2023-04-20 13:57:25 ET
Iridium Communications ( NASDAQ: IRDM ) built to a gain of 11.7% Thursday after its first-quarter earnings beat expectations handily on top and bottom lines.
That was the stock's biggest one-day gain since it rose 12.8% on Jan. 6, after it teamed up with Qualcomm to support satellite messaging in smartphones.
Revenues grew by nearly double expectations, rising 22% to $205.3M, with commercial gains and a big boost from support services (which nearly tripled) due to its Space Development Agency contract.
That SDA contract is expected to boost engineering and support services revenue even higher in 2023 thanks to the full-year impact.
And "2023 is off to a strong start, as we continued to enjoy double-digit sales growth in our Commercial Business and saw another record quarter of equipment sales,” said CEO Matt Desch. "We continue to see strong demand for equipment from our partner community and believe that new product and service rollouts this year will drive strong subscriber growth and service revenue gains."
Revenue breakout: Commercial service, $112.85M (up 13%); Government service, $26.5M (flat); Subscriber equipment, $41.7M (up 23.5%); Engineering and support service, $24.25M (up 190%).
Billable subscribers rose by 15% year-over-year to 2.05M, driven by growth in commercial Internet of Things.
For the full year, it still expects service revenue will rise 9%-11% from 2022's base of $534.7M, and stuck to a forecast for operating earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $455M-$465M.
For further details see:
Iridium marks biggest gain in three months on Q1 beat