 billion in the first quarter. With more customers streaming movies and TV shows, broadband Internet revenue was 9% higher. But business services reported the highest rate of growth, up 24%.

The total number of customers at the nation's largest cable company rose by 124,000 to 26.8 million. Comcast added 24,000 video customers, marking its second consecutive quarter of growth after years of defections. It now has 22.6 million video customers.

Revenue for NBCUniversal, which includes the NBC network, theme parks, movies and several cable channels, rose 28.8% to $6.9 billion.

The Sochi Olympics-related revenue totaled $1.1 billion, lifting the performance of its cable channels and NBC. Revenue from the cable networks segment totaled $2.5 billion, up 12.6%.

The broadcast TV segment saw a 72.8% jump in revenue to $2.6 billion, including $846 million from the Olympics. Excluding the Olympics, revenue would have risen 17%.

The filmed entertainment segment's revenue rose 11.1% to $1.4 billion on the strength of several titles, including "Ride Along," "Lone Survivor" and "The Wolf of Wall Street."

Higher per-person spending at the Universal Studios in Orlando and Hollywood drove the theme parks segment's revenue 5.4% higher to $487 million.