Comcast warns of upper broadband losses on difficult festival, storm hit

(Reuters) -U.S. telecom massive Comcast on Monday forecast fourth-quarter broadband subscriber losses to exceed Wall Side road estimates, harm via difficult festival from wi-fi suppliers and the affect of 2 hurricanes that rocked Florida. Stocks of the corporate fell 8.3%. Its dour forecast additionally dragged down smaller rival Constitution Communications’ inventory via 6.5%. Comcast expects broadband subscriber losses to be just a little over 100,000 within the closing 3 months of 2024, Dave Watson, president and CEO of Comcast Cable, stated at the usGlobal Media and Communications convention. Analysts had been anticipating a lack of 64,400 subscribers within the quarter, in step with knowledge from analysis company Visual Alpha. Comcast stated about 10,000 broadband losses are tied to Hurricanes Milton and Helene that made landfall in Florida inside of two weeks of one another, disrupting companies. The corporate had previous stated that the prospective affect might be considerably not up to the hit from Typhoon Ian in 2022, which had ended in losses of 26,000 broadband consumers within the fourth quarter of that yr. “It stays competitively intense, that has now not modified and has been beautiful constant during the yr, specifically within the extra value aware finish of the marketplace position,” Watson stated. Comcast has been dropping subscribers to wi-fi carrier suppliers comparable to AT&T Verizon and T-Cell which were attracting consumers with customizable and reasonably priced choices. Comcast has additionally taken successful because of the top of the federal Inexpensive Connectivity Program (ACP), which sponsored web get entry to for low-income families within the U.S. That ended in a lack of 87,000 broadband consumers within the 3rd quarter for Comcast. Aside from ACP’s affect, the corporate’s broadband noticed web additions of 9,000 in that duration. (Reporting via Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Modifying via Arun Koyyur and Maju Samuel)

Author: OpenAI