April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Comcast Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts said consumers' surging appetite for packages of television, telephone and Internet services justifies spending more to keep up with demand.

``Right now it's all clicking, the business is on fire,'' Roberts said in an interview yesterday at the Philadelphia headquarters of Comcast, the world's largest cable company.

Roberts is seeking to reassure investors concerned by his plan to increase capital spending by 24 percent to a record $5.7 billion this year. Before today, the stock had declined 11 percent since Feb. 1, when the 47-year-old CEO said he would spend more on new products aimed at staying ahead of phone- company competitors such as Verizon Communications Inc.

``I am more confident about that strategy today than I was on Feb. 1,'' said Roberts, whose father Ralph Roberts started the company in 1963. Comcast also owns the E! Network and The Golf Channel.

The shares had their biggest gain in almost six months after Brian Roberts' remarks gave investors' confidence the spending will pay off.

``It's very unusual for a CEO to have such bullish comments,'' said David Joyce, an analyst at Miller Tabak & Co. in New York. ``Especially because he said he's more confident now than when they announced it in February.''

Joyce rates the shares ``buy'' and doesn't own them.

Class A shares of Comcast rose 71 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $27.42 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Verizon fell 42 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $37.38 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. AT&T Inc. fell 51 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $38.94.

Bullish

Comcast separately said today it agreed to buy online movie-ticket seller Fandango and plans to start Fancast.com, a new Web site for viewing films and television shows, in the U.S. summer. Terms weren't disclosed.

Comcast's digital phone service, started about a year ago, has attracted 1.9 million subscribers and is helping to lure customers back to its TV offering. The company gained 110,000 new cable subscribers in the fourth quarter, the biggest quarterly increase in more than a decade.

With the digital phone product, Roberts, who took over in 2002, is transforming his father's business into a rival of New York-based Verizon and San Antonio-based AT&T, the two largest U.S. phone companies.

Comcast is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings on April 26.

Net income more than doubled to $2.5 billion last year from $928 million in 2005, while revenue from the cable unit, the company's largest contributor, rose 12 percent to $26.3 billion.

Phone Companies

About half of Comcast's subscribers will also use its phone and broadband services by 2010, Roberts said. Comcast had 11.5 million subscribers to its broadband service at the end of last year, and 24.1 million basic cable customers.

Verizon and AT&T are rushing to upgrade their own networks to offer TV. Last month, both companies won approval to sell TV service in California, where Comcast has 2.6 million customers.

Roberts said he is aware that some investors are concerned about the additional capital spending this year. Still, Comcast, whose market value of $85.1 billion surpasses Time Warner Inc., is undervalued, he said.

``We can't control that'' Roberts said of the stock price. If Comcast increases profit and beats its competitors, ``the stock will follow,'' he said.

`Real Competition'

AT&T, the biggest U.S. phone company, plans to spend $4.6 billion through next year to expand its fiber-optic network to 13 states, allowing it to offer digital-TV channels, high-speed Internet access and phone service. AT&T already offers its U- verse video service in 11 cable-TV markets in Texas, California, Indiana and Connecticut.

Verizon is spending $23 billion to connect its fiber optic network to consumers' homes to deliver TV service. The company, which offers the service in about 200 cities in 10 states, had 207,000 subscribers to its FiOS TV at the end of last year.

``It's real competition,'' Roberts said. ``Those are big companies with big plans, but what's not clear with it is whether those are good plans.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Cecile Daurat in New York at cdaurat@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 11, 2007 17:06 EDT