Q4 2022 Comcast Corp Earnings Call
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Comcast's fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings conference call.
At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please note that this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Executive Vice President, Investor Relations, Ms. Marci Reivicker. Please go ahead, Ms. Reivicker. Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone. On this morning's call are Brian Roberts, Mike Cavanaugh, and Jason Armstrong.
who are also joined by Dave Watson, Jeff Schell, and Dana Strong. Brian and Mike will make formal remarks, while Dave, Jeff, and Dana will also be available for Q&A. Let me now refer you to slide two, which contains our Safe Harbor disclaimer, and remind you that 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. We see our 8K and trending schedules for the reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP. With that, let me turn the call over to Brian Roberts for his comments.
In addition, during this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. We see our 8K and trending schedules for the reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP. With that, let me turn the call over to Brian Roberts for his comments. Brian ? Thanks Chris!
Thanks, Marcie, and good morning, everyone. I'm really proud of how our team executed throughout 2022. We achieved the highest levels of revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS in our company's history, and we returned a record $17.7 billion of capital to shareholders through both our recurring dividend, which we just increased for the 15th consecutive year, and our current capital to go until it is, for instance, $2.2 billion in Pistoldrug pumped up from EBITDA-19. We've set up a total of nearly 27.7 billion new songwriting advertising features on Saturday ground for parameter- Hussle. Our monolithplay structure let's play back in time, all the circumference of our
and robust share repurchase activity. We did all this while accelerating investment in key growth initiatives, which are showing great progress, particularly our broadband network as we transition to 10G.
but also in Xfinity Mobile, Peacock, and our theme parks. I attribute all this success to the incredible talent across our organization, who work collaboratively to ensure we are constantly evolving and innovating so that our customers have the absolute best experience with us at every point of interaction.
What also sets us apart is our very strong balance sheet, which when combined with the cost actions we have taken this past quarter, position us to perform well no matter what the macro environment might bring. I want to start with cable, where our financial performance both for the year and the fourth quarter.
confirm that we are striking the right balance between rate and volume in residential broadband. We plan to continue to do so in 2023.
We have always maintained an intense focus on providing the absolute best products and experiences, which comes down to having the highest capacity, most reliable, and most efficient broadband network. Our evolution to 10G and the unique way we are pursuing this through DOCSIS 4.0 is a huge benefit for our customers across the entire footprint, that they will all have access to an entire ecosystem built around multi-gigabit symmetrical speeds, some as early as this year.
It's also great for the company and our investors as our transition to a virtual software-based network infused with the marvelous AI capabilities will not only provide tangible benefits when it comes to operating and capital expenses.
but it will enable us to innovate faster than ever before, solidifying our leadership position in broadband, which is extremely important given what is certain to be continued increases in demand for both speed and usage.
And customers on our Gigabit Plus products now comprise roughly one-third of our broadband subscribers. In addition to creating more value from our current customer base and further penetrating the total homes and businesses that we pass today, another great opportunity is for us to extend our networks to homes and businesses in the U.S. that do not have the ability to receive our services. To that end, we increased our passings by 1.4% or 840,000 in 2022 and we expect to accelerate in 2023 where we are aiming to add around 1 million.
while still maintaining the same CAPEX intensity level we achieved in 2022, reaching nearly 62.5 million by the end of the year.
We are taking a disciplined approach and will only pursue those areas that have a return profile similar to what we have been able to historically achieve.
and it's an area where we continue to shine. This past quarter was another record in net line additions, bringing us to over five million total lines in just five years. With only 9% penetration of our current base of residential broadband customers, we have plenty of runway ahead, and we're just getting started in offering wireless to our commercial segment, which is another great example of how we are selling more products into our existing base of business customers.
When you combine our broadband network, Wi-Fi overlay, and MVNO with Verizon, we are in the best position to win in convergence.
At NBC Universal, we are seeing some great momentum in Peacock and Parks, and across all of NBC Universal, our intellectual property is really resonating. We had the number two studio in terms of worldwide box office in 2022, fueled by a strong slate including Jurassic, Minions, NOPE, Ticket to Paradise, Puss in Boots, Black Phone, Halloween, which have also had great carryover success to Peacock through our Pay One window and select day and date releases.
and we hit a number of new records this past quarter. It was the highest fourth quarter EBITDA for the entire segment, led by Orlando and Hollywood, and Japan had the best EBITDA performance since 2019. This was driven by attendance that far surpassed pre-pandemic levels at all three parks. While attendance at our park in Beijing was significantly impacted by COVID in 2022, we are seeing some exciting demand to start the year. Given the excellent returns we have generated to date, we continue to seek ways to expand our parks. I'm really excited about our two recently announced extensions.
