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Comcast sheds broadband, cable TV subscribers in Q4

A utility truck for Comcast's Xfinity TV and Internet service as pictured in Sacramento, California.
A utility truck for Comcast’s Xfinity TV and Internet service as pictured in Sacramento, California. (Photo by Matthew Keys for The Desk)

Comcast Corporation on Thursday reported fourth quarter (Q4) revenue that beat Wall Street estimates, but the telecommunications firm continues to struggle with broadband Internet and cable TV subscriber losses that have weighed down that part of its business.

Comcast ended Q4 with 131,000 fewer residential Xfinity Internet subscribers, with its customer count logged at 29.373 million at the end of 2024. Another 8,000 business customers logged off Xfinity Internet during the three-month period that ended in late December, with Comcast counting 2.469 million Xfinity Internet business customers. All told, Comcast has 31.842 million Xfinity Internet residential and small business accounts.



The broadband losses were wider than the projection of 100,000 accounts Comcast offered to investors last year. The company continues to face pressure from fixed wireless broadband Internet services offered by Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T, and satellite-based broadband startups like Starlink, which afford greater connection flexibility and can be purchased at a discount when bundled with wireless phone services.

Comcast’s pay TV business continues to erode as well, with the company reporting 12.523 million Xfinity TV subscribers, a loss of 311,000 accounts compared to Q4 2023. As with other pay TV businesses, Comcast has raised TV prices on subscribers in order to offset distribution fees charged by broadcasters and cable network programmers for the right to distribute their channels.



Total customer relationships dipped to 51.6 million, largely driven by gains in its Xfinity Mobile product and its overseas customer count. Comcast operates Sky Group, which provides satellite TV and broadband Internet services in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and other countries.

On a conference call with investors on Thursday, Comcast President Mike Cavanagh said the company will lean into opportunities to bundle home Internet service with wireless phone going forward.



“Wireless is a meaningful differentiator as our converged offers provide great savings to the consumer,” Cavanagh said. “So, you will see us shift our strategy to package mobile with more of our higher-tier broadband products, both for new and many of our existing customers.”

Comcast also did not offer much of an update on the health of its Peacock business, though it did say the company ended 2024 with 36 million paid subscribers. Customer count was flat between Q3 and Q4, according to earnings data, while revenue attributed to Peacock dipped to $1.3 billion during Q4.

Comcast bundles Peacock with its Stream Saver product, which includes Netflix and Apple TV Plus, and recently announced plans to incorporate Peacock into its “Sports & News TV” package for Xfinity TV and Xfinity Internet subscribers.

The company saw a significant uptake in Peacock subscribers during the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, which offered all events live on the platform (though data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics proved most people still watched NBC’s coverage of the games on broadcast and cable).

Some analysts, including Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson, took Comcast’s decision to not update its subscriber count for Peacock as a sign that there “was no fall-off in subscribers at the end of the Summer Olympics.” Moffett declared it a “win” for Comcast, though he offered no specific information to prove that the company did not see any churn at Peacock between Q3 and Q4.

Other analysts offered a more-measured approach.

“Peacock is finding out that it’s expensive to compete in the streaming wars and gains are becoming more difficult to come by,” Ross Benes, the senior analyst at Emarketer (stylized as EMARKETER), said in a report.

Benes remarked on a recent decision by Comcast to prioritize around its streaming TV future by spinning off most of its cable TV networks — except Bravo — into a standalone company.

“As cord-cutting continues unabated, the decision to sell off TV networks continues to make sense, but buyer prospects of these assets will be limited,” Benes said.

Overall, Comcast’s revenue was $31.915 billion during Q4, an increase of 2.1 percent, while its year-end revenue clocked in at $123.731 billion, a bump of nearly 2 percent.

Editor’s note: An initial version of this story erroneously said Comcast did not report subscriber figures for Peacock during its Q4 and full-year earnings update. The company reported no subscriber growth between Q3 and Q4, but did provide a hard count of 36 million paid subscribers.

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About the Author:

Matthew Keys

Matthew Keys is a nationally-recognized, award-winning journalist who has covered the business of media, technology, radio and television for more than 11 years. He is the publisher of The Desk and contributes to Know Techie, Digital Content Next and StreamTV Insider. He previously worked for Thomson Reuters, the Walt Disney Company, McNaughton Newspapers and Tribune Broadcasting. Connect with Matthew on LinkedIn by clicking or tapping here.
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