Comcast exceeded Wall Street expectations for the first quarter on Thursday thanks to a successful sports program that boosted growth and subscriber engagement, while its core high-speed internet business lost fewer customers than expected.
The company’s stock surged by over 8% in pre-market trading.
A packed sports calendar, including the Winter Olympics, the Super Bowl, and the return of NBA games, drove advertising sales and growth in users for the company’s streaming service Peacock.
Comcast revamped its pricing, offers, and customer experience for high-speed internet to compete with rivals, particularly fixed wireless service providers, helping to reduce subscriber losses.
The company lost 65,000 high-speed internet customers in the first quarter, fewer than the estimated 175,500 users.
Comcast also relied more on its wireless business to drive growth and enhance customer relationships.
It added 435,000 wireless customers, marking its best quarter and surpassing the estimated 361,600 additions.
During January to March, Peacock added 2 million paying subscribers to reach a total of 46 million, but losses in this sector widened to $432 million.
The media sector also incurred a loss of $426 million, as Comcast increased spending on NBA programs.
The company had already indicated that the first quarter would be a peak volume period with about 50% of NBA games played, causing maximum dilution of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
Its theme park business saw a 24% increase in revenue, driven by higher attendance at its Epic Universe park in Orlando, launched last May.
Total revenue reached $31.46 billion, a 10.9% increase excluding contributions from the cable distribution assets spun off into Versant Media in the first quarter. Analysts had expected an average of $30.43 billion.
The adjusted earnings per share of 79 cents also beat the estimate of 73 cents.
/2026/04/23/69e9bf0275263820713853.jpg "Death of two French soldiers in Lebanon: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean")
