Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. provider of cable service, fell 4.1 percent on the Nasdaq after subscriber growth slowed and the company opted not to buy back shares.

Comcast lost 233,000 basic-cable customers in the fourth quarter and 575,000 in all of 2008, according to a statement today. The Philadelphia-based company didn’t repurchase any shares last quarter and reiterated that it may not spend all of the $4.1 billion remaining under a 2008-09 buyback plan.

The housing slump and mounting contention from phone companies is crimping growth at Comcast. While the company offset the loss of basic-cable customers by adding digital, Internet users and phone subscribers, the growth of those customers has slowed as well. Comcast added 537,000 video, Internet and phone customers last quarter, compared with a 1.3 million gain in the same period last year.

“Subscriber trends were a disappointment,” said Craig Moffett, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein in New York. He expected a loss of 117,000 basic-cable customers in the quarter. “All were markedly down from last year.”

Comcast, based in Philadelphia, fell 53 cents to $12.36 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have declined 27 percent this year.

Fourth-quarter net income fell 32 percent to $412 million, or 14 cents a share, from $602 million, or 20 cents, a year earlier, dragged down by Comcast’s investment in Clearwire Corp.

No Forecast

Comcast didn’t give a specific forecast for this year, saying only that it would add fewer high-speed Internet, phone and business customers than in 2008. Capital spending should continue to decrease, the company said.

“The weak economy is impacting the consumer, particularly on housing growth, vacancies and moves, providing us with fewer opportunities to sell new services,” Chief Financial Officer Michael Angelakis said on a conference call.

The subscriber numbers may indicate weaker sales by 2010, said Benjamin Stretch, a New York-based analyst with Macquarie Capital USA Inc. There’s typically a lag before slumping subscriber growth shows up in a cable company’s income statement, he said.

Clearwire Investment

Comcast wrote down the value of its Clearwire stake by about $600 million last quarter. Comcast has invested $1.05 billion in Clearwire’s efforts to build a national high-speed wireless network.

Comcast said it would raise its dividend 8 percent after cutbacks in equipment spending boosted its cash flow. The new annual dividend is 27 cents a share, from 25 cents last year.

In addition to the dividend, shareholders may also have wanted to see a buyback, Moffett said.

Excluding the Clearwire writedown, fourth-quarter profit was 27 cents a share, topping the 23-cent average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales gained 9 percent to $8.8 billion, also beating projections.

Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts spent less on network expansion and set-top boxes, while encouraging subscribers to add pricier digital-cable plans. That helped generate almost $1 billion more in cash flow than forecast. Free cash flow grew 56 percent to $3.66 billion in 2008.

The company spent $5.75 billion on network upgrades in 2008. Comcast had originally forecast as much as $6.12 billion.

The average monthly bill for Comcast’s video customers increased 9 percent to $113.80 last quarter as more users adopted services such as high-speed Internet access.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kelly Riddell in Washington at Kriddell1@Bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 18, 2009 16:07 EST