Comcast Loses Broadband Customers, Gains Five Million Peacock Subscribers

Comcast Corporation is an American telecommunications conglomerate that is the largest broadcasting and cable television company in the world by revenue. It is the second-largest pay-TV company after AT&T, largest cable TV company and largest home Internet service provider in the United States, and the nation's third-largest home telephone service provider. Comcast services U.S. residential and commercial customers in 40 states and in the District of Columbia. The company's headquarters are located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

NBCUniversal said its Peacock streaming service grew its paying-customer base by a third in a single quarter but lost nearly $1 billion over the period, contributing to a decline in profitability at its media unit.

The cable and entertainment company also lost broadband subscribers last quarter due to disruptions caused by Hurricane Ian. The hurricane caused extensive damage to Florida last fall, and this has continued to cause problems for the company.

Overall, the company said that fourth-quarter revenue rose by 0.7% to $30.55 billion, while net profit slipped by 1.1% to $3.02 billion.

Comcast announced that Peacock added 5 million paid subscribers in the quarter, calling it the streaming service's best quarterly result since launching in 2020. With this addition, Peacock surpassed 20 million paid subscribers in the quarter, 2 million more than what NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell had reported at an investor conference in early December.

Comcast's streaming service, Peacock, posted an adjusted loss before interest taxes, depreciation and amortization of $978 million in the fourth quarter, compared with an adjusted loss of $559 million in the year-earlier period. The streaming service lost $2.5 billion on an adjusted basis for the full year.

Despite losing 26,000 customers during the fourth quarter, the company's broadband business - the cornerstone of its operations - generated higher revenue. Comcast has recently said that broadband customer additions wouldn't be a significant driver of growth, but noted it expects to maintain strong financial performance in the cable business by growing sales to businesses and earning higher average revenue per user.

Comcast said that its broadband and cable businesses were negatively affected by Hurricane Ian, which hit the southeast of the United States in late September and early October. The company said that, excluding the broadband subscribers in the area who were still without service as of the end of the fourth quarter due to the disruptions, it would have gained 4,000 broadband users in the period.

In the most recent quarter, Comcast lost 440,000 video subscribers but added 365,000 new Xfinity Mobile lines. Overall, revenue for the company's cable-communications unit rose by 1.4% to $16.64 billion.

Comcast's NBCUniversal division reported a 5.9% rise in revenue to $9.89 billion, boosted by strong gains at its movie-studio unit and its Universal Studios theme-park business. The media unit, home to Peacock and TV stations including NBC, also posted solid revenue growth of 2.6%.

Comcast reported that NBCUniversal saw an increase in revenue from the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, for which Telemundo and Peacock had the Spanish-language rights.

Comcast saw a softening in demand for advertising in the fourth quarter, as many companies that rely on advertising revenue do. It also engaged in belt-tightening to reduce its workforce and booked $541 million in higher severance expenses.

The media unit's profitability declined by 82% to $132 million, due to Peacock losses and severance expenses.

Sky, the European pay-TV unit that Comcast acquired in 2018, added 129,000 customers in the fourth quarter. However, its revenue fell by 13%, due to foreign currency fluctuations. Without these fluctuations, Sky's revenue would have decreased by only 0.8%.

Last quarter, Comcast took an $8.6 billion write-down on its $40 billion acquisition of Sky. This was partially due to macroeconomic conditions in Sky territories in Europe.