Comcast Corporation
Analytical review · Report for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (Q2 2026)
Bakshi Finance — Family Office | Research Depth: Comprehensive
What this review is based on. Comcast's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, filed on July 23, 2026; the company's earnings releases from Q4 2023 through Q2 2026; the company's June 29, 2026 announcement of its intention to separate NBCUniversal and Sky; the annual report on Form 10-K for 2025; and bond tender offer announcements (May–June 2026). Market data: closing price on October 9, 2026; Bank of Israel representative USD rate of October 9, 2026.
Company Profile
Comcast Corporation operates two businesses. The first is connectivity: home broadband, wireless, video and business connectivity services in the US under the Xfinity and Comcast Business brands, and in the UK and Italy under Sky. The second is media and entertainment: the NBC and Telemundo networks, the Peacock streaming service, Universal's film and television studios, and the Universal theme parks in Orlando, Hollywood, Japan, Singapore and Beijing. The company is headquartered in Philadelphia.
At the end of June 2026 the company had 28.5 million US home broadband customers, 10.2 million wireless lines, 10.7 million US video customers and 17.5 million Sky customers in the UK and Italy. Peacock had 48 million paid subscribers.
The company is in the middle of a structural break-up. On January 2, 2026, the separation of Versant — the cable networks CNBC, MS NOW, USA, E!, SYFY and Golf — into a separate public company was completed. On May 31, 2026, the Sky business in Germany was sold. On June 29, 2026, the company announced its intention to also separate NBCUniversal, together with Sky, into a separate public company; according to the company, the target timing is mid-2027. The controlling shareholder, Brian Roberts, serves as Chairman and Co-CEO and holds all Class B shares, which carry a non-dilutable 33โ % of the voting power.
Financial Performance
Reading Comcast's 2026 reports requires distinguishing three bases. Reported — results as they are, with 2025 still including Versant. Pro forma — results as if Versant and Sky Germany had never been part of the company. Adjusted — results excluding amortization of intangibles from past acquisitions and investment gains. The company presents all three.
The quarter: revenue up on a comparable basis, operating profit down
In the April–June 2026 quarter, reported revenue fell 1.2% to $29.94 billion. On a pro forma basis it rose 4.7%, mainly due to the FIFA World Cup broadcasts ($440 million of revenue) and the studios. Adjusted EBITDA fell 13.4% to $8.90 billion, and 5.3% on a pro forma basis. In the first half of 2026, pro forma EBITDA fell 6.8%. Adjusted EPS fell 16.7% to $1.04. GAAP EPS fell to $0.99 from $2.98, but the prior-year quarter included a one-time $9.4 billion gain from the sale of the Hulu stake.
Cash flow and taxes
Free cash flow for 2025 reached $19.2 billion, compared with $12.5–13.0 billion in the three preceding years. Most of the difference is explained by tax payments: in 2025 the company paid $0.76 billion in cash taxes, compared with $5.1–7.1 billion in 2022–2024. In Q4 2025 the company received a $2.0 billion cash tax refund related to an internal reorganization. According to the company, US legislation enacted in 2025 (accelerated depreciation) will significantly reduce its cash tax payments over the next several years, with variability between years. Accelerated depreciation brings tax deductions forward rather than eliminating the tax: the deferred tax balance on the balance sheet rose by $1.2 billion in the first half of 2026.
| $ billions (EPS in $) | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 12 months to 6/2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 121.4 | 121.6 | 123.7 | 123.7 | 124.9 |
| Adjusted EBITDA | 36.5 | 37.6 | 38.1 | 37.4 | 34.4 |
| Adjusted EPS | 3.64 | 3.98 | 4.33 | 4.31 | 3.80 |
| GAAP EPS | 1.21 | 3.71 | 4.14 | 5.39 | 3.12 |
| Free cash flow | 12.6 | 13.0 | 12.5 | 19.2 | 17.8 |
| Cash taxes paid | 5.3 | 5.1 | 7.1 | 0.76 | −0.77 (net refund) |
| Diluted shares (millions) | 4,430 | 4,148 | 3,908 | 3,709 | 3,570 (Q2) |
The 12 months are calculated as full-year 2025 less H1 2025 plus H1 2026, and therefore include Versant in H2 2025. GAAP EPS for 2022 includes a Sky impairment, and 2025 includes the gain on the Hulu sale.
Balance Sheet & Capital
At June 30, 2026, Comcast's debt stood at $90.4 billion at carrying value, versus $98.9 billion at the end of 2025. Cash: $7.66 billion. Net debt: $82.7 billion, about 2.4 times trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA. According to the debt note, the market value of the debt was $79.7 billion — below carrying value, because much of it was issued at low rates for long terms. The company has $11.8 billion of available credit facility capacity and meets its financial covenant.
