Comcast also substantially improved its TV subscriber losses on a year-over-year basis-losing 460,000 subscribers in 2011 compared with 757,000 in 2010.
Company CEO Brian Roberts said the cable division had a "terrific quarter of improving customer metrics."
Comcast, which faces fierce competition from satellite-TV, Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T, added 336,000 high-speed Internet subscribers, a main source of growth that seems to have recovered from the bad economy. Comcast added 292,000 Internet subscribers in the year-ago period.
Though the report showed a healthy franchise in Comcast's traditional cable-TV and Internet businesses, the company's recently acquired news and entertainment division, NBCUniversal, struggled with revenue declines in broadcast-TV and movies. NBCUniversal's theme park and cable networks grew steadily over the quarter.
Revenue on a pro forma basis for Comcast rose 3 percent to $15.04 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31 and net income soared 45 percent to $1.3 billion because of the addition of the NBCUniversal.
Free cash flow-which can be used to pay the dividend, the share repurchase plan, capital investments or acquisitions-soared more than 60 percent to $1.9 billion as the company has upgraded its network and no longer needs big investments to boost Internet speeds and improve TV quality.
With the higher dividend payment, and based on Comcast's pre-market share price of $27.25, the company pays a 2.38 percent yield with its dividend. Based on pre-market prices, Comcast's peers in the telecommunications still pay higher yields with their dividends-Time Warner Cable pays a 3 percent, Cablevision 4.1 percent and Verizon 5 percent.
