Mel Karmazin
Analyst · Maxim
Thank you for joining us this morning on SiriusXM earnings call to discuss our first quarter results and updated outlook for the future. Our first quarter results show the power of our high-margin model that is producing exceptional subscriber and cash flow growth for our investors. SiriusXM's first quarter results demonstrate the best of both worlds, strong subscriber growth and reduced churn. We grew net subscribers by more than 400,000 in the first quarter, an 8% increase from last year's first quarter. Importantly, self-pay net additions of 299,000 grew dramatically by 148% compared to the same quarter last year. Both of these figures represent the strongest first quarter net ad performance we have achieved since the combination of Sirius and XM in 2008. Rising U.S. auto sales contributed to our growth, and we are also pleased with our lower churn rate and our stable conversion rate. The first quarter annualized SAAR of $14.5 million was up from $13 million in the first quarter of 2011. Our churn rate improved in the first quarter year-over-year from 2.0 to 1.9, and our conversion rate held at 45%. Given the approximately 12%-based package price increase we implemented in January, this positive churn result and no dip in conversion certainly exceeded our expectations and is an excellent demonstration of the value consumers place on our service. The price increase was the first change in the base price of the Sirius service and only the second change in the base price of the XM service. So it is prudent that we have conservative expectations around churn, and we will continue this practice. While it's early and we still have much work to do, we have now billed 35% of the self-pay subscriber base at the new higher rate, and the reaction to the price increase has clearly exceeded our expectations. No one likes to raise prices, especially when competing against free services like AM, FM and IP radio, but we could not have hoped for a better outcome at this stage than what we have seen so far. These initial results are a clear endorsement of SiriusXM's strong value proposition to our customers in spite of the increased competition in the audio entertainment space. And it certainly helps that the economic trends have begun to provide a bit of a tailwind. On the financial side, we also performed very well in the first quarter. Revenue grew by 11% to $805 million, and adjusted EBITDA grew 15% to $208 million. Total cash operating expenses were up 9.6% with most of that attributed to expenses associated with higher revenue and higher SAC to support improved auto sales and future growth. Our revenue and adjusted EBITDA figures were both record highs for SiriusXM, the first time revenue passed $800 million in a single quarter and the first time adjusted EBITDA reached $200 million in a single quarter. The first quarter adjusted EBITDA margin at just over 25.8% is at the highest level in the history of the company for a single quarter. Free cash flow improved by $32 million year-over-year to positive $15 million in the first quarter, the first time in the history of satellite radio that we delivered positive free cash flow in the first quarter of the year. Revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow are expected to accelerate throughout the year as the price increase rolls through the subscriber base and additional subscribers join the service. The consensus expectation for full year 2012 auto sales has climbed to about $14.3 million today from $13.7 million when we gave our initial guidance in February. This provides nice momentum for our growth this year, and we are also benefiting from our efforts in the used-car market. This year, we anticipate adding approximately $1 million self-pay additions to SiriusXM from our rapidly growing used-car market channel. In February, we told investors that our subscriber guidance was conservative and -- but for the uncertainty around the price increase, the forecast would have been higher. While we still have a lot of work to do implementing this price increase and retaining subscribers as we compete against free terrestrial and free online competitors, this strong first quarter performance has made us comfortable in raising our full year net addition guidance from 1.3 million to 1.5 million. This increased guidance will put our paid subscriber base at 23.4 million by year end, an all-time record. And yes, we continue to be conservative, but are more optimistic than we were 3 months ago. We are also on track to meet our full year 2012 revenue guidance of $3.3 billion, adjusted EBITDA guidance of $875 million and free cash flow guidance of $700 million. The record free cash flow that we are anticipating this year is after substantial investments we are making in our company. For example, we are now programming 33 more channels today compared to last year. Many are part of our 2.0 rollout. And we are very excited about the new services we are launching later this year to broaden the distribution of our content online and offer more exclusive content. We are investing to make more content available online, particularly in sports program. SiriusXM now offers subscribers live play-by-play with no blackouts from the NHL, NFL, MLB, NBA, NASCAR, Formula 1, select college sports and English Premier League soccer. Much of this content is hard to find or unavailable elsewhere online. And certainly, no other audio company on the Internet has a sports lineup remotely approaching our offering, all under one app. For example, SiriusXM subscribers can receive every major league baseball game on their smartphone or computer. The only option, the only other option to get baseball games on the Internet is MLB.com, period. No other IP destination. Even terrestrial radio does not have the Internet rights for the games they broadcast locally. We think sports programming is a perfect example of content that subscribers find valuable and are willing to pay for, and the great