Greetings. Welcome to the SiriusXM's 1st quarter 2026 earnings call. This time, all participants will be in listen-only mode. The question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to introduce Jennifer DiGrazia, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Jennifer DiGrazia. You may begin.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to SiriusXM's first quarter 2026 earnings call. Today's discussion will include prepared remarks from Jennifer Witz, our Chief Executive Officer, and Zac Coughlin, our Chief Financial Officer. Following their comments, we will open the call for questions. Joining us for the Q&A portion are Scott Greenstein, our President and Chief Content Officer, Wayne Thorsen, our Chief Operating Officer, and Scott Walker, our Chief Advertising Revenue Officer. 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 upon 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 subjects to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.
For more information about those risks and uncertainties, please view SiriusXM's SEC filings and today's earnings release. We advise listeners to not rely unduly on forward-looking statements and disclaim any intent or obligation to update them. As we begin, I'd like to remind our listeners that today's call will include discussions about both actual results and adjusted results. All discussions of adjusted operating results exclude the effects of stock-based compensation. Additionally, please find a supplemental earnings presentation and trending schedule on our investor relations website for your convenience. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jennifer.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are off to a strong start in 2026, executing with focus and discipline against our 3 strategic priorities we outlined in December 2024, strengthening our subscription business by delivering exceptional in-car listening experiences, accelerating growth across our advertising business, and leveraging our scaled SiriusXM portfolio to drive efficiency and long-term value. In the first quarter, we made meaningful progress across each of these areas, supported by solid performance in our core business and strong operational execution. On the subscriber side, we delivered significant year-over-year improvement in net additions through ARPU and achieved the lowest first quarter churn and highest subscriber satisfaction scores in our history.
Through our recently announced landmark partnership with YouTube, we will significantly enhance our advertising capacity, and we continue to expand margins through our enhanced focus on efficiency, capturing $45 million toward our $100 million 2026 cost savings target. Before turning the call over to Zac for a more detailed review of our financials, I would like to offer a few observations. Starting with our subscription business, performance in the quarter was strong, with a meaningful year-over-year improvement in self-pay net additions to - 111,000, an improvement of 192,000. This reflects the growing adoption of companion subscriptions among our most loyal customers, ongoing progress with our continuous service initiatives, and momentum in our automotive dealer extended duration plans.
Together, these offerings expand SiriusXM's presence across multiple vehicles and users within a household and make it easier for subscribers to seamlessly maintain service as they transition between vehicles, deepening engagement and reinforcing long-term loyalty. While we remain mindful of a more measured auto sales environment and its potential impact on trial volumes, our resilient in-car foundation and focus on controllable levers continue to support performance. Churn remained a standout, improving to 1.5% despite our February price increase, which contributed to a 1% year-over-year increase in ARPU to $14.99. The combination of pricing discipline, supported by continually adding value to our packages and the ongoing impact of our customer experience initiatives underscores the durability of our subscription model. Our strong retention is also supported by high customer satisfaction levels.
Our latest study showed year-over-year improvement across all five core metrics: satisfaction, perceived value, likelihood to continue, likelihood to recommend, and the essentialness of our service. Notably, both loyalty and perception metrics rose in tandem, an important signal of not only current satisfaction, but also growing confidence in the long-term value of our offering. We are also seeing traction across key demographics, with the majority of the increase in satisfaction being driven by Gen X and Y. Gen X delivered strong gains, particularly in perceived value, intent to continue, and essentialness, while millennials showed meaningful improvement in satisfaction and value, highlighting both the progress we are making and the opportunity that remains. Content is a defining strength of SiriusXM and a key driver of perceived value and engagement. We continue to expand and evolve our programming in ways that fuel fandom and deepen engagement across music, sports, comedy, and culture.
In the first quarter, we introduced exclusive full-time artist-led channels from global stars Morgan Wallen and John Summit, alongside pop-up channels from BTS, Luke Combs, and Robyn, as well as distinctive programming such as John Mayer's Grateful Dead listening party. We deepened our partnership with Metallica with the launch of the live call-in show, 'Tallica Talk, expanded Alt2K to our full subscriber base following eight consecutive quarters of audience growth, and broadened our comedy offering with a dedicated 24/7 channel featuring Sebastian Maniscalco. Our news and talk category is also gaining momentum, with consumption up 15% sequentially. This reflects continued investment in both independent and exclusive voices, from the launch of Cuomo Mornings to the strong performance of The Megyn Kelly Channel, where listening has grown 28% since its launch in November.
We are also creating distinctive high-impact moments for listeners, from intimate performances to major cultural events, featuring artists like Noah Kahan during Super Bowl week, Kenny Chesney at Floribama, Morgan Wallen in Nashville, and a recent SmartLess taping in Hollywood. In sports, our offering is unmatched, spanning every major league and premier event from the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL to college athletics, auto racing, golf, and more, making SiriusXM a true year-round destination for fans. Our college sports offering continues to build momentum as a core part of our bundle, with listening hours for March Madness and the College Football Championship up 22% and 37% year-over-year, respectively. At the same time, our hardware and software evolution continues to enhance the listener experience.
