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DISH Network (DISH) to Report Q4 Earnings: What's in Store?

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DISH Network’s fourth-quarter 2020 results are expected to reflect the negative impact of persistent subscriber loss due to stiff competition and cord-cutting in the Pay-TV industry.

For the fourth quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is currently at $4.5 billion, suggesting 39.9% growth from the figure reported in the year-ago quarter.

Moreover, the consensus mark for fourth-quarter earnings has gone south 1.3% to 75 cents per share in the past 30 days. The figure indicates growth of 8.7% from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.

Notably, the company’s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters, missing the same in one. It has a trailing four-quarter negative earnings surprise of 0.18%, on average.

Let’s see how things are shaping up for this announcement.

DISH Network Corporation Price and EPS Surprise

 

DISH Network Corporation Price and EPS Surprise

DISH Network Corporation price-eps-surprise | DISH Network Corporation Quote

 

Factors to Consider

The coronavirus-induced economic slowdown is expected to have affected the Pay-TV subscriber addition rate, particularly commercial accounts, including disruptions in the hospitality and airline industries in the to-be-reported quarter.

Notably, this Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) company exited the third quarter with 11.423 million DISH TV subscribers, down 5.6%, and 2.458 million Sling TV subscribers, down 8.5%. Total Pay-TV subscribers were 11.423 million, down 6.2% year over year.

During the fourth quarter, DISH reached a new multi-year carriage agreement with Nexstar Media Group (NXST - Free Report) to contain subscriber loss. Per the deal, local stations and WGN America have been immediately restored on DISH TV

Additionally, the bottom-line performance is likely to reflect higher programming and content expenses along with retransmission fees.

Nonetheless, wireless business subscriber addition and expanding partner base in the to-be-reported quarter is expected to have boosted the company’s 5G prospects.

Markedly, DISH entered the retail wireless market through the acquisition of Boost Mobile and Ting Mobile. In the third quarter, the company acquired more than 9 million subscribers as a result of the Boost Mobile buyout. The Ting Mobile acquisition added more than 200,000 subscribers.

DISH has created an extensive portfolio of spectrum, the most important component of wireless networks.  On Nov 30, DISH announced that it has signed agreements with four fiber vendors — Everstream, Segra, Uniti and Zayo. These partnerships will provide DISH front haul and back haul support to connect its 5G network to sites covering more than 60 million Americans.

Key Q4 Development

On Nov 11, DISH and Qualcomm (QCOM - Free Report) announced their collaboration to test open and virtualized RAN 5G solutions containing the latter’s 5G RAN Platforms to help fast track the former’s rollout of the nation’s first cloud-native, open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) 5G network deployment.

On Nov 2, DISH announced a partnership with Intel (INTC - Free Report) to integrate the latter’s 5G infrastructure technology into the former’s buildout of the nation's first virtualized, open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) 5G network deployment.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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