Earnings Labs

Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (SIRI)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Apr 28, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Please stand by, we are about to begin. Good morning and welcome to Sirius XM's First Quarter 2015 Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. A question-and-answer session will be conducted following the presentation. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Hooper Stevens, Vice President, Investor Relations and Finance. Mr. Stevens, please go ahead.

Hooper Stevens - Vice President, Investor Relations and Finance, Sirius XM Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thank you and good morning everyone. Welcome to Sirius XM's First Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. Today, Jim Meyer, our Chief Executive Officer, will be joined by David Frear, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, management will be glad to take your questions. Scott Greenstein, our President and Chief Content Officer, will also be available for the Q&A portion of the call. First, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during the call might be forward-looking statements as the term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These and all forward-looking statements are based on management's current beliefs and expectations and necessarily depend upon assumptions, data or methods that may be incorrect or imprecise. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For more information about those risks and uncertainties, please view Sirius XM's SEC filings. We advise listeners not to rely unduly on forward-looking statements and disclaim any intent or obligation to update them. As we begin, I would like to advise our listeners that today's results will include discussions about both actual results and adjusted results. All discussions of adjusted operating results exclude the effects of stock-based compensation and certain purchase price accounting adjustments. I will now hand the call over to Meyer. James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you and good morning. This was a remarkable quarter. Sirius XM posted results in the first quarter that exceeded our expectations for subscriber growth and position us well for continued outperformance in 2015. As a result, we are increasing both our subscriber and revenue guidance. We grew our self-pay net subscribers by an incredible 394,000, a 128% increase from last…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we'll take our first question from Bryan Kraft with Deutsche Bank.

Bryan Kraft - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Morning, thank you. Wanted to ask you about churn; it was lowest in the first quarter in at least the past four years. Was there anything in particular that drove it; and with such a strong start to the year, do you think you'll be down for the full year on churn? And lastly, is any of this due to improvement in the process for bridging subscriptions for existing subscribers buying new cars; in other words, eliminating some of that artificial churn that's in the system? Thank you. David J. Frear - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I think the answer to that, for the last question, is yes, that our service continuity team has done an increasingly good job of identifying continuing subscribers as they come into the trial process and then they just have tremendous success in retaining them. But overall, as Jim said, that churn improved in really every respect. One of the things that really stood out was I think non-pay as a rate is improving just slightly and we're happy to see that. But the big improvements came in vehicle-related churn and other voluntary churn. And we've seen this out of a lot of subscriber-base businesses in the last couple months with the improving economy, lower gas prices. Everybody seems to feel like that's helping with churn rates. And so we think it's helping us as well. And I'll tell you that on the vehicle-related churn that it's still early days of us getting an understanding of how our self-pay subscribers are going to turn over their cars. And just to be honest with you, Bryan, we don't have any great insights on exactly how that's going to play out. So I don't know if the improvement that we saw there over our expectations is a function of something that we can count on continuing. Do we have a just a flaw in our modeling logic? It's simply too early to know. I will tell you with respect to the year that we feel confident in hitting our revised guidance.

Bryan Kraft - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Thank you, David.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to James Ratcliffe with Buckingham Research.

James M. Ratcliffe - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Buckingham Research

Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. In the light of some recent proposed legislation like the Fair Play, Fair Pay Act, can you just update us on your thoughts around, if any potential changes in the overall legal structure around licensing fees and do you expect to see anything out of Washington on that? Thanks. David J. Frear - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I certainly don't expect to see anything in the near term out of Washington. I think it's an unbelievably complicated landscape. There are a lot of issues for people to consider. And I'd certainly expect there to be an active lobbying agenda by a lot of people for changes in the way that royalties are administered in the United States, but I know I'm not optimistic in the near term for their being legislation coming through.

James M. Ratcliffe - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Buckingham Research

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Jessica Reif Cohen with of America Merrill Lynch.

