Key Points
- Q2 Total revenue: $2.16 billion (+1% year-over)
- Operating income: $472 million (+29%)
- Net income: $239 million (+17%)
- SiriusXM segment revenue: $1.62 billion (flat)
- SiriusXM subscriber revenue: $1.51 billion (+1%)
- SiriusXM advertising revenue: $41 million (+8%)
- SiriusXM gross profit: $981 million (+2%)
- SiriusXM gross margin: 61%, up from 60%
- Pandora and off-platform revenue: $543 million (+4%)
- Pandora and off-platform advertising revenue: $413 million (+5%)
- Pandora and off-platform subscriber revenue: $130 million (flat)
- SiriusXM total subscribers: 32.9 million
- SiriusXM paid promotional subscribers: 1.6 million (+6%)
- SiriusXM total net additions: 90,000, compared with a loss of 66,000
- SiriusXM ARPU: $15.32 (+1%)
- Read more Q2 2026 media earnings coverage | SiriusXM company coverage
SiriusXM is carving out a long-term strategy that focuses its core consumer offerings on sports and talk-based programming with stabilized pricing and fewer discounts, executives confirmed on Thursday.
The blueprint was sketched out in public as part of the company’s second quarter (Q2) financial earnings release, which showed a rare net increase in subscribers during the three-month period that ended in June as subscribers took advantage of SiriusXM’s differentiated plans across its satellite and streaming platforms.
During Q2, SiriusXM earned $2.16 billion in overall revenue, a 1 percent increase compared to last year, with the bulk of its income from satellite subscriptions. SiriusXM subscriber revenue increased 1 percent to $1.51 billion, while its advertising revenue jumped 8 percent to $41 million. SiriusXM’s gross profit during Q2 was $981 million, up 2 percent.
Total net subscriber additions was 90,000 during Q2, almost all of which came from promotional offerings tied to dealership incentives when customers buy new or used cars with SiriusXM tuners and from aggressive marketing of its streaming platform on social media. New car buyers typically receive SiriusXM programming free for four months, while new SiriusXM streamers can get its All Access plan for $1 during the first three months of their subscription.
Among SiriusXM’s long-term customers, self-pay subscribers fell by 20,000 to 31.3 million the company disclosed. Promotional additions helped offset that dip, with the company’s radio churn rate logged at 1.4 percent, an improvement from the 1.5 percent reported last year.
While streaming pay TV providers typically see higher churn during Q2, the same period tends to see stronger business at SiriusXM as baseball fans take advantage of the company’s offering of live play-by-play from every Major League Baseball (MLB) game on its satellite and streaming services. The SiriusXM app also offers team-specific broadcast feeds for radio listeners who have sports channels in their package.
On Thursday, executives said SiriusXM intends to further lean into its sports offerings by marketing a package that only includes local and national sports channels to fans. That package, appropriately called the Sports Plan, costs $5 per month or $49 per year and debuts in September.
SiriusXM also announced an agreement with terrestrial radio broadcaster Audacy to bring a handful of its sports channels to the satellite platform, with all Audacy sports and news radio stations available on its streaming app. Those channels will roll out over the next several weeks.
SiriusXM Chief Content Officer Scott Greenstein said the Sports Only plan and the Audacy station offerings are meant to super-serve sports fans who value the live games and sports talk programming that SiriusXM is known for delivering. The Audacy pact will further the company’s commitment to sports by allowing it to distribute local and regional sports content in major cities, which will allow fans to access a significant amount of sports-related programming without having to switch in and out of the platform.
“Often they miss the companion sports talk and local host,” Greenstein said. “We’ll have all of that now (through the Audacy pact), it really does complete our sports offering on that. There are other channels that we can use and do, and may in the future do that if there’s passion for news channels or something like that — but, really, the essence of that (deal with Audacy) was to build Sports Pass into the definitive home for sports programming.”
Over time, SiriusXM expects some of its Sports Pass holders to convert to higher-priced tiers, executive said. That trend has already been proven by a low-cost plan called SiriusXM Play, which offers ad-supported music and talk streams for less than $7 per month — far lower than the price SiriusXM charges for access to its commercial-free music streams and related programming, which exceeds $20 per month.
“Some of the indicators we saw from Play and generally other indicators around sort of sports passion are some of the reasons that we look to launch the Sports Pass subscription,” SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz said on Thursday. “Many of our subscription prices are well above $20 a month, and we do believe there’s more demand to tap into at lower price points.”
Long-term customers have often scored a substantial discount on SiriusXM’s vehicle and streaming plans by calling the company with threats to cancel their subscriptions. Those types of retention tools are starting to go away, Witz noted, with the company marketing lower-cost plans plans for price-sensitive customers.
“We are focused on the overall economics of the business and creating better overall customer lifetime value,” Witz told investors and Wall Street analysts. “That may mean that we pull back from discounts at low prices and that create a better quality subscriber base. We’re really focused on driving overall subscription revenue, and those are hopefully the metrics that you all will watch as we deliver on that.”
Radio aside, SiriusXM also continues to develop its connected audio advertising business, with the company recently signing YouTube as a partner in that effort. The pact will see SiriusXM serve as the exclusive seller of audio-specific inventory within YouTube’s apps and experiences, including its music and podcast products.
“We’ve literally had thousands of conversations about the YouTube opportunity with customers, I think the early stages are really about validating this takeaway that YouTube is truly a listening opportunity,” Scott Walker, the Chief Advertising Revenue Officer at SiriusXM, said on Thursday. “This multimodal behavior where listeners are engaging in visual engagement but also listening as well. That is something that I think is a takeaway that everyone is recognizing.”
Executives said the full YouTube partnership is expected to come online later this year.
