- Xfinity Mobile Adds 280,000 Net New Wireless Lines
By Kelly Hill
Comcast continues to draw mobile subscribers at a rapid clip, reporting that its Xfinity Mobile service added 280,000 net lines during the past quarter — its best-ever reported adds since the service launched in 2017.
Comcast saw an overall rebound from the same period last year, during which its business was significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Revenue for the second quarter of 2021 was up 20.4 per cent to US$28.5 billion, with profits up more than 25 per cent from the last year’s second quarter, to US$3.7 billion. Its Cable Communications revenues were up 10.9 per cent to US$16 billion, on broad increases across broadband, wireless, advertising, business services, video and other revenue sources; voice revenues, however, were down.
Chairman and CEO of Comcast, Brian Roberts, called the cable segment’s performance “exceptional.”
The cable operator continues to put money into its networks as well. Its consolidated capital expenditures for the quarter were US$2.1 billion, up 3.3 per cent from 2020’s second quarter. Most of that was in its cable business, where capex was up nearly 17 per cent year-over-year to US$1.7 billion for the quarter, although NBCUniversal’s capex increased more than 50 per cent to US$182 million. Cable capex investments included investment in “scalable infrastructure,” customer premise equipment and line extensions, the company reported.
In addition to the 280,000 wireless lines, Comcast reported bringing on an additional 354,000 broadband customers — it’s best second-quarter numbers ever. In the loss column, video customer net losses were 399,000, and it also lost 108,000 voice customers.
