Comcast Reports Broadband Growth, Slower Adds

Comcast continued a 20-year run adding at least a million residential broadband subscribers a year, though its Q3 2021 adds were slower than Q3 2019, the company said Thursday announcing quarterly results. It added 281,000 residential broadband customers during the quarter, lower than the 359,000 added in Q3 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said growth of lower-income subscribers was slower due to wireless competition drawn by government programs like the emergency broadband benefit and lower churn across broadband providers meaning "less jump balls, where we do well." With Comcast having 1.1 million broadband adds so far this year, it still has a long runway of future connectivity growth, he said. New Street Research's Jonathan Chaplin wrote investors that the softer broadband adds weren't surprising and Wall Street consensus is a further slowdown from the pace of growth in this Q3 is likely. Comcast ended the quarter with 29.4 million residential broadband customers, up 1.6 million year over year, 17.8 million residential video customers, down 1.4 million, and 9.2 million residential voice customers, down 500,000. It has 3.7 million wireless lines, up 1.1 million. Revenue of $30.3 billion was up $4.8 billion. EO Brian Roberts said Comcast sees big potential to gain share in business services with its purchase earlier this month of software-defined networking and cloud platforms company Masergy. It said the 285,000 wireless customers added in Q3 was its best quarter since the 2017 launch of the wireless business. Roberts said the low penetration by its wireless offerings among its broadband customers means its wireless business has room to grow. MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett wrote in a note that Comcast seems to be pointing to a slowdown in broadband growth in Q4.