It's almost show time for Sirius XM Radio
The satellite radio provider reports its second quarter results tomorrow morning. Analysts see revenue climbing 12% to $834.4 million. They also see a profit of $0.02 a share. That's just shy of the $0.03 a share it posted a year earlier, but nearly half of that quarter's $173.3 million profit came from a one-time gain in investment income from cash it received by closing on the acquisition of its Canadian partner.
In other words, on an apples-to-apples basis, Sirius XM should be growing on both ends of the income statement.
I like to approach Sirius XM's quarterly reports with a few questions in mind. Let's go over what I would love to see answered this time around.
1. Is churn holding up?
One of the more welcome surprises during this year's first quarter was that Sirius XM's monthly churn rate held up at 1.9%.
The media giant rolled out a 12% rate increase in January. It will gradually roll out to existing subscribers, but more than a third of self-pay customers were already paying the new $14.49 a month rate by the end of the first quarter. Karmazin was originally targeting monthly churn for all of 2012, to clock in at a 2.1% clip, but he lowered it to Sirius XM's historical range of 1.8% to 2% three months ago.
Obviously, this isn't on the scale of last summer's Netflix
It's a different story at Sirius XM.
We already know that new customers aren't flinching at the new rate. Sirius XM has closed out the first half of the year with more than a million net subscribers added to its rolls. The challenge now is to retain accounts that have been paying less. Tomorrow we will find out if churn -- which is the percentage of subscribers that cancel the service in any given month -- can stick to that historical range.
2. Is there any visibility on the Liberty Media saga?
Things have been quiet since Liberty Media
Liberty Media wants de facto control of the company. It would allow the media conglomerate to then spin off its meaty stake in Sirius XM to shareholders in a tax-advantaged transaction.
Sirius XM bulls that were hoping for an outright acquisition at a healthy premium may have been initially disappointed. A Liberty Media spinoff would flood Sirius XM's float. However, some analysts feel that Sirius XM will move toward aggressive share buybacks if things get to that point.
CEO Mel Karmazin has rightfully deflected questions about Liberty Media's intentions to Liberty Media itself, but it would be nice to have some clarity on the possible scenarios.
3. Is Sirius XM 2.0 gaining traction?
Last year's late retail rollout of Sirius XM 2.0 was supposed to be a game changer. A new wave of satellite receivers would be able to access roughly two dozen more channels, and Sirius XM would be able to beef up its online offerings to give a premium spin to the Internet radio providers.
Market leader Pandora
Well, Chrysler will be rolling out Sirius XM 2.0 in some of its models starting this summer, and a Pandora-like customized online radio service -- sans commercials -- should help grow Sirius XM's non-receiver subscriber base.
If the company is making any headway in any of its Sirius XM 2.0 initiatives, Karmazin will likely be quick to let investors know.
Running of the bulls
I remain bullish on Sirius XM's future. It should come as no surprise that I'm promoting the CAPScall initiative for accountability by reiterating my bullish call on Sirius XM for Motley Fool CAPS.
I also just put out a premium report on Sirius XM Radio, detailing the challenges and opportunities that await investors who are both long and short the dynamic media giant. A year of updates is also included with the report. Check it out now.