Iridium Satellite LLC (Iridium) announced financial results for the quarter and the year ended December 31, 2008.
Fourth quarter results included approximately 320,000 subscribers, revenue of $76.8 million, operational EBITDA of $25.0 million and net income of $1.5 million. As of December 31, 2008, Iridium had approximately 320,000 subscribers worldwide, an increase of 37 percent over the December 31, 2007 total of approximately 234,000. Revenue for the year 2008 was $320.9 million, a 23 percent increase over 2007 revenues of $260.9 million. Operational EBITDA for the year 2008 was $108.2 million, a 42 percent increase compared to operational EBITDA of $76.5 million for 2007. For 2008, Iridium posted $53.9 million in net income, a 23 percent increase over 2007. During 2008, Iridium experienced growth in revenue for the full year in all of its verticals: handsets; industrial, maritime and aviation; machine-to-machine (M2M) and government.
Iridium’s 2008 record revenues of $320.9 million were driven by strong growth in all three of its key markets: commercial services; government services; and subscriber equipment. Commercial services revenue was $133.2 million for the year, a 32 percent increase over the $101.2 million of revenues in 2007. Subscriber equipment revenue was $119.9 million for 2008, an 18 percent increase over the $101.9 million of revenue for the prior year. Government services revenue was $67.8 million for 2008, a 17 percent increase over the $57.9 million of revenue for 2007.
Revenue in the fourth quarter of 2008 was $76.8 million compared to $67.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2007, an increase of 14 percent. Fourth quarter 2008 operational EBITDA was $25.0 million, a 33 percent increase compared to $18.7 million for the same period of the prior year. Net income during the fourth quarter of 2008 was $1.5 million, an 83 percent decrease as compared to fourth quarter 2007 net income of $9.2 million. This decrease was primarily driven by expenses associated with the development of Iridium NEXT, the company’s nexgen satellite constellation, and one-time costs associated with the GHQ transaction. Select this link for the full .pdf financial report.