As 360L expands across nearly all major OEM lineups, we're driving sustained growth in 360L-enabled subscriptions and increasing adoption of more personalized nonlinear listening. This is fueling double-digit growth in both usage and time spent with features like extra channels and artist-seeded stations, deepening engagement. Turning to our advertising business, momentum is accelerating. Advertising revenue grew 3% to nearly $407 million in the quarter, driven by a 37% increase in podcasting ad revenue. This reflects strong traction in video and social through our Creator Connect strategy, as well as accelerating programmatic demand, where revenue more than doubled year-over-year through Google's DV360. Our partnership with YouTube marks a significant step forward.
As the exclusive U.S. advertising representative for YouTube's audio inventory, we are expanding our reach to 255 million monthly listeners, nearly 90% of the U.S. population aged 13 and older. For the first time, we will offer advertisers scaled access to premium audio across a wide range of content, from iconic franchises like SNL to leading creators like MrBeast, as well as podcasts beyond our own network and streaming music. Beginning this fall, advertisers will benefit from expanded high-quality inventory paired with advanced targeting and measurement capabilities. By combining SiriusXM Media's leadership in audio advertising with YouTube's scale and always-on engagement, we are delivering high-attention inventory through a more seamless buying experience while advancing a more open, connected ecosystem for advertisers. In podcasting, we remain the number-one podcast network in the U.S. by weekly reach.
As a launch partner for Apple's new video podcasting experience, we are helping shape the next evolution of the medium by unlocking dynamic video ad insertion and expanding access to a significantly larger advertising market. This uniquely positions us to power monetization across audio formats with greater flexibility and optionality for both creators and advertisers. These efforts reflect our commitment to an open podcast ecosystem that enables creators to grow across platforms. Across the portfolio, we are leveraging our scale, data, and technology to unlock new growth opportunities and deliver stronger outcomes for advertisers. At the same time, we remain focused on building a high-performing, future-ready organization. We recently welcomed Eve Konstan as Chief Legal Officer, bringing deep expertise across media, technology, and content, and further strengthening our operating discipline in support of our strategic priorities. Our progress is also being recognized externally.
We were named by Forbes as one of the best brands for social impact and by Newsweek as one of America's greatest workplaces for culture, belonging, and community, as well as for women. Turning to our outlook, our disciplined approach gives us confidence in delivering on our 2026 full-year guidance, relatively flat revenue, and stable adjusted EBITDA. While subscriber trends are expected to be modestly lower year-over-year, our focus remains on strong execution and driving continued free cash flow growth. Importantly, the fundamentals of our business remain strong. We have a durable subscription model, predictable and growing cash generation, and a unique combination of assets, including premium content, unmatched in-car distribution, scaled audience reach, and leading ad technology. We believe these strengths position SiriusXM well for the future, and we remain committed to disciplined execution, thoughtful investment, and delivering sustainable long-term value for our shareholders.
With that, I'll turn it over to Zac for more detail on the financial results.
Thanks, Jennifer. Thank you everyone for joining us today. We delivered a solid start to the year with three key financial takeaways. First, we delivered revenue of $2.09 billion, up 1% year-over-year, supported by the strength of our subscriber base and continued momentum in advertising, where revenue increased 3%. Second, our disciplined cost management and a continued focus on efficiency drove approximately 6% growth in adjusted EBITDA to $666 million. Third, the strength and stability of our earnings and cash flow continues to create significant shareholder value, with net income up 20% and free cash flow more than tripling year-over-year to $171 million. Together, these results underscore the steady progress we are making against our long-term strategic initiatives to enhance profitability and drive free cash flow generation.
Looking first at the top line, consolidated revenue was nearly $2.1 billion, including $1.6 billion of subscription revenue, also up approximately 1% year-over-year. This growth reflects the early benefit of our recent February price increase, as well as the full year impact from the 2025 rate adjustment, partially offset by a smaller average subscriber base. Advertising revenue increased 3% to $407 million as strengthened podcasting, higher programmatic demand and technology fees more than offset softer demand in streaming music advertising. Turning to profitability, adjusted EBITDA grew 6% year-over-year to $666 million, with margins expanding 140 basis points to 31.9%. This improvement was primarily driven by revenue growth, complemented by disciplined expense management across our customer service, product and technology, and personnel related costs.
Importantly, we captured $45 million towards our goal of delivering an incremental $100 million in gross cost savings this year, which includes $27 million in operating expense run rate savings and $18 million in CapEx savings. As a result, we generated strong bottom line performance, with net income improving 20% to $245 million and earnings per diluted share growing 22% to $0.72. Free cash flow was $171 million, more than tripling year-over-year, primarily driven by higher adjusted EBITDA and lower capital expenditures. Turning to the segments, SiriusXM generated $1.6 billion in first quarter revenue, with subscriber revenue up 1% to $1.5 billion, supported by ARPU increasing 1% to $14.99.
This reflects the benefit of recent pricing actions, including the February adjustment and the carryover benefit from the March 2025 change. SiriusXM advertising revenue declined 10% to $35 million, primarily due to softness in news, while equipment and other revenue at $41 million and $31 million, respectively, were relatively flat year-over-year. Gross profit increased 3% to $966 million, with margin expanding to 61%. While a softer auto environment, particularly following last year's tariff-driven pull forward in vehicle sales, created headwinds for trial starts, new acquisition programs and retention are supporting healthier subscriber trends. Self-pay net additions were negative 111,000, a 192,000 increase versus the prior year period. This was driven in part by growing adoption of companion subscriptions, which contributed in 124,000 incremental self-pay net additions in the quarter.