Debt structure: according to the 2025 annual report, the weighted-average time to maturity was about 15 years, 95% of the debt was fixed-rate, and the weighted-average coupon was 3.8%. Scheduled fixed-rate principal maturities: $5.0 billion in 2027, $5.7 billion in 2028 and $4.8 billion in each of 2029 and 2030 (before the early repurchases of 2026). The most recent issuance described in the report, in May 2025, carried a weighted-average rate of 5.51%.
Debt reduction in the first half: the company repaid $7.3 billion, including an early purchase of $4.1 billion of notes maturing in 2027–2029, through tender offers announced in May–June 2026. Part of the repayments used the $2.25 billion that Versant distributed to Comcast at the separation.
Capital return: in the first half, the company repurchased 76 million shares for $2.2 billion and paid $2.4 billion in dividends. Share repurchases have been suspended since the start of Q3 2026 because of the planned separation; $6.7 billion remains under the authorization. The 2026 dividend was set at $1.32 per share annually, "consistent with the prior year" ($0.33 per quarter).
Balance sheet structure: goodwill ($53.1 billion), franchise rights ($59.4 billion) and other intangible assets ($19.7 billion) total $132.1 billion — more than shareholders' equity of $89.8 billion. Most of the intangibles arose from the acquisitions of Sky (2018) and NBCUniversal (2011). Equity declined in the first half mainly because of the Versant distribution to shareholders.
Guarantees: Comcast, NBCUniversal and the subsidiary Comcast Cable guarantee each other's debt ($88.2 billion). According to the report, NBCUniversal's guarantee of Comcast's debt terminates upon a disposition of NBCUniversal or substantially all of its assets. The allocation of debt between the two companies after the separation has not been published; according to the company's announcement, the intention is a "strong investment grade balance sheet" for each.
Segments
From 2026, Comcast reports five segments in two businesses. Connectivity & Platforms — Residential and Business Services. Content & Experiences — Media, Studios and Theme Parks. According to the separation announcement, NBCUniversal will include Media, Studios, Theme Parks and Sky; Comcast will retain US connectivity.
| $ millions, Q2 | Revenue 2026 | Change | EBITDA 2026 | EBITDA 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residential (incl. Sky UK and Italy) | 17,124 | −4.0% | 6,448 | 7,006 | −8.0% |
| Business Services | 2,671 | +3.7% | 1,516 | 1,444 | +5.0% |
| Media (incl. Peacock) | 5,691 | +25.3% | 708 | 683 | +3.7% |
| Studios | 3,040 | +25.0% | 202 | 61 | — |
| Theme Parks | 2,413 | +2.7% | 609 | 641 | −5.1% |
Residential: broadband revenue declining, wireless rising
US home broadband revenue fell 5.5% to $6,280 million, "due to decreases in average rates and declines in the number of domestic broadband customers". The customer count fell by 167 thousand in the quarter (201 thousand in the prior-year quarter), and penetration of homes passed fell to 47.9% from 49.7%. In 2025 the company simplified its pricing and began offering a free wireless line for one year to broadband customers. According to the report, the move is intended to improve retention and "will negatively impact average domestic broadband revenue per customer".
Wireless service revenue rose 14.2% to $1,007 million. Together with broadband, US "convergence revenue" fell 3.2% to $7,287 million. The company added 448 thousand lines in the quarter, its best quarterly result, reaching 10.2 million lines. Video revenue fell 7.8%, and video programming costs fell 7.5%. Segment EBITDA fell 8.0%, and the margin declined to 37.7% from 39.3%. Connectivity capital expenditures rose 19.9% to about $2.3 billion.
Content & Experiences
Peacock recorded its first profitable quarter at the EBITDA level ($189 million, including the World Cup), compared with a $101 million loss in the prior-year quarter, with 48 million paid subscribers. For the half as a whole, Peacock revenue was $4.0 billion and costs $4.2 billion. Theme Parks EBITDA fell 5.1%: Orlando revenue rose with Epic Universe, which opened in May 2025, while the international parks declined. The studios benefited from The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which grossed more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office.
Competitive Position
In connectivity, the core asset is a wireline network passing 59.4 million US homes. On top of it the company sells broadband, video and wireless, and markets them together. Wireless runs on another carrier's network (Verizon) under a wholesale agreement, so direct product costs rise with the number of lines: they rose 8.9% in the quarter. In Business Services, $2.7 billion of quarterly revenue and a 56.7% EBITDA margin are the highest in the company.
What the reports show on the other side: the quarterly report states that customer additions "continue to be negatively impacted by an increasingly competitive environment", without naming competitors. Broadband penetration of homes passed fell 1.8 percentage points in a year, and revenue per customer declined. This review does not include primary-source competition data, such as the share of fixed wireless access or fiber in the company's footprint.
