ENGLEWOOD, Colo.-
Satellite television provider EchoStar Communications Corp. beat Wall Street estimates Thursday by posting a 15 percent increase in fourth-quarter net income, which sent its stock up 5 percent.
The Dish Network operator said it added subscribers, reduced the cost to sign up new customers and increased revenue per subscriber in the past year.
For the quarter that ended Dec. 31, EchoStar reported net income of $152.6 million, or 35 cents per share, compared with $132.6 million, or 30 cents per share, during the same period a year ago.
Revenue totaled $2.58 billion in the most recent quarter, up 17 percent from $2.2 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were looking for a profit of 32 cents per share on sales of $2.54 billion.
EchoStar added 350,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter to put the total at 13.1 million for the year, up about 1.1 million from the end of 2005.
During a conference call with analysts, EchoStar Chief Executive Officer Charlie Ergen said the company did not see a significant impact as a result of a court ruling requiring it to stop broadcasting distant network signals to customers.
EchoStar had delivered broadcast network signals from one region to customers in another but the practice was ruled in violation of federal broadcasting regulations.
Ergen said the ruling affected 900,000 customers but EchoStar accommodated most with local network signals. The company’s churn rate—a measure of customers who stop service—was 1.64 percent, down from 1.65 percent in the prior year.
For the year, EchoStar reported net income of $608 million, or $1.37 a share, compared with $1.51 billion, or $3.35 a share, in 2005.
EchoStar President Carl Vogel said the company was still reviewing a way to offer a broadband alternative but has not found the right mix yet.
“As you can tell from our results, we’re pretty pleased with our core business but we do understand that we probably need to get further along in broadband going forward,” he said.
For the year, EchoStar reported net income of $608 million, or $1.37 a share, compared with $1.51 billion, or $3.35 a share, in 2005. The year-ago period included a non-cash benefit of about $593 million related to taxes and a $134 million gain on an insurance settlement, the company said.
Revenue for the year ended Dec. 31 was $9.82 billion, up 16.2 percent from $8.45 billion the year before.
The average subscriber acquisition cost was $686 in 2006, down from $693 per subscriber in the prior year while the average revenue per subscriber rose to $62.47 from $58.04 at the end of 2005.
EchoStar’s stock closed up $2.08 a share, or 5.1 percent, to $42.68 a share on the Nasdaq Stock Market. In the past year, it has traded between $28.52 a share and $43.44 a share.
———
On the Net:
