Iridium continued its growth in IoT subscribers in the first quarter of 2026, reporting a slight 2% revenue increase year-over-year.
CEO Matt Desch said the company has been going through live over the air tests of its Iridium NTN Direct service ahead of its full commercial launch later this year, in a call with investors. He also spoke to the “attention” on Iridium’s spectrum with the Amazon-Globalstar deal announced last week.
Iridium’s stock price has risen considerably in recent weeks with expectations of the Amazon/Globalstar purchase, and then the deal being announced, because of Iridium’s mobile satellite service (MSS) spectrum.
Desch acknowledged the attention, while reiterating that Iridium will continue to focus on four growth areas: IoT expansion, PNT capabilities, national security, and aviation systems.
“People have realized the importance and significance of L- and S-band spectrum as it relates to connecting consumer devices on a global basis from space when out of coverage from cell towers,” He said. “We share this view of the value of this spectrum. Regardless — our priority today is to focus on expanding into these four growth areas while maintaining our revenue base and legacy services.”
Desch also spoke to the Iridium NTN Direct roll-out, Iridium’s narrow-band satellite IoT service that operates on 3GPP standards. Full commercial launch is expected later this year.
“We’ve been demonstrating it live over-the-air to mobile network operators (MNOs) and partners, and its performance has been impressing everyone, even as we make enhancements and further tune the service,” Desch said.
He reiterated that NTN Direct is intended as complementary to direct-to-device services from SpaceX, AST SpaceMobile, and Amazon Leo in the future.
“As these companies focus on connecting smartphones from space, we will continue to focus on scalable, specialty applications that support low-cost IoT — particularly for industrial and government markets where reliability and coverage are critical,” Desch said.
First Quarter Results
Iridium revenue in the first quarter was $219.1 million, with $158 million as service revenue and $61 million in equipment sales and engineering.
In commercial service revenue, Iridium saw the most growth in IoT data revenue, which was $46 million, up 5% year-over-year.
Commercial broadband, however, saw a decrease in revenue of 5% year-over-year to $12.2 million, with a dip in subscribers as well.
Iridium added 18,000 total subscribers during the quarter, to end with a total of 2,434,000 commercial subscribers. IoT subscribers represent 83% of the company’s subscribers.
Net income was $21.6 million in the first quarter, compared to net income of $30.4 million in the same time last year.
The company reiterated the full-year 2026 outlook issued last quarter — that service revenue will deliver flat to 2% growth for the full year.