As a reminder, the companion offering is targeted to our most loyal subscribers. Engagement has remained strong, with continued marketing support and early indicators showing improved retention among those taking advantage of this benefit. This performance was further supported by continued progress in our Continuous Service Initiative, as well as momentum at automotive dealer extended duration plans, more than offsetting lower conversion rates. The stability of our subscriber base remains a core strength, reflected in first quarter self-pay churn of approximately 1.5%, the lowest first quarter level in our history. Notably, churn remained resilient despite recent pricing actions as we continue to evolve our packaging and pricing structure to better meet demand across different customer segments.
With more than half of our subscribers having been with us for over a decade, we believe this performance underscores the strength of our enhanced value proposition and sustained customer satisfaction. Moving now to the Pandora and off-platform segment, revenue increased 3% to $501 million. Advertising revenue grew 5% year-over-year to $372 million, driven by a 37% increase in podcasting revenue and higher programmatic demand and technology fees, partially offset by lower advertising demand for streaming music. We continue to expect modest growth in advertising for the full year 2026. Subscription revenue declined 2% to $129 million due to a smaller subscriber base. Segment gross profit for the quarter was $139 million, with a margin of approximately 28%, representing a slight decline from 29% in the prior year period.
As part of our ongoing efforts to simplify the business and sharpen our focus on higher return initiatives, we recorded a $6 million charge in the first quarter associated with restructuring and severance costs, which compares to $48 million in the prior year period. I'd also like to provide some context on the higher depreciation this quarter. As part of our ongoing portfolio optimization, we have begun decommissioning and planning the deorbit of our FM-6 satellite, reducing its useful life from 15 to 13 years. With SXM-10 now in service, this capacity is no longer needed. We expect approximately $60 million of incremental non-cash depreciation in 2026, including $3 million in the first quarter. This has no impact on free cash flow, but will reduce reported net income and EPS.
Capital expenditures were $105 million in the first quarter, down from $189 million in the prior year period. Primarily reflecting lower satellite spend and the timing of capitalized software and hardware investments. We continue to expect approximately $400 million-$415 million in non-satellite CapEx for the full year. Over time, total CapEx should trend lower with variability driven by the satellite replacement cycle. Near term, spending remains elevated as we complete our next generation of satellites, after which we expect a step down to more normalized levels. Moving to the balance sheet. During the quarter, we completed a successful $1.25 billion refinancing, allowing us to retire all 2026 notes and redeem $250 million of 2027 notes, effectively extending maturities and strengthening our overall capital structure.
We remain on track to achieve our target leverage range of low to mid three times by the end of this year. We also continued to return capital to shareholders, including $91 million in dividends and $21 million in share repurchases. From a financial perspective, we are operating with discipline in a more dynamic macro environment. Our focus remains on what is in our control, driving efficiencies, optimizing the portfolio, and prioritizing high return investments. This positions us to reaffirm our 2026 outlook for relatively stable revenue and adjusted EBITDA, modestly lower self-pay net additions versus 2025, and continued growth in free cash flow to approximately $1.35 billion, with a path to $1.5 billion in 2027.
The durability of our subscription model and the consistency of our cash generation continue to provide a strong foundation as we navigate the current environment and remain focused on long-term value creation. With that, I will turn the call back over to Jennifer to address recent headlines in the media.
Before we open the line for Q&A, I want to briefly address recent media speculation regarding SiriusXM. As a matter of policy, we do not comment on rumors, and we ask that you keep today's questions focused on our operating and financial performance. Our board and management team are always focused on creating long-term value for our shareholders and will continue to pursue that objective in a thoughtful and disciplined way. With that, I will turn the call back to Jen so that we can begin our Q&A session.
Thank you, Jennifer. Operator, we are ready to take our first question.
Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Stephen Laszczyk with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, great. Thanks for taking the questions. Jennifer, maybe on Spectrum, it's become very much top of mind over the last few weeks. I would be curious just to get your latest thoughts around the opportunity that you see for SiriusXM to monetize some of its excess spectrum. Perhaps the types of opportunities you're considering, whether that's building adjacent services, partnering with someone or an outright sale. How soon you feel like these opportunities could come into focus here for the company. Thank you.
Sure. Thanks, Stephen. Before we jump into Spectrum, I just want to acknowledge all that our team has accomplished since we refocused our strategy in December 2024. We are doing exactly what we said we would do, and as a result, we're seeing momentum really across the business. We continue to launch new in-car subscriber acquisition programs and maintain record low churn and high customer satisfaction. We are growing our ad revenue and leveraging our unique strengths to support a significant new partnership with YouTube, which we'll talk more about today. We're finding incremental efficiencies to lower our cost structure, resulting in an improving outlook for both revenue and EBITDA. We're growing free cash flow to our target of $1.5 billion in 2027, reaching our leverage target later this year and giving us the opportunity to expand capital returns to shareholders.
On top of all this, there's what you're asking about, which is how we're exploring ways to highlight the value of our spectrum. I'm gonna start on that, and then I'm gonna hand it over to Wayne to give a bit more detail. You know, clearly recent activity in the market has supported the point that high quality spectrum is increasingly strategic, and particularly as, you know, these new use cases have emerged like direct to device. From our perspective, just as a reminder, we have a very unique position. We control 35 megahertz of contiguous spectrum in the 2 gigahertz band, which is a scarce and valuable asset. Of course, 25 megahertz of that today supports our core satellite radio broadcast operations.
We also recently acquired the 10 megahertz of WCS C and D block licenses, which are the 2 5 megahertz bands around the S-band. These already support emergency and public safety services, but also obviously act as a guard band against potential interference from adjacent terrestrial use alongside S-band. We have been regularly assessing monetization opportunities in our normal course of business. As we have said in the past, we are in discussions with potential partners regarding various options because we see a path to value creation as starting with incremental partnership driven opportunities, and that's gonna allow us to capture some value while we maintain flexibility and upside over time. You know, I'll turn it over to Wayne to give a few more details.
Yeah. Just to add to that, importantly, we do see the path to value creation being partnership focused as well as evaluating things internally, which we've said in the past, and our position there remains consistent. We've also said previously that we're engaged in discussions around potential opportunities with partners, we continue to evaluate those as part of our broader effort to maximize the value of these spectrum assets. That said, we're not going to comment on specifics of any discussion, as is our policy. What I would emphasize, though, is that we view spectrum as a strategic asset with meaningful long-term potential. Our priority here is ensuring that any potential use, whether internal or with third parties, fully protects our core services while creating the opportunity to generate incremental value over time.
That includes support for, of course, our public safety initiatives, any new partnerships discussions, the in-house services that we may make use of given our dramatically increasing footprint of our wideband chipset, and then of course, making sure that we meet all of our regulatory commitments.
Great. Thank you very much.
You bet.
Our next questions are from the line of Jessica Reif Ehrlich with Bank of America. Please proceed with your questions.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I have 2 questions. The second one's a bit of a multi-parter, so I'll start with the first. As media, and I mean, like video and audio continues to consolidate around scaled platforms, how do you think about the importance of incremental audience and advertiser reach, particularly across podcasting, streaming, national versus local ad sales, relative to your current portfolio? If you do conclude that there are assets or capabilities that could accelerate your strategy, how should we think about your willingness to use your balance sheet for more flexibility versus staying firmly within your current leverage framework? That's one. I'll come back to the second.
Okay. I'll let Zac handle leverage in a minute. First of all, I'm very pleased to have Scott Walker, our Chief Ad Revenue Officer and the chief architect of our partnership with YouTube on the call today. I'm gonna turn it over to him in a minute. I think YouTube is so core to what you're asking about. Scale for us is 255 million listeners, which is access to 90% of the U.S. population 13 and older. We are very focused on this as our opportunity to expand scale.
You know, a good way, I think if I just take a step back to understand this partnership, is to first focus on the consumer behaviors that you alluded to about video and audio and how these behaviors aren't necessarily fitting into these neat format boxes we've used as an industry, right? Consumers are moving more fluidly between formats. They're watching and listening as they go about their days. For instance, they might start a video on their phone and then minimize the screen on their commute while they keep listening. This behavior is happening at enormous scale on YouTube. As a result, YouTube has become one of the largest audio consumption platforms in the U.S.
There are numerous examples of this, whether it's listening to music on smart speakers or, you know, listening to a podcast or an interview while your phone is in your pocket. All of these are examples of content consumed the same way people use traditional audio platforms. This partnership that we have with YouTube brings that massive amount of untapped audio-first engagement to advertisers for the first time. That's alongside a native ad format that actually matches the listening experience. Again, combined with our existing portfolio across music streaming, podcasting, and SiriusXM, we will now reach 255 million monthly listeners, which is massive scale. This tremendous reach positions us not only to grow overall ad spend, audio ad spend, but also to capture a greater share of that audio ad spend over time.
Maybe, Scott, you can give a couple more comments, and then we'll go to the, you know, sort of broader leverage question.
Sure. Thank you, Jennifer. I wanna touch on one of the things that Jennifer mentioned. Any time you can match up the ad format and natively integrate it based on how consumers are actually experiencing the content, it's better for the user and better for the advertiser in terms of performance. That's exactly what we're doing here with this partnership with YouTube. In the battle for finite attention that is increasingly scarce to your question, we've just unlocked this massive untapped opportunity based on the insights that Jennifer referred to earlier, that consumers are much more fluid in how they use YouTube, switching back and forth across listening and watching. One of the reasons why we are so confident in this opportunity is that it's a true partnership with YouTube.
We are co-developing proprietary technology in terms of integration with our scaled systems with Google's ad platform, ensuring that we can scale or go to market and deliver a product that we know meets the criteria of the world's most discerning and largest audio buyers.
Okay. Then Jessica-
Okay.
You know Oh, sorry. To your question, Jessica-
No, go ahead.
-around the balance. All right. Sorry about that. you know, our CapEx allocation framework remains consistent with what we've outlined previously. First, we're prioritizing investing in the business, funding those initiatives that support our key strategic priorities. I think we saw in the 1st quarter, you know, those investments are increasingly translating into tangible financial results, especially in profitability and free cash flow.
Next, second, we remain committed to a disciplined balance sheet. Our target leverage in the mid to low 3 x range, which we've communicated previously. We ended the first quarter at 3.6 x and feel confident in our path to reach that target by year-end. From there, it's really focused on returning capital to shareholders. We have a consistent dividend that we intend to maintain, and we see share repurchases as an important lever from that. While buybacks have been more modest recently, as we've been working on de-leveraging, achieving that leverage target will create additional capacity, giving us flexibility to potentially increase repurchases. Finally, we'll remain opportunistic around incremental value creation.
