Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Spencer Wang – Bear Stearns.
Spencer Wang – Bear Stearns
Thanks and good morning. I just want to go back to the basic sub number. John, you guys lost 95,000 this quarter, which is a little bit worse than what you guys saw last year in the second quarter. One would have thought with the broader triple play roll out you would have seen maybe an improvement.
Can you just talk about what was driving that? Was that the prioritization issues that you talked about, vis-à-vis some of the other initiatives? How much of that was just competition? If you could update us, that would be great.
John Alchin
Very much so, Spencer, and I think I will ask Steve to really give a lot of color around that.
Operator
(Operator Instructions)
John Alchin
I am sorry, but I thought because Brian and Steve were in Washington that they would just connect right in there.
Steve Burke
John, I am here. I think there is no question that when you prioritize digital and have as much activity as we did, that prioritization takes your eye off of other things. That having been said, our businesses, our systems are structured so there is a certain amount of move activity in places in the south, college towns, et cetera that no matter whether you have the triple play or are increasing your marketing, people are leaving town. We don’t think – it is interesting, if you look at last year, each of the four quarters last year we felt we had good quarters and yet we lost 90,000 subs in the second quarter and came right back in the third and fourth. So we don’t consider it a cause for concern. Some of it is just the normal seasonality of the business, which is very hard to market against.
Operator
Your next question comes from Jessica Reif-Cohen – Merrill Lynch.
Jessica Reif-Cohen – Merrill Lynch
Thank you. The other area of disappointment for us, at least, was the high speed data subs. Is there something going on in the industry in light of AT&T’s DSL subs? Can you talk about why you are so confident that second half high speed data subs will pick up?
Steve Burke
For us, one of the reasons why our high speed data subs were about the same as last year is in the Adelphia and Time Warner systems, we are doing a lot of system conversions. During those conversions, actually add a lot less subs than the year before. So if you look at the trends in what we call classic Comcast systems, they are actually pretty good. It is always difficult to tell when you have got competitors cutting prices and other sorts of dynamics.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
