Comcast Corporation

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Comcast's third quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Please note, this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Executive Vice President of Investor Relations, Ms. Marci Reiviger. Please go ahead, Ms. Reiviger.

Thank you, Operator, and welcome, everyone. Joining us on today's call are Brian Roberts, Mike Cavanaugh, Jason Armstrong, and Dave Watson. I will now refer you to slide two of the presentation accompanying this call, which can also be found on our investor relations website and which contains our safe harbor disclaimer. This conference call may include forward-looking statements subject to certain risks and uncertainties. In addition, during this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please see our 8K and trending schedule issued earlier this morning for the reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike.

Good morning everyone and thanks for joining us first i'll start with the leadership news we announced earlier this morning. Which that Steve crony will be elevated to CEO of our connectivity and platforms business at the beginning of 2026 and at that time Dave Watson will become Vice Chairman of comcast corporation. This will be a well-earned and seamless transition for Steve, who has already made a significant impact as Chief Operating Officer, leading the operational transformation of our C&P business over the past year. He has the full trust and confidence of our entire management team, and he's exactly the right person to take the business forward. And I want to congratulate and thank Dave for his extraordinary leadership of the business for the past eight years. Over more than three decades, Dave has been an integral part of building the best connectivity business in the industry. The fact that Steve comes from inside the company also speaks to how thoughtfully Dave has developed the leaders in his organization. And I really look forward to continuing to partner with you, Dave, in your new role as vice chairman. Brian will have more to say about this leadership transition later in the call, but now let me get into the quarter. I have two topics to discuss, convergence and sports. So starting with convergence, the broadband environment remains intensely competitive, which we do not expect to change anytime soon. Over time, though, we believe that the vast majority of the broadband market will be comprised of two multi-gig symmetrical providers serving most addresses, and we aim to be a winner in this segment. with the rest of the market likely being served by capacity-limited alternatives. We've been seeing this end state begin to take shape. Fiber expansion continues at a steady pace, and as we've said before, we expect most of our footprint will eventually be overbuilt. At the same time, fixed wireless remains a durable competitor, serving price-sensitive segments with moderate performance needs. Against this backdrop, we have adapted our approach to compete more effectively for the long term. Our strategy rests upon three pillars, network, product, and customer experience. Our network is built to scale and now leverages AI end-to-end to optimize performance throughout the home. This enables best-in-class Wi-Fi, which matters more than ever as usage continues to rise. We're seeing this on our network, where broadband-only customers average 800 gigs a month in the third quarter, up 9% year over year. In product, broadband, wireless, and our entertainment OS operate as one system, integrated and designed for how customers actually connect. Taken together or individually, they deliver a seamless experience that differentiates us in the marketplace. And finally, in customer experience, where we need to improve over the long term, our near-term focus is on price transparency and in making it easier to do business with us. With respect to these pillars, we made meaningful progress in the quarter. First, we streamlined our organizational structure to better align with our strategy. Steve has centralized key functions such as marketing, data science, and customer experience, and reduced management layers to sharpen local execution. Second, we're pressing ahead on Wi-Fi, an area where we are already recognized as a market leader. Strong, consistent Wi-Fi remains the number one factor driving customer choice, and this is where we excel. OpenSignal recently ranked Xfinity the top provider in our footprint, outperforming Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T in reliability, download speeds, and streaming. This leadership comes from the technology behind our network, especially our gateways, which power the strength and consistency of the Wi-Fi experience. During the third quarter, we began rolling out our most powerful gateway yet, the XB10, supporting multi-gig symmetrical speeds and up to 300 devices, using AI to self-optimize network performance in real time. With our new national pricing, gateways are included in every package, ensuring every customer receives our best technology and an integrated experience with mobile. Third, we've accelerated momentum in wireless, now reaching more than 14% penetration of our broadband base and adding over 400,000 lines in the quarter, our best result yet. Xfinity Mobile is a standout growth engine for us. We're leaning in with sharper marketing, stronger brand awareness, and compelling offers like a free mobile line for one year. This was also the first full quarter of our new premium unlimited plan designed for higher value customers that delivers what they want at $40 per line on a two line plan and the ability to upgrade devices twice a year with a guaranteed discount on a new phone. Our progress in mobile is clear with meaningful product uptake, higher attachment rates across our broadband base, and growing recognition of Xfinity Mobile as a leader in value and performance. Fourth, video performance improved meaningfully this quarter, with subscriber losses down more than 100,000 year over year, which is our best result in nearly five years. Churn is at record lows, supported by our focus on delivering the right products for each customer segment. Our entertainment OS continues to lead the market, enhanced by features like multi-view, which allows our customers to view several live events simultaneously. Fifth, we introduced a simpler, more transparent pricing model. As we detailed last quarter, we've moved to nationwide offers built around four clear speed tiers. Each plan includes our gateway, unlimited data, Wi-Fi controls, and cyber protection at a lower everyday price, backed by a one or five-year price guarantee. It's a more predictable experience for the customer and a clearer value proposition in the market. And finally, we're taking meaningful steps to simplify the customer experience across all channels. Our new AI engine now supports agents, technicians, and customers through assisted chat, phone, our website, and our AI enabled Xfinity Assistant platform. We also launched a program that connects customers to a live agent in seconds, which is now available to half of our customer base. It's still early, but we're moving fast and executing with focus towards a simpler, smarter, and more seamless customer experience. So taken together, these efforts mark tangible progress in what is an important shift to position our connectivity business for future sustained growth. This is a deliberate investment phase, one that will take time and carry a cost as reflected in the 3.7% decline in connectivity and platforms EBITDA this quarter. And we expect this decline to build slightly over the next several quarters as we continue to invest in pricing, product, and customer experience. And my second topic is sports. Last week's NBA tip-off marked the start of one of the biggest stretches of live sports in our history and drew the largest audience for an NBA opening doubleheader since 2010. We're in the heart of the NFL and college football seasons, and in February, we'll have the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics, and NBA All-Star Weekend, followed by the World Cup on Telemundo in June. Sports remains a cornerstone of our media business. The NBA's return to NBC, and now Peacock, expands both our reach and our creative opportunities. Sunday Night Basketball launches in February, modeled after the success of Sunday Night Football, which has been the number one primetime show for 14 straight years and now averages roughly 25 million viewers. We're proud of the sports portfolio we've built. Each property adds value across our entire media ecosystem, driving NBC's distribution, helping Peacock attract and retain subscribers, and powering our advertising business. And as audiences continue to shift from linear to streaming, the multiple benefits of sports becomes an even greater advantage. Live sports continue to deliver strong viewership and ad performance across broadcast and streaming. Momentum at Peacock remains solid and retention has held steady even after our $3 price increase. Running linear and streaming as one integrated media business gives us real scale and flexibility. It allows us to align programming, marketing promotion, and monetization across NBC, Peacock, and our studios. And as we near completion of the verse and spin, NBCUniversal's media business will be more focused and well-positioned to grow. So now let me turn it over to Jason to go over the third quarter results in more detail.