Given all the noise made by its now-ended bidding war with Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) for most of Twenty-First Century Fox (NASDAQ:FOXA), it would have been easy to forget Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) is still a publicly traded company that does regular corporate things like post quarterly results. Today’s 4% jump from CMCSA in response to the organization’s second quarter report is a not-so-subtle reminder of that.

Yes, Comcast topped earnings estimates, but it wasn’t a flawless quarter. Revenue came up short of expectations, and it lost ground on one key front. There’s work to do. Still, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Fox wasn’t the must-have addition for Comcast that Disney paid dearly to get.

Comcast Earnings Recap

For the quarter ending in June, Comcast turned revenue of $21.7 billion into an operating profit of 65 cents per share of CMCSA stock. Analysts were only looking for income of 60 cents per share, though they were also modeling a top line of $21.86 billion. Still, both figures were better than the year-earlier sales of $21.3 billion and earnings of 52 cents per share.

The bottom line got a helping hand from a reduction in capital expenditures. Investments in the company’s own growth were 3.3% lower year-over-year, to $2.25 billion. Its adjusted EBITDA of $7.4 billion was up 4.8%, and operating income improved from $4.56 billion to $5 billion.

CEO Brian Roberts commented on the second quarter numbers “We delivered fantastic results in the second quarter, including robust free cash flow of $4.3 billion,” adding “strong customer metrics were balanced with robust EBITDA growth, fueled by high-speed Internet and business services.”

Drilling Down

Roberts went on to say “At Cable Communications, we added 182,000 customer relationships, largely driven by our addition of 260,000 broadband customers, which was the highest second quarter result in 10 years.”

Roberts comments gloss over the fact that while the company added 260,000 broadband customers — versus MoffettNathanson’s expectation of only 200,000 — the net customer addition of 182,000 would have been much stronger had Comcast also not lost another 140,000 traditional cable television customers mostly due to the cord-cutting phenomenon.

Revenue for its Cable Communications arm was up 3.4% to $13.7 billion, while EBITDA grew 6.5% year-over-year to reach $5.64 billion.

Meanwhile, NBCUniversal (the combination of NBC and Universal Studios and its affiliated theme parks) reported a tiny drop in revenue, rolling in at $8.3 billion. Adjusted EBITDA of $2.16 billion was a 4.2% improvement.

Roberts specifically noted the success of the organization’s recently-released film Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and the coverage of this year’s World Cup tournament by Comcast’s Telemundo. Several new attractions opened at its theme parks as well, including Orlando’s Fast & Furious-themed ride.

One surprising bright spot — Comcast enrolled another 204,000 Xfinity Mobile customers last quarter, making the cable and entertainment giant more of an unusual threat to the likes of AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon (NYSE:VZ).

While that number pales in comparison to the kinds of subscriber growth rates those bigger rivals generally muster, in light of the fact that other wireless telecom players are better established and that Xfinity Mobile is only available to existing Comcast customers, it’s an impressive penetration of the wireless market.

Looking Ahead for CMCSA Stock

Though not earth-shattering, Comcast’s second quarter figures affirm that the company didn’t absolutely have to acquire Fox (and certainly not pay the rich premium it would have had to pay to take it out of Disney’s hands). It can hold its own for the time being while it figures out its next move, which include the potential purchase of UK’s entertainment and telecom group Sky (OTCMKTS:SKYAY).

Sky counts 23 million households in Europe as paying customers, and represents an opportunity to share content, and customers. It’s also a lower hurdle to clear in terms of regulatory logistics and cost. But, ironically, it’s bidding against the very Fox it was just trying to buy in its effort to own Sky. Comcast’s most recent offer for Sky values the organization at $34 billion; 39% of Sky is already owned by Fox, which will soon be owned by Disney.

Whatever’s in the cards, something’s got to change sooner rather than later. Cord-cutting is expected to reach record levels in the United States this year, with 33 million television customers set to say bye to increasingly expensive cable television bills and hello to cheaper streaming alternatives.

For the quarter underway, analysts are looking for earnings of 63 cents per share of CMCSA stock on revenue of $22 billion, both of which are measurably higher than year-ago comparisons.

As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. You can follow him on Twitter, at @jbrumley.

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