Comcast executives apparently realized one thing that clients have identified and complained about for years: The Web supplier’s costs aren’t clear sufficient and rise too often.
This won’t have mattered a lot to cable executives so long as the entire variety of subscribers met their targets. However after reporting a net loss of 183,000 residential broadband clients in Q1 2025, Comcast President Mike Cavanagh mentioned the corporate is not “profitable within the market” throughout an earnings call in the present day. The Q1 2025 buyer loss was over thrice bigger than the web loss in Q1 2024.
Whereas clients usually have few viable choices for broadband and the provision of alternate options varies broadly by location, Comcast faces competitors from fiber and stuck wi-fi ISPs.
“On this intensely aggressive setting, we aren’t profitable within the market in a approach that’s commensurate with the power of the community and connectivity merchandise that I simply described,” Cavanagh mentioned. “[Cable division CEO] Dave [Watson] and his group have labored exhausting to grasp the explanations for this disconnect and have recognized two main causes. One is value transparency and predictability and the opposite is the extent of ease of doing enterprise with us. The excellent news is that each are fixable and we’re already underway with execution plans to handle these challenges.”
The 183,000-subscriber loss lowered Comcast’s residential Web subscribers to 29.19 million. Comcast additionally reported a first-quarter drop of 17,000 enterprise broadband subscribers, reducing that class’s complete to 2.45 million.
Comcast’s inventory value fell 3.7 % in the present day regardless that its total revenue beat analyst expectations and home broadband income rose 1.7 % 12 months over 12 months to $6.56 billion—an indication that Comcast is extracting extra money from clients on common. “Analysts peppered Comcast executives with questions on Thursday concerning its Xfinity-branded broadband and cellular, and the way the corporate will pivot the enterprise,” CNBC wrote.
“We’re simplifying our pricing”
Cavanagh mentioned that Comcast plans to make adjustments in advertising and operations “with the very best urgency.” Because of this “we’re simplifying our pricing assemble to make our price-to-value proposition clearer to customers throughout all broadband segments,” he mentioned.
Comcast final week announced a five-year value assure for broadband clients who join a brand new package deal. Comcast mentioned clients will get a “easy month-to-month value beginning as little as $55 per 30 days,” with out having to enter a contract, giving them “freedom and adaptability to cancel at any time with out penalty.” The five-year assure additionally comes with one 12 months of Xfinity Cellular at no cost, Comcast mentioned.