Sirius XM rises 5% as its Q1 beats forecasts amid low churn
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Sirius XM Holdings (NASDAQ:SIRI) is 4.8% higher Thursday after eking out a beat of revenue expectations in its first-quarter earnings, where it delivered low churn and stuck to its subscriber forecasts for 2022.
Revenues rose more than 6% to beat expectations at $2.19 billion, with strength in the off-platform business complementing its main satellite radio content stream.
Net income jumped to $309 million from a year-ago $219 million. EBITDA ticked up 1% to $690 million.
The beat came against ongoing supply issues in the automotive industry. New vehicle penetration is at an all-time high, the company notes; its hardware was incorporated into about 83% of new vehicles sold in the U.S., up from about 81% in the year-ago period.
The enabled fleet grew to nearly 146 million vehicles, up 9% year-over-year.
Revenue by segment: SiriusXM, $1.7 billion (up 6%); Pandora and Off-platform, $336 million (up 8%).
Free cash flow rose about 22% to $258 million, on higher receipts from customers partly offset by bigger satellite capital expenditures.
In a capital update, Chief Financial Officer Sean Sullivan said that after paying $1.1 billion in special/recurring dividends and $200 million in first-quarter buybacks, net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA is about 3.5x, flat on a pro forma basis.
"Our balance sheet remains well-positioned, and earlier this month we opportunistically executed a $500 million two-year term loan, the proceeds of which we used to refinance a portion of our revolving credit facility balance at a more favorable interest rate," Sullivan says. "We retain significant flexibility to continue investing to grow our business, pursue external opportunities, and continue returning capital to stockholders."
Dig into Seeking Alpha's transcript of Sirius XM's earnings call for more detail.