First-quarter revenue for the satellite entertainment provider was $1.4 billion, an increase of 6% over the first quarter of 2017. Advertising revenue was $42 million in the quarter compared to $36 million a year earlier. After a hefty increase from the CRB to start the year, SiriusXM paid $180 million in royalty fees in the quarter. Despite that the company was still able to grow EBITDA in the first quarter to $532 million, a first-quarter record. Free cash flow and operating cash flow in the first quarter increased 31% and 34%, respectively, to $326 million and $415 million.
CEO Jim Meyer said business models do matter and SiriusXM is hard to beat. “SiriusXM scales beautifully, it generated incredible cash flow despite rising music costs.” Between 2009 and 2017, SiriusXM has been able to grow revenue annually by 10%.
On the subscriber side, the company added 330,000 subscribers in the quarter to go over 33 million subs for the first time.
