Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (SIRI) Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here today. As Greg mentioned, we had our media event yesterday, and hopefully, many of you had a chance to tune in or be in the audience. And if you didn't, it will be up on our site later today. As Greg said, we had a lot of great star power there to help us announce many parts of our next generation of SiriusXM. And I will say, it had to be pretty good because Greg was there the whole time, and it was 1.5 hours. So I'll be able to recap some of that today and also dive into some of the financials a bit more. At SiriusXM, we believe that the future of audio is one where everyone is effortlessly connected to the voices, stories and music they love. For most Americans, audio is a daily habit, and that's with 4 hours spent listening to some form of audio content each day, split between home, in car and beyond. But figuring out what to listen to during all this time has become very complicated. Today, there are millions of songs and shows available with a push of a button or a simple voice command, and navigating through all that noise has become overwhelming. Fundamental shifts in the marketplace have created a paradox of choice and have resulted in consumer -- growing consumer demand for human-curated audio. Today's audio files are seeking community and connection, as Greg talked about earlier, amongst a hyper-fragmented and overly saturated landscape, and this is where SiriusXM comes in. We have built an incredibly successful and profitable business by creating an experience centered on our premium human-curated radio that is more relevant than ever. So what sets us apart from other audio services, it's our human touch. It's the people who curate our channels. It's the artists, the personalities and the content creators who drive a deep connection with their fans. SiriusXM is an ever-present companion throughout the day. We're always there with just the right mix of music, news, sports, comedy, storytelling and podcasts. And because of this, listeners develop an emotional attachment to our content and service. And this unique and differentiated position gives us a huge opportunity for growth. So who are we trying to reach? Our core audience today represents about 25% of the audio market. They're Gen X and older. They grew up listening to radio in the car, and they represent one of the largest and most affluent consumer groups. Then you have what we see as our growth audience opportunity. It's an additional 25% of the audio market. They're younger, more diverse and more varied in their audio consumption. These consumers are open to subscribing to more than one audio service to meet all their needs, and they're willing to splurge for a premium experience. They're fueled by fandom and are used to listening whenever and wherever they choose. So while our growth in our core audiences represent half of the general population, they drive 84% of total audio spend. And we know what it will take to attract them. We've done a lot of research, and it confirms that our differentiators remain at the heart of our value proposition for both the core and growth audience segments. But to bring in more subscribers, we needed to address key pain points. We need to improve in the areas of pricing, control and discovery, all with a sleek, modern look and feel. And we're doubling down on our differentiators and giving our product and programming the spotlight in our new next-generation platform. We're making it easier for consumers to immediately find what they love and go deeper. We call this the next generation of SiriusXM. So as we announced yesterday on December 14, the new SiriusXM experience will begin to roll out first on streaming and then in the months and years ahead in the car. At launch, it's a platform that modernizes our entire business. It's a fundamental rebuilding of the full tech platform. We also shared that with the launch of our new streaming platform, we will be offering consumers a new lower streaming-only price point, all of our content for $9.99 a month. We believe this creates an extremely compelling value proposition for consumers, and it allows us to better showcase the complementary aspect of our service, priming us for growth among those who currently subscribe to an on-demand music service alone. We expect to have more to say about our in-car pricing and packaging offering early next year. Our new app creates a compelling product experience that addresses the key pain points I talked about around discovery and control for everywhere from onboarding, to search to playback. And we're also focused on providing a more connected experience for our listeners across in-car and streaming devices. Yesterday, we also unveiled our refreshed brand identity, which highlights the uniqueness of what we offer, our incredible programming, iconic personalities and a channel for every perspective. We're also bringing back our mascot with a new twist, and we're effectively calling our new pup Stella. At SiriusXM, we are home to the stars, the ones who are already legends and the legends in the making. This new branding provides the opportunity to give them the spotlight and to demonstrate that SiriusXM creates space for each and every one of us to get closer to the things we love. Speaking of content, we officially welcomed the newest member of the SiriusXM Talk family, James Corden. He is a legendary actor, writer, producer and host, and we are thrilled that he chose to work with us as he makes his move from TV to audio. We are incredibly proud of the special relationships our programmers and hosts have with musical artists. We bring some of the biggest acts to smaller venues around the country, giving subscribers once-in-a-lifetime experiences. And our artist channels give creators a unique opportunity to connect directly with their super fans. Yesterday, we announced the launch of our newest artist channel, the Kelly Clarkson Connection, along with the launch date and programming for our upcoming channel with John Mayer. And this December, we'll be launching takeovers of some of our biggest channels with over 175 artists. This includes everyone from Olivia Rodrigo and Cardi B to Metallica, Tim McGraw and many more. These new takeovers bring listeners even closer to the artists they love with sets hand curated by the stars. Today, we're proud to have more than 150 million SiriusXM-enabled vehicles on the road, and we are offered in more than 80% of new vehicles, as well as about 55% of