Sirius XM's Q2: What Can Investors Expect?

Quote: Sirius XM (SIRI) will announce second quarter 2011 operating results on Tuesday August 2, 2011, at 8 a.m.As with any quarter, investors in the equity are eager to see what the quarter brought, where the growth is, and what the company will set for guidance.The company has lacked a pre-conference call run up, so the numbers now seem to carry even more importance to investors.What should investors expect out of this call?GuidanceFirst things first.In the Q1 call CEO Mel Karmazin spoke about the possibility of raising either the EBITDA guidance or the subscriber guidance.The decision, Karmazin noted, would rest with what happened in the auto sector.Sharp auto sales growth would mean that the subscriber metric could be boosted.A decline in auto sales would result in the raising of EBITDA guidance.In my opinion auto sales are simply stable, and rest in a sweet spot that will actually allow Sirius XM to raise guidance in both categories.Look for EBITDA to be raised somewhere around $760 million, and for subscribers to be raised to a level just above 1.6 million.EPSThe Street is looking for Sirius XM to report a $0.01 profit.The high estimate is $0.02 and the low is a breakeven quarter.In my opinion the company could report either $0.01 or $0.02 and that metric will not move the needle much.In essence there will be no real surprise here.Look for the penny and be happy if two pennies happens.RevenueThe revenue line will be quite interesting.The average on estimates is just above $752 million.Last quarter the company reported revenue of almost $724 million.I look for revenue to be slightly shy of consensus, but not by a big margin.The company should report about $745 million in the revenue line.This is primarily derived from the addition of new subscribers, with a slight increase in advertising revenue.SubscribersThis category is often a focal...
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