Areas like our Spectrum assets, which we've talked about a moment ago, or you know, places we see longer-term optionality to unlock additional value, as well as selective inorganic opportunities, that must meet our strategic and financial criteria. I think we see overall it's a balanced and disciplined approach, both investing in the business, strengthening the balance sheet, and positioning ourselves to enhance shareholder returns as we execute against those leverage goals.
Thank you. My second question is actually more specific on YouTube, if you could just dive a little deeper into, like, how you see this evolving. You know Google-owned DV360, which you mentioned earlier, does that now become your main programmatic DSP? Actually maybe you can unpack a little bit about what you're seeing in programmatic, in general, what percentage, how fast it's growing. The other part of YouTube is that it is a global platform, and you have so many channels that lend themselves to global audience. I know this hasn't come up in probably years, would you rethink that strategy?
Scott Walker, why don't you start on the advertising side and then Scott Greenstein pick up the content side.
Sure. On the programmatic question specifically, we feel like we're strongly positioned with our proprietary ad technology platform, AdsWizz, in terms of our ability to plug into all of the major DSPs in order to make that buying as flexible and easy as possible. As it pertains to this YouTube partnership specifically, initially programmatic is not part of the partnership, but we see a massive opportunity to unlock advertiser demand based on this incremental reach that we speak to despite that. In terms of where programmatic is growing, it's certainly growing as a % of the overall spend in digital media, and that trend continues in our business as well. Programmatic is growing at a healthy rate. Our partnership with the Amazon DSP is an example of where we see incremental budgets being unlocked.
Programmatic, with respect to podcasts, is also growing. Jennifer mentioned triple-digit growth rate, year-over-year in Q1 re-accelerating.
Great. Jessica, on the international question, the podcasts are currently, you know, distributed where they make sense overseas on that side. As far as the content goes, we're open for, you know, any deal or any licensing situation. It just has to make sense. The good news is, with the amount of content we have under license, a lot of it is worldwide and the relationships are there. If ever it comes a point where, whether it's through technology or a licensing deal, the relationships will be there and it'll be a pretty easy transition to open up negotiations to go further on that. We also have the unique ability to create content for any market that might be adjacent to what we're doing.
Great. Thank you. I have a million more questions, but I won't hog the call. Thank you.
Our next question is coming from the line of Barton Crockett with Rosenblatt Securities. Please proceed with your questions.
Okay, great. Thank you for taking the question. You know, congratulations on again, on the YouTube deal. To kind of ask a little bit more about this deal, you know, there could be such a, you know, a large kind of funnel of revenue flowing through. I was wondering if you could give any sense of the degree to which the lion's share of that would be stay on Google's kind of side of the ledger and how much of that you guys, you know, might be able to extract for your efforts. You know, how do you kind of think about the take rate essentially on this deal? Anything you can say about that?
Right now we're prepared to talk about the size of this, the magnitude of the scale and how we're gonna increase our reach. You know, we expect to launch in the fall as we've said, I think we're going to ramp this up over time. I don't think it'll have a meaningful impact on this year's numbers. As we go into 2027, we'll have the opportunity clearly when we provide guidance to give you a better sense as to the magnitude. You know, we've given you some general numbers on, you know, the scale of it.
You know, I think we will be watching obviously, the magnitude of the incrementality of this audience reach relative to where we are today, which is, you know, very significant obviously with $1.8 billion in ad revenue across our properties. That's, you know, that's what we're prepared to share today, but we do believe it's a significant opportunity for us, and we can share more on, you know, general economics as we get closer to the end of the year.
Okay. All right. That's fair. You know, I apologize if this has already been covered, but, you know, with all of the kind of activity around space, you know, with SpaceX and with Globalstar, Amazon, and the recent kind of FCC, you know, weird space NPRM, you know, giving you guys some telemetry trafficking and control capability potential with your spectrum as that moves ahead. You know, to what degree do you think there's, you know, potential for, you know, you guys to be meaningful players in the space ecosystem, you know, leveraging some of your spectrum rights, and how could that kind of play out?
Look, I think that you mentioned the weird space stuff thing, so I'll just touch on that. You know, we have had discussions with the FCC related to this. You know, from our perspective, this is a constructive step as it continues to formalize, clarify the role of TT&C. It's a legitimate important use of satellite spectrum. It recognizes that we have the right to be protected from interference and also helps direct how other parties could use the satellite spectrum productively. Look, there's gonna be a lot of different ways that I think the use of spectrum evolves over time, and this is a good example of where multiple tenants could use the same spectrum in a very methodical way.
You know, that's one of the examples I think of the things that we could look at going forward to unlock more monetization opportunities.
Yeah. Thanks, Barton. This is Wayne, and I would add that we do see optionality here, as we've mentioned previously, but we see this optionality will be realized over time. Not through a single step, but along a multi-year glide path, sort of shaped by what we think of as three factors. First, the subscriber and hardware ecosystem that we have. We have an installed base throughout the entire satellite radio band, including on the legacy Sirius band, and more importantly, millions of vehicles on the road with embedded radios and OEM commitments tied to the spectrum. Second, the technology migration. We're already developing next generation chipsets and SiriusXM with 360L hybrid radios that can use both Sirius and XM bands. This gives us increasing flexibility over time to make use of this.
