[Satellite TODAY 05-11-11] Healthy satellite service customer base growth helped Iridium Communications drive $8.3 million in profits during the first quarter of 2011 compared to the company’s net loss of $1.3 million during the same period last year, the MSS operator announced May 10.

            At the end of the quarter, Iridium maintained 447,000 subscribers – a significant boost from the operator’s 359,000-subscriber mark in the opening quarter of 2010. The subscriber increase also drove $91.3 million in revenues year-over-year compared to $81.7 million.

            In a statement, Iridium CEO Matt Desch said the operator continues to profit from a portfolio that is increasingly integrating data services. “Commercial M2M subscribers grew 62 percent year-over-year, and we’re capturing more data revenue from the Iridium OpenPort terminals we’ve shipped to our maritime customers. The rapid adoption of our Iridium 9602 short-burst data transceiver has been so strong that it led to an upward revision of our equipment revenue outlook for 2011, as significant sales volumes more than offset the lower price of this device compared to its predecessor.”

            Desch also updated Iridium’s guidance for 2011 full-year equipment revenues. The company previously expected revenues to decline between 15 percent and 30 percent and now expects that figure to be somewhere between 5 percent and 15 percent.