Brian L. Roberts, president of Comcast Corporation said, First quarter results were outstanding with each of our core businesses reporting double digit cash flow growth. Cable delivered 11% growth in cash flow in the quarter and at the same time is successfully integrating nearly two million new subscribers into our operations. Several months of ownership have confirmed significant growth opportunities in these systems as we begin to accelerate the delivery of new digital and data services. Based on this fantastic start, we are confident about our full year growth prospects and are increasing our full year guidance for cable cash flow growth to 12% to 13%, up from our previous expectation of 10% to 11%.
Cable Division Results
Pro forma cable division revenues for the quarter ended March 31, 2001 were $1.140 billion, representing an 8.7% increase from $1.048 billion in the first quarter of 2000. Pro forma operating cash flow for the quarter was $488.0 million, an increase of 11.1% over the $439.2 million for the same period of 2000. Pro forma cable results for the first quarter assume that the Prime acquisition, completed on August 1, 2000, and the cable systems exchanges with AT&T Corp. and Adelphia Communications completed on December 31, 2000 and on January 1, 2001, respectively, were effective on January 1, 2000. Cable systems exchanges with AT&T and Adelphia resulted in Comcast trading out 1.14 million Comcast subscribers to AT&T and Adelphia in exchange for 1.21 million subscribers.
Cable subscribers grew to 7.733 million, a twelve-month trailing growth rate of 1.1%. Reflecting continued strong demand for new services, revenues for the first quarter from Comcast Digital Cable and Comcast@Home each more than doubled over the first quarter of 2000. Advertising revenues grew 10% reflecting, in part, the initial success of Comcast MarketLink, our regional fiber interconnects, in attracting new advertising business. Operating cash flow growth reflects increases in basic and new service units, improving margins on new services, and increased efficiencies in advertising, offset by continuing programming cost increases.
Mr. Roberts said, We see significant opportunity to accelerate revenue and operating cash flow growth in the recently acquired systems to match the operating performance of Comcast’s historical properties. These new systems will be rebuilt rapidly and we expect 86% of all systems to be upgraded to at least 750 MHz of capacity and 95% to have at least 550 MHz of capacity by year-end 2001. This rebuild provides us with unprecedented opportunity to further expand new product deployment by introducing video on demand later this year, to drive advertising revenues through our market-wide fiber interconnects and to leverage our existing fiber networks by launching Comcast Business Communications, our integrated business services provider.
The cable division added 158,900 Digital Cable subscriptions in the first quarter to finish the quarter with 1.56 million Digital Cable units and a subscription penetration rate of almost 22%. Weekly net additions averaged 12,200 in the first quarter, reflecting the integration of swapped-in systems where digital cable deployment had not yet begun. By March, weekly net additions of Comcast Digital Cable averaged more than 15,600 as these new properties began to make a contribution to the subscriber counts.
During the quarter, the cable division added more than 90,000 Comcast@Home customers, a 93% increase over the first quarter of 2000 and a weekly average of more than 6,900 net additions. In March, Comcast@Home added more than 8,500 net new customers per week, again reflecting the acceleration of new product deployment in recently acquired properties.
Commerce: QVC
QVC’s consolidated revenues for the quarter ended March 31, 2001 were $884.0 million, representing a 7.7% increase from the $821.0 million reported in the first quarter of 2000. Consolidated operating cash flow for the quarter was $172.7 million, an increase of 19.3% over the $144.8 million reported in the prior year quarter. Excluding the results of QVC-Japan, consolidated operating cash flow increased 21.8% to $176.4 million.
Mr. Roberts said, QVC’s domestic business increased revenue by more than 8% and continued to drive sustainable improvements in productivity that resulted in cash flow growth of 22% and cash flow margin expansion from 20% to nearly 23%.
Mr. Roberts continued, QVC continues to build its position as the leading global electronic retailer. QVC-Germany increased revenues by 33% and reduced operating cash flow losses by 71% as it nears breakeven. With the launch of QVC-Japan in April, QVC adds a new international market and 3.7 million homes to the nearly 115 million homes that QVC reaches globally.
Business Communications
The Company’s business communications results include the operating results of new initiatives in both the U.S. and Europe.
Comcast Business Communications (CBC) reported revenues of $9.5 million and an operating cash flow loss of $12.8 million in the first quarter as it began operations in Baltimore and continued to build out its network in central and northern New Jersey and Philadelphia. CBC has been established to further leverage Comcast’s domestic cable infrastructure by providing a complete voice, data and Internet service bundle to small and medium-sized businesses in eight key markets served by Comcast Cable.
Consolidated Financials
The Company reported consolidated revenues of $2.196 billion, a 13.3% increase from the $1.939 billion reported in the first quarter of 2000. Consolidated operating cash flow increased 9.2% to $640.9 million from the $586.9 million reported in the first quarter of 2000. The Company’s consolidated results include Prime Communications LLC as of August 1, 2000, cable systems acquired through exchanges with AT&T Corp. and Adelphia Communications completed on December 31, 2000 and on January 1, 2001, respectively, and Home Team Sports as of February 14, 2001. Pro forma results assume that all acquisitions and exchanges were effective on January 1, 2000. On a pro forma basis, and excluding the effects of the Company’s new business communications initiatives, the Company’s consolidated revenues and operating cash flow for the quarter ended March 31, 2001 increased 8.8% and 13.6%, respectively, over the first quarter of 2000.