Revenue growth reaccelerated to 8.3% in 2026Q3, the strongest in ten quarters, but operating margin compressed to 12.9% from 30.9% a year earlier as D&A rose roughly 22% to $62.1M, while diluted EPS swung nearly eleven-fold from $0.09 to $0.98 in a single quarter, obscuring underlying earnings power.
Iridium Communications Inc. (IRDM) annual income statement — 19-year revenue, gross profit & net income history
| Metric | TTM | Dec'25 | Dec'24 | Dec'23 | Dec'22 | Dec'21 | Dec'20 | Dec'19 | Dec'18 | Dec'17 | Dec'16 | Dec'15 | Dec'14 | Dec'13 | Dec'12 | Dec'11 | Dec'10 | Dec'09 | Dec'08 | Dec'07 |
|---|
| Revenue | 902.97M | 871.66M | 830.68M | 790.72M | 721.03M | 614.5M | 583.44M | 560.44M | 523.01M | 448.05M | 433.64M | 411.38M | 408.56M | 382.65M | 383.52M | 384.31M | 348.17M | 75.99M | 0 | 0 |
| Revenue Growth % | 3.59% | 4.93% | 5.05% | 9.67% | 17.34% | 5.32% | 4.1% | 7.16% | 16.73% | 3.32% | 5.41% | 0.69% | 6.77% | -0.23% | -0.2% | 10.38% | 358.19% | - | - | - |
| Cost of Revenue | 217.65M | 197.58M | 433.69M | 507.62M | 504.63M | 455.83M | 445.87M | 442.85M | 361.08M | 247.11M | 158.64M | 152.95M | 187.22M | 186.39M | 193.33M | 219.94M | 224.91M | 59.13M | 0 | 0 |
| Gross Profit | 685.32M | 674.08M | 396.99M | 283.1M | 216.4M | 158.67M | 137.57M | 117.59M | 161.93M | 200.94M | 275M | 258.43M | 221.33M | 196.26M | 190.19M | 164.37M | 123.27M | 16.85M | 0 | 0 |
| Gross Margin % | 75.9% | 77.33% | 47.79% | 35.8% | 30.01% | 25.82% | 23.58% | 20.98% | 30.96% | 44.85% | 63.42% | 62.82% | 54.17% | 51.29% | 49.59% | 42.77% | 35.4% | 22.18% | - | - |
| Gross Profit Growth % | - | 69.8% | 40.23% | 30.82% | 36.38% | 15.34% | 16.99% | -27.38% | -19.41% | -26.93% | 6.41% | 16.76% | 12.78% | 3.19% | 15.71% | 33.34% | 631.38% | - | - | - |
| Operating Expenses | 513.73M | 438.1M | 193.5M | 163.97M | 139.72M | 112.36M | 102.09M | 107.47M | 120.28M | 99.65M | 98.63M | 97.59M | 96.22M | 86.37M | 83.11M | 84.37M | 85.91M | 29.17M | 2.59M | 1.27K |
| Other Operating Expenses | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| EBITDA | 394.01M | 446.19M | 406.61M | 401.63M | 380.16M | 351.75M | 338.66M | 307.82M | 259.86M | 223.55M | 225.76M | 212.68M | 197.88M | 184.87M | 188.18M | 177.65M | 128.03M | 10.06M | 3.02M | -1.27K |
| EBITDA Margin % | 43.64% | 51.19% | 48.95% | 50.79% | 52.72% | 57.24% | 58.04% | 54.93% | 49.69% | 49.9% | 52.06% | 51.7% | 48.43% | 48.31% | 49.07% | 46.23% | 36.77% | 13.24% | - | - |
| EBITDA Growth % | -10.87% | 9.73% | 1.24% | 5.65% | 8.08% | 3.86% | 10.02% | 18.46% | 16.24% | -0.98% | 6.15% | 7.48% | 7.04% | -1.76% | 5.93% | 38.76% | 1172.13% | 233.72% | - | - |
| Depreciation & Amortization | 222.43M | 210.21M | 203.13M | 282.5M | 303.48M | 305.43M | 303.17M | 297.7M | 218.21M | 122.27M | 49.39M | 51.83M | 72.77M | 74.98M | 81.11M | 97.65M | 90.67M | 22.38M | 0 | 0 |
