Comcast Beats Wall Street Expectations in Third Quarter

Comcast beat Wall Street's expectations for its third-quarter earnings, according to CNBC. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.07, compared with the 98 cents that analysts had expected. Revenue was $29.3 billion, slightly above the $29.28 billion that was expected. Comcast's shares closed up more than 3% on Thursday.

The company's streaming service, Peacock, reported a quarterly profit for the second time since it launched in 2020. Peacock posted $261 million in adjusted EBITDA on $1.8 billion in revenue. The service kept 48 million paid subscribers, which was flat from the last quarter and up 17% from a year earlier. Peacock raised its subscription prices in August.

The media division also grew. Its revenue rose 13% from a year earlier to $5.4 billion. The content and experiences unit saw its revenue rise 6.5%. The studios division brought in $2.97 billion, down 1.1% from a year earlier, but its adjusted EBITDA rose 18.6% to $402 million. The film 'The Odyssey' became Universal's highest-grossing film of all time.

Not every part of the business grew. Theme parks faced headwinds in the quarter. Theme park revenue fell 4.4% to $2.6 billion, and theme park adjusted EBITDA sank 17%. The connectivity and platforms unit saw its revenue fall 2.7% from a year earlier.

Comcast also lost customers in some areas. The company lost 144,000 domestic broadband residential customers and 274,000 cable customers during the period. Its mobile business, however, added 368,000 customers. In January 2025, Comcast said it would refocus on its mobile business.

The company reported net income of $3.45 billion, or 97 cents per share, for the period. Comcast has also been reshaping its structure. In June, it announced plans to spin off NBCUniversal and Sky, and it said the spin-off is on track to be completed by mid-2027. Earlier, Comcast spun off most of its cable networks into a new company called Versant, which was completed in January.