By Patience Haggin

Comcast continues to lose broadband and cable-TV subscribers, but found bright spots in the first quarter with its mobile-phone plans and Peacock service.

The Results

The company's overall revenue slid 0.6% from the year-ago period, to $29.9 billion, narrowly beating analyst expectations. Its profit fell by 12.5%, to $3.4 billion, due in part to asset amortization.

Comcast lost 199,000 broadband customers, ending the quarter with 31.6 million subscribers. That was far more than the 146,000 that analysts polled by FactSet expected it to lose, and an acceleration over the prior quarter's declines.

Comcast lost 427,000 video subscribers, as its viewers continued to dump cable TV.

Xfinity Mobile, Comcast's mobile-service business, gained 323,000 lines in the quarter -- its biggest increase in two years.

The Context

Comcast has attributed its broadband subscriber losses to intense competition from mobile-service providers that also offer home internet, and from a growing number of competitors that lay fiber-optic cables. First-quarter revenue in the connectivity and platforms segment fell 0.7% from the prior year, to $20.1 billion.

Fires surrounded Comcast's Universal Studios Hollywood theme park in January, forcing the park to close for a few days, and visitors to the domestic parks were down overall. Theme-park revenue fell 5% year-over-year to around $1.9 billion, though Chief Executive Brian Roberts said parks "remain on an incredible growth trajectory" as they prepare for the opening of the Epic Universe in Orlando next month.

NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service was a bright spot for the company, adding five million subscribers from the fourth quarter of 2024 and ending March with 41 million subscribers. Most of those new subscribers came through a deal with Charter Communications, in which Charter paid incrementally for the ability to offer Peacock's streaming to all of its linear video customers. Peacock reported $1.2 billion in revenue, up 16% from the prior year, and its losses continued to narrow.

Write to Patience Haggin at patience.haggin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 24, 2025 07:34 ET (11:34 GMT)

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