preowned vehicles currently sold. This means it is easier than ever when someone buys a new or preowned vehicle to try our service. And our best-in-class built-for-the-road platform continues to make us the favorite premium entertainment solution for North American drivers as we hold the largest share of ear outside of AM/FM radio. This year alone, we have renewed and expanded upon agreements with Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and Honda, and we're close to finalizing an extension with Volkswagen Audi. Yesterday, we announced a new agreement with Polestar, and I hope in the months to come, we'll have more to share on other EV partners. All of these new agreements include commitments to rollout 360L, our hybrid in-car audio platform, which combines streaming and satellite delivery, contributing to our growing 360L pen rate. Outside of the vehicle, we are live today with many of the biggest consumer and technology brands ranging from T-Mobile to Walmart with offers that bring new listeners into SiriusXM through a variety of channels. And yesterday, we announced a new collaboration with Audible to give subscribers the opportunity to experience each other's offerings through content and trial offers beginning in 2024. So as you can see, there's a lot happening all across SiriusXM with over 34 million total subscribers today, strong relationships with the major automakers, sustained low churn at 1.6%, a diverse array of content and customer satisfaction at a 15-year high. We are building on an incredibly strong foundation. From our next generation technology platform, refreshed brand identity, new distribution and new channels and shows that bring subscribers closer to what they love at a compelling new price point, all these key levers are powering our transformation and positioning us for future growth. And we will now have the infrastructure and optionality to rapidly test, learn and innovate across our business. We are targeting to migrate Pandora to the new platform infrastructure in late 2024, in addition to enhancing the listening experience of our 47 million active -- monthly active users at Pandora. This will drive cost savings while also giving us the option to combine the SiriusXM and Pandora products sometime in the future. A key component of our ad business is the SiriusXM Podcast Network, which is home to the most shows in the top 50. The scale of our streaming, broadcast and podcast advertising offering, combined with our advanced ad technology and depth of sales expertise, provides advertisers unmatched opportunities to connect with their target audiences. And now let's dive into the financials. Taking a look at the trailing 12 months since we last met, we delivered solid results, including just under $9 billion in revenue. Additionally, while we have been focused on investing in our products and tech platform, we have simultaneously become even more disciplined on cost management across our organization. We grew self-pay subscription audio revenue over the past 12 months by approximately $80 million, while paid promotional revenue fell on new improved OEM relationships and national broadcast ad revenue at SiriusXM remained challenged. In our Pandora and off-platform segment, we continued to see strong monetization at Pandora, and our podcast revenue was up 28% year-over-year in the third quarter. Cash operating costs were down 2% in the trailing 12 months, even as we absorbed higher music royalties. And our adjusted EBITDA margin remained strong at roughly 31%. And during the third quarter, we delivered our highest ever quarter of EBITDA at $747 million. Longer term, we have demonstrated a strong track record of growing revenue and adjusted EBITDA and converting very substantial portions of that EBITDA into free cash flow. 2021's $1.8 billion of free cash flow was boosted by a onetime satellite insurance recovery and by relatively low CapEx and cash taxes. In 2023, we transitioned to become a full cash taxpayer and stepped up satellite CapEx associated with our normal 15-year fleet refresh cycle, the combination of which is driving our free cash flow guidance of approximately $1.15 billion this year. With satellite CapEx expected to fall to near 0 by 2028, plus improved working capital and taxes, we are confident the business will see a meaningful step-up in cash generation in the coming years. Our growing cash flow and strong balance sheet provides us flexibility to navigate a variety of future market conditions. We have consistently kept leverage in the low to mid-3x range over many years, and we think this is the right place for our business to be in the long term as well. We have a largely fixed rate balance sheet with no bond maturities until 2026. We expect to finish this year with a completely undrawn revolver and growing cash balance, which together will provide us with approximately $2 billion of available liquidity. As you all know, Liberty Media announced a proposal regarding a potential transaction involving our companies. The SiriusXM special committee of independent directors is currently reviewing the proposal, so I'm limited in what I can say. However, what I want to emphasize is that regardless of the outcome of Liberty's proposal and any transaction hypotheticals, I am confident we can quickly delever to our communicated long-term leverage target if need be. SiriusXM has maintained this responsible leverage position while delivering sizable cash to our investors. Since we began our repurchase and dividend programs, we have delivered approximately $20 billion to our shareholders. In addition, last month, we announced another 10% hike to our recurring dividend, the seventh straight double-digit annual increase and marking a 15% CAGR since inception. This long track record of increases has pushed our dividend yield to approximately 2.2%. While the Liberty proposal is pending, for regulatory reasons, we are out of the market for our own stock. And following any transaction, you would likely see us more focused in the near term on delevering than repurchasing stock. But we plan to continue our strong dividend payout strategy with the option of resuming opportunistic share repurchases as we move toward our long-term leverage target. In closing, we are at a key moment in our journey. We are pleased with our results, our financial stability and our growth opportunities. And as you saw today, the next generation of SiriusXM connects us even more deeply with our vision and purpose, and I could not be more excited for the future of SiriusXM. Thank you.