Comcast Beats on Broadband Losses and Wireless Adds
The cable giant improved its year-over-year subscriber losses for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2020.
WASHINGTON, April 23, 2026 – Comcast’s broadband business had a good start to the year, losing much fewer subscribers than expected and adding its highest ever number of wireless lines.
The cable giant lost 65,000 residential broadband subscribers, an improvement of 117,000 over the same time last year. That’s the company’s first year-over-year improvement on that front since the fourth quarter of 2020, Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh said on the company’s earnings call Thursday.
Comcast has been fighting to stave off broadband losses by offering price locks and bundling fixed and mobile plans, including free wireless lines for one year.
“Early indications suggest this pivot is not only gaining traction, but is absolutely the right move,” CFO Jason Armstrong said. “Our new go-to-market strategy is clearly resonating with customers.”
Executives said more than half of the improvement in subscriber losses came from advertising the company’s new broadband plans during major sporting events on NBC, which Comcast owns.
Even so, Armstrong said the company expected to end 2026 with fewer subscriber losses than in 2025. Executives said the company wasn’t seeing different results against fixed wireless or fiber specifically, but attributed the subscriber improvement to its new pricing and wireless bundles.
“The changes in pricing and packaging strategy implemented over the last year have clearly had a positive impact,” New Street Research analyst Vikash Harlalka wrote Thursday morning. “The key question… is whether Comcast can continue to deliver strong subscriber results from here.”
Investors were apparently convinced, with Comcast stock up nearly 8 percent.
Comcast is the largest ISP in the country, with nearly 60 million residential passings and more than 30 million residential broadband subscribers.
The cable operator has historically also reported business broadband subscribers, which it did not do this quarter. As of the fourth quarter of 2025, Comcast counted nearly 5 million business passings and 2.7 million business subscribers.
Mobile
Mobile lines were up 435,000, the company’s highest ever quarterly total. Comcast now counts more than 9.7 million wireless subscribers and has about 16 percent of its domestic footprint on board.
More than half of those new additions were customers taking the company up on its offer of a free line for one year. That’s been on the table for a while, and combined with a lack of recent rate hikes is continuing to push Comcast’s average revenue per user (ARPU) down. The metric fell 3.1 percent in the first quarter, more than expected.
Steve Croney, CEO of Comcast’s connectivity division, said the company expected “incremental pressure” on that front in the second quarter, but that there would be “relief” in the second half of the year as more currently free lines convert to paid.
So far only a small portion have converted since the promotion was launched last year, but executives said the “significant majority” of those were sticking around when it came time to become a paying subscriber.
Comcast just launched a new premium mobile plan on Wednesday which includes lifetime device protection, something it says is an industry first. The company has been making an effort to compete in the higher end of the market, and Armstrong said about 30 percent of their new connects in the quarter were on those higher-end plans.
Converged plans that bundle fixed and mobile broadband are a major part of Comcast’s plan to slow down losses, as the combined product tends to prevent switching. Other major ISPs are in on it too, with wireless carriers expanding fiber builds or buying up regional providers and fellow cable giant Charter pushing its own mobile product.
MoffettNathanson founder Craig Moffett has noted the cable companies have an advantage on the convergence front given their sprawling wireline footprints, and in a Thursday note said Comcast also had the advantage of lower costs and thus cheaper bundles than the wireless carriers.
“Convergence is a game that Comcast can win,” Moffett wrote. “But wireless will also be a major revenue and profit driver for the company in its own right. Comcast just had its best quarter ever in wireless.”
Cable M&A?
Executives were asked by multiple analysts how they felt about the prospect of additional cable M&A.
“We think the odds of a Charter-Comcast merger are higher today than just a month ago,” Harlalka wrote in a note last week, referencing a New Street event at which Charter CFO Jessica Fischer appeared not to shut down the idea.
Comcast co-CEO Brian Roberts said Thursday, “If we can find ways to create shareholder value – the bar is always high – but we’re always focused on looking at those kinds of creative situations. But that said, I also just really do like the direction of the company and don’t want to create a lot of distraction.”
Cavanagh weighed in too.
“There are ways to benefit ourselves through scale in partnership terms, and we’re open to doing that,” he said. “And then ultimately, there are always bigger ideas that, as Brian said, open strategic possibilities to create value. But the focus is really on what we can do ourselves.”
Blair Levin, New Street’s policy advisor, said in a note last week that geographic expansion deals like a Charter-Comcast merger were usually allowed, but that broadcasters and consumer advocates might be successful in creating political opposition to a single nationwide cable behemoth.
He wrote there was a real chance the Trump administration could kill any such deal, but also that its odds might be better than under whoever takes the White House in 2028. It would depend on satisfying President Donald Trump, who has raged against Comcast and Roberts for negative coverage of him on MSNBC, now called MS Now, which Comcast has already spun off, and NBC, which it still owns.
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