Iridium Communications reported record total revenues of $212.8m for the third quarter of 2024, higher commercial service revenue and government engineering revenue. Total revenue increased 8% versus the comparable period of 2023. Iridium updated its full-year outlook, targeting service revenue growth of 5% for 2024. Previous guidance was between 4% and 6% growth.
Commercial IoT data continues to be a major driver of growth. Revenue in commercial IoT data was $43.7m in Q3, up 14% from the year-ago period. Commercial IoT subscribers grew 14% from the year-ago period to 1,902,000 customers. Iridium said there is continued growth in consumer personal communication devices, along with commercial users.
Hosted payload and other data services also saw growth — up 9% from the same time last year to $16.4m in the quarter. This reflects higher revenue from Iridium’s growing PNT services, after Iridium acquired long-time partner Satelles and integrated the company’s Satellite Time and Location (STL) service earlier this year. Iridium’s commercial business ended the quarter with 2,341,000 billable subscribers, marking a growth of 12% year-over-year, and growth of 70,000 subscribers during the quarter.
Engineering and support revenue was $30.7m during the third quarter, up 22% compared to the prior-year quarter due to a rise in activity with the U.S. government. This segment includes revenue from Iridium’s work with General Dynamics Mission Systems (GDMS) on the Ground Management and Integration (GMI) program for the Space Development Agency’s constellation.
The SDA recently awarded GDMS and Iridium a modification to the cost-plus contract worth $491.6m, of which $239m will go to Iridium over five years. Iridium said it expects engineering and support revenue to increase in 2024 with expanded work on the SDA contract.
In another sign of financial health, Iridium returned $146m to shareholders through dividends and an expanded share repurchase program. Iridium repurchased 4.7 million shares during the quarter, which reduces its outstanding share count by about 4%.
Desch commented this is a record number of shares retired for a single quarter since Iridium began its repurchase program.
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