Comcast Won't Need M&A to Boost Global Digital Plans: Roberts

Comcast's Peacock, with 54 million signups, is rolling out to Europe later this year to Sky's 20 million customers, and the next aim is global availability of the streaming service, said the company Thursday. Comcast executives waved off the need for more mergers and acquisitions as a prerequisite to become a viable international streaming power, during a call with analysts. "I love the company we have," and more organic growth is ahead without further acquisitions, said CEO Brian Roberts. "I think we do have the scale. We don't need M&A."

Roberts said the Sky rollout of Peacock adds incremental advertising revenue, and will help with brand marketing across European markets. NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said sizable amounts of original programming are in the pipeline, plus the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Comcast announced an accelerated window earlier this month bringing its Universal, Focus Features, DreamWorks Animation and Illumination movies exclusively to Peacock within four months of theatrical debuts.

Comcast's digital media plans "will almost certainly require greater scale," MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett wrote investors. The analyst said there's speculation about acquisition of either ViacomCBS or of combining AT&T's WarnerMedia/Discovery.

Comcast ended Q2 with 29.1 million residential broadband subscribers, up 1.9 million year over year. It was the best Q2 in the company's history for broadband additions and the lowest Q2 churn rate, Roberts said, saying 2021 broadband net additions should end up in the mid-teen percentages compared with 2019. He said Comcast offers 1.2 GB downstream to all 60 million locations it passes.

The company has been trialing gigabit and multi-gig symmetrical speeds over its DOCSIS infrastructure "to great success" for the past nine months, Roberts said. The vast majority of network traffic is downloads so there's not a consumer use case yet for the technology, but the company's network strategy "is to plan ahead," he said. Some want symmetrical, superfast broadband speeds (see 2104140023).

The cable operator has 18.2 million residential video subs, down 1.2 million, and 9.4 million residential voice customers, down 286,000. Chief Financial Officer Mike Cavanagh said the video decline was due partly to a price increase early this year. NBCUniversal has returned to pre-pandemic TV production levels, Roberts said. Xfinity Mobile is now a stand-alone profitable business, with sales accelerating due to introduction of its unlimited family plan and more prioritization of wireless sales, Roberts said. The unlimited plan also is being rolled out to small businesses, he said. Comcast ended Q2 with 3.4 million wireless lines, up 990,000.

"We like our spectrum portfolio; it gives us optionality for offload," Cavanagh said when asked about future spectrum auction participation plans: Comcast will "take a look if the price is right."