Comcast CMCSA reported fourth-quarter 2025 adjusted earnings of 84cents per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 12% and declined 12.4% year over year.
Consolidated revenues increased 1.2% year over year to $32.31 billion. The figure beat the Zacks Consensus Estimates by 0.53%.
Comcast Corporation Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
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CMCSA’s Quarter Details
Connectivity & Platforms revenues (62.7% of revenues) decreased 1.1% year over year to $20.24 billion in the reported quarter.
Under the segment, Residential Connectivity & Platforms revenues decreased 2.1% year over year to $17.65 billion. Business Services Connectivity revenues surged 5.8% year over year to $2.59 billion.
Total Customer Relationships for Connectivity & Platforms decreased 181,000 to 50.8 million, primarily reflecting decreases in Residential Connectivity & Platforms customer relationships.
Total domestic broadband customer net losses were 181,000. Total domestic wireless line net additions were 364,000, surpassing 15% penetration of domestic residential broadband customers with a total of 9.3 million lines. Total domestic video customer net losses were 245,000.
Content & Experiences revenues (39.4% of revenues) increased 5.4% year over year to $12.74 billion, driven primarily by Theme Parks and Media, partially offset by a decrease in Studios
Under the segment, Media revenues increased 5.5% year over year to $7.62 billion, primarily driven by higher international networks and domestic distribution revenues, partially offset by lower domestic advertising revenues.
Peacock paid subscribers increased 22% year over year to 44 million. Peacock revenues in the fourth quarter jumped 23% to $1.6 billion.
Studios revenues decreased 7.4% year over year to $3.03 billion due to lower content licensing and theatrical revenues. Theatrical revenues decreased primarily due to tougher comparisons against prior year releases, including Wicked and The Wild Robot.
Theme Parks revenues increased 21.9% year over year to $2.89 billion, primarily due to higher revenues at domestic theme parks, driven by the successful opening of Epic Universe in May 2025.
CMCSA's Operating Details
Costs and expenses in the fourth quarter of 2025 increased 7.1% year over year to $28.82 billion.
Programming and production costs increased 2.8% from the year-ago quarter to $10.31 billion. Marketing and promotional expenses increased 13.2% year over year to $2.43 billion.
Adjusted EBITDA decreased 10.3% from the year-ago quarter to $7.9 billion. Total Connectivity & Platforms’ adjusted EBITDA declined 4.3% year over year and 4.5% in constant currency to $7.50 billion. Residential Connectivity & Platforms adjusted EBITDA decreased 5.9% year over year and 6.1% in constant currency to $6.1 billion, reflecting investment in the new go-to-market strategy. Business Services Connectivity adjusted EBITDA increased 3.1% year over year to $1.41 billion with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 54.2%.
Content & Experiences adjusted EBITDA decreased 32.6% year over year to $1.01 billion. Media adjusted EBITDA declined to a loss of $122 million from a profit of $298 million in the prior year period, primarily driven by higher programming costs at Peacock and elevated sports rights expenses on linear networks, both of which include costs associated with the launch of the NBA this quarter. Studios’ adjusted EBITDA declined 38.4% year over year to $351 million due to lower revenue and higher marketing and promotion expenses due to increased spending on recent and upcoming theatrical film releases, offset by lower programming and production expenses. Theme Parks adjusted EBITDA increased 23.5% year over year to $1.04 billion, fueled by Epic Universe operations.
CMCSA's Cash Flow & Liquidity
As of Dec. 31, 2025, cash and cash equivalents totaled $9.48 billion, which decreased from $9.69 billion as of Sept. 30, 2025.
As of Dec. 31, 2025, consolidated total debt was $98.9 billion, which decreased from $99.1 billion as of Sept. 30, 2025.
Free cash flow was $4.37 billion in the reported quarter, which increased from $3.26 billion reported in the prior year quarter.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Comcast generated $8.84 billion in cash from operations, which increased from $8.69 billion reported in the previous quarter.
Comcast paid dividends totaling $1.2 billion and repurchased 53.6 million of its shares for $1.5 billion, resulting in a total return of capital to shareholders of $2.7 billion.
Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider
CMCSA currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Some better-ranked stocks in the broader Zacks Consumer Discretionary sector are Ralph Lauren RL, Nintendo NTDOY and Fox Corporation FOXA, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Shares of Ralph Lauren have declined 0.1% year to date. Ralph Lauren is slated to report third-quarter fiscal 2026 results on Feb. 5.
Shares of Nintendo have declined 1.5% year to date. Nintendo is slated to report third-quarter fiscal 2026 results on Feb. 3.
Shares of Fox Corporation have declined 2.7% year to date. Fox Corporation is set to report second-quarter fiscal 2026 results on Feb. 4.
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