Comcast topped analyst expectations with its first-quarter earnings report Thursday, despite the cable and media giant’s residential broadband business’s slowing growth and mounting Peacock losses.
Shares of the company rose more than 7%.
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Here’s how Comcast performed, compared with estimates from analysts surveyed by Refinitiv:
Earnings per share: 92 cents adjusted vs. 82 cents expected
Revenue: $29.69 billion vs. $29.3 billion expected
For the quarter ended March 31, Comcast reported earnings of $3.83 billion, or 91 cents per share, compared with $3.55 billion, or 78 cents per share, a year earlier. Adjusting for one-time items, Comcast posted earnings per share of 92 cents for the most recent period.
Revenue dropped 4% to $29.69 billion from $31.01 billion in the prior-year period, with the company noting that last year it had broadcast both the Super Bowl and Beijing Olympics during the first quarter.
The Philadelphia company said its first-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization grew 3% to $9.42 billion during the first quarter.
Comcast said it returned $3.2 billion to shareholders in the quarter through a mix of $1.2 billion in dividend payments and $2 billion in share repurchases.
Comcast had 21,000 fewer residential broadband customers year-over-year at the end of the three-month period, adding just 3,000 during the quarter. It received a slight boost from its business customers. Company executives had warned earlier this year that Comcast was likely to lose broadband subscribers in the first quarter.
Still, it was a sign that Comcast, like its peers, continues to face slowing growth in the broadband business. Executives have said that, while the loss rate of customers is very low, growth has stagnated – especially since the early days of the Covid pandemic – as they face heightened competition from telecom and wireless providers.
Comcast executives said on Thursday’s earnings call that the company expects adding subscribers to likely be a challenge in the near term, but will focus on average revenue per user to grow revenue for the segment.
The Xfinity mobile business grew to nearly 5.67 million customers during the quarter, a sign that its wireless service – which is provided in conjunction with an agreement to use Verizon‘s network – remains a bright spot.
Cable TV customers continued their exodus from the traditional bundle, with Comcast losing 614,000 subscribers during the quarter.
Last month, Comcast announced it was changing how it reported its segments, now grouping its Xfinity-branded broadband, cable TV and wireless services with its U.K.-based Sky, which includes pay TV services and Sky-branded entertainment TV channels to form the “connectivity and platforms” segment. Total revenue for the segment was about $20.15 billion, a slight drop from the last quarter due to the impact of foreign currency.
The second segment, content and experiences, includes all of NBCUniversal’s TV and streaming business, the international networks and Sky Sports channels, as well as its film studios and theme parks units. Overall revenue for the segment was down nearly 10% to $10.26 billion in the quarter.
The media business’ revenue took a dip in the first quarter, with it dropping about 20% to $6.15 billion, due to its comparison last year, when NBC aired the Super Bowl and had the rights to the Beijing Olympics for its TV networks and Peacock. Still, Comcast said excluding the $1.5 billion incremental revenue from these two major sporting events, media revenue was still down about 2%.
The tightening ad market showed on Comcast’s balance sheet this quarter, as it has for peers like Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery. Excluding the Olympics and Super Bowl – two events that generate a lot of ad revenue – domestic advertising during the quarter was down about 6% driven by lower TV network revenue and a TV ratings decline.
Domestic TV distribution revenue was up, excluding the Olympics, which Comcast noted was primarily due to higher revenue at Peacock, which had more paid subscribers.
Comcast said Peacock subscribers grew more than 60% year over year to 22 million, and revenue was up 45% to $685 million. Peacock had $704 million in losses, compared with losses of $456 million in the same period last year.
Last quarter, the company noted Peacock losses would amount to about $3 billion this year. The streaming service’s costs continued to weigh on the media segment’s earnings. Executives said Thursday they were “encouraged” by Peacock’s results, and following the expected peak losses this year will see a steady improvement. Comcast President Mike Cavanagh said the company had the confidence Peacock would “break even and grow from there.”
NBCUniversal’s film segment got a boost from the animated “Shrek” spinoff “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” and horror flick “M3GAN,” during the quarter, with revenue up nearly 2% to $2.96 billion.