Today, we have millions of vehicles that are already enabled with this new chipset. We expect this to grow to more than 65 million by 2029. Third, regulatory obligations. Like, our licenses come with requirements to provide specific services that of course we will need to continue to meet.
Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Kraft with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your questions.
Hi, good morning. I had a couple on advertising as well. I guess first, could you talk about the capabilities that SiriusXM with 360L has the potential to bring to your advertising business, and what plans you have to activate those capabilities. Also things like addressability, measurement, you know, those sorts of opportunities. Could you give an update on the advertising supported tier and at this point, you know, where you see that going? I just had a follow-up on YouTube. Google's obviously quite a large sophisticated player in digital advertising, with, you know, scale and technology. Can you just talk about why a player like YouTube would view working with Sirius as better than doing it themselves?
If you could also talk about whether you see this partnership maybe leading to additional major partnerships in the future. Does it, you know, sort of open the door to more opportunities like this? Thank you.
I'll let Scott address the second part. I'll talk a little bit about 360L and Play. With 360L, we do believe there's an opportunity for more addressability for audio advertising in the car, and we're expanding obviously the volume of vehicles on the road that have 360L. We haven't yet unlocked real targeted ad capabilities inside 360L. We are looking to do that over the course of this year, even potentially, but, you know, clearly the focus now is on executing on YouTube and making sure that we can launch that as a much bigger scaled opportunity. Then on Play, I'd say it's similar.
We are leveraging Play as an opportunity to broaden the top of the funnel, as with many other of our lower priced packages. It's been helping there to do that. The ads inside of it are, you know, today, the scale isn't as significant because again, we're using it as a way to market and get customers into higher priced packages. In the future, as we unlock more addressability in a car, obviously it would benefit Play as well. Scott, you wanna handle YouTube?
Sure. You know, when YouTube first came to us, the insight that they brought was that audio is a unique channel. Relative to other media channels, YouTube is very much considered a default video platform, and that was the focus for most of the advertisers. The awareness that there was massive listening behavior happening on the platform was just not there. The first point is that the recognition audio is a unique channel that requires a sales team that has honed a different approach or different crafts in terms of the relationships with the buy side, the creative nuances around audio or measurement expertise. We have a proven track record of over 20 years of defining the digital audio category and really the ad market within that.
I think our reputation in the market with advertisers and with creators speaks for itself, and Google and YouTube recognize that. On that last piece, it was clear that we have delivered for YouTube creators on the podcast side. Some of our biggest podcast creators in our network, whether it's Mel Robbins, Conan O'Brien, Alex Cooper, they're all massive players in terms of usage and engagement on YouTube, and we have clearly demonstrated best-in-class monetization through our embedded sponsorships on YouTube, and that was yet another signal that we were the right partner for this opportunity.
Thank you. The, the last part of it was, do you think that this is something that could open up additional partnerships? Like, YouTube's obviously very unique, but, you know, are there other potential players that may see this, what you're doing with YouTube and say, you know, that's probably a party that we ought to join?
Yes. We have certainly expanded and diversified our advertising business over the years by broadening into a larger network of both streaming partnerships with the likes of SoundCloud and our number 1 podcast network, where we have the most shows in the top 20, 4 of the top 10, and number 1 position in terms of weekly reach. This was a natural evolution of that strategy of diversifying and leveraging this amazing demand engine that we've created on the audio side to help YouTube monetize this content. Success here and demonstration of our ability to be successful, I think opens up doors beyond this, certainly.
Thank you.
The next question is in the line of Sebastiano Petti with JP Morgan. Please proceed with your questions.
Hi, thank you for taking the question. Just closing the loop on the spectrum stuff. I guess, Wayne, based on your comments to quote, unquote, you know, protect core services and that this will take a number of years and FCC obligations as well as OEM obligations, my interpretation is that any notion that you could quote, unquote, force migrate subscribers off of the lower 12 and a half megahertz is probably outside the bounds of something you guys are contemplating. That's my first quick question, and then I have a follow-up.
Yes. Thank you, Sebastiano. I'd say that we don't have any plans at this point right now to force migrate, of course, but we're always evaluating, you know, how we can best serve our customers and we have millions of customers currently on this band. As we're thinking about the opportunities to, you know, do something more strategic or create more strategic value here, certainly we're thinking about timing. Timing, you know, in all of these cases, the timing of a start of an opportunity is, of course, different than the timing of being able to catalyze an opportunity. All of these plans need to be thought through in multi-year stages, even if other things happen first and, you know, with partners or others.
Got it. Then in terms of timing, I mean, my understanding, I think, is you're unable to really kinda do anything with this lower 12.5 until it is fully cleared. I think based upon, I think, Jennifer, you may have touched upon it in previous conferences recently, but we're looking at, what, five years for the spectrum to still be cleared. Is that like the, you know, the inside of how we should think about when monetization could potentially occur on the spectrum?
You know, I don't wanna be too specific because as we've said in the past, you know, we've had a long runway on this spectrum with the subscribers there being very sticky. I would suspect it's inside of five years. We've also talked about C and D, where there's maybe more opportunities in the nearer term, you know, the 10 megahertz on either side. I also think, you know, just with the NPRM about weird space stuff, again, that there are some opportunities to do things while we have active subscriptions in that spectrum. Probably limited, but there are opportunities. Of course, I think Wayne touched on this a little bit. There's a long runway for how, you know, another potential partner would actually execute on this.
