SiriusXM has reported a year-over-year revenue decline for Q4 2024, when net income nevertheless improved from the same period in 2023. Photo Credit: SiriusXM
SiriusXM suffered a revenue decrease during 2024’s final quarter, but the period nevertheless brought a double-digit net income boost, per a new earnings report.
The auto-minded satellite radio company (and Pandora parent) disclosed its fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 financials today.
Diving directly into those numbers, SpaceX-partnered SiriusXM pointed to Q4 revenue of $2.19 billion (down 4.3% YoY) and, with operating expenses having declined, $287 million in net income (up almost 26% YoY) for the same window.
As usual, the lion’s share of Q4 revenue came from core satellite radio operations. That refers specifically to $1.62 billion overall (down 5.6% YoY) as well as $1.50 billion solely from satellite subs (down about 5.4% YoY), according to the company, which brought on Wayne Thorsen as COO last month.
Pandora and off-platform revenue, for its part, was roughly flat year over year at $568 million for Q4, consisting of $434 million from advertising (down slightly YoY) and the remaining $134 million from subscriptions (likewise down less than 1% YoY).
Behind those totals, the company pointed to 149,000 SiriusXM self-pay subscription additions during Q4 – despite an overall decrease of 296,000 for 2024, to 33.23 million. (The latter also includes 1.58 million paid promotional subs.)
And amid stiff competition from well-entrenched players such as Spotify, Pandora parted with 101,000 total self-pay Plus and Premium subscribers on the quarter, finishing 2024 at 5.77 million (down 279,000 YoY).
Additionally, Pandora’s ad-supported listener hours dipped (2.53 billion to 2.39 billion) in Q4 and fell more than that for the entire year (10.48 billion to 9.94 billion), the report shows. Advertising revenue per thousand listener hours grew a bit on the year but slipped from $111.27 to $108.37 in the fourth quarter.
During SiriusXM’s Q4 earnings call, CEO Jennifer Witz said the company, notwithstanding a coming embrace of “click to cancel,” expects “subscriber results in 2025 to be slightly better than what we saw in 2024.”
Furthermore, the exec pointed to strong usage growth for SiriusXM’s updated app and for podcasts (owing in large part to several exclusives) in particular.
Closing with a quick look at SiriusXM’s full-year 2024 performance, total revenue came in at $8.70 billion, down about 2.8% from 2023. Even after Q4’s contribution, SiriusXM’s net loss last year was $2.08 billion. And that net loss is said to have stemmed chiefly from “a non-cash impairment charge of approximately $3.36 billion recorded in the third quarter.”
When trading wrapped today, SiriusXM stock (NASDAQ: SIRI) was worth $23.11 per share – up about 5.8% from opening.