SiriusXM has added approximately 1.3 million net subscribers to end 2018 with for 34 million total paid subscribers, including those that come with new car sales and from other sources. Shares rose 2.09% in pre-market trading Wednesday.
Looking at just self pay subscribers, the satellite broadcaster added 1.4 million self-pay to finish 2018 with approximately 28.9 million self-pay subscribers, exceeding the company’s initial 2018 guidance by approximately 40%.
The company also announced that it expects to meet or exceed its 2018 guidance for revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow.
During Q4, SiriusXM repurchased $646 million of its common stock, the largest amount of capital allocated to open market repurchases in a single quarter since the program commenced in early 2013. Including dividends, SiriusXM returned $1.5 billion of capital to its stockholders during 2018.
The company also issued 2019 subscriber and financial guidance:
- SiriusXM self-pay net additions approaching 1 million,
- Total revenue of approximately $6.1 billion,
- Adjusted EBITDA of approximately $2.3 billion, and
- Free cash flow of approximately $1.6 billion.
The company’s guidance does not give effect to the expected acquisition of Pandora Media in the first quarter.
“We expect to close the Pandora transaction shortly following the Pandora stockholder meeting scheduled for late this month, and we are quickly moving to implement exciting ways the two businesses can work together. We remain confident that this transformational acquisition will open exciting pathways for long-term value creation and cash flow growth for our stockholders,” said Jim Meyer, SiriusXM’s Chief Executive Officer.
SiriusXM will release full-year and fourth quarter 2018 financial and operating results on January 30. The company will hold a conference call at 8:00 am ET to discuss results.
Investors and the press can listen to the conference call via the company’s website at investor.siriusxm.com.