DirecTV Group managed to put up some impressive revenue numbers for the first quarter of 2007, although the area in which it made the loudest noise--HD growth--appeared to have dampened some investor enthusiasm because of the costs of growing new HD subscribers and maintaining current ones.
While HD interest among consumers is running sky-high (perhaps encouraged by DirecTV's own advertising and PR campaign to offer at least 100 HD channels by the end of 2007), shares of the DBS firm's stock dropped about 2 percent over the quarter. The reason: Costs of attracting and keeping HD subs "was higher than expected," according to SatNews.com.
Overall, group profits grew to $336 million in Q1 2007, up 43 percent from $235 million a year ago. Revenue rose 15 percent to slightly more than $3.9 billion. At the same time, DirecTV added about 235,000 U.S. customers (double the number of HD subs compared with Q1 2006).
