Comcast CFO Cavanagh: We ‘Outperform’ Against Rivals, Now Targeting Midmarket, Enterprise

‘We outperform all competitors and peers. ... And we have a great opportunity to grow further,’ Comcast’s president and CFO said of its booming Business segment and plans to target more midmarket and enterprise customers with the help of its Masergy technology.

Michael Cavanagh, Comcast’s president and CFO

Comcast’s Business segment is approaching nearly $10 billion in annual revenue, but the cable giant is only serving less than 20 percent of the $50 billion addressable market in its footprint, leaving the door open for considerable growth, according to Michael Cavanagh, Comcast’s president and CFO.

“We outperform all competitors and peers. ... And we have a great opportunity to grow further,” Cavanagh, who was promoted to his added role of president earlier this month, said during Comcast’s third-quarter 2022 earnings call Thursday morning.

The company’s Business unit has been very successful in the small- to midsize-business space in the past decade with its connectivity services. Now, Comcast is starting to zero in on the midmarket and enterprise segment with more “sophisticated” services, including SD-WAN, enhanced security solutions and Unified Communications as a Service, Cavanagh said.

[Related: 5 Big Things To Know About Comcast’s Masergy Acquisition]

Comcast’s Business segment pulled in $2.43 billion during the third quarter, representing 9.4 percent growth compared with $2.23 billion during 2021’s third quarter. The company attributed the growth to an increase in average rates, an increase in the number of customers receiving Comcast services, and from the Masergy acquisition.

“We continue to see healthy performance across our diverse customer segments, including SMB, midmarket and enterprise,” Cavanagh said. “[Comcast Business] really is a very important part of our business and [Bill Stemper, president of Comcast Business] and the team [are] doing a terrific job.”

Comcast closed its acquisition of Masergy in October 2021 in a deal that is helping the company build up its SD-WAN and cloud-based security chops and reach more enterprise customers.

“Masergy has just been a terrific addition, giving us international scale and being able to help us with certain applications,” Cavanagh said.

Comcast’s Cable Communications unit—which includes high-speed internet, voice, video, wireless and business services—saw a 2.6 percent increase during the third quarter of 2022. The segment generated revenue of $16.54 billion compared with $16.12 billion in third-quarter 2021. Broadband posted a revenue increase of 5.7 percent to $6.14 billion, up from $5.80 billion a year ago. The company attributed the growth to increases in broadband, business services, wireless and advertising revenue, partially offset by decreases in video and voice.

Comcast’s Cable Communications’ total customer relationships decreased by 21,000 to 34.4 million in the third quarter of 2022. The company attributed the overall customer relationship declines to the dramatic slowdown of moves across the Comcast footprint.

The cable giant’s business customer relationships increased by 5,000.

Comcast’s wireless segment, which includes its Xfinity Mobile offering, continued to be a bright spot for the company, climbing 30.8 percent to $789 million compared with $603 million in the same quarter last year. Xfinity Mobile in fourth-quarter 2021 reached profitability on a stand-alone basis for the first time since it was launched.

The company added 333,000 new wireless lines in the quarter—the most of any quarter to date. Comcast attributed the growth in this segment to not only an increase in customers, but in device sales as well.

“We have over 5 million Xfinity Mobile lines, and we’re just getting started,” said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.

For the quarter ended Sept. 30, Comcast reported revenue of $29.85 billion, a 1.5 percent decrease compared with third-quarter 2021’s result of $30.29 billion. The cable giant posted adjusted earnings per share of 96 cents, up 10.3 percent compared with 87 cents per share for the same quarter of 2021.