What's Wrong With Comcast Stock?
Key Points
Shares of Comcast have been consistently losing ground for several years now.
This decline reflects the deterioration of two of its core lines of business.
While future upside may be limited, this stock brings something compelling to the table.
- 10 stocks we like better than Comcast ›
Every stock goes through the occasional rough patch. For some stocks, though, the misery never seems to end.
That's been the case for Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) since 2021. After making a record high that same year, the stock's fallen nearly 60%, hitting yet another 52-week low early this month.
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What gives? The explanation isn't exactly surprising.
Increasing competition, shrinking market
Yes, Comcast is the parent company of the television network NBC and the movie studio Universal. It's also the name behind the cable TV service Xfinity, and, more recently, the Xfinity broadband service.
It's been a lousy time to be in either business too. The nation's cable subscriber count peaked right around 2012 and has dwindled ever since. For Comcast, it's meant a decline from 2012's tally of more than 22 million paying customers to just over 10 million now. What used to account for half of the company's revenue now makes up less than one-third of it, with the dollar amount of its cable TV business barely budging during this stretch.
Image source: Getty Images.
The high-speed internet business, which was supposed to offset the slow demise of its cable arm, isn't doing its job anymore either. This business's revenue peaked in 2025 following 2022's peak in the number of paying customers, from 32.3 million then to 28.3 million now. And like its cable television division, Comcast's broadband unit is still slowly but steadily shedding customers too.
Comcast lacks growth, but has plenty of value
This doesn't necessarily mean Comcast is doomed. The world will always need broadband and entertainment. The company also has more than enough reliable cash flow to continue funding its dividends, which currently support a healthy forward-looking yield of 5.8%.
The sellers may have overshot their target. The stock's trailing price-to-earnings ratio of just over 7 implies more risk and less growth than is likely.
Nevertheless, after catapulting the stock during and because of the COVID-19 pandemic, investors have understandably felt compelled to correct the overheated price run-up.
Should you buy stock in Comcast right now?
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James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Comcast. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
