Comcast On Thursday, the changes in their broadband strategy were described as the business continues to throw customers in the face of greater competition.
The discussion occurred in the midst of the company's first quarter of the company with investors. Despite customer losses, Comcast's profits exceeded analysts' expectations.
Comcast shares closed almost 4% on Thursday.
This is how Comcast was done for the period ended on March 31, compared to the estimates of the analysts surveyed by LSE:
- Profit per action: $ 1.09 adjusted compared to 98 expected cents
- Revenue: $ 29.89 billion compared to $ 29.77 billion expected
While national broadband revenues increased 1.7% to $ 6.56 billion, Comcast lost 199,000 total broadband clients, which reflects the continuous pressure on the cornerstone business of the cable giant. The competition has increased in recent years due to the increase in alternative internet options at home, including 5G, or fixed wireless so -called.
“In this intensely competitive environment we are not winning the market in a manner according to the strengths of our network and connectivity,” said Comcast president Mike Cavanagh, in the company's profit call.
The analysts splashed Comcast executives with questions on Thursday with respect to their broadband and mobile band of the Xfinity brand, and how the company will turn the business.
Cavanagh said the company had identified a “disconnection” that translates into slow growth despite a strong broadband network and related products. He pointed out that the two winds against main are “prices and predictability transparency and the level of ease of doing business with us.”
During the latest quarter -quarter, Comcast executives alerted investors to change the company's approach to grow their mobile business after continuous broadband losses.
The mobile business of less than 10 years of Comcast remained a brilliant point during the quarter. The income for the unit increased approximately 16% to $ 1.12 billion, and added 323,000 lines. Now there are approximately 8.15 million mobile lines of total Xfinity.
On Thursday, CEO Brian Roberts said the company “clearly faces some challenges, but as you heard, with a lot of passion.”
“The team has a sense of urgency, energy and approach to solve the client's pain points,” Roberts said. “While this can take a little time to establish yourself completely, our success story of the operational execution would tell you that although sometimes we do not move first, once we start up, we do it extremely well.”
'High competition'
Igor Golovniov | LIGHTROCKET | Getty images
On Thursday, the financial director of Comcast, Jason Armstrong, said the company is “in an incredibly strong position to successfully execute difficult decisions that we are taking in front of elevated competition in certain areas.”
The broadband flourished as a growth engine for cable companies as Comcast, since the cable television business began its decline. Comcast reported 427,000 losses of cable television customers during the first quarter.
After years of constant growth of broadband customers, especially during the first locking orders of the Covid pandemic when many Americans used the Internet at home for work and school, green shoots of the offers in competition began to establish themselves.
The key competitive force has been the increase in the fixed wireless offers of Verizon and T-Mobile. There has been the so -called fiber Internet overgrowth, as well as 5G, a fixed wireless high -speed internet offer.
In 2022, Comcast and Charter Communications reported each of the first quarterly losses in the growth of broadband customers.
Last September, Charter released a change of strategy, which focused on new prices, internet speeds, an impulse to grow mobiles and make changes in customer service. The CEO Chris Winfrey told CNBC that the goal was to eliminate the negative perception of a long time over cable companies.
When Comcast pointed out the need to change the strategy earlier this year, executives said they would follow Charter's example in these areas. Comcast recently began to introduce changes in their mobile plans and prices, and made a new hiring.
The president of Comcast Cable, Dave Watson, said Thursday that the new offers, such as adding a mobile line for free for a year, which were introduced towards the end of the first quarter have already shown benefits.
“To start, it resulted in a great room. We are rolling here, and we expect a continuous acceleration in the next rooms,” he said.
Watson also observed updates to services for existing customers as “a centerpiece of our strategy is innovation.”
Despite the lack of growth, income for broadband unit constantly increases due to the force in the average income per user, or ARPU in industry jargon. The analysts questioned whether that would receive a blow with the change of strategy.
“What we are trying to do is really focus on weak points in this market,” Watson said. “We can execute this tactically, surgical and not see it as a wide reproduction of our base. We believe that we can still boost a healthy growth of broadband ARPU, but these initiatives will require some investment, which in turn will affect our ability to cultivate Ebitda in the near future. But we see that the impact is very manageable.”
Bigger image
The guests travel on the Racious Racers Stardust mountain in the area of the Heavenly Park, in the Epic Universe Theme Park in Orlando, Florida, USA, on Saturday, April 5, 2025. Epic Universe, the attraction of $ 7 billion of the division of universal destinations and experiences of Comcast Corp., offers five different lands and thinks to the public of May.
Bloomberg | Getty images
For the first quarter, Comcast's net income decreased by 12.5% to $ 3.38 billion, or 89 cents per share, compared to $ 3.86 billion, or 97 cents per share during the same period of the previous year. Adjusting the unique items, including the expenses of the Income Tax and the costs related to the value of the assets, among other items, Comcast reported profits per share of $ 1.09.
Added profits before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA increased almost 2% to $ 9.53 billion.
The company's revenues decreased slightly to $ 29.89 billion compared to $ 30.06 billion in the same period in 2024.
The income was helped by Comcast refers as their “growth businesses”, including mobile phones, the Peacock transmission platform, the Commercial Services Unit, the residential broadband, studies and thematic parks. Comcast is in the process of rotating its cable networks, including CNBC, in a transaction that is expected to be completed this year.
Income for the media segment, which includes NBCuniversal, increased approximately 1% to $ 6.44 billion, and revenues in the film studies unit increased 3% to $ 2.83 billion.
The Media Unit received an impulse from Peacock, with Ebitda adjusted for the segment of 21% to $ 1 billion driven by the transmission platform. Revenue for Peacock itself increased by 16%. The quarterly loss of streamer was reduced to $ 215 million, compared to a loss of $ 639 million in the same quarter of the year before.
Peacock had 41 million subscribers paid, exceeding the estimates of analysts of 37.21 million for the quarter, according to Streetacount. Peacock ended the last fiscal year with 36 million clients paid.
Competitors that include Disney and Warner Bros discovery. Each has seen its transmission platforms achieve profitability in the last quarters. The streamers have changed marching to focus on commercial models backed by advertisements and take energetic measures against password exchange in an attempt to achieve profitability as Wall Street investors changed to the metric instead of subscriber additions.
The revenues of the theme parks of Nbcuniversal fell 5% to approximately $ 1.88 billion, driven by the assistance of lower guests for a room plagued by the forest fires of Los Angeles – Weighing the general business.
The company is preparing for the debut of Universal Epic Universe on May 22, which will be the first great development of thematic parks in Florida in 25 years. At Thursday's launch, Comcast called its “most ambitious parks experience ever created,” with more than 50 attractions.
In August he will also open the universal horror unleashed in Las Vegas. Nbcuniversal also recently announced plans to build a universal and resort theme park in the United Kingdom
Disclosure: Comcast has NBCuniversal, the CNBC parent company.
