Earnings Review: Frontier Communications, News Corp – FTR, NWSA

Frontier Communications Corp(NASDAQ:FTR)’s net income rose sharply because of lower operating expenses, although revenue was adversely affected by fall in customer numbers.

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The company’s net income rose to $67 million or 7 cents a share, much higher than the profit of $20.4 million or 2 cents a share earned by the company in the same period last year.  This is mainly because operating expenses of the company fell significantly.

However, the company had fewer customers this quarter.  That and lower switched access revenue, lowered the company’s total revenue to $1.25 billion from $1.29 billion last year.

Analysts had expected earnings of 7 cents a share on $1.24 billion revenue.

Frontier Communications shares dropped 14 cents or 2.97 percent to $4.43 at mid day.

Net income of News Corp(NASDAQ:NWSA) for the fiscal first quarter rose more than three times, due to a stake sale in group company NDS.  The company’s revenue increased because of growth in its U.S.  pay TV networks . 

The company’s net income was $2.23 billion or 94 cents a share, much higher than the profit of $738 million or 28 cents a share earned in the same period last year.  The increase was mainly due to the growth in its pay TV networks and also higher fees from distributors.  However, the company incurred charges of $67 million related to the phone hacking scandal in Britain.

The Rupert Murdoch owned company made special gains of $1.38 billion due to its 49% stake sale in NDS which was picked up by Cisco Systems.  Excluding this, the adjusted earnings work out to 43 cents a share, higher than analysts’ expectations of 37 cents.

Revenue was $8.14 billion, in line with Street estimates of $8.15 billion.

Shares of the company rose 15 cents or 0.62 percent to $24.43.