In media and entertainment, the assets are intellectual property (Universal, DreamWorks, Illumination, the Nintendo partnership on Mario), sports rights (NBA, NFL, the Olympics, the Spanish-language World Cup on Telemundo) and physical parks. Sports rights raise both revenue and costs: with the NBA, which began in Q4 2025, costs came ahead of revenue. Theme parks are capital intensive; a new park in the UK is planned to open in 2031.
How to Think About This Company
Comcast in 2026 is two companies in the process of separating, and the consolidated numbers blend them. Consolidated EBITDA fell 5.3% on a pro forma basis, but that average combines connectivity, where Residential EBITDA fell 8%, with content and experiences, where EBITDA rose 7% in the quarter and fell 10% in the half. Every question about the company gets a different answer depending on which part is being asked about.
In connectivity, the question is price versus volume. In 2025 the company chose to give up revenue per customer in order to keep customers: simple pricing and a free wireless line for a year. In the latest quarter customer losses narrowed (167 thousand vs 201 thousand), and broadband revenue fell 5.5%. The calculation to examine is whether savings on churn and acquisition costs, and later the conversion of free lines to paid, recover what was given up in rate.
Wireless is an engine, but on someone else's network. 10.2 million lines and a record 448 thousand additions in the quarter show that the bundle works. On the other hand, revenue per line fell because of the free lines, and direct costs rise with every line. When the lines that joined under the 2025 offer finish their free year, it will become clear how many stay as paying lines. That is a measure that can be tracked directly in the next reports.
2025 cash flow is not the 2026 baseline. Free cash flow of $19.2 billion rested on cash taxes of only $0.76 billion, including a one-time $2.0 billion refund. In 2022–2024 the company paid $5.1–7.1 billion of tax a year. The new legislation brings depreciation deductions forward, and so moves tax payments forward in time. Anyone reading the cash flow needs to distinguish what the business generates from what the timing of tax adds.
Capital expenditure is rising while connectivity revenue is falling. In Q2, connectivity capex rose 19.9%, "primarily reflecting higher spending on scalable infrastructure and customer premise equipment", while connectivity EBITDA fell 5.7%. The difference between the two — what remains from connectivity after network investment — fell more sharply than either number on its own.
The separation changes the variables shareholders are used to. In 2022–2025 the diluted share count fell 16%, thanks to buybacks of $7–13 billion a year. Since July 2026 the buyback has been suspended, and the 2026 dividend was unchanged from 2025. According to the company's announcement, Comcast will retain up to 19.9% of NBCUniversal for up to one year and will monetize it "in a tax-efficient manner". The debt allocation, each company's dividend policy and the timing of a buyback resumption have not been published.
Peacock is a story of event timing. In Q2 it recorded positive EBITDA for the first time, with the World Cup. In Q1, with the Olympics and the Super Bowl, it lost $432 million, and in Q4 2025, with the start of the NBA, $552 million. Major sports events bring subscribers and advertising, but also rights costs. The first quarter without a major event will be a clearer test of the service's economics.
The parks are the physical asset that cannot be copied, and they are cyclical. Epic Universe added revenue in Orlando, but segment EBITDA fell in Q2, while the international parks were weaker. Management itself described "near-term softness". From Q3, Epic Universe is fully in the comparison base as well.
The reporting itself requires work. In 2026 the segments were reclassified: commissions from streaming service sales moved from video revenue to broadband revenue, the regional sports networks moved to Corporate & Other, and the Xumo partnership moved to Residential. The comparisons are restated in the report, but it means today's broadband revenue includes components that used to be counted in video.
The market moved before the next report. The stock fell from $26.81 on September 2, 2026 to $20.66 on October 9, 2026, with no new company filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission during that period. The Q3 report, which according to a market data site will be published on October 22, 2026, will show customer trends for the third quarter for the first time.
This framework is intended to structure analysis, not to produce an investment conclusion. It takes no part in the decision — the decision belongs to the reader.
Risks & Monitoring
Risks that emerge from the reports
- Competition in home broadband: continued customer losses, declining penetration and revenue per customer. The report describes an "increasingly competitive environment".
- Execution of the separation: according to the report, the separation is subject to final Board approval, tax opinions, regulatory approvals and completion of financing. The company states that it cannot predict whether the combined market value of the two companies will be lower than, equal to or higher than before the separation, and that if the separation does not qualify as tax-free, significant tax liabilities could arise.
- Dis-synergies: according to the report, each of the two companies will bear costs that are shared today, and will be more vulnerable to changing market conditions.
- Sports and content rights: Media programming costs rose 34% in the quarter, mainly because of the NBA and the World Cup.
- Debt refinancing: part of the debt was issued at rates below those at which the company issued in 2025; maturities refinanced at higher rates would increase interest expense.
- Goodwill: according to the report, market values revealed in the separation transaction could affect future goodwill impairment testing.
