Quarterly Reports: VoIP Dominates Cable Numbers TelecomWeb Once again, it's hell month for public companies as they prepare to release their second-quarter financials. However, voice and data services are pushing some cable providers ahead of the pack.
According to TelecomWeb's sister publication CableFAX Daily, triple-play operator Comcast will release its earnings Thursday, with 2Q numbers expected to be pretty strong. The impending Adelphia transaction will undoubtedly be top of mind, but Comcast's digital success should also receive a lot of attention. The rollout of its phone service has been faster than many expected, with a triple-play offering now available to more than half its footprint. Merrill Lynch projects the cableco's weekly phone adds will increase from 16,000 to 21,000 for a total of 275,000. "VoIP should boost both video and HSD subscriber totals," says Sanford C. Bernstein, which recently raised his price target for Comcast to $40. Cablevision also expects to pull in hearty VoIP numbers when it reports Aug. 8, with Merrill Lynch pegging voice adds at 124,000 with total ARPU of $108.59. "We project net basic sub adds of 99,000 and net RGU adds of 1.5 million with continued strength across all digital product lines despite Cablevision's already industry-leading penetration for video, data and voice," a research note from Merrill Lynch's Jessica Reif Cohen said. Even cable providers with more rural systems look to be in good shape for the second quarter. While Merrill Lynch's Cohen expects Mediacom (which is targeting Aug. 9 for its report) to lose 8,000 basic subs (still better than 2Q05's 15,000 loss), she expects continued growth for digital, voice and data to the tune of 55,000 net RGU adds. And UBS notes that Charter (releasing its numbers Aug. 8) likely will see some seasonal weakness after a strong first quarter, but it believes it's still on track to translate RGU growth into EBITDA growth in the 2007 timeframe. "We believe Charter could achieve double-digit 2007 EBITDA growth (vs. a 6.9-percent estimate), given margin improvement toward peers as VoIP scales," UBS says. Things are less clear at Time Warner, which will reveal its much-talked-about strategy for AOL during its Aug. 2 earnings call. "We believe robust demand for VoIP could drive even faster growth if not for current provisioning limitations, which should continue to improve over the course of the year," Merrill Lynch says, projecting 273,000 net phone adds for Time Warner during the second quarter. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Duane Whittingham (N9SSN) - Producer Tom and Darryl Radio Shows & Saturday Morning Confusion Heard on C-Band Analog Satellite (W0KIE) - Telstar 6 Ch 1 - 6.2/6.8 WTND-LP Macomb 106.3, WQNA FM, WBCQ 7415 kHz & the Internet. Heard Fridays 9pm ET, Sundays 12am ET and Tuesdays 2am ET (Folk) An Independent Freeform Eclectic Radio Show. http://www.tomanddarryl.org http://www.wtnd.us Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
