Comcast added more than two million subscribers to its streaming service Peacock, ending its first financial quarter of 2023 with around 22 million, a 60 percent year-over-year increase.
The bump in subscribers during the first part of the year helped the company generate more than $685 million in revenue from the direct-to-consumer streaming service, which offers a mixture of NBC, Universal Pictures, Dreamworks and cable content to subscribers for $5 a month.
“We delivered strong first quarter results as our team executed exceptionally well,” Brian Roberts, the Chairman and CEO of Comcast, said in a statement on Thursday.
Those strong results showed quarterly revenue of $29.69 billion, a dip of 4.3 percent compared to Q1 2022 but still strong cash-wise. Net income dipped to $3.877 billion, a 0.6 percent decrease from Q1 2022. Comcast’s earnings per share, or EPS, grew 16.7 percent to $0.91.
Related: See The Desk’s ongoing coverage of Comcast’s streaming service Peacock
In addition to its Peacock business, Comcast saw revenue growth in its Xfinity broadband product to $6.3 billion, a 4.8 percent year-over-year increase. Broadband customers subscribers were flat at 32.3 million for the quarter, with Comcast adding just 5,000 Xfinity residential and business Internet customers compared to Q1 2022.
The trend of cord-cutting — consumers ditching expensive cable and satellite TV plans for cheaper streaming options — continues to erode at Comcast’s pay TV customer base, with 614,000 customers dropping Xfinity TV between Q1 2022 and Q1 2023. Overall, Comcast says it has 15.528 million video customers, down from 17.664 million reported last year.
Customers who are sticking around with video or Internet are picking up Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile wireless service by the thousands. Comcast’s wireless line net additions were reported at 355,000 to more than 5.668 million customers served. Xfinity Mobile runs on Verizon’s network, and Comcast offers customers a discount on service when they bundle it with an Xfinity product.
