Sirius XM Delivers on Earnings and Buybacks (Update)

July 29, 2014 by Jon C. Ogg

Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) has released its second-quarter earnings, showing that revenue grew 10% and has crossed the $1 billion mark. The company’s net income was $120 million, with EBITDA rising 31% to a record level of $370 million and free cash flow also hitting a new high of $335 million. Sirius XM even lived up to its buyback plans.

This story has been updated below.

The satellite radio leader’s formal earnings were $0.02 per share on revenue of $1.035 billion. Thomson Reuters had estimates of $0.02 per share earnings and $1.02 billion in revenue. The company added some 475,000 total net new subscribers, including 380,000 net new self-pay subscribers — its subscribers now exceed 26.3 million.

Sirius XM bought back over 350 million shares in the quarter, or approximately 6% of its outstanding stock.

Sirius XM has also reaffirmed its previously issued 2014 guidance for net subscriber additions and increased its guidance for revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. The company sees net subscriber additions of approximately 1.25 million in 2014, with revenue of roughly $4.1 billion. It further sees adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1.425 billion with free cash flow of approximately $1.1 billion.

The buyback news is refreshing to see considering that Sirius XM just recently increased its buyback authorization. And we have even seen one analyst maintain a street-high price target of $5.00 on the stock.

Sirius XM shareholders initially liked what they saw. The stock was up more than 2% at $3.46 in the early trading indications. Its 52-week range is $2.98 to $4.18, and the consensus price target from analysts is $4.25.

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Update 10:45 a.m. Eastern Time: Sirius XM already traded 64 million shares after the first hour of trading (including the premarket trading session) but shares were up only 1.2% at $3.42, after hitting a high of $3.49 earlier. This is approaching 150% of normal volume, indicating that trading volume could be three times normal by the end of the day. As Sirius XM likely has no serious acquisitions in its future, other than signing new content deals, it almost certainly will keep buying back its stock.

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