Earnings Labs

Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (SIRI)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 2, 2016

$26.34

-1.75%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-1.96%

1 Week

-6.16%

1 Month

+9.52%

vs S&P

+4.12%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the SiriusXM Full Year and Fourth 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'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Hooper Stevens, Vice President, Investor Relations and Finance. Mr. Stevens, please go ahead. Hooper Stevens - Vice President, Investor Relations & Finance, Sirius XM Radio Inc.: Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to SiriusXM's earnings conference call. Today, Jim Meyer, our Chief Executive Officer, will be joined by David Frear, our Senior 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 may 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 use SiriusXM'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. I will now hand the call over to Jim Meyer. James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks,…

David J. Frear - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thanks, Jim. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for participating today. SiriusXM finished a very strong 2015 with excellent results. Our subscriber performance was record-setting. In 2015, we added 2.3 million net new subscribers, 30% more than 2014 and the highest growth in net new subs since the two companies merged. Our subscriber base now sits at 29.6 million. Self-pay net subscriber adds for the year were nearly 1.8 million, another record high and 23% growth over 2014, taking up the 24.3 million self-paying subscribers. A 15-year high in auto sales, combined with nearly 75% production penetration, drove a record year for conversions of new car trials in 2015. Used car conversions grew by more than 20% in 2015 as sales of previously owned SiriusXM-enabled vehicles grew and our network of participating dealers expanded to 19,000. Combined with continued growth in our winback channel and solid performance from aftermarket sales, self-pay additions expanded more than 10% to more than 8.1 million. Churn, on the other hand, grew just 7% over 2014. For the first time, vehicle turnover was the largest single component of churn. Vehicle turnover is the satellite radio equivalent that moves in the multichannel video business. And while we expect vehicle-related churn to continue rising as our subscriber base grows and as our vehicle fleet ages, existing subscribers are overwhelmingly likely to convert as they move through the trial period in their next car. Voluntary churn actually declined slightly in real numbers from 2014 while non-pay churn rates rose slightly as recoveries of failed credit cards were impaired by the regulatory changes imposed on us as the FCC's outbound telemarketing ruling back in the summer. Over the last four years, the rate of non-pay and voluntary churn combined together has remained fairly steady in the range of approximately 1.4%…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we would like to open the call up for questions. And our first question will come from Barton Crockett of FBR Capital Markets. Barton E. Crockett - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Okay, great. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask about one of the expense lines, G&A, which was like $96 million, I think in this quarter, versus $60 million last year, much higher than we've seen really in any quarter for a while. What drove that? Is that kind of a new level to model from or was that just kind of a one-time jump?

David J. Frear - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

No. The litigation charge that I mentioned is reflected in that, Barton. When you look beyond that, there's really no change in G&A outside of the normal trends. Barton E. Crockett - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Okay. And just remind me, what was the litigation charge? How large was that?

David J. Frear - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

The litigation charge combined with changes in insurance recoveries, depending on what period you're comparing to, is an effect of a little over $20 million. Barton E. Crockett - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Okay, all right. And the other thing is your free trial conversion rate was 39%, which is a little lower than the 40% we've seen in a couple of recent quarters. I know your penetration went up, but I was wondering if you could talk about what drove that decline and whether that looks like kind of the new base to model from here? James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I think there are two elements to it. Number one, I can tell you what it's not. What we do not see is a competitive impact right now. That's certainly not what we're seeing. But there are two things driving it. One, as we have driven our penetration, and think about it, we're almost 80% in the fourth quarter, we've gone deeper and deeper into lower and lower trim levels that certainly has an impact on the number. And then also, quite candidly, the changes that were made in the outbound telemarketing laws this summer, as we reviewed those and absorbed those, we made a lot of changes in our cadence in the way we go about those things. And we haven't gotten back to where we were before those changes. We're deeply focused on that. I would like to think we're going to get back to 40%. I think we're probably going to be in the 38% to 40% range here for the foreseeable future. Barton E. Crockett - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Okay, great. And then one final question, stepping back a little bit, now that we have a decision out of the Copyright Royalty Board on the rates for essentially free streaming services like Pandora, do you guys think differently now about that as an area of possible focus for acquisitions? I know in the past you've been skeptical about the costs, but now that we know the cost structure, does that change your thinking in any way?

