Iridium Reports 6% Revenue Growth in Q4 2021, 3% for Government Segment; Matt Desch Quoted

Iridium Communications (Nasdaq: IRDM) reported $155.9 million in total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021, up 6 percent from the prior-year period.

The McLean, Virginia-based satellite communications company said the total number of billable subscribers rose to 1.72 million in Q4 2021, reflecting a year-over-year increase of 17 percent associated with the growth in commercial internet-of-things subscribers.

For the full-year 2021, Iridium posted $614.5 million in total revenue, reflecting a 5 percent increase from the previous year’s figure of $583.4 million, and saw its operational earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization jump 6 percent to $378.2 million.

“Iridium had another strong year in 2021 on the back of the best subscriber growth in Company history,” said Iridium CEO Matt Desch.

“We achieved this growth even in the face of supply chain issues, while continuing to expand our product portfolio,” added Desch, a 2022 Wash100 Award winner.

Iridium’s U.S. government business recorded $26.5 million in Q4 2021 service revenue, up 3 percent from the same period of the previous year driven by a contractual step-up in the Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services contract with the U.S. Space Force in September 2021.

The company reported 147,000 government subscribers at the end of the quarter with IoT data subscribers accounting for 56 percent of that number.

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