(Corrected, April 27)
PROVIDENCE – Cox Communications Inc. managed to increase its sales last year despite the recession, even as its parent company reported its first decline in annual revenue in decades.
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Cox Enterprises Inc. said its revenue fell 3.3 percent to $14.7 billion in 2009, down from $15.2 billion in 2008. Privately held Cox, which has more than 66,000 employees, does not report operating profits or losses.
“While many companies struggled in 2009, Cox finished the year with record cash flow and momentum in all of our businesses,” Chairman Jim Kennedy and President and CEO Jimmy Hayes wrote in the company’s annual report. (Kennedy is the 154th-richest man in the world, with a net worth of $5 billion, according to Forbes magazine.)
“Our cash flow is strong – in fact, stronger than ever – and that financial measure is the most important to our long-term goals,” they added.
Cox Communications, which accounts for 61 percent of Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises’ revenue, posted a 3.5 percent increase in revenue. The telecommunications subsidiary’s sales rose to $9 billion in 2009, up from $8.7 billion in the prior year.
Among Cox’s other three divisions, a small increase was posted at AutoTrader.com (up 1 percent to $629 million), followed by declines at newspaper and broadcasting unit Cox Media Group (down 18 percent to $1.8 billion, though that includes some discontinued operations) and automobile services firm Manheim Inc. (down 5.6 percent to $3.4 billion).
The company said it “laid the groundwork” in 2009 for Cox Communications to launch its new wireless mobile network this year. Cox said it plans to start offering cell phone service “soon” in three markets – Hampton Roads, Va., Omaha, Neb., and Orange County, Calif. – “with more markets to follow.”
Additional information is available at coxinc.com.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly said AutoTrader.com’s revenue fell 30 percent last year; it increased 1 percent. The story also spelled CEO Jimmy Hayes’ surname wrong.