That timing actually could be quite consistent.
The next question is from the line of David Joyce with Seaport Research Partners. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you. You had impressive uptake with the companion strategy earlier this year. Do you see that continuing? What strategies do you have to, you know, need to keep driving that, you know, for the overall subscriber platform?
Sure. First of all, we're very pleased with our Q1 subscriber performance, especially after a strong Q4 last year. The companion subscriptions clearly contributed to that. We noted that they were 124,000 in the first quarter, as well as continuous service and expansion of our auto dealer extended duration plans. With companions, the great thing about it is that we've been talking about kind of 2 themes as it relates to our subscriber performance and future growth, as well as revenue. 1 being enhancing subscription value and the other being expanding access. Companion really does both, right? Expands access to SiriusXM to more listeners across the household and also enhances the value and improves retention of that subscription household. We're really pleased.
I think The question really is, you know, as we've been successful in the marketing, I think beyond our expectations, actually. You know, how long does that last and does the, sort of do the take rates start to mature at some point over the course of the year? We're also looking at where it may make sense to expand availability. That's why we're being cautious and not changing kind of the context we've provided about subscribers for this year. That as well as what Zac noted earlier in terms of auto sales and how those could materialize. You know, there's still pressure on gas prices and impact on the consumer.
All right. Thank you.
The next questions are from the line of Kutgun Maral with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your questions.
Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask another one on advertising. You made a lot of progress building out the ad business with new capabilities and innovative partnerships, it still feels like that opportunity doesn't get full attention from investors given the much larger satellite subscription revenue base. As you think about the portfolio from here, is there any interest in reshaping the business to better highlight your advertising capabilities and opportunities, whether it's through additional scale via M&A or potentially a clearer separation between the satellite subscription business and the Pandora and off-platform side?
I know we're of course not talking about specific deals, but what I'm really trying to get at more so is if there's a big focus right now to better match, you know, what I see as the strong execution you're demonstrating on advertising against unlocking value in the share price. Thank you.
We have the two segments, which gives you, I think, some exposure to, you know, the Pandora and off-platform segment, which is, you know, the vast majority of our advertising. We provide a fair number of metrics there. It's a good point. Obviously, with the increasing scale, we will find ways to provide, I think, more metrics around the advertising business going forward. I do wanna touch on M&A because you mentioned it.
Just note that we see significant opportunity within our existing businesses and, you know, whether that's obviously executing and expanding our reach through partnerships like YouTube, but also improving monetization across our ad-supported businesses, you know, like we've done with Creator Connect or Apple Podcasts, better targeting and measurement tools, and of course, enhancing the value of in-car subscriptions and unlocking the value of our spectrum assets like we've talked about. These are the areas we're focused on, you know, day to day, and we believe they offer the clearest line of sight to high return opportunities. Zac mentioned that, you know, we'll continue to look at and be opportunistic on inorganic M&A, inorganic growth, but we're gonna be very disciplined about that.
Understood. That's great. Thank you.
The next questions come from the line of Steven Cahall with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your questions.
Thanks. Good morning. I just wanted to make sure I understand the subscriber guidance for the year. I think you said that you'll see modestly lower self-pay net adds. I think you lost around 300,000 last year. Should we think about Companion as slowing as you get through the rest of the year? Could we annualize what you did in the first quarter for Companion for the rest of the year? I'm just trying to understand what core net adds are doing. I don't think Companion comes with any revenue contribution, just trying to understand what the core base looks like, excluding Companion. I have a quick follow-up.
I can ask Zac to comment on the sort of context we provide around subs. I do want to note that you're correct about companion in terms of not adding specific revenue for those subscriptions. However, it was part of our strategy to ensure that we're adding value before we increase subscription prices. We've now done this 2 years in a row very successfully, and we see actually higher retention among households that are taking companion subscriptions. It's logical because there is more engagement across the household. It does result in not only providing a benefit for us to successfully execute on rate increases, but also just driving more engagement. I do believe it translates through to overall revenue.
As I mentioned a bit before, we're just being cautious, I think, about the year in general, but on companion specifically, that we continue to market and look for other opportunities to perhaps use it, especially perhaps in acquisition as more of a family plan. You know, I would expect the program to mature as we offer it to a specific set of our full price subscription. You wanna talk on it?
Yeah, for sure. I think, you know, you've got it right, Stephen, regarding our guidance and the numbers around the self-pay net adds. I think one thing to add to what Jennifer was saying, just numerically, if we take a look at ARPU, we're actually really pleased with that as well. We're getting the subscriber growth, partially companion program, and we're also seeing ARPU up 1% versus last year. Obviously, the primary driver of that was pricing reflecting the rate actions. I think what's important is that the ARPU growth is not coming at the expense of the broader health of the business. Alongside the higher ARPU, we're seeing improved subscriber trends, record low first quarter churn, stronger engagement, and continued gains in customer satisfaction. I think you have to look at all these together.
It's really a measure of the quality of the subscriber base. We're driving higher monetization while strengthening retention and overall customer value. I think, you know, this is our third quarter of ARPU growth, and we would expect that to carry through as through the rest of this year as well. I think the composition of all of that shows the strength of sort of the actions that we're taking.
