Sirius XM posts solid earnings and subscriber numbers, talks long game for car connectivity

Things are looking pretty good for Sirius XM following its second-quarter earnings call. The company said revenue increased 10 percent, surpassing $1 billion. Net income for the period was $120 million, and the 2 cents per share earnings met the estimates set by Thomson Reuters analysts. Looking ahead to the rest of the year, Sirius increased its expected revenue guidance to about $4.1 billion and adjusted EBITDA of about $1.425 billion. Wall Street received the news well, with stock up more than 2 percent to $3.46 in early trading.

The satellite radio’s management also shared updated numbers on subscriptions during the call. During the quarter, Sirius added about 475,000 total net new subscribers, including self-pay subscribers. Those increases pushed the company to record memberships of 26.3 million, with 21.6 million of them self-pay subscribers. For the whole year, Sirius said it anticipates adding 1.25 million new subscribers.

Car connectivity was a major point in the call. CEO Jim Meyer was optimistic about the progress to date, but predicted that most original equipment manufacturers would be slow to get their embedded connected car strategies off the ground. “Investors will need to be patient here,” Meyer said. “As I’ve said before, this is a march, not a sprint.”