- Control structure: the controlling shareholder's Class B shares carry 33โ % of the voting power and separate approval rights over material transactions. According to the company's announcement, NBCUniversal will have the same dual-class structure.
- ITV transaction: in July 2026 the company signed an agreement to acquire the media and entertainment business of the UK's ITV for up to £1.6 billion; according to the company, closing is targeted for the second half of 2027.
Items to monitor in the Q3 report (October 22, 2026)
| # | Item | Latest reading |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Residential EBITDA, year over year | −8.0% in Q2 |
| 2 | Net home broadband customers | −167 thousand (Q3 2025: −91 thousand) |
| 3 | US convergence revenue (broadband and wireless service) | $7,287 million (−3.2%); broadband alone −5.5% |
| 4 | Wireless lines and wireless service revenue | +448 thousand lines; revenue +14.2% |
| 5 | Connectivity capital expenditures | About $2.3 billion (+19.9%) |
| 6 | Peacock EBITDA in a quarter without a major sports event | +$189 million in Q2, with the World Cup |
| 7 | Theme Parks EBITDA | −5.1% |
| 8 | Cash taxes paid and free cash flow | $0.56 billion of tax in H1 |
| 9 | Separation details: debt allocation, capital return policy | Not yet published |
Scenario Framework
The scenarios below are descriptive, not predictive. They include no prices, no probabilities, and do not rank outcomes. Their only purpose is to organize the conditions that would need to hold for each state to materialize, so that they can be checked against upcoming filings.
Scenarios are descriptive, not predictive.
- If the decline in Residential EBITDA narrows quarter by quarter, and broadband revenue stabilizes
- If the wireless lines that joined under the 2025 offer convert to paid, and revenue per line stops declining
- If connectivity capital expenditures level off after the peak year
- If the separation details show a debt allocation that leaves each company with leverage similar to today's
- If Residential continues to lose broadband customers at a similar pace, with wireless offsetting part of the decline
- If Business Services continues to grow at a single-digit rate
- If Peacock moves between profit and loss according to the sports calendar
- If the separation proceeds on the timetable the company presented, with the buyback suspended until it is completed
- If broadband customer losses widen despite the rate concessions
- If the free wireless lines churn when the free year ends
- If the debt allocation in the separation loads one of the companies with materially higher leverage than today
- If the weakness in the parks persists once Epic Universe is already in the comparison base
Analytical Lens
The following six questions are identical in every company review we publish. They are deliberately open-ended and do not lead to a single conclusion. Their role is to let the reader examine the company along the same six dimensions as any other company.
Key Observations
1. In the April–June 2026 quarter Comcast reported revenue of $29.94 billion (−1.2%; +4.7% pro forma), adjusted EBITDA of $8.90 billion (−5.3% pro forma) and adjusted EPS of $1.04 (−16.7%).
2. US home broadband revenue fell 5.5%, the company lost 167 thousand net broadband customers and added 448 thousand wireless lines. Residential EBITDA fell 8.0%, and connectivity capital expenditures rose 19.9%.
3. Free cash flow for 2025 totaled $19.2 billion, while cash taxes paid that year were $0.76 billion, compared with $5.1–7.1 billion in each of 2022–2024.
4. On June 29, 2026 the company announced its intention to separate NBCUniversal and Sky into a separate company by mid-2027, according to the company. Share repurchases were suspended from the start of the third quarter, and the 2026 dividend remained $1.32 per share annually. In the first half the company repaid $7.3 billion of debt.
Bakshi Finance operates as a Family Office for qualified clients only. Mr. Yaron Bakshi held a licensed investment adviser qualification in Israel during 2008–2023. As of the publication date of this document, the firm does not hold an investment advice, investment marketing or portfolio management licence.
This document is intended for research and professional study purposes only. Nothing herein constitutes a recommendation to buy, sell, hold or carry out any transaction in securities. Nothing herein substitutes for advice that takes into account the data and needs of each person. Every decision is the sole responsibility of the investor.
Past performance is not indicative of future results. Data were drawn from official sources: the quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (July 23, 2026), the company's earnings releases for Q4 2023 through Q2 2026, the company's separation announcement (June 29, 2026), bond tender offer announcements (May–June 2026), and annual data from the annual reports on Form 10-K. Filings published after this date are not included.
Review for qualified clients โ Family Office
The full analytical review of Comcast (CMCSA) for the quarter ended June 2026 is available to Bakshi Finance premium clients.
The review includes a 10-section analysis, "How to Think About This Company" paragraphs, a structured scenario framework, and a six-dimension Analytical Lens.
🕔 Previous versions of this analysis
- Full-year 2025 (Hebrew) · Archived on 10/10/2026
Previous versions are retained for documentation and comparison. They are not current and should not be relied upon as an up-to-date source of information.
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