Comcast

Comcast lost 226,000 broadband customers in Q2 2025, nearly double the 120,000 lost in Q2 2024. This isn't poor execution. It's habitat transformation. Fixed-wireless services from Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T, plus satellite internet from Starlink, fundamentally altered the competitive landscape. The cable infrastructure Comcast spent decades building now competes against technologies that don't require wired connections to every home. In biology, this is niche displacement: when a new species evolves capabilities that make previous adaptations obsolete, the original occupant either adapts or dies. Comcast ended 2024 with 29.373 million residential internet customers, down from over 30 million, while simultaneously losing 311,000 cable TV subscribers as cord-cutting accelerated. The company faces pressure on both revenue streams that historically funded its infrastructure advantage.

The strategic response reveals whether Comcast understands the biological dynamics at play. The company introduced a 5-year price guarantee and bundled Peacock streaming with broadband, trying to create switching costs that offset the infrastructure disadvantage. The StreamSaver bundle combines Peacock, Netflix, and Apple TV+ for $15/month, 40% below standalone pricing. This is mutualism under duress: create symbiotic relationships that make defection costly. Peacock narrowed losses to $215M in Q1 2025 from $639M the prior year, ending March with 41 million paying subscribers. The streaming business posted $1.2B revenue, up 16%. These are signs of adaptive radiation: Comcast is exploring new niches as its core habitat becomes inhospitable.

The company plans to spin off most cable networks including USA, CNBC, and MSNBC in late 2025. This is strategic autophagy: digest non-essential tissue to survive. When organisms face resource scarcity, they break down their own structures to fuel core functions. Comcast is doing this preemptively, recognizing that cable TV networks built for a broadcast model don't fit a streaming world. The company added 414,000 mobile customers in Q3 2025, a record quarter. Mobile represents the new growth vector because it operates in the same habitat as the wireless competitors threatening broadband. The biological lesson: when your niche disappears, you either colonize adjacent territory or die trying. Comcast is colonizing, but the outcome remains uncertain.