These are new, innovative ways to utilize our substantial IP, including from DreamWorks and Illumination, while also extending our brand, both of which should help fuel growth in all of our parks. In our linear video business, we are managing subscriber declines by taking a disciplined approach to our cost base. We are continuing to invest in our global technology platform, and you will see a number of announcements from us in the weeks and months ahead. For example, in 2023, we will launch one global user interface for Skyglass, Xfinity, X1, X3, X4, X5, X6, X7, X8, X10, X12, X14, X15, X16, X17, X18, X19, X20, X21, X22, X22, X23,
So wrapping up, our consistently strong financial performance, healthy balance sheet, and record high return of capital to shareholders underscore how the scale, capabilities, and talent across our company enable us to successfully execute our long-term growth strategy. I'm convinced we are on the right path and that we have the right team to capture our many opportunities and overcome whatever challenges happen along the way. So before handing over the call, I want to congratulate Jason Armstrong, recently promoted to Chief Financial Officer, succeeding Mike Cavanaugh.
team's ability to continue to drive us forward and create more value for our shareholders. Mike, over to you.
Thanks Brian and good morning everyone. First, I'd like to just say that it's been a pleasure serving as CFO of Comcast for the last seven plus years and I couldn't be prouder to have Jason be my successor, knowing that with Jason the financial leadership of our company is in proven and expert hands. Since Jason didn't take over as CFO until early in the new year, I will handle the CFO portion of this call and hand it over to Jason for the first quarter call in April . So now I'll begin on slides four and five to discuss our consolidated 2022 financial results.
to $30.6 billion for the fourth quarter, and 4.3% to $121.4 billion for the full year. Adjusted EBITDA decreased 4.9% to $8 billion for the fourth quarter, and increased 5% to $36.5 billion for the full year.
Now let's turn to our business segment results starting with cable communications on slide 6. Cable revenue increased 1.4% to $16.6 billion, EBITDA increased 1.5% to $7.2 billion, and cable EBITDA margins improved 10 basis points year over year to 43.5%. Today's results include $345 million of severance expense, $7.5 million of
These strong results also included the impact of Hurricane Ian in Southwest Florida, which resulted in the loss or severe damage to many homes we serve in this market. Excluding the hurricane impacts, we would have added approximately 4,000 broadband customers versus the 26,000 loss we reported. And we estimate that we would have lost approximately 36,000 customer relationships versus the 71,000 we reported. Overall, our broadband customer results in the fourth quarter were fairly consistent with the prior two quarters, reflecting lower levels of new customer connections.
Cable revenue growth of 1.4% was driven by higher broadband, wireless, business services, and advertising revenue partially offset by lower video and voice revenue. Broadband revenue increased 5.4%, driven by growth in ARPU and in our customer base when compared to last year. Broadband ARPU increased 3.8% year-over-year when adjusting for some COVID-related customer credits last year. This organic ARPU growth is similar to the growth we've generated over the last couple of quarters and is consistent with our strategy. We are focused on optimizing our customer relationships by consistently adding more capabilities The global growth men Absolutely isn't over and www. Toolbox.com
services and value so as to provide the best broadband experience which has and should continue to deliver broadband ARPU growth.
We expect ARPU growth will continue to be the primary driver of our residential broadband revenue growth in 2023. Wireless revenue increased 25%, mainly driven by service revenue, which was fueled by growth in customer lines. We added 1.3 million lines in 2022, including 365,000 lines in the fourth quarter, which is our highest number of net additions for any quarter on record. Service revenue increased 4.6%, which includes the results of MesaG in both this quarter and in the prior year period.
as we lapped the closing of this acquisition at the beginning of the quarter. Revenue growth was primarily driven by rate, including customers taking faster data speeds, higher attach rates of our advanced products, and rate increases on some of our services.
Advertising revenue increased 9.1%.
driven by strong political revenue, partially offset by the absence of advertising revenue that is now part of Xumo, our joint venture with Charter. Adjusting for those items, cable advertising revenue decreased 1.6%, reflecting decline in our local core advertising business.
partially offset by solid growth at our advanced advertising business. Video revenue declined 5.6% driven by year-over-year customer net losses, partially offset by ARPU growth of 5.8% due to a residential rate increase we implemented at the beginning of 2022.
