Iridium Communications Inc

Good morning and welcome to the Iridium fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ken Levy, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Cindy. Good morning, and welcome to Iridium's fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. Joining me on today's call are our CEO, Matt Desch, and our CFO, Vince O'Neill. Today's call will begin with a discussion of our fourth quarter results, followed by Q&A. I trust you've had the opportunity to review this morning's earnings release, which is available on the investor relations section of Aridium's website. Before I turn things over to Matt, I'd like to caution all participants that our call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical fact and include statements about our future expectations, plans, and prospects. Such forward-looking statements are based upon our current beliefs and expectations and are subject to risks which could cause actual results to differ from forward-looking statements. Such risks are more fully discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Our remarks today should be considered in light of such risks. Any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of today, and while we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, even if our views or expectations change. During the call, we'll also be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including operational EBITDA, pro forma free cash flow, free cash flow yield, and free cash flow conversion. These non-GAAP financial measures are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Please refer to today's earnings release and the investor relations section of our website for further explanation of these non-GAAP financial measures, as well as a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. With that, let me turn things over to Matt.

Thanks, Ken. As you saw in our press release this morning, we achieved our 2025 guidance. Service revenue came in on target, and we grew OEBITDA 5% for the full year. In addition, pro forma free cash flow was almost $300 million. Our business remains robust, and we feel confident in our ability to continue generating significant free cash flow as we transform our business and add new services. Free cash flow continues to differentiate us from others in the satellite industry. It's allowing us to invest and find new ways to grow our capabilities while also making good on our commitment to return capital to shareholders through a growing dividend. Our market leadership and growth are largely due to our highly reliable services, our valuable L-band spectrum, and the extensive and growing ecosystem of technology and distribution partners who count on our network for their many unique applications. In the third quarter, I share my thoughts on the changes taking place in the satellite sector and how recent spectrum deals are likely to hasten the pace of more global direct-to-sell services. These new consumer connections may eventually encroach on traditional MSS services. This will take time, but providers will likely be ready with service, even if not truly global, over the next few years. These developments have spotlighted the importance and scarcity of L and S band spectrum, which is widely recognized as the optimal spectrum for connecting to mobile consumer devices of all types. We know this firsthand because over the last 25 years, we've developed a strong mobile business, connecting over 2.5 million subscribers with more than 500 business partners and their applications. In 2026, we will add more partners, new services, and additional ways of connecting them. Demand for our solutions remains strong, especially among enterprise and government customers. Further, the pipeline of new partners looking to integrate Iridium's IoT, PNT, and safety services continues to expand. We added about 40 new partners in 2025, and engagement with them remains robust as we move into 2026. Customers continue to seek out the highest quality and most efficient connections for their mobile needs, and our brand remains the gold standard for delivering these. As we look forward, we're investing to further differentiate our offerings and have made strong progress over the last 18 months on new technology platforms that we can leverage to enter new markets and expand our business. This year, Iridium will introduce a number of new services and products that we believe represent more than $200 million worth of revenue opportunity by the end of the decade. Among these, new Iridium Certus GMDSS companion terminals and maritime that better complement K-band broadband terminals, a new ASIC for Iridium PNT, which we expect to reduce costs and time to market for expanding assured position navigation and timing solutions, and Iridium NTN Direct, which will bring our global narrowband IoT capabilities to standards-based terrestrial devices. We will also be introducing an exciting new IoT device soon to our portfolio that sets new standards for size, cost, and flexibility for our customers and gives our partner base a powerful new platform to build on for the future. All of these are the result of strong collaboration with new and long-time partners and exemplify the enduring utility of our global network. Even as we execute on these new products to drive growth, it is clear that our spectrums, in and of itself, has great value. In light of industry developments in recent months and the excitement around the prospects of D2D, MSS spectrum, especially clean, globally coordinated spectrum, has increased in value. We will continuously consider our spectrum assets with a view of maximizing shareholder value. Therefore, we will not rule out future business alliances that leverage our unique spectrum real estate particularly if they offer incremental value to shareholders. Valuations in the satellite industry are increasingly being driven by future narratives rather than by current operating results. As we focus on new growth areas, we recognize the need to broaden and, in some respects, more clearly articulate our growth narrative. So I want to elaborate on some of the business themes we are pursuing today. as we believe we are well-positioned with the right partners and network resources to have great impact. For competitive reasons, our discussion of some of these themes will be at high level for now, but I hope this commentary will give you an idea of where we're heading. In no particular order, there are four key areas that Iridium is pursuing to expand our addressable markets and drive faster growth for our company. These include narrowband IoT expansion, building on our unique P&T leads, greater national security work with the U.S. government, and disrupting the status quo in the aviation industry. Let me speak to each of these. First, there is no question that Iridium is already the undisputed leader in satellite IoT. We have the largest customer and partner base in the industry and the broadest array of solutions. In 2026, we'll be introducing the first truly global standards-based service with Iridium NTN Direct. Development is progressing well, and we're processing end-to-end messages over our network as we ready the service for commercial availability. We're experiencing strong demand from MNOs to include Iridium in their roaming plans, and we believe the industry is excited to utilize our new offering. While we expect competing IoT services to eventually be available from other satellite providers, Iridium will be able to maintain our leadership and see our subscriber count grow as the market for standards-based solutions expands and D2D satellite connectivity becomes more common to connect assets