Sirius XM Holdings Inc (SIRI)

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Sirius XM Declares Dividend, Boosts Share Buybacks by $2 Billion

Source: Dow Jones News
By Joshua Jamerson
Sirius XM Holdings Inc. initiated a quarterly dividend of a penny a share and boosted its share-buyback program by $2 billion on Thursday, as the satellite radio company said profit rose 17% in the latest period.

Shares rose 2.1% to $4.33 premarket.

In its third quarter, Sirius XM said it added 345,000 net new subscribers, ending the quarter with 31 million total subscribers. Its number of subscribers who don't get Sirius's service as part of a promotion, described as self-paying subscribers, rose 385,000 to 25.5 million.

The company's self-pay churn rate, or the rate at which its subscribers left the service, was unchanged from a year ago at 1.9%. Its average revenue per user rose 3% to $13.04, which the company said was its highest ever.

Sirius XM's profit rose to $193.9 million from $166.5 million a year ago. On a per-share basis, earnings rose to 4 cents from 3 cents a share. Revenue grew 9.2% to $1.28 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast 4 cents in per-share earnings on $1.23 billion in revenue.

The additional $2 billion in share repurchases will bring Sirius's total buyback authorization to $10 billion.

Write to Joshua Jamerson at [e-mail]


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 27, 2016 08:23 ET (12:23 GMT)

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