According to The Wall Street Journal, Comcast lost 181,000 domestic broadband customers in the fourth quarter, a steeper drop than analysts expected. The company also shed 245,000 domestic video subscribers. While overall cable revenue fell 5.6%, total company revenue still edged up 1.2% to $32.3 billion, driven by other segments. Peacock, its streaming service, saw revenue surge 23% to $1.63 billion and paid subscribers jump to 44 million. Meanwhile, revenue at Universal Studios parks jumped 22% to $2.89 billion. Comcast posted a quarterly profit of $2.17 billion, or 60 cents a share, with adjusted earnings beating expectations.
The Broadband Problem Isn’t Going Away
Here’s the thing: losing 181,000 broadband customers in a single quarter is a big deal for a company built on being your internet pipe. And it’s not a one-off blip; it’s a trend. This is the core of their business, and it’s slowly eroding. The usual excuses—market saturation, people moving—only go so far. The real pressure is coming from competition, like Verizon Fios and T-Mobile Home Internet, offering viable alternatives. So what’s Comcast‘s play? They’re pushing hard into wireless with Xfinity Mobile, adding 364,000 lines. But even that fell short of estimates. It feels like they’re running on a treadmill, trying to replace high-margin broadband customers with other services.
The New Growth Engines: Peacock and Rollercoasters
Look, the story isn’t all doom and gloom. The growth is just coming from completely different places. Peacock’s 23% revenue jump is massive. They’ve hit 44 million paid subscribers, which is no small feat in the brutally crowded streaming wars. Basically, they’re successfully monetizing content in a new way as the old cable bundle dies. Then there are the theme parks. A 22% pop in revenue for Universal Studios? That’s huge. It’s a high-margin, experience-based business that’s firing on all cylinders. This is where Comcast’s future is being written: in streaming apps and theme park tickets, not in cable boxes and modems. It’s a fundamental repositioning.
What The Market Is Thinking
So why did the stock go up? The profit beat on adjusted earnings is one reason—84 cents per share versus 73 cents expected. Investors might be seeing that the company is managing this transition, cutting costs where it can, and milking cash from the legacy business to fund the new ventures. But let’s be skeptical for a second. Can Peacock and the parks really grow fast enough to offset a continual bleed in the much larger cable division? That’s the multi-billion dollar question. For now, the market is giving them a cautious thumbs-up, betting on the parts that are working. But this is a long, expensive transition. They need their new ventures to not just grow, but to become profit powerhouses.
