Dallas, Texas 10/24/2013 (Financialstrend) – On October 23 Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) declared quarterly dividend of $0.195 per share which translates into a forward yield of 1.66%. The dividend would be paid out to all share holders on record as of January 2, 2014 and will be paid out on January 23. The stock goes ex dividend on December 30, 2013. Post the announcement, the stock shed close to 0.84% from its previous day close to end trading on October 24 at $46.96 per share. These valuations have taken the stock within touching distance to its 52 week high pricing of $47.63.
In addition to regular dividend payouts, the share holders of this $123 billion market capped media and entertainment giant have seen their stock holding value appreciate by 29% in the past 12 months. This steady returns and range bound trading has prompted analyst to increase the price target of the stock to $51.57 per share.
In order to sustain its annual sales which had come in at $64 billion over the past 12 months, the company has tried to reinvent its business model. In context is its effort to build a new revenue stream by trying to explore tie up with on demand video streaming company Netflix. If things work out, then viewers of Comcast can avail of on demand video content of Netflix via set top boxes of Comcast. Many analysts have been predicting that in spite of these conversations with Netflix, the pay TV provider has enough clout with its content producing studios and partners to offer a stand alone on demand video streaming service.
Trade analyst believe that Comcast has a huge advantage over pure play video streaming companies like Netflix since it has the deep pockets to fund studio’s content production and in turn air these on its video on demand platform. Secondly, it can help the content production houses in increasing their returns by sharing advertisement revenue on the aired programs.