Turning to expenses, Cable Communications' fourth quarter expenses increased 1.4%, reflecting higher non-programming expenses, which included the $305 million in higher severance costs, partially offset by lower programming expenses. Programming expenses decreased 5.9%, reflecting the year-over-year decline in video customers, partially offset by higher contractual rates.
Non-programming expenses, which again include $305 million in higher severance costs, increased 5.6%. Non-programming expenses, which again include $105 million in higher severance costs, increased
Excluding severance, these expenses were flat compared to last year, reflecting an increase in bad debt as we returned to more normalized pre-pandemic levels, and increased technical and product support expenses driven by growth in our wireless business.
and further expand margins both in 2023 and thereafter. Now let's turn to slide seven for NBCUniversal. Starting with total NBCUniversal results, fourth quarter revenue increased 5.9% to $9.9 billion and EBITDA decreased 36% to $817 million, including $182 million of severance expense in the quarter. Excluding severance, EBITDA decreased 22%. Media revenue increased 2.6% to $6 billion, mainly driven by Peacock, which nearly doubled its revenue to $660 million, and Telemundo's broadcast of the World Cup.
reflecting the cost of new content such as our exclusive next day broadcast and Bravo content. Our robust lineup of pay one titles, day and date releases like Halloween ends, NFL Premier League and the World Cup. Peacock's full year EBITDA loss of $2.5 billion was in line with the outlook we provided a year ago. And for 2023, we expect Peacock losses to be up modestly to around $3 billion. As we've said previously, we believe 2023 will be peak losses for Peacock and from there steadily improve. Excluding Peacock, media EBITDA in the fourth quarter decreased 13%
to continue to be impacted by the top line pressures at our linear networks. Moving to studios, revenue increased 13% to $2.7 billion, driven by growth in content licensing and theatrical revenue. Content licensing was up 16%, driven by the benefit of our carryover titles and the acceleration in film windows, as well as healthy growth in television licensing. Theatrical revenue increased 47% due to the success of recent releases, including Ticket to Paradise, Puss in Boots, Violent Night, and Halloween Ends.
as well as the corresponding higher programming and production costs. At theme parks, revenue increased 12% to $2.1 billion, while EBITDA increased 16% to $782 million, our highest level of EBITDA on record for a fourth quarter. These results were driven by growth at our parks in the U.S. and Japan, partially offset by our park in Beijing, which was negatively impacted by COVID-related restrictions. At our U.S. parks, we continue to see strong demand with attendance and guest spending up year over year, and with Orlando and Hollywood both delivering record high EBITDA for a fourth quarter. For more information, visit EBITDA.org.
For the fourth quarter, Sky revenue was relatively consistent compared to last year at $4.4 billion. Direct-to-consumer revenue was also consistent compared to last year, reflecting growth in the UK driven by wireless and broadband revenue, offset by declines in Germany and Italy. On a customer basis, we added 129,000 customer relationships in the quarter, with positive additions across all three territories, the UK, Italy and Germany. These net additions were driven by streaming, broadband and wireless customer additions and reflect our team's strong execution in a challenging macroeconomic environment across Europe .
Rounding out the rest of Sky Revenue, content revenue increased 6.5% driven by licensing our entertainment content.
and advertising revenue decreased 9.6%, primarily driven by lower revenue in the UK, reflecting the timing of the World Cup and the macro environment.
Turning to EBITDA, Sky's EBITDA decreased 15% to $340 million, including $89 million of severance expense, which is $53 million higher compared to last year's fourth quarter.
in 2022, we generated around $12.6 billion in free cash flow while absorbing increased investments in Peacock and theme parks, as well as higher working capital as content creation normalizes post COVID.
Full year consolidated total capital investment increased 14.2% or $1.7 billion to $13.8 billion due to increased spending at NBCUniversal and cable, partially offset by a decrease in sky. At cable, total capital spending increased 8.3% or $695 million.
with CapEx intensity coming in at 11.4%, primarily driven by investments to further strengthen and extend our network.
NBC Universal total capital spending increased $1.4 billion, driven by ParksCapX increasing $1.1 billion, of which Epic was around $800 million, and reflects our continued investment in new attractions like Super Nintendo World at Hollywood and Donkey Kong at Japan. In 2023, we expect ParksCapX to increase by around $1.2 billion over last year as we continue to build Epic, which we plan to open in 2025, and begin work on our recently announced park extensions mentioned earlier.
