Iridium comments latest wrinkle in satellite D2D guessing game
Shares in longtime satellite player Iridium have been on the upswing in recent days following the company’s solid fourth quarter performance and its positive outlook for 2023. But a big part of that optimism is due to the company’s new agreement with Qualcomm to provide satellite connections to Qualcomm’s Android smartphone customers.
However, Iridium officials declined to speculate on exactly how valuable the company’s agreement with Qualcomm – which targets the “direct to device” (D2D) market for satellite services – might be.
“I know there’s a lot of interest in modeling the financial impact of this new incremental revenue opportunity, but we’ll need to wait for more of the product announcements to come from smartphone OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] and Android app providers in the future,” explained Iridium CEO Matt Desch during his company’s quarterly conference call this week, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript. “Exact revenues will depend on how many OEMs adopt a Snapdragon Satellite platform and the usage of this messaging capability by users, which is dependent on how it’s packaged and priced, all things that we understand are actively being worked out. With the limited visibility we have today into these matters, we just can’t forecast that for you at this time.”
Desch said Qualcomm produces around 100 million Snapdragon processors every year. “That’s a lot of potential customers each year, and it’s all incremental to our current growth plans,” he noted.
The situation has some financial analysts enthused. “Iridium is a stock that a broader investor base should consider,” wrote the financial analysts at LightShed Partners.
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