International Companies
Super Bowl, Winter Olympics help Comcast beat Q1 expectations
By Josh White
Date: Thursday 23 Apr 2026
(Sharecast News) - Comcast beat Wall Street expectations for first-quarter revenue and earnings on Thursday, as a lighter-than-expected decline in broadband customers and a surge in advertising tied to NBC's Super Bowl and Winter Olympics coverage helped lift sales.
The Philadelphia-based media and cable giant reported revenue of $31.46bn, up about 5% from a year earlier and ahead of estimates, while adjusted earnings per share came in at 79 cents, also above forecasts.
Net income, however, fell nearly 36% to $2.17bn, or 60 cents a share, as higher sports rights and production costs, alongside continued investment in its cable and broadband operations, weighed on profitability.
Comcast lost 65,000 US domestic broadband customers in the quarter, an improvement on the 183,000 it lost a year earlier and well below expectations for steeper attrition.
The company had been trying to stem customer losses by introducing lower-priced broadband plans and more aggressive mobile offers as competition from wireless providers intensified.
It also added 435,000 mobile lines in the quarter, taking its total mobile customer base to 9.7 million, while cable television losses narrowed to 322,000 from 427,000 a year earlier.
Revenue in Comcast's connectivity and platforms business, which includes Xfinity broadband, cable TV and mobile, fell 2% to $17.32bn.
In its largest unit, which includes broadband, revenue was broadly flat at $19.96bn, while adjusted EBITDA declined 4% to about $7.91bn.
NBCUniversal drove much of the top-line growth, with media revenue jumping nearly 61% to $7.28bn as NBC aired what Comcast called a "Legendary February" featuring the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics and NBA All-Star Weekend.
Domestic advertising revenue in the media unit rose 135% to $3.45bn.
Excluding the Super Bowl and Olympics, media revenue rose about 13% and domestic advertising increased 4.7% to $1.54bn.
The Peacock streaming platform also benefited from the sports-heavy quarter, ending March with 46 million paid subscribers, up 12% from a year earlier and two million higher than at the end of 2025.
Revenue at the service nearly doubled to $2.1bn, but its quarterly loss widened to $432m from $215ma year earlier, reflecting higher programming and sports costs.
Comcast said adjusted EBITDA for the broader media segment was a loss of $426m, as the boost from advertising was offset by the cost of the Olympics, the Super Bowl and NBA rights.
Elsewhere, revenue at Comcast's film studio rose 21% to $3.43bn, while theme parks revenue increased 24% to $2.33bn, helped by the opening of Epic Universe in Orlando last year.
At 0852 EDT (1352 BST), shares in Comcast Corporation were up 6.57% in premarket trading in New York at $31.30.
Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.
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