Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) is scheduled to report its third-quarter financial results before the markets open on Tuesday. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters call for $0.80 in earnings per share (EPS) on $18.02 billion in revenue. The same period from the previous year had $0.99 in EPS on $16.79 billion in revenue.
This is a leading media stock and is growing earnings substantially with extremely strong content revenue growth. From the second quarter, increased revenue at NBC Universal is giving the company some earnings tailwinds, and a growing sports lineup is adding to revenues.
After over a year of haggling with regulators, Comcast abandoned plans in the spring to acquire Time Warner Cable, which was ultimately bought by Charter Communications. Comcast only met earnings in the second quarter but it did have some revenue growth. In the first quarter, its broadband division logged its strongest revenue growth in more than four years.
Wall Street analysts called very strong performances at NBC Universal, and noted “Jurassic World” and the “Minions” spin-off as two movies that were substantial revenue generators. They also think that the AT&T-DirecTV deal closing actually could drive incremental demand for Comcast programming. Oppenheimer sees a cable giant like Comcast as a top growth story that still has plenty of room to run, as well as generating solid earnings to support continued stock buybacks.
A few analysts weighed in on Comcast ahead of its earnings:
- Macquarie has a Neutral rating but raised its price target to $65 from $62.
- Cowen reiterated an Outperform rating and a $62 price target.
- Wunderlich maintained a Buy rating and raised its price target to $78 from $72,
So far in 2015, Comcast has outperformed the market and the stock is up nearly 9% year to date. However in the past 52 weeks, the stock is up over 18%.
Shares of Comcast were last seen trading up 0.4% at $62.24 Monday, with a consensus analyst price target of $70.77 and a 52-week trading range of $50.00 to $64.99.
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