Jessica Jean Reif Cohen - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · of America Merrill Lynch

Thanks. I have a couple of questions. First, on the content side: What caused the drop in the content cost? David J. Frear - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Nothing in particular. There weren't any big contracts, so we – I think in coming through, we did make some changes in the lineup and there's nothing really notable in it. I don't think that there's a – I don't think there's – Jim went through, we're certainly investing in all the program. We're putting up everything that we want to put up.

Jessica Jean Reif Cohen - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · of America Merrill Lynch

Exactly. It sounds like from what Jim said, I mean, it was like a huge amount of new programming coming on. Have you dropped any channels? And then what's the count look – so, there's Pitbull, there's comedy, there's talk – I, like I lost – there's – it sounds like there's a lot of new programming and - David J. Frear - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. Exactly.

Jessica Jean Reif Cohen - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · of America Merrill Lynch

... you didn't mention the West Coast programming, like, that was just something you talked a few quarters ago.

Scott Greenstein - President and Chief Content Officer, Sirius SM Holdings, Inc.

Analyst · of America Merrill Lynch

Okay. So, Jessica, it's Scott. Let's go over that. So, yeah, we added a lot of new programming. And much like mix and other things, certain things – shows and others go in and out, nothing of any significance and our costs get balanced by that. The other thing is when shows get announced, the costs often don't hit until the shows start to ramp up and be on the air. So a lot of these, like Andy Cohen for instance is announced, there's no cost against it right now as the show and the channel isn't likely to launch until September. The West Coast just recovered its full blast. As I mentioned, we have Leno and Chelsea Handlers Booker on staff. We're moving one of our shows, Covino & Rich, out there, who has always – has been with us a while and is very entertainment-oriented. And you could assume by the next call, there'll be another announcement in that area where we'll have a significant host out there that will be an anchor for the entertainment stars and people out there. But that, the studio's built and running, the office is up and running, guests and content coming out of there on a regular basis. In addition, just one thing on programming, Fantasy Sports, which has become very big, which is something we've anchored for a long time with our Fantasy channel is now a dominant player in that area. So that's something to keep an eye on. It's a homegrown channel that has a lot of traction.

Jessica Jean Reif Cohen - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · of America Merrill Lynch

Great. And then just switching gears, on the buyback, can you comment at all if Liberty is indicating any interest in selling. I mean, obviously, there's been a lot of news between Comcast and Time Warner Cable and Charter potentially bidding for Time Warner Cable again. Can you give us any color at all in terms of what Liberty's thinking?

Scott Greenstein - President and Chief Content Officer, Sirius SM Holdings, Inc.

Analyst · of America Merrill Lynch

No. You really need to ask Liberty.

Jessica Jean Reif Cohen - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · of America Merrill Lynch

Okay. And then, maybe switching gears again – I'm not sure you mentioned it, but was there any improvement in the used car conversion rate? David J. Frear - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: It's stayed at – we've been talking low 30s for a long time now. I've been telling you for a long time that I'm really surprised by the fact that it's at that level and that it continues to stay in that low 30s area.

Jessica Jean Reif Cohen - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · of America Merrill Lynch

And then one last thing, the margin obviously – you had like tremendous margin growth. Are you rethinking the margin upside? I think you've publicly said 40% is kind of a goal, but... James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: That's still our target, Jessica.

Jessica Jean Reif Cohen - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · of America Merrill Lynch

Okay. James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: That's still where we see it going. I just want to come back to your comment on programming. While we're pleased where the first quarter came out, and I think we've been pretty clear about what we see happening in that line item this year, I would say to you as you look at both the mid and longer term, we are committed to investing in programming, and certainly, you should expect that line item to increase over time.

Jessica Jean Reif Cohen - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · of America Merrill Lynch

Great. Thank you so much.