David J. Frear - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Barton, I don't think there's anything about the webcaster decision that changes our thinking kind of relative merits of different business plans. The webcaster decision cost went down for us. They went up for our free competitors. I'm still mystified as to why, as a subscription service, we should pay more for spinning the same song that one of the free services that doesn't monetize as well pays. But, look, the decision is what it is on the margin, it's a plus for us, it's a negative for the webcasters. James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Barton, as I've told you, and I said in my comments again, we look at everything, okay, and we continue to look at everything. I completely agree with David that the CRB decision in the late, late last year doesn't really have any impact on those things. But you should assume we continue to look at everything. Barton E. Crockett - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Okay, great. Thanks for the time.

Operator

Operator

And we'll turn next to James Ratcliffe of Buckingham Research Group.

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

Analyst

Good morning. Two, if I could. First of all, in churn, David, you mentioned the FTC (sic) [FCC] (30:21) decision and the like. Is this kind of the new normal in terms of your ability to engage in recovery or are there ways to get to those customers that just takes some time? And secondly, just regarding leverage, you're about 3.3 turns. You've talked about four turns in the past. Really, you decelerate the buyback a little, given the prices in 4Q. How do we think about shareholder returns going forward, and if leverage is really the right way to think about this or is it more in dollar terms? Thanks.

David J. Frear - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Okay. So, on the recovery, we use a lot of outbound telemarketing. Jim just talked about it from the impact on conclusion perspective. We use outbound telemarketing in collection efforts on credit cards that don't clear when they first go through. And the FCC put out a very expansive definition of what constitutes an automated dialing system last summer. They put it out with no notice and it literally was effective the day it was released. And so, it has taken months for us to readjust our call center vendors, because they actually have to manually dial every single number now. So, it's like literally pushing buttons. And what you've got is that it's a different way for people working. And so, it doesn't sound like a big deal. But the way their work day goes is radically different now. And it's taking a while for the change in practices on the desktop to show up in the same kind of statistical results across hundreds of thousands of calls on both the conversion side as well as the collection side. And it's one of the, sort of, gritty operational issues that you just have to slug through day after day after day after day. So, we think we'll get there. We think things will improve. I would say that we have filed a suit to overturn or at least get re-reviewed the FCC's definition here. I think everybody in the industry looking at it thinks that it is overreaching and we'll see how that goes. In terms of the leverage side of things, the four times we've had out there is a target that we don't – we've always indicated no rush to get there, and we're always looking for opportunities to acquire things. And one of the things we look to acquire when it's a bargain is our own stock. But there are other things out there as well. So, I'm not inclined to drive our leverage to four times just on the back of the stock buyback because I think, it then limits our flexibility for dislocation in asset prices that we might be interested in acquiring. For a long time, we've talked about roughly a $2 billion a year capital return program. Maybe we'd be up a little bit from that, maybe we will be down a little bit. I think that's what you can expect absent us finding something cheaper to buy in the market.

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

Analyst

All right. Thank you. James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: James, I just want to make one point on the outbound telemarketing and that is, there are many, many elements that go into our marketing strategies. And we performed pretty damn good through most of those in the fourth quarter. There's a reason why many direct marketers use telemarketing and that's because it works. But I understand your question and I've tasked our marketing organization for the mid-term and the long-term, what other tools can we develop to supplement, and maybe one day take away some of the efforts that we've put into that area with other types of marketing? And you should assume we're going to invest and keep working there.

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

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And from JPMorgan, we next go to Eric Pan.

Eric Pan - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Couple of questions on programming cost and margin; how should we think about the step-up in programming cost this year from the Howard Stern and NFL renewals? And then you said margin expansion would be tough this year. How much can we expect margins to compress or could it remain stable? Thank you.

David J. Frear - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Well, Eric, we've given our guidance for EBITDA and revenue, so I think you've got the margin. And as it relates the effect of the NFL and Howard contracts, we have a longstanding policy of not talking about major contracts. So, we don't talk about the terms of programming contracts, nor do we talk about the terms of our OEM contracts. So, we'll continue that, but certainly it is incorporated in our guidance as well as our remarks for a return to margin expansion in 2017.

Eric Pan - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Perhaps, I can have one more then. Within the used car market, you guys had over 6 million used car trials last year, what should we expect in terms of the number of trials this year?

David J. Frear - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Let's see. I think that 20% expansion that I talked about is – it's always hard for us to know this because it's a market where we don't – there's not great visibility of vehicle turnover. So, I know that Hooper hates it when I say we don't have a great grip on this, but it's really true. Over time, we think that the statistical behavior turnover of the vehicle fleet will sort of make itself clear. But we're in way early days of that, and this is a market, the 6 million is probably going to – certainly going to at least double in the course of the next few years, and will probably triple over the course of the next 10 years. And when you're talking about those kind of growth rates, it's tough to put a pin in a number in one year.

Eric Pan - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Got it. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Jessica Reif Cohen of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Peter Henderson - Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc.: Yes. Good morning. This is Peter Henderson actually for Jessica. Just a couple of questions; as part of the new Howard Stern deal, you announced a plan for a new video offering. Can you provide any incremental thoughts around that product, perhaps an update on the potential for ancillary content, possible pricing, distribution and also will it include an international component? And just quickly related to that, post the new chipset, Sirius is going to have an abundance of spectrum relative to the current 150-channel audio offering. Can you talk about potential to offer video through that spare spectrum and how you would think about potentially selling the spectrum versus utilizing it yourself? James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, I'll answer both. I'll start with Howard. I was pretty deliberate on my remarks not to give you a lot of detail, because we're still working on the detail. But when we're ready, you'll be the first to know. I'm pretty excited about it. And for sure, it will include allowing our subscribers to access the video feed live of The Howard Stern Show. And we know from talking to a lot of our subscribers, that's something they would like. And furthermore, many of them would like access to the library that goes back many, many, many years. Obviously, the creative experience for how this will be presented to customers will be curated and controlled by Howard. And we're in the process of working with him to make sure his vision is exactly what we want. But you'll hear from us this year, that's for sure on this one. And again, I want to…

Operator

Operator

Next we go to Ben Swinburne of Morgan Stanley. Ryan Fiftal - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hi. Good morning. It's Ryan Fiftal on for Ben. So, first, a quick one on new car penetration, and then, I'd like to ask on the used channel as well. So, I guess on penetration, I think if I heard correctly, you said that the new vehicle penetration was up to 80% in the quarter, but that we should model mid-70%s going forward. So, I was just wondering if... James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think to be correct, it was 78% or 78.2% or something like that. I'm sorry. Ryan Fiftal - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: But it sounds like you expect that that was a peak and it should go back to the mid-70%s? So I was just curious what was going on there?

David J. Frear - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

It's a mix issue, right? We have some automakers that are higher than that and some that are lower and sales mix affects the pen rate. So mid-70%s is what looks to us as the right number to be using at this point. Ryan Fiftal - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. Thanks. And then on the used channel, I don't know if I missed it, but did you say what the used conversion rate was this quarter? And has it kind of maintained in the low-30%s and any trends there? And then similarly on used, Jim, I think you mentioned that 28% of used transactions have factory-installed radios. I was curious like what percentage of those transactions do you think you have visibility into or the ability to market to now? And how do you see that trending over the next couple years? Thank you.

David J. Frear - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

So, the used conversion rate is – nothing's changed about it, still in the low-30%s. James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: And on the incorporation rate, it's a great question. It's one that goes back to what David kind of answered James' question earlier on, what are the trends? Obviously, the first issue for us is identifying how many of the cars we actually think have our technology, and then most importantly, finding those cars on a timely basis so that we can immediately start customers' trialers. And I can tell you, customers do a lot better when they're given a trial much earlier in their acquisition process, than later. Put it that way, our conversion is better. So, I don't think I can give you the most accurate answer to that right now, but I can tell you, we're working on making sure we can answer that more clearly. Ryan Fiftal - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. And then do you think there could be a step function change... James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: And by the way, I'll just – even to show you how straightforward I am, if you call Hooper later and he has that clear answer, I'd love to give it to you. Ryan Fiftal - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: All right. I'll let you know. I guess do you think there could be a step function as you do some of these deals and get data from other companies, like insurance companies, et cetera? Could that number, whatever it is, move relatively quickly, do you think? James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes. I mean, one of the things that David and I are kind of driven in our heads and changed, I think, it's a change in our culture in the company. I know this sounds a little blasphemous, but we're less concerned about the conversion rate than we are with the yield, how many actually total do we get out of the funnel, okay? And we're much more worried right now about how good can we drive the top of the funnel and how timely are we driving the top of the funnel. And so, because our acquisition cost here is so low, right, there's almost – if you think about it, if you go all the way down even in the single digits, we would still go after that business in terms of converging, you see what I'm saying? Because our acquisition cost is so low. And so, we're looking at every way possible to drive the top of that funnel, irregardless of what it might do to the actual percent of conversion and we're much more thinking about how do we get more subscribers out of it. Ryan Fiftal - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Sure. That makes sense. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Matthew Harrigan of Wunderlich Securities.

