Comcast Business, Wireless Swell As Broadband Growth Slows

Among the cable giant’s biggest areas of growth are its wireless business and business services, as Comcast said it is outpacing any of its competitors in business users.

Two of Comcast’s biggest areas of investment and growth lie within its six-year-old mobile wireless business and business services, Michael Cavanagh, Comcast’s president and former CFO, said during the company’s second-quarter 2023 earnings call Thursday.

Comcast’s Business Services Connectivity segment, formerly known as the Business segment, pulled in $2.29 billion during the second quarter, representing 4 percent growth compared with $2.20 billion from the Business segment during 2022’s second quarter. The company attributed the growth to an increase in revenue from midsize and enterprise customers that offset a small decline in small-business revenue.

The Philadelphia-based company has more than 2.5 million domestic business customers, which Comcast said earlier this year is more than any competitor.

“We plan for our network and product capabilities to stay far ahead of demand so that we maintain our position as a market leader delivering the best broadband possible. … We’re also hard at work when it comes to expanding our footprint. We’ve grown our homes and businesses by 1.5 percent year over year to 61.8 million and we are on pace to meet or exceed our goal of 1 million new homes and businesses for 2023,” Cavanagh said.

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At the same time, the wireless segment continued to blossom. Its revenue was driven by continued strong momentum in customer lines, which were up 1.4 million, or 30 percent year over year, to 6 million total lines, said Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong. The company added 316,000 new wireless lines in the quarter.

Comcast Business this month launched its Mobile Made Free event, letting new and existing Comcast Business Internet customers receive one year of Comcast Business Mobile Unlimited, a small-business offering, at no additional cost. The event runs until the end of September.

The cable giant’s wireless offering has been quickly gaining momentum since it was introduced in 2017 and the company is seeing an increasing mix of new customers. Second-quarter 2023 marked the seventh consecutive quarter of more than 300,000 line additions, Comcast said.

“With just 10 percent of domestic residential broadband customers taking our mobile offering, we have a big opportunity and long runway ahead for growth and wireless,” Armstrong said.

Meanwhile, Comcast’s total domestic broadband customer relationships—residential and business customers—decreased by 19,000 from during the second quarter of 2023. However, the company said that higher average rates helped to offset second-quarter subscriber losses.

Comcast’s Connectivity and Platforms revenue—which includes high-speed internet, voice, video, cable TV and Sky-branded TV channels and wireless and business services—stayed flat year over year during the second quarter of 2023 when compared with the previous reporting segment that was called Cable Communications. The Connectivity and Platforms segment generated revenue of $20.36 billion, the same revenue compared with second-quarter 2022.

For the second quarter of 2023 ended June 30, Comcast reported revenue of $30.51 billion, a 1.7 percent increase compared with second-quarter 2022’s result of $30.02 billion.

The cable giant posted adjusted earnings per share of $1.13, compared with $1.01 per share for the same quarter of 2022.