Operator

Operator

Next question is from James Marsh with Piper Jaffray. James M. Marsh - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Yeah. Just two quick questions here. First, on the 16 million new and used trialers that you mentioned, I was just hoping you could give us some sense for how this compares to historical levels, like – I don't know – maybe even just three years ago, how much of that's grown? And then secondly, I was hoping you could follow up a little bit on the ad revenue growth. Are there any particular drivers there? Is that a sustainable growth rate? David J. Frear - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Scott, do you want to talk about ad revenue?

Scott Greenstein - President and Chief Content Officer, Sirius SM Holdings, Inc.

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

Yeah. On the ad revenue, as I mentioned earlier, Fantasy Sports has become a big ad generator. That was a surprise to us. Our news channels have always been strong. They continue to be strong, and as Jim mentioned, we have a very robust and getting bigger comedy lineup that does some shows on that and all the sports. So it's sort of starting to gel. The other thing is the audience, as it continues to grow in size is a very robust credit card bearing attentive audience, and a lot of our advertisers are getting good results. So it's the old fashioned thing, it's working, and they're coming back for more. So we're really excited over the potential where we're going with that. David J. Frear - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And on the trialers that – we've seen the 16 million trialers that Jim referenced, it was – I think it was about 14 million trialers last year. It was probably a little over 12 million trialers the year before. I mean the way that you should think about this going forward is that, if new car sales stay at about this sort of high $16 millions level, and given our penetration rate in the 70% range, that translates into roughly 12 million new car trialers. And based on the distribution of car sales in the country that you should expect our used car sellers to – used car trials to, over the next, sort of, let's call it, over the medium-term, in the next few years, beyond two years to three years, that you should see those equal the new car trial level. And ultimately in the long term, we should end up with more used car trialers than new. James M. Marsh - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): All right. Excellent. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley. Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thanks. Good morning. Jim, can you expand a little bit more on the SXM17 announcement you made? It sounds like it's a huge initiative at the company. And specifically, you talked about the impact and the product platform that's coming out, but what might be the impact for the company on sort of the data side? Will learning more about what your users listen to through a two-way platform help; is that at a big deal? And how do you think about the usage transitioning over time away from the satellite platform towards more streaming on other parts of the P&L? I'm thinking the cost structure around streaming costs, having to do maybe direct deals with labels? And is there any impact on SAC from all this? And the last piece of it is I'm guessing SXM17 is 2017, is that a model year target for you guys? And any idea on how many OEMs or how much of SAAR might actually include this new platform? Thanks. James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, Ben, I – when I put this comment – this in my comments, I fully expected the - Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: (31:38) James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: I fully expected these questions, and I'm not ready to answer all of them yet, but I will start with a few. Number one, I can't tell you how excited I am about this initiative. I've been hinting at it for the last four quarters in my quarterly earnings call comments that you were going to see us create our next platform around both streaming and satellite. Number two,…

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Barton Crockett with FBR Capital Markets. Barton E. Crockett - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Okay. Thank you for taking the question. I wanted to probe a little bit more on the subscriber trajectory. You put up this very big growth in net additions year-over-year in the first quarter, but your guidance for the year would have net addition down about 20% even with the increase here. So I'm just wondering if you could give us a little bit more information on what you think makes the comps tougher or the growth slow later in the year or just clarify if there's just an element of conservatism that goes into your outlook there? David J. Frear - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: It's a couple things, Barton. One is is that it's the mass of bigger subscriber base is a big headwind to fight in terms of getting to net additions growth. All right, so that – and the second thing is is that I don't know whether or not what we saw in vehicle-related churn in the first quarter is an anomaly or not. I mean I just – they have zero visibility into that. So, for better or for worse that – we have generally been pretty accurate over the years in forecasting vehicle-related churn. We had a deviation from that in the first quarter. And I guess if – before I'd turnaround and bake that into a forecast running forward, I'd like to see it stabilize a little bit because it really did come as a – as an upside surprise for us. James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, Barton, I couldn't agree more with David. If you go back and if you broke our business into…

Operator

Operator

Next will be James Goss with Barrington Research.

