NEW YORK (Reuters) –

Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O), the largest

U.S. cable service provider, posted quarterly profits and

revenue that were a tad shy of Wall Street forecasts as it

added fewer subscribers than expected.

Net profit in the second quarter rose to $632 million, or

21 cents a share, from $588 million, or 19 cents a share, a

year earlier, Comcast said on Wednesday.

Revenue rose 11 percent to $8.553 billion.

Wall Street expected Comcast to post revenue of $8.574

billion and per-share profit of 22 cents, according to Reuters

Estimates.

Comcast, which has more than 24.6 million subscribers, lost

138,000 basic video subscribers during the quarter. Seven

analysts polled by Reuters had on average been expecting the

company to lose 129,000 such customers.

The cable company added 320,000 digital video subscribers,

while the analysts had expected Comcast to add around 450,000.

It added 278,000 high speed Internet subscribers and

500,000 phone subscribers, but both metrics were also below

analysts’ average forecasts of 327,000 new Internet subscribers

and 579,000 new phone subs.

The largest U.S. cable operator has been under pressure

from increased competition from both phone and satellite

companies, which are offering consumers their own bundles of

video, phone and high speed Internet services. Comcast is also

seeing some impact from the weakening U.S. economy.

The Philadelphia-based company posted a 216 percent rise in

free cash flow to $1.163 billion, largely due to a drop in

capital expenditure compared with the year-ago period.

It spent less on expanding its cable systems to new

communities as fewer new homes are being built in the United

States. Comcast also spent less on buying new digital TV set

top boxes than a year ago, when it bought a significant number

of new boxes ahead of a U.S. regulatory deadline to adopt a

different set-top box.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Derek Caney)