| D&A / Revenue % | 24.63% | 24.12% | 24.45% | 35.73% | 42.09% | 49.7% | 51.96% | 53.12% | 41.72% | 27.29% | 11.39% | 12.6% | 17.81% | 19.59% | 21.15% | 25.41% | 26.04% | 29.45% | - | - |
| Operating Income (EBIT) | 171.59M | 235.98M | 203.48M | 119.13M | 76.68M | 46.31M | 35.48M | 10.12M | 41.65M | 101.29M | 176.37M | 160.84M | 125.11M | 109.89M | 107.07M | 80M | 37.36M | -12.31M | -2.59M | -1.27K |
| Operating Margin % | 19% | 27.07% | 24.5% | 15.07% | 10.63% | 7.54% | 6.08% | 1.81% | 7.96% | 22.61% | 40.67% | 39.1% | 30.62% | 28.72% | 27.92% | 20.82% | 10.73% | -16.2% | - | - |
| Operating Income Growth % | - | 15.97% | 70.81% | 55.36% | 65.56% | 30.52% | 250.62% | -75.7% | -58.88% | -42.57% | 9.65% | 28.56% | 13.85% | 2.63% | 33.84% | 114.14% | 403.44% | -375.57% | - | - |
| Interest Expense | 4M | 98.13M | 102.76M | 102.32M | 72.09M | 73.91M | 98.6M | 140.1M | 55.14M | 25K | 0 | 3.29M | 5.83M | 7.71M | 0 | 42K | 1.72M | 355K | 3.31K | 2.54K |
| Interest Coverage | - | 2.35x | 2.07x | 0.95x | 1.15x | 0.61x | 0.10x | -0.56x | 0.63x | 4784.07x | - | 23.23x | 20.99x | 15.33x | - | 1538.64x | 21.74x | -127.12x | 912.18x | -0.50x |
| Interest / Revenue % | 0.44% | 11.26% | 12.37% | 12.94% | 10% | 12.03% | 16.9% | 25% | 10.54% | 0.01% | 0% | 0.8% | 1.43% | 2.01% | 0% | 0.01% | 0.49% | 0.47% | - | - |
| Non-Operating Income | -2M | -1000K | -1000K | -1000K | -1000K | -1000K | -1000K | -1000K | -1000K | 1000K | 1000K | -1000K | -1000K | 571K | -1000K | -1000K | -1000K | -1000K | 1000K | -2.54K |
| Pretax Income | 186.67M | 141.99M | 125.03M | -10.84M | 9.01M | -28.89M | -88.96M | -218.12M | -20.65M | 119.57M | 178.16M | 73.11M | 116.45M | 110.47M | 95.02M | 64.58M | 35.61M | -45.48M | 3.01M | -3.81K |
| Pretax Margin % | 20.67% | 16.29% | 15.05% | -1.37% | 1.25% | -4.7% | -15.25% | -38.92% | -3.95% | 26.69% | 41.09% | 17.77% | 28.5% | 28.87% | 24.78% | 16.8% | 10.23% | -59.85% | - | - |
| Income Tax | 23.64M | 27.62M | 12.26M | -26.25M | 292K | -19.57M | -32.91M | -56.12M | -7.26M | -114.28M | 67.13M | 65.99M | 41.46M | 47.95M | 30.39M | 24.9M | 12.92M | -1.32M | 1.36M | 0 |
| Effective Tax Rate % | 12.66% | 19.45% | 9.8% | 242.26% | 3.24% | 67.74% | 36.99% | 25.73% | 35.18% | -95.58% | 37.68% | 90.26% | 35.61% | 43.41% | 31.98% | 38.56% | 36.28% | 2.9% | 45.03% | 0% |
| Net Income | 163.03M | 114.37M | 112.78M | 15.41M | 8.72M | -9.32M | -56.05M | -162M | -13.38M | 233.86M | 111.03M | 7.12M | 74.99M | 62.52M | 64.63M | 39.68M | 22.69M | -44.39M | 1.66M | -3.81K |
| Net Margin % | 18.06% | 13.12% | 13.58% | 1.95% | 1.21% | -1.52% | -9.61% | -28.91% | -2.56% | 52.19% | 25.6% | 1.73% | 18.35% | 16.34% | 16.85% | 10.33% | 6.52% | -58.41% | - | - |
