Sirius XM is now bringing in $3 billion a year. It also has a lot of cash on hand.
The satellite radio company released financial figures today, proclaiming a 7% increase in revenue over the year before.
(By comparison, according to Radio World records, the U.S. commercial radio industry — meaning terrestrial commercial radio — had revenue of about $17. 2 billion in 2010, the last full year for which the Radio Advertising Bureau has released data. Final 2011 figures for U.S. radio haven’t been issued by RAB yet but were pacing up 2% through three quarters.)
The satellite company says it now has 21.9 million subscribers, and believes it will add 1.3 million net this year. “With auto sales expected to rise in 2012, and what appears to be only a modest increase in churn associated with our January price increase, we expect to grow our net new subscribers by roughly 1.3 million in 2012, continuing our strong multi-year track record of subscriber growth,” CEO Mel Karmazin stated.
He said in the announcement that the company had met or exceeded its earlier estimates.
“Our strong content and subscriber focus helped set a post-merger record of 1.7 million net subscriber additions, and we achieved record levels of revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. We expanded our adjusted EBITDA margins to 24% by tightly controlling costs and growing our revenue. Our improved profitability, coupled with lower capital expenditures, contributed to a substantial increase in our free cash flow.”
But the investment blog Seeking Alpha described the latest numbers as “less than stellar.”
The company ended the year with about three-quarters of a billion dollars in cash and had reduced its long-term debt. It expects to end this year with about $1.5 billion in cash.
Here’s how a Motley Fool analyst sees the numbers and the outlook for the company, including its plans for personalization:
