Comcast Lost USD 743 Million On Xfinity Mobile In 2018

Comcast said that its fledgling consumer wireless service Xfinity mobile lost USD 191 million in the fourth quarter, up from a loss of USD 176 million in Q4 2017.

The full-year loss for the mobile service, which launched in early 2017, was USD 743 million. Coupled with a 2017 fiscal-year loss of USD 480 million, Xfinity Mobile has lost around $1.223 billion for Comcast in its first two years of operation.

Comcast also said that the service added 227,000 subscriber lines in the fourth quarter, bringing its total base to 1.2 million lines.

Like Charter Communications, with which it has closely aligned its mobile service with, Comcast bases the wireless product on an MVNO leasing agreement with Verizon.

Comcast’s Q4 earnings report came a day after equity research company published some notable findings of Xfinity Mobile.

For one, the service skews older than the incumbent wireless services, with an average subscriber age of 50.8.

For another, with the average Xfinity Mobile subscriber backed by a household income of USD 82,103, the service’s customers are poorer than those for wireless market leaders Verizon and AT&T, but richer than those of Sprint and T-Mobile.