Despite having missed their second quarterly forecast earnings, Sirius XM Satellite Radio is rapidly adding subscribers. The company just released their second quarterly statement showing more than half a million new subscriptions added.
The second quarterly report shows a 10% increase in revenue, totaling to about $1.24 billion, with Sirius XM shares (SIRI) having increased close to 6% during midday trading in the stock market. This passes the $1.23 billion predication set by leading investment research firm Zacks Investment Research. Current shares are trading at $4.39, having opened at $4.28, a definite improvement over the 52 week low of $3.29.
In a written statement, CEO Jim Meyer states that the company has added 587,000 new subscribers, limited not only to new car subscriptions, but all paid subscriptions. That is an 8% increase from the same quarter last year, resulting in a very impressive tally of 30.6 million subscribers.
With this surprising amount of new subscriptions, Sirius XM has raised to this year’s revenue forecast from $4.9 billion to $5 billion. CEO Jim Meyer added:
“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.”
Sirius now expects to close the year with 1.7 million total new subscribers, a definite improvement over last year’s 1.6 overall new subscribers. Analysts at multinational financial data company FactSet say they expect a 2016 revenue of $4.97 billion.
All of this is very good news for Sirius XM majority shareholder Liberty Media, which is rumored to be looking to acquire Pandora, who reports a falling user base.
Is this bad?