Both Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and Cavanagh touted NBCUniversal’s animation film business on Thursday’s call, with the success of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which was released earlier this month. This week it surpassed $900 million at the global box office, including $444 million domestically.
“We’ve had tremendous success creating franchises,” Roberts said on Thursday’s call, noting the “Despicable Me” and “Shrek” franchises. “These are the results of the strategic decisions we made years ago to become a leader in animation and the conviction to invest in the business in the pandemic.”
Cavanagh noted that NBCUniversal’s “Jurassic Park,” “Minions” and “Halloween” installments last year helped boost its box office.
“We’re really proud of our animation business,” Cavanagh said Thursday.
NBCUniversal’s upcoming film slate includes next month’s “Fast X,” the next installment in the popular “Fast and Furious” franchise, as well as Christopher Nolan’s next epic, “Oppenheimer,” about the scientist who led the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. It will be released in July.
The company’s theme park segment kept on rolling higher, especially since the shutdowns of parks during the height of the pandemic, with revenue up 25% to $1.95 billion. Revenue was boosted by international parks, which were still weighed down by pandemic restrictions last year. The opening of Super Nintendo World helped boost revenue, too.
Earlier this week, NBCUniversal faced a shake-up with the ouster of CEO Jeff Shell due to a sexual harassment and discrimination complaint filed by an employee. Roberts addressed the matter at the start of Thursday’s call, saying it was “obviously a tough moment” for the company but noting his confidence in NBCUniversal’s leadership team, which will now report to Cavanagh.
“Think of me as being here for awhile,” Cavanagh said regarding his future as overseeing the NBCUniversal team. He noted during the call he’s been close to the business since joining Comcast nearly eight years ago and has been “deeply involved for a long time.”
Investors also shouldn’t expect to see NBCUniversal “revisiting strategy” as a result of Shell’s departure alone, and instead would react “as the environment changes.”
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.
Correction: Comcast’s total media revenue was down more than 20%. An earlier version misstated that figure.
TikTok’s grip on the short-form video market is tightening, and the world’s biggest tech platforms are racing to catch up.
Since launching globally in 2016, ByteDance-owned TikTok has amassed over 1.12 billion monthly active users worldwide, according to Backlinko. American users spend an average of 108 minutes per day on the app, according to Apptoptia.
TikTok’s success has reshaped the social media landscape, forcing competitors like Meta and Google to pivot their strategies around short-form video. But so far, experts say that none have matched TikTok’s algorithmic precision.
“It is the center of the internet for young people,” said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at Emarketer. “It’s where they go for entertainment, news, trends, even shopping. TikTok sets the tone for everyone else.”
Platforms like Meta‘s Instagram Reels and Google’s YouTube Shorts have expanded aggressively, launching new features, creator tools and even considering separate apps just to compete. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, traditionally a professional networking site, is the latest to experiment with TikTok-style feeds. But with TikTok continuing to evolve, adding features like e-commerce integrations and longer videos, the question remains whether rivals can keep up.
“I’m scrolling every single day. I doom scroll all the time,” said TikTok content creator Alyssa McKay.
But there may a dark side to this growth.
As short-form content consumption soars, experts warn about shrinking attention spans and rising mental-health concerns, particularly among younger users. Researchers like Dr. Yann Poncin, associate professor at the Child Study Center at Yale University, point to disrupted sleep patterns and increased anxiety levels tied to endless scrolling habits.
“Infinite scrolling and short-form video are designed to capture your attention in short bursts,” Dr. Poncin said. “In the past, entertainment was about taking you on a journey through a show or story. Now, it’s about locking you in for just a few seconds, just enough to feed you the next thing the algorithm knows you’ll like.”
Despite sky-high engagement, monetizing short videos remains an uphill battle. Unlike long-form YouTube content, where ads can be inserted throughout, short clips offer limited space for advertisers. Creators, too, are feeling the squeeze.
“It’s never been easier to go viral,” said Enberg. “But it’s never been harder to turn that virality into a sustainable business.”
