Comcast profits slip in quarter
Comcast Corp. continued to add internet customers while dropping video subscribers in the second quarter. The company’s profit slipped but a key earnings measure topped Wall Street expectations. Shares were flat in morning trading Thursday.
The Philadelphia-based cable company said Thursday that it added 209,000 broadband customers and lost 224,000 video ones as people continued “cutting the cord,” a yearslong industry trend. Revenue in its cable division rose thanks to the gain in internet customers. Comcast also raised prices.
Overall, the company’s net income fell 2.8% to $3.13 billion, or 68 cents per share. Adjusted for one-time items, earnings were 78 cents per share, topping Wall Street expectations by 3 cents, according to Zacks Investment Research.
Revenue rose 24% to $26.86 billion in the period, missing Wall Street’s forecast of $27.19 billion.
Fast delivery demand boosts Amazon’s sales
So just how impatient are shoppers? Enough to boost sales at Amazon.
This spring, Amazon announced plans to make one-day shipping standard for Amazon Prime customers, a major logistics investment it said would cost $800 million in the second quarter alone. The growth of Amazon’s core retail sales had been slowing, so investors had been hoping that offering millions more items available faster would get customers to spend more on its site.
On Thursday, the company said it had $63.4 billion in sales in its latest quarter, up 20% in the past year. Profit for the quarter was $2.6 billion, up 4%. Amazon beat Wall Street’s expectations for sales, but fell short on earnings. Shares fell about 2% in after-hours trading.
People with a Prime membership, which costs $119 a year, are the company’s biggest customers. They spend more than twice as much as non-Prime shoppers.
But with more than 100 million estimated Prime members in the United States, the growth is “reaching its limit,” according to a June report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. And as the rise in Prime memberships has slowed, so has Amazon’s sales growth.
In the quarter that ended in March, the number of units sold on Amazon was up just 10%, compared with 22% growth during the same period a year earlier. This quarter, unit sales picked back up, growing 18%, far more than Wall Street expected.
Alphabet profits triple as Google ups revenue
The slump at Google’s parent company, Alphabet, appears to have been brief.
The company said Thursday that profits in the most recent quarter tripled from a year earlier. The strong results, which topped Wall Street expectations, should ease worries – provoked by a disappointing first quarter – that the company was slowing down after years of fast growth.
Alphabet’s stock price surged 9% in after-hours trading after the results were announced.
Alphabet said overall revenue was up 19%, to $38.9 billion. It had $9.9 billion in profits, aided by a $2.7 billion gain from investments. The quarterly profit gain looked especially large because Alphabet accounted for a $5.1 billion fine from the European Union last year.
But there are clouds on the horizon. Growth in paid clicks on advertisements on Google websites decelerated for a second straight quarter – though they were still up 28%.
American profits up despite Max jet loss
American Airlines said Thursday that the long grounding of Boeing 737 Max jets will cut its pretax earnings for 2019 by about $400 million, including $175 million in the second quarter.
American issued the estimate as it announced that second quarter profit rose 19% to $662 million.
The world’s biggest airline has struggled with thousands of cancellations this summer – some caused by the loss of its 24 Max jets and some due to what the airline claims is an illegal work slowdown by mechanics angling for a better labor contract.
American has removed the Max from its schedule until Nov. 2. Boeing expects regulators to let the plane resume flying in October after it has made changes to flight-control software implicated in two crashes that killed 346 people.
The Fort Worth-based company said that excluding non-repeating costs, it would have earned $1.82 per share, 5 cents better than the average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.
American said revenue rose 3% to $11.96 billion, in line with analysts’ forecasts.
Operating costs rose less than 2%, helped by a slight decrease in fuel, the airline’s second-biggest expense behind labor.
American Airlines: 2Q Earnings Snapshot
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) – American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) on Thursday reported second-quarter profit of $662 million.
The Fort Worth, Texas-based company said it had net income of $1.49 per share. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, came to $1.82 per share.
The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.77 per share.
The world’s largest airline posted revenue of $11.96 billion in the period, meeting Street forecasts.
American Airlines expects full-year earnings in the range of $4.50 to $6 per share.