Working capital was $3 billion for the year, a $1.5 billion increase over last year's level, reflecting a post-COVID ramp of investment and content creation. Turning to capital allocation, we ended the year with net leverage at 2.4 times and returned a total of $17.7 billion to shareholders, including $4.7 billion in dividend payments and $13 billion in share of purchases. For 2023, we expect to continue to maintain leverage at around current levels, which I expect will support continued strong capital returns. As we announced this morning.
We are raising the dividend by 8 cents a share to $1.16 per share, our 15th consecutive annual increase. This reflects our long-standing balanced capital allocation policy. We're committed to investing organically in the businesses while maintaining a strong balance sheet and also returning a very healthy amount of capital to shareholders. Thanks for joining us on the call this morning.
I'll turn it back to Marcy who will lead the question and answer portion of the call. Thanks Mike. Operator, let's open the call for Q&A please.
If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press star and the number two. If you're using a speakerphone, you may need to pick up your handset first before pressing the numbers.
If there are any questions, press star, then the number one on your touchtone telephone. Our first question comes from Doug Mitchelson with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Good morning, and thank you.
Good morning and thank you. Brian and Mike as well, giving your promotion to president. Congratulations on that, by the way, and Jason, congratulations on the CFO role. Brian and Mike, since we're turning to a new calendar year, I wanted to ask for an updated vision for the company and how you see the company evolving over time. As part of that, investors are certainly interested how the company best addresses cable broadband competition and connectivity convergence and media streaming challenges. Also you see notable growth opportunities for the company that would shift allocation of capital as well. How do you address challenges and opportunities and how does the company evolve over the next three to five years? Thanks. Thanks, Doug. It's Mike. So maybe I'll take a first crack and then Brian can pile on.
of those results, $17.7 billion. We have, I would say, the strongest balance sheet in our industry at 2.4 times leverage. So it allows us the opportunity, both of those things in good balance, to then go at your real question, which is what is our opportunity? What are our challenges? And do we have the resources?
And then finally on the cable side, I'd say wireless. You know, wireless, we've been at it for five years, have 5 million lines now. We put the investment in along the way and we continue to do it, but it's a capital light approach. And I think that totality is a great set of strategies for how we're gonna drive growth in the cable business looking ahead. And so I'd say expect us to continue to keep driving along those lines. On the media side, we think Peacock is absolutely the right strategy for our company. And Jeff has repeatedly said, you know, we're not gonna play somebody else's hand. We have an excellent business in NBC and our cable networks. We spend.
quite a bit of money creating content. And so migrating some of that content as eyeballs move to a more streaming universe. We like what we're doing and we had a phenomenal year getting paid subs to 20 million paid subs from less than 10, you know, a year ago. And we see this coming year as the peak year in investments there.
to sort of peak levels there ahead of that opening. And then we're leveraging the great product that we have with some new ideas, some innovation around that with a kids-based theme park, smaller scale in Dallas and Hollywood Hard Nights in Las Vegas. So these are big investment agendas that go at all the issues that I think are out there across our different businesses. So I think we're well positioned to continue to drive a primarily an organic investment agenda and drive growth across our businesses in the years ahead. Obviously, it's our job to consider inorganic things as they come up, but as I've said before, the bar is very high. It's our job to make sure that we are looking at organic opportunities and executing well against them and I think we are so.
Brian , you got anything to add? First of all, I can see why you're the right person for the job. That was a fantastic answer and covered a lot of the vision of the company. So I'm gonna try not to be at all repetitive and maybe even zoom out further with the lens and say what are, just pick two themes of what you just talked about and say.
So, think about the vision of the company. What are the two big trends? It's what's happening in broadband, both as a competitive reality, and I'm sure Dave will get into that with some of the questions, but in longer term, what's likely to happen to consumers' needs for usage? What are we making our bets on in that vision question?
dollars a month you get everything from the World Cup to Sunday Night Football to incredible movies to incredible next day NBC to all our cable content original content and consumers are finding that so I think our company I echo what Mike said I think we're extremely well positioned
Thank you very much. Thanks Doug. Operator, we'll take the next question. Our next question comes from Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley . Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Good morning. Thank you. I want to ask Jeff about the NBC outlook, both sort of some of the key trends you're seeing in 23, but also longer term. I think the business did over eight and a half billion of EBITDA back in 2019. I think 23 will probably be down from 22 just given the Peacock losses and the pressure on the media business. But can you just talk about your long term opportunity at the NBC Universal?
It's never been better for us. We had a record year last year. Trajectory is going to slow a little bit in the U.S. just because we are doing so well. But we're seeing, you know, we found our footing in Japan in the fourth quarter. That's going to grow based on the Nintendo attraction there in Beijing, which really had, you know, kind of a we've got to profitability in the third quarter, suffered from COVID in the fourth quarter. First couple of weeks of this year with the economy opening up, there is really doing well even with with poor weather. So I think our parks business has a lot of growth ahead. And as Mike talked about and Brian talked about, we're investing in it. So those two businesses are great. The media segment, as Brian just went through very well, we made a decision to invest in Peacock. It's very clear that we picked the right business model.
to growth over time, which we feel even more confident today that we did maybe a year or two ago, then that's going to happen. And the timing of that really is up to macro conditions. You know, when does the ad market recover? What are linear declines going forward? And then, of course, you know, we continue to cut costs in the linear segment to maintain our margin. So I'm pretty confident that we have a lot of growth ahead in NBC Universal, particularly after the progress we've made this year. And the media segment, we wouldn't be investing in PICOT. We didn't think it was going to return the segment to growth over time.
Then on working capital, we said a year ago that it was going to be spiked to a higher than typical run rate level just on the back of the disruptions caused by COVID in getting content creation in the phase we're in up to normalized levels. So expect it to just ease back off of the levels we saw in 2022. It's a hard number to predict, but I think we are past peak there. Thanks, Ben. Thank you. We'll take the next question.
keep margins growing in the cable business? Hey Craig, Dave. So, I think the good news is we have a great portfolio of opportunities and business lines. So as you said, we have real strength in broadband and not only just solid broadband relationships, but the ability to drive revenue in a healthy way. So, Resi broadband, I believe will continue to be a creative just revenue, but margin and business services is a real long-term opportunity, has been, will continue to be. So when you look at top line margin impact, including mobile, I think it's a good and video slowing down.
on the top line, it contributes towards margin. The second thing, you know, clearly are the expenses and, you know, just lower activity levels are constant focus around the two big buckets of the transactional activity, the experience improvements that we have that really drive things like self-install and the apps that help people resolve issues independently.
And then our focus around cost, just fixed cost, ongoing. And so all those things I think shows that it's not a singular moment. This has been steady progress over a long period of time around margin. So I think we still have a good runway. Thanks, Craig. Operator, we're ready for the next question. Our next question comes from Jessica Uhrlich with B of A Securities. Please go ahead. That's awesome. Okay, thank you. So go ahead, sorry. Thank you so much.
Hi, thank you. Going back to NBCU of two topics, theme parks, you've got three parks planned for the US. Can you talk about global plans? And as peak spend in 24, I think that's what Mike just said.
WWE is obviously for sale. Is this the year we finally see some more media consolidation? Thank you. w Wolfie soon
what Mike said that peak spends will be in 24. Just wanted to clarify that. And on Peacock, it sounds like this year will be peak losses. Can you talk about like when you expect breakeven and what you think about the long-term profit potential or margins there? And then finally, Mike again said organic and inorganic growth. So just wondering what your appetite is for so far.
primary theme park that we might look at different concepts for different markets. And as far as peak spending, I think, I think Epic, you know, Epic, I think we expect our peaks then probably to be this year, although 23 and 24 will be comparable as we ramp down to the beginning of 25 prior to opening. So that's the parks. Peacock, we are, could not be more positive about our trajectory so far. We're right where we expected to be as far as investment and we're well above where we expected to be as far as paid subs, which was going to pay off. We will hit our peak spend as I think Michael O'Brien said in the opening this year and then improve steadily from there. And we wouldn't be making the investment if we didn't see the investment in peak.
We have healthy discussions and our bias has to be to be investing behind our businesses themselves, where we control, operate, know what we're doing, have momentum, no surprises. So, like I said, across any inorganic opportunity, we're going to put ourselves through the real...
you know, discussion, you know, is it, is it worth it relative to, uh, the choices we have to invest in our own business like Jeff just described. And I would just add that we're always looking for bolt on acquisitions that, that, uh, that bolster our business. And I'll give two examples. You know, we bought DreamWorks, you know, we talked about that in the past and it's been paying off steadily since our acquisition and just now with Puss in Boots, which is a.
a big hit at the box office and really our entry back into the Shrek universe continues to make that acquisition look really favorable. And we've invested in our Blumhouse investment over time. We're partnered with Jason Blum and we have a big hit, Megan, this month, which is coming out of that investment. So we're always looking at bolt-on acquisitions that don't necessarily involve big industry consolidation questions. Thank you. Thanks, Jessica. Thank you, operator.