Last year, TikTok generated an estimated $23.6 billion in ad revenues, according to Oberlo, but even with this growth, many creators still make just a few dollars per million views. YouTube Shorts pays roughly four cents per 1,000 views, which is less than its long-form counterpart. Meanwhile, Instagram has leaned into brand partnerships and emerging tools like “Trial Reels,” which allow creators to experiment with content by initially sharing videos only with non-followers, giving them a low-risk way to test new formats or ideas before deciding whether to share with their full audience. But Meta told CNBC that monetizing Reels remains a work in progress.
While lawmakers scrutinize TikTok’s Chinese ownership and explore potential bans, competitors see a window of opportunity. Meta and YouTube are poised to capture up to 50% of reallocated ad dollars if TikTok faces restrictions in the U.S., according to eMarketer.
Watch the video to understand how TikTok’s rise sparked a short form video race.
The X logo appears on a phone, and the xAI logo is displayed on a laptop in Krakow, Poland, on April 1, 2025. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Elon Musk‘s xAI Holdings is in discussions with investors to raise about $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The funding would value the company at over $120 billion, according to the report.
Musk was looking to assign “proper value” to xAI, sources told CNBC’s David Faber earlier this month. The remarks were made during a call with xAI investors, sources familiar with the matter told Faber. The Tesla CEO at that time didn’t explicitly mention any upcoming funding round, but the sources suggested xAI was preparing for a substantial capital raise in the near future.
The funding amount could be more than $20 billion as the exact figure had not been decided, the Bloomberg report added.
Artificial intelligence startup xAI didn’t immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment outside of U.S. business hours.
The AI firm last month acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued xAI at $80 billion and the social media platform at $33 billion.
“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said on X, announcing the deal. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai during the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 10, 2023.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Alphabet‘s stock gained 3% Friday after signaling strong growth in its search and advertising businesses amid a competitive artificial intelligence environment and uncertain macro backdrop.
“GOOGL‘s pace of GenAI product roll-out is accelerating with multiple encouraging signals,” wrote Morgan Stanley‘s Brian Nowak. “Macro uncertainty still exists but we remain [overweight] given GOOGL’s still strong relative position and improving pace of GenAI enabled product roll-out.”
The search giant posted earnings of $2.81 per share on $90.23 billion in revenues. That topped the $89.12 billion in sales and $2.01 in EPS expected by LSEG analysts. Revenues grew 12% year-over-year and ahead of the 10% anticipated by Wall Street.
Net income rose 46% to $34.54 billion, or $2.81 per share. That’s up from $23.66 billion, or $1.89 per share, in the year-ago period. Alphabet said the figure included $8 billion in unrealized gains on its nonmarketable equity securities connected to its investment in a private company.
Adjusted earnings, excluding that gain, were $2.27 per share, according to LSEG, and topped analyst expectations.
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Alphabet shares have pulled back about 16% this year as it battles volatility spurred by mounting trade war fears and worries that President Donald Trump‘s tariffs could crush the global economy. That would make it more difficult for Alphabet to potentially acquire infrastructure for data centers powering AI models as it faces off against competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic to develop largely language models.
During Thursday’s call with investors, Alphabet suggested that it’s too soon to tally the total impact of tariffs. However, Google’s business chief Philipp Schindler said that ending the de minimis trade exemption in May, which created a loophole benefitting many Chinese e-commerce retailers, could create a “slight headwind” for the company’s ads business, specifically in the Asia-Pacific region. The loophole allows shipments under $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free.
Despite this backdrop, Alphabet showed steady growth in its advertising and search business, reporting $66.89 billion in revenues for its advertising unit. That reflected 8.5% growth from the year-ago period. The company reported $8.93 billion in advertising revenue for its YouTube business, shy of an $8.97 billion estimate from StreetAccount.
Alphabet’s “Search and other” unit rose 9.8% to $50.7 billion, up from $46.16 billion last year. The company said that its AI Overviews tool used in its Google search results page has accumulated 1.5 billion monthly users from a billion in October.
Bank of America analyst Justin Post said that Wall Street is underestimating the upside potential and “monetization ramp” from this tool and cloud demand fueled by AI.
“The strong 1Q search performance, along with constructive comments on Gemini [large language model] performance and [AI Overviews] adoption could help alleviate some investor concerns on AI competition,” Post wrote in a note.