[Satellite TODAY Insider 12-17-10] Iridium Communications expects it will achieve substantial subscriber, service and equipment revenue growth in 2011 due to favorable competitive market dynamics and the company’s strong cash flow and financing, according to documents the company filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
    During a presentation given at Iridium’s 2010 Analyst Conference, CEO Matt Desch said the company’s expanded distribution network, accelerated by its licensed core technology partnerships, would enable Iridium to grow its total billable subscriber base by 20 percent and service revenues between 10 and 13 percent. “We have 240 applications targeting key vertical markets. Our wholesale distribution model lowers costs and risks as we grow our network of hundreds of distribution partners that are providing outsourced research and development for customer segment specialty products,” said Desch.
    Iridium expects average service revenue growth of 9 to 13 percent per year between 2011 and 2015 and an operational EBITDA margin of about 60 percent in 2015 after generating between $180 million to $190 million in operational EBITDA in 2011.
Iridium also reported that equipment revenues would continue to decline in 2011 at a rate between 15 and 30 percent. However, Desch said that developing a more extensive relationship with the government service sector would offset the decline, as the company prepares to offer its fully funded Iridium Next constellation. “Our U.S. government service revenues have increased steadily over the past 10 years. Now, we are making significant government investments in our channel partners, devices and dedicated gateways. We’re also expanding our service portfolio to support future growth from Iridium Next and hosted payloads.”
    Desch added that the company is focusing on its phased deployment approach for the Iridium Next service, which aims to provide significant throughput and memory capacity and operational flexibility for the machine-to-machine market. “While our current constellation supports ongoing growth and takes us to the Iridium Next era, our next-generation network architecture will provide a sustainable competitive advantage and outstanding new services with backwards compatibility to existing customer devices. Iridium Next will realize meaningful, additional opportunities to support ongoing growth,” he said.

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