Sirius XM Tops Q3 Estimates For Revenues, But Not For Earnings

David Lieberman
·1 min read

The satellite radio company’s bulls and bears can each find evidence to support their views in the latest earnings report. Net income of $74.5M was down 28.5% vs last year’s Q3, while revenues of $867.4M were +13.7%. The revenue figure was higher than analysts’ forecast of $865.6M. But earnings per share, at a penny, was shy of the consensus expectations for two cents. One reason for the miss:

The company took a $107M charge from its repurchase of $868M in debt. Sirius XM had previously said that its subscriptions would come in at 23.4M, up 445,921. CEO Mel Karmazin confirmed today that the company will hit its target for the year to add 1.8M subs, with revenues of about $3.4B. The company attributes the sub growth to increased car sales; many come with a satellite radio and a free trial period. But Sirius XM also saw a 9% increase in deactivations as it increased the number of free trials. “The Company has produced more free cash flow in the first nine months of this year than in any full year in its history, and we’ve used this cash to reduce our debt to its lowest level since the merger of Sirius and XM,” says Karmazin — who has said that he’ll leave in February, after Liberty Media takes control.

More from Deadline

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.