We'll take the next question. Our next question comes from Brett Feldman with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks for taking the question. Later last year, one of the points you had made was just sort of based on market conditions, it was unlikely that you were going to see your broadband subscriber base really change in size. So basically, you stayed pretty flat for at least some period of time. And we saw effectively that trend in your fourth quarter results.
the overall environment and pointing towards our results in broadband. So starting with Q4, clearly excluding the impact of the hurricane, we reported net ads, broadband net ads of 4,000. And this has been consistent, consistent the last couple of quarters, reflecting the continued impact of lower move activity, increased competition. But what's different has been the near record low turn. So the current environment is similar. The macro environment still reflects depressed move activity. It continues to be very strong.
We're driving revenue, EBITDA, and cash flow rather than just chasing units. So you look at our ARPU growth, holding the line on relationships, but our ARPU growth was 3.8% in terms of broadband. So we're protecting ARPU growth, constantly adding more value, investing in our network, all within the parameters that we talked about. So it results within the mix of the base is showing, as Brian said, we have a third of our customers, broadband customers, that get our gigabit plus products. So this is only just 5% that number just three years ago. So you look at usage, you look at the entire long-term opportunity, I think as Brian said, whether it's a couple more sporting events that go towards streaming.
On the Zumo platform, if you can give us an update on how that's progressing and maybe some of the milestones to watch as you look out over the next one to two years. And then on the cost-cutting and efficiency actions that you took exiting 2022, how should we think about the annual cost-saving opportunity? Thanks. Thanks
and everything Jeff just described on the media side, including growth in parks, growth in studios, and the net dynamics with linear versus peacock in the media side. Thanks. Thanks, Mike. Operator, next question, please. Our next question comes from Phil Cusick from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Thanks, guys. Two follow-ups if I can. Your tone around new footprint expansion and broadband efforts is so changed. Does BEED funding or state subsidies going forward accelerate that further, or do you think the million annually is the right figure to think about going forward? For Jeff, any update on trends in advertising since your comments in early December ? And then finally, I wonder if you guys can talk about the 500 million severance this quarter. Is there more to come? And Mike, I heard you say that margins and cable should continue.
this footprint expansions, you know, we're still, you know, right on target with what we said and going back to 21 and being around 11% cable cap X intensity. So very excited about both of those areas, how we upgrade the elegant path to upgrade and the footprint expansion. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Dave. And thanks, Phil. So on the ad market, I think, and prior calls, the market, the ad market steadily worsened over the course of last year. It kind of feels like it bottomed out around late November , early December . And really, since then, it hasn't gotten worse, and maybe even a little bit better. I describe it really as shallow, there's parts of the market that are actually doing really well. Pharma, entertainment travel is on fire, there's parts of the market that feels uncertain tech, auto financial services all are weak. It feels like the weaknesses do less to businesses.
about the environment. We took I'll tell you what we did on severance. We offered you know voluntary you know retirement across the company something we do on a periodic basis which has its benefits obviously of giving you know more opportunities for younger talent anyway as well as some of the tactical situations we have in select businesses to just make sure we're as efficient as we can be heading into uncertain times. We've executed against all these things as we roll into you know 2023 so
I mean, are you seeing the positive impact on the broadband base from selling wireless into that? And then, do you expect to continue to lean in? I think you guys don't really look at that as a separate profit pool, but just as supporting the broadband business. And is that unlikely to change? That's number one. You also, Dave talked about selling into the business segment. If there's anything there, sort of.
as you brought up, you look at the opportunity, the roadmap, and Mike said, we just crossed the five million lines, but the way we look at it, when you include business relationships, we have 34 million broadband relationships, and you look at the amount of lines that other competitors do, the lines per relationship, we're talking about an opportunity that's around 80 million lines over the long run. So we had a strong quarter in mobile, really strong quarter, good momentum, this has been building, we'll continue, so it's a good runway. Really like our position, we like the core service offerings approach, the Capital Light approach, buy the gig, unlimited, different tiers of unlimited, and then really leveraging best in class Wi-Fi. So the mobile game plan is really to support broadband, we do see.
Continued positive results when you package the broadband with mobile, there is a turn benefit to that. And so we'll continue to really, that's our part of our core strategy is to do that and leverage is that a feisty competitive marketplace in wireless. For those that are offering different kinds of offers will be there with bring your own device as well. So we have a really good balance towards it and business services is just getting going.