Thanks. Just a quick follow-up on conversion. I think there's a few things going on in conversion. I think a tailwind for how you account for the auto dealer duration plan. Can you give us any more color on contribution from those plans, which seem really positive? You did call out a little bit lower conversion, I think on self-pay. I think those historically were in the mid-30s. Any sense of where they're kind of running today? Thanks.
Yeah, Stephen, we continue to see some of the same trends we've seen in the past on conversion rates. You know, we have had slight declines as younger car purchasers come into the trial funnel, and then of course, used conversion rates lower than new. The good news is that we just have so much more data, and with all the personalized marketing capabilities we're building and are coming even later this year, we can address customers in a much more personalized way in our marketing, whether they're listening or not or based on their content preferences. I think the single biggest opportunity for us continues to be with SiriusXM with 360L rollout. We're at about, I think, 55% of sales. By the end of the year, with the OEMs that are ramping, we'll be at 70%.
We do continue to see SiriusXM with 360L conversion rates better than non-SiriusXM with 360L. As we ramp SiriusXM with 360L on AOS, which, you know, can be updated much more quickly, we see those conversion rates even higher. These are the tailwinds. Our extended duration plans also help. You know, we're hopeful that we can start to stabilize some of these trends, and we're intently focused on conversion rates as a measure of demand. We also have many other demand-focused programs in place that wouldn't necessarily show up there, right? Such as companion subscriptions or SiriusXM Podcasts+ and some of these other programs that we've put into place.
Thank you. To allow as many as possible, we ask you please limit yourself to one question. The next question is from the line of Cameron Mansson-Perrone with Morgan Stanley.
Thank you, and good morning. Jennifer, you started the Q&A talking about the way the team's executed over the past couple years. First quarter results are pretty encouraging. I'm wondering if you could provide some color, given the reaffirmation of the full-year guide, just how you're thinking about growth in the balance of the year. Thanks.
Yeah, maybe I'll let Zac kick that one.
Yeah, for sure, I think. Thanks, Cameron, for the question. I mean, it was a really good first quarter. Revenue growth of 1%, importantly, growth across subscriber revenue and advertising, both sides of that. Combined with a strong cost discipline, EBITDA growth of 6%, net income 20%, EPS 22%. Some really good metrics. I think a free cash flow tripled, free cash flow per share increased 217% to $0.51. You know, when we provided guidance last quarter, we talked about how important it was to provide the stable outlook. We're off to a great start. I think beyond that, we feel very good about the start of the progress we've made, which does increase our confidence in the plan.
That said, it's still early in the year, and there's a lot of time ahead of us. We look at the full year outlook, the underlying assumptions of our plan really haven't changed. We are continuing to monitor the auto environment closely. We've seen some softness there, particularly in the OEM funnel. While we haven't seen any change in customer behavior to date, churn and engagement remain very strong. We're also mindful of the broader macro backdrop. Given that, we just think at this point in time it's appropriate to remain disciplined, order outlook, while staying focused on executing through the rest of the year. As we continue to see strength in the business, yeah, something we'll revisit as the year moves forward.
Thank you. Our last and final question is from the line of Clay Griffin with MoffettNathanson. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you. Good morning. I've just got a quick one on the inventory scope attached to this YouTube partnership. Just if you could put some detail around what exactly it includes. For example, does this include the inventory on the ad-supported version of YouTube Music? Then maybe just sizing the overall sort of impression scale at this point, given that obviously YouTube's dominated by video ads today. The follow-up, just to confirm, Jennifer, it sounds like that this deal is likely to be accounted for on a net basis. Did I hear that right? Just maybe just walk through the mechanics of the accounting.
No, it'll be, like our other, you know, ad representation deals where it's growth, and it'll be in the Pandora and off-platform segment. You know, Scott, you want to address the inventory?
Sure. Thanks for the question. In terms of the scope of this, the primary use cases are both YouTube Music, the ad-supported YouTube Music tier, and the YouTube main app, where users of YouTube are primarily listening versus watching. This could be static image music videos, or lyric videos. This could be YouTube connected via Android Auto or CarPlay in the car. This could be long-form content, whether it's podcasts or interview content on smart speakers in the home. All of these are examples. The scale here is matched or commensurate with the reach. We talked about the Edison Research that we recently conducted, where the reach of this YouTube listening first audience is 212 million monthly listeners.
Combined with our 170 million across our podcast network, our Pandora streaming network, et cetera, we're now reaching 255 million users overall. The scale of this is significant. I'll reiterate Jennifer's earlier comments about the ramp of this. We are launching this in the fall during the Q4 planning cycle, we expect the growth and the ramp to happen more in 2027 and beyond.
Thank you.
In closing, thank you all for joining. I'd just like to say that we're very pleased with the strong start to the year and the early progress we're making across each of the strategic priorities we laid out in December of 2024. We continue to see that strategy translating into tangible results, whether that's the strength of our in-car subscription model, our growth in advertising or the broader efficiencies across the organization. We are well positioned to build on this progress as we move throughout this year. We remain thoughtful and disciplined in how we allocate capital and invest for future growth. Our focus remains on execution, and we're confident in our ability to deliver on our full-year objectives and our guidance and drive sustainable long-term value for shareholders. Thank you for joining us this morning.
Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time.