and people around the world. Our industrial-grade reliability, efficiency, and partner base are key differentiators of our service offering, and these should continue to expand as demand for IoT grows in the future. One key area we're particularly excited about and think Iridium is positioned to lead is in the autonomy sector. Delivery and service UAVs, USVs, and other autonomous systems enabled by AI and remote beyond line-of-sight operations are on track to become mainstream applications. This emerging industry segment aligns well with Iridium's capabilities and deep customer relationships. Another opportunity we see for long-term growth is our satellite-based Assured PNT, which is an outgrowth from our acquisition of Satellis in 2024. P&T services are a multi-billion dollar market and expected to generate at least $100 million in annual revenue for Iridium by the end of the decade. We've successfully introduced the service in Europe and Asia to address the growing threat of spoofing and jamming in areas of geopolitical conflict. There is a compelling opportunity in navigation systems where Iridium P&T can provide a more assured connection for maritime vessels, autonomous systems, and for protecting aviation. We're seeing a lot of traction from civil and commercial organizations that seek to fortify their GPS-dependent systems, which are vulnerable to attacks. These organizations often run high-value, mission-critical applications, like those employed by capital markets, communication networks, data centers, energy grids, and other critical infrastructure. Iridium's PNT signal is 1,000 times stronger than GPS and can penetrate buildings to provide an accurate in-building time source to protect vulnerable hardware and applications. We've already cultivated a number of large customer relationships and expect adoption of Iridium P&T will expand with the introduction of our new ASIC this year, for which requests to participate in our beta program far exceeded our expectations. With this chip, we believe we are at least five years ahead of any other viable global alternative PNT solution, and this hardware will lower integration costs and help to standardize our solution and industry. Ultimately, though, we are working towards our PNT services being directly embedded in smartphone and other consumer device processors, expanding the impact of our service far beyond our current expectations. We now believe that our P&T service can also function as a unique platform to enhance cybersecurity and fortify data networks. We are currently developing a unique quantum-safe cybersecurity service using our P&T signal that can improve identity management and provide authentication for high-value transactions, tapping into the $20 billion identity verification industry and creating a potentially significant new revenue stream for Iridium. even capturing a small portion of this growing market would be meaningful to a company of our size. The third theme for investment and growth is national security. As government programs shift from internally developed proprietary solutions to leverage a broader array of commercial solutions, we see an attractive opportunity for Iridium to increase the value we offer the U.S. government, particularly as it invests in new space capabilities. For more than two decades, We have collaborated with the U.S. government to set the standard for network reliability and interoperability and directly empower service members around the globe. We believe Aridium's consolation and experience presents opportunities to deepen our relationship with the USG. We have secured more than $1 billion of awards over the last five years, including building and operating the ground systems for the Space Development Agency's new network as part of the government's future space architecture. Through this, Iridium has shown its ability to successfully manage mission-critical programs and deliver innovative commercial solutions in support of the government's national security priorities. You probably also saw the announcement last month that confirms Iridium's involvement with the Missile Defense Agency's SHIELD contract, which most of you know as Golden Dome. Being selected for this initiative, is a powerful validation that Iridium continues to serve as a trusted, mission-critical service provider in the national security space. We are excited to support this important long-term initiative and are already executing on elements of this program. Between the U.S. government's numerous satellite service contracts and its new Golden Dome initiative, the addressable market within the national security space represents a multibillion-dollar opportunity. We are excited about the attractive opportunities we see for Iridium to grow its involvement and business with the U.S. government. A fourth growth theme for us will be expanding our share of the aviation cockpit data connection market. Iridium touches aviation in a number of ways today, through our involvement in cockpit safety communications by providing controller-to-pilot data links and other cockpit communications on over 60,000 aircraft around the world. our work in the evolving standards for uncrewed aerial systems that will be a big market in the coming years, and our involvement in satellite ADS-B navigation and surveillance services through Aerion, our joint venture with a number of air navigation service providers known as ANSPs. We believe we can build on these platforms to expand our footprint in the aviation safety market particularly as it evolves from sending safety and operational data over ground-based VHF towers with satellite as a backup to sending all data more cost-effectively and efficiently over satellite. With the expanding aircraft fleet and the airline's expanding needs for real-time information from those fleets, we believe we can offer a compelling value proposition using our network today and then expand in the future with space-based VHF in a follow-on network. Our long-term relationship with Aerion is a key piece of that strategy. They are a growth engine for us into the future, especially as they continue to expand their air traffic surveillance services to more NSPs and market their unique and powerful data set to more industry data applications. Together with some additional investment, we think our work with Aerion could serve a billion-dollar-plus addressable market leveraging our unique, fully global network. So Iridium continues to occupy a strong and defensible position in the satellite industry. Our competitive advantage comes from focusing on specialized products and services for which high reliability remains a key point of differentiation. The growth themes I share with you today represent incredible opportunities for our company to and I look forward to updating you as we invest in, execute, and capitalize on each in the months ahead. We strongly believe the initiatives we are pursuing, along with our core businesses, will enable us to drive incremental growth and cash flow generation well into the future and unlock value for our shareholders. As Vince will explain, we will continue our growth trajectory in 2026, albeit at a slower pace than in the past. as we position ourselves for additional revenue growth and long-term value creation. At the same time, we will continue to generate meaningful cash flows to invest, de-lever, and return capital to shareholders through a growing dividend. Through it all, we will not lose sight of the needs of our customers or the rapidly changing marketplace that we are uniquely well-positioned to serve. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Vince to discuss our quarterly results and outlook. Vince?