Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA)’s December 2014 filing revealed that the company’s market share under the newly defined 25Mbps threshold will increased to 56.8% (excluding mobile broadband) following its proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable Inc (NYSE:TWC). The company’s national share will increase by just 1% due to the acquisition. These include all 25Mbps and higher downstream connections, regardless of upstream speed.
Comcast noted that its market share will be 44.7% including mobile broadband post-acquisition. The acquisition would increase the company’s market share only by little margin because less than one tenth Time Warner Cable customers have connections at or above 25 Mbps.
High-speed connections boosted Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA)’s market share as the FCC raised the minimum broadband speeds to 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream from 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. The decision was taken over the objections of the cable industry, which appealed that it faces competition from DSL.
Comcast dominates in the higher speed connections as the DSL networks couldn’t match those speeds with cable. The company’s filing with the Federal Communications Commission reported that it has more than half of all the home Internet connections in the U.S. with at least 25 Mbps speed. However, the company’s market share is smaller under the low-speed connections, the speed that DSL can provide.
Post-merger, Comcast estimates its market share to be around 37% (excluding mobile broadband) in the 3Mbps down and 768Kbps up speed segment. Including mobile broadband, the share could be around 13.7% in this segment. At 10Mbps downstream with no upstream restrictions, the company’s market share would be 42.1% (excluding mobile broadband) post-merger, representing about 12% increase. Including mobile broadband, the share would increase about 7% to 22.2% post-merger.
However, the data is based on the FCC report that uses data from December 2013, hence exact proportion might have changes since then.