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks. Actually following up on a couple of these SXM17 questions. What is your path into the car? Is it via phones in anticipation of ultimately getting to an affordable package as we head to the connected cars? And also within that area, as you stream more, what are your expectations as to royalties for streamed products and sets sort of in negotiation right now? David J. Frear - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Let me take the last question first and then I'll kick it over to Jim for the path into the car. Streaming is something that we have offered for a dozen years now as a way of our subscribers extending their enjoyment of the product beyond the car, and we're going to continue to invest in that, make it better and everything else. That being said, that there is a long-term behavior that the subscribers have shown for how they use that product and that is already – with the differential rates and everything else, already baked into our numbers. And I think that even as we move towards the distribution of our recent app upgrades in the marketplaces, we move towards SiriusXM17 and continued improvements in that, while I would expect the streaming usage by our subscribers to intensify, I don't think you'll be able to find the economic effect of it in our results. James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. And I want to come back to how is it going to go in the vehicle, and then I'll comment one more on what David said. Number one, the answer to your question is yes. I mean we work very closely with the vehicle makers. You know we're involved with the vehicle makers out, frankly, on product plans…

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And one other question related to the programming issue, I was wondering how you think of -

Scott Greenstein - President and Chief Content Officer, Sirius SM Holdings, Inc.

Analyst · of America Merrill Lynch

What issue?

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

Oh, well, the – I wonder what you look at in terms of bandwidth allocation for number of channels versus the quality of the – of what you produce since there is a tie – you only have so much – or ability to deliver channels without sort of diluting the quality of the content, the way you hear it. And do you allocate a certain number of channels that it will rotate through the latest new thing and then sort of deal with it that way or is there some other thing you can do?

Scott Greenstein - President and Chief Content Officer, Sirius SM Holdings, Inc.

Analyst · of America Merrill Lynch

Well, I think there's a couple of things. One, I've been here eleven years and we – I think it's eleven years and – maybe it's twelve now; it's been a while. We – and every year we continue to invest in new technologies pretty significantly to try to improve the efficiency of how those bits are delivered and how they sound, so that we can get more output. I will also tell you we study reasons for churn extremely close and quality of audio signal virtually never shows up. I can't tell you where I've seen it as a reason code where customers have said, I'm leaving your service or I didn't subscribe to your service because I was unsatisfied with the quality of the audio channels. So we think we have that about right. We obviously, as we transition into new – our new chipsets, there are ways that give us more capacity. We're in the middle of those now where our newer chipsets have more capacity, but obviously that doesn't help the radios going backwards. And so we continue to work through kind of that balance of how do we offer the most channels we can at the best bit rate; and obviously, not all channels are at the same bit rate. And so it's really a pretty complicated question that I think we've – we've done a pretty good job maximizing to end up with an experience that customers are happy with.

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

All right. That's a great answer. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And the next and final question is from Kannan Venkateshwar with Barclays.

Kannan Venkateshwar - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

Thank you. Just one question, which is as your mix of subscribers has changed more and more towards the lower end tends and used cars, how have the – how has the subscription bundle changed, which is what price points are the newer subscribers coming into and how is that impacting ARPU as you see these trends evolve? David J. Frear - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: There's really no discernible difference in package demand by acquisition channel that as you look at new car buyers and used car buyers, they tend to come on board in similar packages and they transition to similar packages over time. So there – I don't really see any meaningful difference between them.

Scott Greenstein - President and Chief Content Officer, Sirius SM Holdings, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

I think where you do see it a little might be in the conversion. So you might see those buyers being a little more elastic, and so you may have seen some of that particularly in our new car conversion, and obviously our used car conversion is lower than our new car conversion even though we're very pleased with it; but once they come on board, they tend to behave the same.

Kannan Venkateshwar - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

All right. Thank you.

Hooper Stevens - Vice President, Investor Relations and Finance, Sirius XM Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thank you for participating today. We'll talk to you next quarter.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation.