Comcast, Charter lean into mobile service

Cable companies are increasingly calling on mobile for their next big opportunity.

The cable industry’s foray into wireless has long been considered a retention tool for the behemoth broadband business. Less than a decade after cable giants like Comcast and Charter Communications jumped into the mobile business, the segment has become a significant financial driver — and a priority when it comes to growth.

“It’s not only a play for additional broadband customers, it’s a product that kind of generates financial returns in and of itself, and where we continue to grow really dramatically,” said Charter Communications Chief Financial Officer Jessica Fischer in a recent interview.

Cable companies, once well known for offering pay TV bundles and landline phone service, are now burgeoning providers of home internet and, most recently, mobile phone services. Comcast provides its services under the Xfinity brand, while Charter’s products are under the Spectrum banner.

These two companies, as well as smaller operators like Altice USA, have experienced consistent quarterly growth in mobile customers. Nearly half of all wireless line additions last year were from a cable operator, according to data from MoffettNathanson.

This is the flipside of cable’s broadband business, which has been plagued by net customer stagnation and even losses, weighing down stock prices. Cable executives have pointed to intense competition, and it’s unclear if or when this trend will change. In response, Charter has centered offerings and bundles around mobile, and Comcast recently said it will follow suit.

Customers have been attracted to cable wireless offerings in part due to much cheaper pricing, sometimes as much as hundreds of dollars less each year than traditional wireless plans.

But the growth in mobile hasn’t yet equated to growth in the companies’ stock prices.

Investors have largely shrugged at the strides made in mobile, likely due to the intense focus on broadband, industry executives and analysts told CNBC.

Media analyst Craig Moffett, co-founder of MoffettNathanson, said this dynamic reminds him of the 2009-2010 time period, when investors were focused on the decline of pay TV, once considered cable’s “core business,” and didn’t give broadband growth its due.

“The threat to the broadband business today is nowhere near the threat of the [pay TV] business,” said Moffett. “[Pay TV] was facing an existential and secular decline, and now broadband is facing some competition. But no one is arguing that it’s going away.”

He noted the mobile market is about double the size of the broadband market, so cable operators have a big opportunity in capitalizing on both.

“There’s much more to gain, and much less to lose,” he said.

Comcast Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong highlighted the company’s growth potential during an earnings call in January.

“While we are the incumbent in the $80 billion U.S. residential broadband market, we are the challenger in the far larger $200 billion U.S. wireless market,” said Armstrong. “Wireless is an integral part of our broadband strategy.”

Comcast and Charter report first-quarter earnings on Thursday and Friday, respectively.

Mobile has taken off for cable companies since being launched less than 10 years ago.

Charter’s Spectrum Mobile lines have grown from 1.08 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 9.88 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Over that same period, Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile lines increased from 2.05 million to 7.83 million, and Altice expanded its Optimum Mobile base from 69,000 to nearly 460,000.

This pales, however, in comparison to Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, which each have more than 100 million wireless customers. These companies are also offering home broadband options now, including fiber-based broadband as well as 5G high-speed internet, which is becoming an increasingly popular alternative. Verizon touted its home internet growth during its earnings report this week.

Conversely, cable companies have collectively lost over 1 million internet customers and 8.7 million cable customers in the past three years.

Last year, Charter unveiled a series of changes, including aggressive pricing and packages that included mobile lines. Earlier this year, Comcast said it would shift its strategy to similar tactics to grow its mobile business even further.

“We will lean into wireless more than ever before,” Comcast President Mike Cavanagh said during January’s earnings call with investors.

This week, Comcast introduced a new Xfinity Mobile higher-end plan in a bid to attract more customers. The company also recently created the role of chief growth officer and hired media and tech veteran Jon Gieselman to focus on its Xfinity residential business.

For Charter and Comcast, mobile customer additions most often come from their existing base, rather than incoming customers.

Customers of Altice USA’s Optimum mobile who bundle the service with other products like broadband and cable TV are more than 20% less likely to drop their service, according to Michael Parker, Optimum’s president of consumer services.

An Optimum-commissioned survey published Tuesday highlights the bundling opportunity for cable companies. About 25% of Americans said they would likely subscribe to a bundle in the next year, and 80% believe bundling internet and mobile is more cost-effective than purchasing them separately.

Altice USA’s mobile plans are offered to anyone in the company’s footprint, even if they don’t subscribe to other Altice services. This is the opposite of most other operators, which require you to be a customer in order to receive mobile.

Altice has set a goal of 1 million mobile customers by the end of 2027.

Mobile “wasn’t really intended at the outset to really drive meaningful business. But everyone figured out real quickly that it actually is a strong standalone business,” Parker said.

Mobile and the other segments of the cable business work somewhat in symbiosis.

The higher-margin broadband segment partially subsidizes mobile, which on its own would not be as attractive of a business, according to KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Brandon Nispel. And in turn, bundles that include mobile can appeal to current or prospective broadband customers.

But the cable companies still face a particular challenge in brand awareness for their mobile offerings.

Besides being newer entrants to mobile, the brands are often most recognizable to those in the footprints of the cable companies. That means a fairly siloed addressable market, in some respects. But as the companies have broadened marketing for their mobile services, uptake has improved, executives say.

Altice’s mobile lines grew 42.6% year over year during the fourth quarter, which Parker attributed to both product construct and marketing.

Rich DiGeronimo, Charter’s president of product and technology, said more people are catching on to Spectrum’s mobile business.

“I think our brand recognition of Spectrum Mobile — it now exists,” said DiGeronimo. “I think we’re much more mainstream than we used to be.”

A big part of the marketing magic is affordable pricing.

Cable operators are able to extend much cheaper offers due to the agreements that allow them to use existing wireless networks.

Charter and Comcast use Verizon’s network, while Altice has an agreement with T-Mobile. Since the cable operators don’t own and maintain the networks, these agreements allow them to offer mobile plans at much lower rates than the network providers do.

Executives point out that much of the overwhelming amount of customer traffic is over Wi-Fi rather than the wireless network.

“To be frank, I think wireless for us, given the advantages we have with acquisition costs and offloading wireless onto Wi-Fi, is a firmly profitable business for us,” Comcast’s Armstrong told CNBC in an interview.

For wireless companies, even when they lose customers to cable companies, there’s a silver lining. The customers are still on Verizon’s network, so they get a cut from the cable operators. Industry executives say the deal is mutually attractive.

Telecommunications leaders have acknowledged that their cable partners are increasingly encroaching on their territory, but none express concern. For one, it’s not easy to get someone to drop their wireless plan.

“If cable wants to get aggressive and if they want to give away a free line, that’s certainly their prerogative,” said Verizon Chief Financial Officer Tony Skiadas at a March investor conference. “But whether they charge for it or not, they still have to pay us, Verizon, for the free line. So, look, we’re going to compete on the strength of our offerings.”

AT&T CEO John Stankey said at a recent investor conference that cable operators are on the defensive when competing against the company’s broadband product. AT&T has a better product, improving cost structure and higher-rated service, he said.

“To their credit, they’ve had a couple of good decades,” Stankey said, referring to the cable companies. “I would like this to be our decade.”

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.