thing about our business model is that we are able to add this great sports content at relatively low cost, especially compared to our peers in the video market. Our on-demand service is anticipated to launch this summer across a variety of IP platforms such as the web, smartphones and other connected devices. And late this year, we plan to debut a SiriusXM version of personalized music online, allowing subscribers to tailor their favorite SiriusXM music channels to their tastes. The combination of exclusive online access to sports, proprietary on-demand SiriusXM branded content and personalized music should drive adoption of our Internet tier and All Access plans to make our overall service all that more desirable to consumers. Our on-demand and personalized radio programming will have no commercials on our music offerings and will be at no extra charge to those subscribers who have added Internet Listening to their plans. Free and freemium competitors online will have a tough time matching the commercial-free aspect of SiriusXM branded music combined with the unique sports and talk content we offer. And let me remind you, the development of all of this plus the investment in 33 new channels are within the financial results you've seen in the first quarter and the guidance we've given you this year. We're also excited to see automakers embrace 2.0 technology, which gives us the ability to add additional channels, new features and software upgradability for future enhancements. Our additional 2.0 channels include the suite of Hispanic channels and are now available at no extra charge to subscribers who have a 2.0-capable satellite radio, and we've also added these channels to our online package. The 2.0 radios are available now at retail, and we just announced our first OEM deployment of 2.0 on select Chrysler vehicles available this summer. More models from Chrysler and additional OEMs will be rolling out 2.0 in the future. As we've said many times, business models matter. We not only have a lot of users, but we have a fantastic model for monetizing this usage through subscription services. Our business model is superior to that of terrestrial radio and the Internet radio companies we compete with. The subscription business is a great one. SiriusXM has more paying subscribers than all the other companies in the world combined. Also, at a time when more and more content is available and consumers continue to be time-constrained, as there is still only 24 hours in a day, we believe curated content, especially SiriusXM-aggregated curated audio content, is more important than ever and will be even more important in the future as even more content becomes available especially on the Internet. The first quarter of 2009 was just the second full quarter of combined Sirius and XM operations following our merger. In the 3 years since then, you can easily see the kind of progress we've made in our business. Subscribers are up 20% from 18.6 million 22.3 million. The operating metrics have likewise improved over that same period. Self-pay churn of 2.2% in the first quarter of 2009 has improved to the 1.9% we saw in this year's first quarter. Our conversion rate has been steady at 45% despite our penetration rate climbing from 52% to 65% over that time period. On the financial side, revenue is up 37% from $587 million to $805 million. Adjusted EBITDA is up 91% from $109 million to $208 million, representing margin growth from 18% to 25.8% over that 3-year period. But for the growth in SAC associated with higher auto sales, margin growth would have been even much higher. We believe we have substantial room for additional long-term margin improvement and free cash flow growth by delivering our content to more subscribers while maintaining a tight discipline around costs. We've used this higher earnings power to reduce our leverage and pay down debt. SiriusXM was 72.5x levered debt to EBITDA in the first quarter of 2009. And that improved to 7.1x at the first quarter of 2010, 4.8x first quarter of 2011 and just 3.9x at the first quarter of 2012. And our cash position has doubled over that time period from $375 million to almost $750 million. The company is remarkably well-positioned to deliver great performance for our investors. We are very bullish on our results for the remainder of the year. While there are always bumps along the road, the economy, employment and consumer confidence seem to be heading in the right direction. Car sales are up, with automakers appear to be effectively dealing with the resin issue that could threaten the supply chain. Increased competition is certainly out there, especially in the Internet universe. But today, we can't identify the effect of new competition on our business. SiriusXM has more paying subs today than ever before in our history, and we are going to keep growing this year to end at another record level. We are focused on accelerating our revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth, and we will attain new record levels in both of these measures. And our cash flow is now growing this year into a substantial asset for investors with tremendous potential for long-term growth. Our capital expenditures will be decreasing as a result of the significant reduction in satellite expenditures after FM-6 is successfully launched. With the benefit of our NOLs, we will not be paying any significant amount of income taxes for quite a few years. Combining all of this adds up to our ability to efficiently use the cash generated by our business for the benefit of our shareholders. Our strategy is working, our execution is strong and we have a fantastic organization that is capable of meeting our goals. We have started this year with great results, and I believe it's an exciting time to be a shareholder of our company. Based on everything we know today, we are confident that 2012 will be a great year for us and 2013 will be even better. With that, I'll turn it over to David for some additional remarks.