[08-08-11] Iridium Communications<\/b> reported $11.7 million in 2011 second quarter earnings \u2014 a considerable leap from the $3.2 million generated in the same period last year, marking the second consecutive quarter that Iridium has exceeded analysts\u2019 forecasts.<\/p>\n
In its latest financial results issued Aug. 8, Iridium recoded a 14 percent second-quarter total revenue increase at $95.9 million, which consisted of $30.8 million of equipment, engineering and support revenue and a 10 percent increase in service revenues at $65.1 million. Service revenues constituted 68 percent of the mobile satellite operator\u2019s total revenue for the second quarter of 2011.
\n Raymond James<\/b> Analyst Chris Quilty said Iridium\u2019s performance during the quarter suggests that the company is on track to meet or exceed its full-year forecast. \u201cThe most noteworthy driver was the company\u2019s commercial voice business with satellite phones, which posted year-over-year revenue growth of 8 percent and was 3 percent higher than our estimate,\u201d Quilty told Satellite News<\/i>. \u201cThis provides further evidence that Iridium can continue to grow its voice business despite increasing competition from VSAT providers and [Inmarsat\u2019s] IsatPhone. Iridium\u2019s commercial machine-to-machine (M2M) also was excellent and exhibited revenue and net addition growth of 18.8 percent and 82 percent respectively, driven by the company\u2019s high speed 9602 modem.\u201d
\n Iridium CEO Matt Desch told Satellite News<\/i> that in the past, the company found itself being too conservative with 9602 projections. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen it develop to the point where its size and price performance have been extremely well received across a wide range of markets. We know our partners have a lot of choices for a machine-to-machine solution,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only problem that we tend to run into is that our devices were a little bit too expensive. Our goal was to fix that by the time we came out with the 9602. Now, we\u2019re cost-competitive and have the best technical solution and we\u2019re seeing that those customers who weren\u2019t working with us before have been moving towards us and that those who had been working with us can now address more of their markets.\u201d
\n Iridium achieved double-digit subscriber and operational EBITDA growth in the fiscal period, ending the quarter with 478,000 total billable subscribers \u2014 a 25 percent increase from Iridium\u2019s 383,000-subscriber mark in the 2010 second quarter. Iridium\u2019s operational EBITDA jumped 34 percent to $48.4 million, representing a margin of 50 percent.
\nDesch said his company has focused on strengthening its revenue profile in new markets. \u201cApproximately 40 percent of our total service revenue now comes from data products and services. Showcasing our strength in the data market, we grew commercial M2M data revenue more than 18 percent in the second quarter.\u201d
\n The operator saw $114.6 million in capital expenditures during the second quarter, which were primarily related to investments in the company\u2019s next-generation satellite constellation, Iridium Next, as well as upgraded ground network infrastructure at its commercial gateway.
\n Iridium also reported success in the government market, with sector revenues up 14 percent, reflecting 12 percent growth in voice revenues and a two-fold increase in government M2M revenues. While the operator\u2019s overall government subscribers increased 24 percent from 2010 second-quarter to 48,000, Quilty noted that its sequential growth was minimal at approximately 1,000 new subscribers. \u201cWe expect subscriber growth to pick up in the back half of the year once Iridium completes its phase 3 development work on the Netted Iridium program, which is a precursor to selling more handsets,\u201d he said.
\n Desch affirmed Iridium\u2019s 2011 financial guidance, including subscriber growth, revenue growth and operational EBITDA. To date, Iridium has delivered revenue and EBITDA growth of 13 percent. Market analysts noted that Iridium\u2019s guidance indicates that the company will deliver back half revenue and EBITDA growth of 1 percent and 13 percent, respectively.
\n \u201cWe\u2019ll continue to shape the global communications landscape along with our ecosystem of partners, bringing personal tracking devices and smartphone connections to market in support of this vision and our proven strategy of growing highly profitable service revenue. In addition to our own upcoming handset innovations, we\u2019re also seeing rapid adoption of two-way data devices by many of our partners,\u201d said Desch.
\n Iridium ended the second quarter with cash and equivalents balance of $103.8 million and gross debt of $265.3 million. The operator\u2019s net debt stands at $147.9 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[08-08-11] Iridium Communications reported $11.7 million in 2011 second quarter earnings \u2014 a considerable leap from the $3.2 million generated in the same period last year, marking the second consecutive quarter that Iridium has exceeded analysts\u2019 forecasts. In its latest financial results issued Aug. 8, Iridium recoded a 14 percent second-quarter total revenue increase […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}