| Net Income Growth % | 29.55% | 1.42% | 631.6% | 76.74% | 193.59% | 83.38% | 65.4% | -1110.39% | -105.72% | 110.62% | 1458.78% | -90.5% | 19.95% | -3.27% | 62.88% | 74.88% | 151.12% | -2780.61% | 43536.99% | - |
| EPS (Diluted) | 1.50 | 1.06 | 0.94 | 0.12 | 0.07 | -0.07 | -0.42 | -1.29 | -0.12 | 2.22 | 1.00 | -0.09 | 0.67 | 0.72 | 0.85 | 0.56 | 0.27 | -0.82 | 0.04 | -0.00 |
| EPS Growth % | 32.46% | 12.77% | 683.33% | 79.1% | 195.99% | 83.38% | 67.44% | -975% | -105.41% | 122% | 1244.16% | -113.04% | -6.94% | -15.29% | 51.79% | 107.41% | 132.93% | -2240.99% | - | - |
| EPS (Basic) | - | 1.07 | 0.95 | 0.12 | 0.07 | -0.07 | -0.42 | -1.29 | -0.12 | 2.22 | 1.00 | -0.09 | 0.67 | 0.72 | 0.85 | 0.57 | 0.28 | -0.82 | 0.04 | -0.00 |
| Diluted Shares Outstanding | 108.93M | 107.84M | 119.79M | 127.22M | 130.13M | 133.53M | 133.49M | 125.17M | 112.2M | 98.2M | 95.88M | 95.13M | 93.91M | 76.69M | 76.46M | 73.56M | 72.96M | 53.96M | 43.27M | 11.5M |
Quick answers to the most common questions about buying IRDM stock.
For fiscal year 2025, Iridium Communications Inc. (IRDM) reported total revenue of $871.7M.
Iridium Communications Inc. (IRDM) is profitable, generating $114.4M in net income for the fiscal year ending 2025 with a net profit margin of 13.1%.
Iridium Communications Inc. (IRDM) reported an operating income of $236.0M, resulting in an operating profit margin of 27.1%. This margin reflects the operational efficiency of the business before interest and taxes.
Iridium Communications Inc. (IRDM) generated $674.1M in gross profit for the year, representing a gross profit margin of 77.3%. This demonstrates the company's core pricing power and production efficiency.
Key Metrics
Top Statement Risk
Unexplained EPS volatility persists
Metrics are mathematically derived from official filings.
Revenue Reacceleration Rests on Subscribers
Revenue growth reaccelerated to 8.3% year over year in 2026Q3, the strongest print in ten quarters, per Iridium's reported income statement, yet sequential gains of only 1.9% to 3.8% in the first half suggest the trajectory rests on steady subscriber additions rather than any step-change.
The growth pattern appears consistent with compounding recurring service revenue from billable IoT and government subscribers rather than pricing power, as no quarter in the series exceeds 9.4% year-over-year expansion. The durability question is whether the 8.3% figure reflects a genuine reacceleration in the commercial IoT base or simply a low prior-year comparison, since 2025Q3 revenue of $226.9M was itself a period of above-trend growth. Investors may wish to treat the top-line trajectory as stable-to-improving rather than inflecting upward until a second consecutive quarter confirms it.
