Iridium Communications (Nasdaq: IRDM) reported $133.7M in total revenue for the first quarter of 2019, up 12 percent from the same period last year.
The company said Tuesday the total number of billable subscribers rose to 1.15M in Q1 2019, showing a year-over-year growth of 16 percent associated with the rise in government and commercial internet of things customers.
Iridium CEO Matt Desch said the demand for the Iridium Certus L-band broadband service has continued to increase since the company unveiled it in January.
“Our Aireon joint venture also launched its live air traffic surveillance and tracking service earlier this month,†added Desch, a 2019 Wash100 winner.
Desch said Iridium expects to finalize in the next 30 days negotiations with the Department of Defense on the renewal of the Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services contract, which covers data and voice satellite communications services, SpaceNews reported Tuesday.
Iridium’s government business posted $22M in Q1 2019 service revenue and reached 115K subscribers at the end of the quarter with IoT data subscribers accounting for 54 percent of that number.
The company announced its Q1 2019 financial results a day after it secured the $54M Gateway Maintenance and Support Services contract from DoD.
