Comcast said it now has 3.8 million Xfinity Flex set-top boxes deployed, up from 3.5 million it announced in May.
Of those deployments, “about half” are being “actively used and engaged,” said Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson, speaking to telecom-media-technology equity analysts during the operator’s Q2 earnings call Thursday.
Comcast hands out Flex thin-client streaming boxes, which run a slimmed down version of its X1 software while using the X1 platform voice remote, free to its broadband-only customers.
Comcast engaged in talks with Walmart late last year about the possibility of marking smart TV’s powered by the Flex OTT platform. But for his part, Watson had little to share on the progress of that potential endeavor.
“We'll explore outside of footprint opportunities, ways of doing even more over time,” he said.
Also read: Comcast's Xfinity Flex Adds Support for Hulu + Live TV
Watson did say that Flex is generating an additional $2 a month per user of incremental revenue on pay-per-view titles.
“We absolutely include it as part of the broadband subscription,” Watson said. “It’s a key part of now that with broadband. You get this great streaming platform. So we're doing that. If you're a traditional video customer, we have devices that enable full home, the X1 experience throughout. So we have that. But we are not bashful about letting our customers, broadband customers, in particular, that really important streaming segment know that this is included.”
