Netflix is now worth more than Comcast • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix is now worth more than Comcast

#21

Post by lallysingh » Thu, May 24, 2018, 3:27 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #13

thisisit wrote: post #3

Comcast has 15 billion in net income last quarter whereas Netflix had 185 million. And PE ratio of comccast is 19 whereas Netflix is 188. In the future where the cord cutting trend continues and Netflix gains tons of subscribers the valuation might make sense. But for now, I feel this looks like very overvalued.

The whole idea of "cord cutting" hurting cable is insane. If you don't subscribe to cable and you subscribe to internet based streaming services, you're still getting content delivered to your home via either a cable "cord" or the phone company. Netflix at most gets $12/month per subscriber. Comcast will get $80 - $110/month for internet service. Comcaast also has either no competitors in their market or at most one.…

Comcast has a very capital-heavy business, and their biggest competitor is the cell network.

They have poor customer sentiment, and their existing capital is an aging dinosaur waiting to die.

Re: Netflix is now worth more than Comcast

#22

Post by ukulele » Thu, May 24, 2018, 3:28 PM UTC

thisisit wrote: post #3

Comcast has 15 billion in net income last quarter whereas Netflix had 185 million. And PE ratio of comccast is 19 whereas Netflix is 188. In the future where the cord cutting trend continues and Netflix gains tons of subscribers the valuation might make sense. But for now, I feel this looks like very overvalued.

Using PE ratio to compare a high growth company to a low growth company is almost never a good idea.

You're penalizing Netflix for investing in its business. When people refer to short term Wall Street silliness, this is the kind of thing they mean.

Re: Netflix is now worth more than Comcast

#23

Post by butterfi » Thu, May 24, 2018, 3:28 PM UTC

Traditional TV cut its own throat by expanding commercial air time to the point where customers are actively looking for and consuming alternatives. Rather then address the issue of why traditional TV is being rejected, Comcast is trying to coerce its members into subsidizing TV by making their subscription bundles more competitive then simply getting an internet connection. That won't do much in the long run as people like me start refusing to pay for those extra services (TV, phone). I've already dropped Comcast for Sonic for some for these reasons.

If I was in charge of a TV network, I'd start dropping the amount of ad time during programming and start adding more time to my hit shows. I know there is an ecosystem that makes this challenging, but would you rather spend you life bailing out the water or would you rather just fix the boat?

Re: Netflix is now worth more than Comcast

#24

Post by 49bc » Thu, May 24, 2018, 3:31 PM UTC

damieng wrote: post #18

scarface74 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole idea of "cord cutting" hurting cable is insane. If you don't subscribe to cable and you subscribe to internet based streaming services, you're still getting content delivered to your home via either a cable "cord" or the phone company. Netflix at most gets $12/month per subscriber. Comcast will get $80 - $110/month for internet service. Comcaast also has either no competitors in their market or at most one.…

Not sure where you get the monthly internet pricing from but my 250MB Comcast is $59.99 a month and 150MB Frontier is $40 a month.

Two choices for high speed, wired internet? Outside of a few major cities, that’s actually very rare.

Re: Netflix is now worth more than Comcast

#25

Post by gruturo » Thu, May 24, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #13

thisisit wrote: post #3

Comcast has 15 billion in net income last quarter whereas Netflix had 185 million. And PE ratio of comccast is 19 whereas Netflix is 188. In the future where the cord cutting trend continues and Netflix gains tons of subscribers the valuation might make sense. But for now, I feel this looks like very overvalued.

The whole idea of "cord cutting" hurting cable is insane. If you don't subscribe to cable and you subscribe to internet based streaming services, you're still getting content delivered to your home via either a cable "cord" or the phone company. Netflix at most gets $12/month per subscriber. Comcast will get $80 - $110/month for internet service. Comcaast also has either no competitors in their market or at most one.…

I pay my provider (in Germany) 29 EUR/Month, and that's for a premium offering (it's actually a business contract, not a consumer one).

Sooner or later, despite the ridiculous monopolies, the lobbying power, the borderline illegal obstacles to newcomers, regardless of how deeply entrenched they are, these ridiculous $100/month providers will eventually be disrupted.

So I see Comcast's revenue source under a considerably more realistic threat than Netflix's. Moreover, both have fixed costs but I'm sure Comcast's are higher, having to maintain tons of last mile connections to individual homes.

