Comcast wants Internet users to pay more because customer growth has stalled

It isn't signing up a lot of new customers. Existing subscribers can get more money from the cable company.

The company didn't add any broadband customers in the second quarter of the year. In its Q3 earnings report released yesterday, the company said it gained only a small amount of users. The company lost 561,000 video and 316,000 phone customers.

In the earnings call yesterday, executives from the company focused on the average revenue per user. Growth in the average amount each customer pays is a goal of the company.

Michael Cavanagh said that the primary driver of the company's residential broadband revenue growth was the increase in the average revenue per user.

It's possible to get more customers by expanding into new territory or connecting homes in neighborhoods that don't have internet service at all. One of our recent stories said that homeowners had to pay as much as $210,000 for new hookups if they wanted to stay with the company.

CEO doesn’t expect much subscriber growth

Brian Roberts said that the nation's largest cable company is in a challenging environment due to depressed move activity and increased competition. According to Robert, there are four main drivers of growth in the cable division.

"We don't anticipate residential broadband units to be a significant driver for now, but we expect to maintain healthy growth in the other three, leading to continued strong financial performance at cable for the foreseeable future," Roberts said. The growth rate in the second quarter was consistent with the year-over-year increase in broadband.

According to the earnings call three months ago, price increases helped boost per- user revenue in the second quarter. "In broadband alone, we had really healthy growth, 3.6 percent, half being rate driven, the other half just how we manage tier mix," the CEO of the cable division of the company said at the time.

Roberts said yesterday that the company is returning a lot of capital to shareholders. We paid over $5 billion in dividends and bought back over $9 billion of our shares through the third quarter.

Broadband revenue

During the three months, broadband revenue was $6.135 billion. Business and residential accounts add up to about $65.55 a month. Since Q3 2021, the broadband revenue has increased from $5.8 billion to $6.10 billion.

Existing subscribers can get more money from the company. Comcast added 333,000 wireless lines in the quarter. There was a 30.8 percent increase in wireless revenue. Home security services are sold by the cable company.

The Roberts and Cavanagh statements implied that they wanted to raise broadband bills. Increases to basic monthly rates, boosts to fees that raise the cost above advertised prices, or requiring subscribers to purchase the xFi Complete add-on in order to get unlimited data are all possibilities.