Operating Margins Fall to Series Lows
Operating margin fell to 12.9% in 2026Q3 from 30.9% a year earlier, according to Iridium's quarterly income statement, a compression that appears driven by costs rising far faster than the 8.3% revenue growth rather than any deterioration in the underlying subscription base.
Operating income of $31.6M against $245.7M of revenue is roughly half the $70.1M earned on $226.9M of revenue in 2025Q3, so the company is generating materially less operating profit from a larger revenue base. This suggests the margin erosion is cost-driven rather than demand-driven, which is the more reversible of the two problems, but it also implies limited operating leverage in a business whose cost structure should be predominantly fixed. The sustained sub-25% prints in 2025Q4 through 2026Q2, if they persist alongside the latest quarter, would mark a structurally lower margin regime than the 24.6% to 30.9% range maintained through 2024 and 2025.
Rising Depreciation Erodes the Capex Payoff
Depreciation and amortization climbed to $62.1M in 2026Q3 from $50.8M two years earlier, an increase of roughly 22%, per Iridium's reported financials, rising much faster than cumulative revenue growth and acting as the principal mechanical drag on reported operating margin.
Because D&A grew about 22% over a period in which revenue rose approximately 16%, each incremental dollar of capitalized investment appears to be outpacing the revenue it supports, which pressures the implied return on the deployed asset base. Interest coverage improving to 5.07 from 1.74 over the same span may partially offset this in the net line, but coverage is computed off an earnings figure that has been unusually volatile. The relevant judgment for investors is whether current spending is genuinely maintenance-oriented or front-loading the next constellation cycle; the income statement alone does not distinguish the two, and that distinction materially changes the mid-decade earnings path.
Quarterly EPS Swings Obscure Core Power
Diluted EPS ranged from $0.09 in 2026Q2 to $0.98 in 2026Q3, a swing of nearly eleven-fold in a single quarter, as Iridium's reported results show, while revenue moved less than 9%, implying the earnings line is absorbing items far outside recurring operations.
Net margin shifted from 4.3% to 43.5% between consecutive quarters while operating margin moved only from 15.1% to 12.9%, so the extraordinary third-quarter profitability originates below the operating line rather than from any improvement in the core business. This decoupling suggests reported EPS is a poor proxy for durable earnings power in any single period, and investors should anchor on operating income trends when assessing the franchise. The persistent gap between GAAP net income and operating results also means year-over-year EPS growth rates of 180% and -55% carry limited analytical weight as signals of fundamental change.
Second Quarter Marks Earnings Break Point
The sharpest inflection arrived in 2026Q2, when net income fell to $9.7M from $37.1M a year earlier and diluted EPS dropped 55% year over year, based on Iridium's reported figures — a contraction that ran against still-positive revenue growth of 3.8%.
The notable feature of this break is that it occurred while revenue continued to grow, indicating the shock was cost or below-the-line in nature rather than a loss of commercial momentum, which makes it structurally less concerning than a demand-driven decline. Whether the subsequent 2026Q3 recovery to $106.9M of net income represents a return to trend or an offsetting one-time item in the opposite direction remains unresolved in the reported data. Investors should treat 2026Q2 as the stress-test period for any forward earnings model and ask what recurring condition, if any, produced it.
Coverage Recovery May Flatter Real Earnings
The strongest challenge to the recovery narrative lies in interest coverage, which improved to 5.07 in 2026Q3 from 1.79 in the prior quarter, as derived from Iridium's quarterly disclosures, a figure that appears inflated by an atypically high net margin of 43.5% and may not reflect durable earning power.
Coverage that triples in a single quarter while operating margin actually declines to its lowest level in the series warrants scrutiny, since the improvement appears to originate from below-the-line items rather than stronger core cash generation. If the underlying operating margin of 12.9% proves to be the new baseline, the earnings recovery implied by the coverage ratio may reverse once the non-recurring support rolls off. A more conservative reading would anchor on the 2026Q2 coverage of 1.79 and the mid-20% operating margins of 2024–2025 as the honest range, which presents a materially less compelling earnings trajectory than the headline third-quarter figures suggest.