While the company’s total revenue ($1.7 billion) increased 27% compared to same quarter in 2018, the company’s profit declined 44% year-on-year to $162 million.
According to SiriusXM, the sharp decline came as a result of approximately $76m of “acquisition and other costs” related to the Pandora acquisition, in addition to a $31m “one-time benefit to other income in the prior year period and a higher tax rate”.
The effective tax rate for Q1 2019 totaled 33.3%, compared to 21.7% in the same period he previous year.
SiriusXM added 131,000 net new self-pay subscribers in Q1 2018 to end the quarter with nearly 29.1m ‘self-pay’ subscribers.
Total net subscriber additions in the first quarter were 132,000, resulting in more than 34.2m total SiriusXM subscribers at the end of the period.
Although Pandora’s Monthly Active Users (MAUs) were down from 72.3m in the prior year period to 66m in Q1 2018, it added 246,000 net new self-pay subscribers in Q1 to end the quarter with nearly 6.2m self-pay subscribers.
Pandora’s total subscriber number was 6.9m at the end of the period.
“SiriusXM’s first quarter of 2019 was an exciting time for the company. We’re thrilled to have completed the Pandora acquisition on February 1 and have been working quickly to integrate and coordinate the operations of the two businesses.”
Jim Meyer, SiriusXM
Jim Meyer, Chief Executive Officer, SiriusXM (pictured), said: “SiriusXM’s first quarter of 2019 was an exciting time for the company.
“We’re thrilled to have completed the Pandora acquisition on February 1 and have been working quickly to integrate and coordinate the operations of the two businesses.
“The year is off to a strong start, and today we are issuing combined guidance for 2019 that shows continuing revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow growth.”
Continued Meyer: “With the addition of Pandora to SiriusXM, we now have more to offer subscribers and listeners than ever before.
“Last month we created Pandora’s first-ever content team, and those talented professionals launched our first joint offering, Pandora NOW, a full-time SiriusXM channel and Pandora station and playlist, curated from Pandora data of the top-trending artists.
“In addition, we announced an array of SiriusXM’s top sports, comedy and talk hosts’ shows are now available as podcasts on Pandora.
“We also added more than 100 new music channels on the SiriusXM streaming platform – the largest addition ever – all of them based on our existing popular channels but perfectly crafted to fit any mood, occasion or activity.”
“In 2019, we will continue to use our strong financial position and ample liquidity to invest in our business, make strategic investments and return capital to stockholders.”
David Frear, SiriusXM
David Frear, Chief Financial Officer, SiriusXM said: “Solid revenue growth and strong performance from adjusted EBITDA has put the year off to a great start.
“Our new guidance shows our confidence in driving strong results following the acquisition of Pandora. Cost synergies are now expected to ultimately exceed $75 million.
“SiriusXM had yet another quarter of significant capital returns to stockholders, distributing over $660 million in the first quarter and nearly $900 million so far this year through April 22.
“Since the announcement of the Pandora acquisition, we have repurchased more than 63% of the stock issued in the transaction. At quarter-end, our pro forma debt to adjusted EBITDA was 3.2 times and we had cash on hand of $62 million with undrawn revolver capacity of approximately $1.2 billion.
“In 2019, we will continue to use our strong financial position and ample liquidity to invest in our business, make strategic investments and return capital to stockholders.”Music Business Worldwide
