Iridium Communications saw its fiscal 2025 second-quarter revenue climb 8 percent to $216.9 million and reported $121.3 million in Q2 operational EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, reflecting a 6 percent year-over-year increase from the prior-year period.
In an earnings release published Thursday, the McLean, Virginia-based satellite communications company said second-quarter engineering and support revenue rose 62 percent to $41.9 million, driven by increasing activity with the U.S. government.
The company’s total billable subscribers increased 3 percent year-over-year to 2.48 million, driven by growth in commercial Internet of Things.
“We’re making great progress on our direct-to-device service with testing now underway and are also finding exciting, innovative applications for our new PNT service,” said Iridium CEO Matt Desch.
Iridium NTN Direct is the company’s upcoming direct-to-device service. Iridium Satellite Time and Location is a positioning, navigation and timing service.
The board, meanwhile, declared a quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share for the third quarter, representing a full-year dividend increase of 5.5 percent.
“I’m pleased that the Board approved an increase to our September quarterly dividend. This 5% increase for the full year demonstrates our confidence in Iridium’s long-term prospects and continued growth,” added Desch, an 11-time Wash100 awardee.
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Iridium CEO Matt Desch on Golden Dome
At an earnings call Thursday, Desch told analysts that Iridium sees the current administration’s Golden Dome next-generation missile defense shield project as an opportunity.
“Given our relationships and the fact that our technology is being used so broadly, we think we can contribute. We think there’s important components like PNT to that, in addition to sort of communication as well,” the Iridium chief executive stated.
“I would say we also have a lot of experience and I think it was a good move that we won the Space Development Agency contract a couple of years ago, certainly driving some engineering service revenues, but more importantly, it’s just further our relationship and ability to sort of be part of future government Space Force networks,” he added.
Q2 2025 Financial Results of Iridium US Government Segment
The second-quarter service revenue of Iridium’s U.S. government business rose 1 percent to $26.8 million, reflecting a contractual rate growth in the company’s Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services, or EMSS, contract.
EMSS is a seven-year, $738.5 million fixed-price contract that the company signed with the U.S. Space Force in September 2019. Through the contract, the company provides specified satellite airtime services for the Department of Defense and other federal government subscribers.
The company ended the quarter with 128,000 government subscribers, down nearly 10 percent from the prior-year period’s 142,000 subscribers.
As of June 30, Iridium’s government voice and data subscribers totaled 49,000, down 22 percent from the same period the previous year. Government IoT data subscribers accounted for 62 percent of government subscribers at the end of the second quarter.
During the call, Desch told investors that the company is well-positioned for growth amid the U.S. government’s increasing recognition of the importance of commercial space, growing threats in the Indo-Pacific Command theater and the Trump administration’s priorities like Golden Dome.
“Over the past year, we’ve announced a number of new contracts with the USG that enable greater use of our network and we believe our relationship with the DoD has never been stronger,” the head of Iridium said.
“It’s no accident that our development work with them has grown over the years and that we are increasingly being asked to do more. You see this clearly in our expanding engineering and support revenue, and we expect to see in other aspects of our business going forward,” added Desch, a 2025 Wash100 awardee.
