Comcast beats Q3 earnings but broadband losses worsen; Peacock posts 2nd straight profitable quarter, Universal tops $5B at the box office (Oct 22)
What happened
Comcast reported Q3 2026 results on October 22. Adjusted EPS of $1.07 beat the roughly $0.98–0.99 consensus by about 9%, though it declined 4% year over year. Revenue of $29.3 billion beat estimates near $29.2B but fell 6.1% reported year over year; on a pro forma basis (excluding the Versant separation completed January 2, 2026 and the sale of Sky Germany operations), revenue rose 0.5%. Adjusted EBITDA of $9.11 billion topped the $8.9B estimate, and free cash flow of $4.21 billion beat the $3.2B consensus. The trouble spot was connectivity: Comcast lost 144,000 domestic residential broadband customers, worse than the roughly 131,000–133,000 analysts expected and up from 91,000 losses a year ago, and shed 274,000 video customers. On the bright side, Peacock posted its second straight profitable quarter — its only two since launching in 2020 — with $261 million in adjusted EBITDA, $1.8 billion in revenue, and paid subscribers up 17% to 48 million, boosted by the summer FIFA World Cup ($224M incremental revenue). Universal became the first studio to cross $5 billion at the 2026 global box office, led by 'The Odyssey' at nearly $1.8 billion — Universal's highest-grossing film ever. Comcast said the planned separation of NBCUniversal and Sky into two independent companies remains on track, and paused share repurchases through the separation. The stock initially jumped ~2% premarket before reversing to trade down about 1%.
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Start your free 14-day trialWho’s affected
- Comcast (CMCSA) — mixed: financial beat versus accelerating broadband erosion. Cable/broadband read-through for Charter (CHTR) and Altice USA, plus competitive signal for AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) on fixed-wireless gains. Streaming read-through for Netflix (NFLX), Disney (DIS) and Paramount Skydance on Peacock's path to sustained profitability. Studio read-through: Universal vs. Disney (DIS) box-office share; theme parks vs. Disney Experiences.