Sirius XM Tops 25 Million Subscribers, on Track for New 52-Week High

Satellite radio company Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) announced Tuesday morning that it added 587,000 net new subscribers in the second quarter of 2016. The company said its total subscriber base now totals 30.6 million, a record high.

Excluding promotional subscriptions Sirius, XM added 507,000 net new self-pay subscribers in the quarter, giving it a total of 25.1 million self-paid subscribers.

For the quarter the company reported diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.03 compared with EPS of $0.02 in the second-quarter of 2015. Revenues rose to a record $1.2 billion, up 10% year over year. Consensus estimates called for EPS of $0.04 and revenues of $1.22 billion.

While the quarterly results were a bit light on both top and bottom lines, the company’s impressive subscriber growth pushed the share price higher Tuesday morning.

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Sirius XM raised its guidance for the year, and now forecasts revenue “approaching $5 billion,” up slightly from prior guidance of $4.9 billion. Net subscriber additions are now forecast at 1.7 million, up from 1.6 million, and net self-paid subscriber additions are now expected to reach 1.6 million, up from a prior estimate of 1.4 million. The estimate of free cash flow rose from $1.4 billion to about $1.5 billion.

CEO Jim Meyer said:

SiriusXM’s second quarter results demonstrated continued strong demand for our content bundle and solid execution by our entire team. We grew net new subscribers by 587,000 in the second quarter, and our subscriber base, revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow have never been higher. We are pleased to once again raise our key guidance metrics for the full year.

The company said it repurchased stock worth $403 million in the second quarter and that its average share count has dropped by 9% year over year.

If there is a cautionary note in the report it is the number of paid promotional subscriber additions, which fell from 173,000 in the second quarter of 2015 to 80,000. This is the pool from which Sirius XM gleans its self-paid customers, and virtually the entire pool comes from new car sales. The conversion rate for new car consumers dipped from 41% in the year-ago quarter to 40%.

Shares of Sirius XM traded up about 3.1% in Tuesday’s premarket to $4.27, above the top of its 52-week range of $3.29 to $4.23. The consensus price target on the stock is $4.58.

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