Matthew J. Harrigan - Wunderlich Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wunderlich Securities

Thank you. SXM17, it looks like it's also complemented by a lot of the progress you've made on the apps. I know you can do some really fun things at some point. If you're in an Uber, logging into your profile and all that, but could you talk about your ambitions outside the car as well or at least as a complementary, more full ecosystem approach? Thank you. James E. Meyer - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. So, Matthew, number one, thank you for pulling that out. I should have put that in my remarks. And that is, for those of you that don't know, we're now consistently in the low-4 stars to mid-4 stars, 4.2 stars to 4.5 stars, on our app on both Google App in the Google Environment, and the – or the Android environment, and the Apple environment. I'm really pleased with that. Our team has done a really good job. I can tell you I've driven them really hard and it hasn't been free to get there, but I'm really pleased where we are. I remain committed to one premise and that is subscribers to our service should get our service however they want it. If they want to listen on the satellite, that's how they can get it. They want to listen to it streamed on their phone, that's how they could get it. They want to stream it through their Sonos or their pay TV, I mean or their – some other way in their home, all of those things are fine with me. And certainly, we are spending a lot more, investing a lot more money to make sure that our subscribers can get our service in a variety of ways, in any way they want it. So, yes, I would expect over time more and more of our subscribers to blend how they listen to SiriusXM. By that I mean listening to it in the car and listening to it at home, through in many cases, a streamed experience. And if you go to the heart of SiriusXM17, what it really says, we don't care how they listen to, we only care that they listen.

Matthew J. Harrigan - Wunderlich Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wunderlich Securities

Thanks, Jim.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next and final question from Jason Bazinet of Citi.

Jason Boisvert Bazinet - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi

I just had one question regarding buybacks. Can you remind us at what point Liberty's ownership becomes a consideration in terms of the magnitude of buybacks that you'll pursue?

David J. Frear - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Well, I mean there's no hard and fast number there, right? So, it's like how much more hard control can you have? Once they're 50%, they're through 50%. So, I know we're not worried about 80% in tax consolidation because before we can get there, we will have used up the NOLs. And so, there's not like an economic transfer from Sirius public shareholders to Liberty shareholders. I think securities lawyers would probably tell you that as you approach 90% that you're going to want to – just like you wouldn't want to buy somebody from 49% to 51% and give them hard control.

Jason Boisvert Bazinet - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi

Yes.

David J. Frear - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

I think securities lawyers might tell us you don't want to take somebody from 89% to 91% and let them do a squeeze-out merger. And that certainly is a long way away. I think the bigger thing for us as we look out is what's the liquidity in stock? Is there an active sort of liquid public float? Are the daily trading values large enough so that investors can get in and out of the stock efficiently? And as long as we don't see some sort of liquidity discount working its way into the stock, I just don't know that there's a real reason to pay too much attention to the percentage.

Jason Boisvert Bazinet - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi

Okay. Thank you. And just one follow-up. Is sort of not being a full tax payer sort of a strategic priority for Sirius? Or as the NOLs run out, that's fine. You don't mind sort of paying full free on the tax?

David J. Frear - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Well, I mean, so, look, as somebody said to me once a long time ago, there are worse things than paying taxes, like not having the opportunity to pay taxes. And so, the fact is, we have very profitable business. The fact also is that we spent $12 billion in peak funding before we got to that very profitable business. And now we're rapidly absorbing the NOLs. We certainly do all the things that you would expect a company do to optimize its tax position. We've got fewer cards to play right now than others because we are quite clearly a U.S.-based business, right? All our subscribers are here. We got satellites that rain down signals here and it's pretty clear where the revenues are generated from. If we were to develop an international component to the business, that there then is the opportunity to begin maybe to provide sort of cross-border service arrangements and things like that to optimize your tax position. But as the U.S. service, you've got to work within the U.S. code.

Jason Boisvert Bazinet - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi

Understood. Thank you very much.