[February 03, 2010] Comcast 4Q earnings at 2.9%; new brand name coming Tweet Feb 03, 2010 (The Philadelphia Inquirer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Revenues at Comcast Corp. rose 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter as competition and the weak economy snuffled higher growth. And the company announced that it was giving a new brand name -- xFinity -- to some of its services. Chief operating officer Stephen Burke, in a conference call today with analysts, said Comcast was striking back with programs to more aggressively battle telephone giants' expanding TV and high-speed Internet businesses into Comcast cable franchise areas. Comcast tried to keep more customers happy by limiting its cable-TV rate hikes to 6.9 million subscribers in late 2009 compared with 16.2 million customers in the fourth quarter of 2008, Burke said. The company has about 24 million cable-TV customers. The company lost 199,000 cable-TV customers in the fourth quarter, a slight improvement compared with the loss of 233,000 cable-TV customers in the fourth quarter of 2008. Revenues for the quarter were $9.1 billion compared with $8.8 billion in the year-ago period. Fourth-quarter net income soared 132 percent to $955 million, mostly on a favorable tax settlement with the federal government. The prior-year net income was $412 million, when the company took a charge related to an investment in Clearwire Corp., the wireless company. Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts said he believed that the financial results were good, and he announced that Comcast would rebrand the company's TV, Internet and phone services with the name xFinity. Comcast, which will still retain its corporate name, will introduce the new brand name in promotions and advertisements next week. One company official compared the move to Apple Corp. and how it refers to its gadgets, such as iPod. "We are not only repositioning the company technically, we are repositioning the company with consumers," Roberts said. Burke called it a "major rebranding effort for the company." In a positive, Comcast added 247,000 new high-speed Internet customers in the fourth quarter, compared with 184,000 new ones in the same period in 2008. For the year, Comcast's revenues rose to $35.8 billion compared with $34.4 billion in 2008. Net income was $3.6 billion in 2009 compared with $2.5 billion in 2008. Comcast added one million new high-speed Internet customers and 1.15 million phone customers in 2009 but lost 623,000 cable-TV customers. The cable giant announced its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings one day before Roberts is scheduled to testify before two congressional committees in Washington on Comcast's proposed merger with NBC Universal Inc. "We are also excited about the opportunity to strengthen our position in content through the announced NBC Universal transaction, and to bring those assets together with our already-strong position in cable and broadband distribution," Roberts said in a statement. "Our technology platform now allows for significant cross platform integration and product innovation that will help us expand the entertainment options we offer our customers." ------ Contact staff writer Bob Fernandez at 215-854-5897 or [email protected]. To see more of The Philadelphia Inquirer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.philly.com/inquirer. Copyright (c) 2010, The Philadelphia Inquirer Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]