So yeah, that multiplier disparity may be excessive, but not by much. If Comcast hadn't invested in Hulu, some might even had considered the disparity too small.

Re: Netflix is now worth more than Comcast

#26

Post by sykh » Thu, May 24, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

butterfi wrote: post #23

Traditional TV cut its own throat by expanding commercial air time to the point where customers are actively looking for and consuming alternatives. Rather then address the issue of why traditional TV is being rejected, Comcast is trying to coerce its members into subsidizing TV by making their subscription bundles more competitive then simply getting an internet connection. That won't do much in the long run as peop…

What Comcast doesn't mention is that when you get a TV bundle to save on internet costs the fees they tack on for TV increase the monthly bill by around 40% of the advertised rate. Bundling TV is actually more expensive when you look at the total bill but people buy according to the advertised rate vs. the actual bill.

Re: Netflix is now worth more than Comcast

#27

Post by Karishma1234 » Thu, May 24, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

thisisit wrote: post #3

Comcast has 15 billion in net income last quarter whereas Netflix had 185 million. And PE ratio of comccast is 19 whereas Netflix is 188. In the future where the cord cutting trend continues and Netflix gains tons of subscribers the valuation might make sense. But for now, I feel this looks like very overvalued.

Comcast's net profits per subscription is $5 per month. So Comcast on an average makes $60 profit per subscriber. I will not be surprised if Netflix would hit that goal in next 2 years or so. After all profits is what matters and not net income.

Comcast has to employ thousands of support people in India, thousands of technicians all across the USA, cut deals with city administrations, ply those cable lying vans and what not. It is sad that despite all this Herculean work Comcast gets bad rep and very little profits.

Re: Netflix is now worth more than Comcast

#28

Post by Karishma1234 » Thu, May 24, 2018, 3:40 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #13

thisisit wrote: post #3

Comcast has 15 billion in net income last quarter whereas Netflix had 185 million. And PE ratio of comccast is 19 whereas Netflix is 188. In the future where the cord cutting trend continues and Netflix gains tons of subscribers the valuation might make sense. But for now, I feel this looks like very overvalued.

The whole idea of "cord cutting" hurting cable is insane. If you don't subscribe to cable and you subscribe to internet based streaming services, you're still getting content delivered to your home via either a cable "cord" or the phone company. Netflix at most gets $12/month per subscriber. Comcast will get $80 - $110/month for internet service. Comcaast also has either no competitors in their market or at most one.…

Comcast makes $5 per subscriber in profits per month. Netflix with $12 per month revenue might end up making $5 in profits pretty soon. That is all that matters.

Also Netflix is not a Comcast competitor. Healthy Comcast network helps Netflix too. It is like saying SpaceX is bigger than Disney. Comparison makes no sense.

Netflix is not gonna hurt cable as much as ipod did not hurt FM radio. So I think people need to take a chill pill.

Re: Netflix is now worth more than Comcast

#29

Post by davidf18 » Thu, May 24, 2018, 3:40 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #13

thisisit wrote: post #3

Comcast has 15 billion in net income last quarter whereas Netflix had 185 million. And PE ratio of comccast is 19 whereas Netflix is 188. In the future where the cord cutting trend continues and Netflix gains tons of subscribers the valuation might make sense. But for now, I feel this looks like very overvalued.

The whole idea of "cord cutting" hurting cable is insane. If you don't subscribe to cable and you subscribe to internet based streaming services, you're still getting content delivered to your home via either a cable "cord" or the phone company. Netflix at most gets $12/month per subscriber. Comcast will get $80 - $110/month for internet service. Comcaast also has either no competitors in their market or at most one.…

In NYC Verizon FIOS starts at $40/mo for 100/100 service.

Re: Netflix is now worth more than Comcast

#30

Post by fetus8 » Thu, May 24, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

butterfi wrote: post #16

bytematic wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love netflix but have never seen one of their original movies, happy to see them made but that isn't the point of Netflix

I'm puzzled by your comment about 'the point of Netflix.' It seems myopic to think that they should limit themselves to simply serving up others peoples content. I would imaging the point of Netflix is to be the most success company they can be.

It seems incredibly short sighted too! Buy the rights to streaming a show that someone else made could, and probably tends to be far more expensive than producing your own in house content...

Plus I do genuinely believe that Netflix has been successful in creating new interesting, quality content and partnering with a variety filmmakers. Some of their docu-series have rivaled HBO's Documentaries!