Sirius XM produced a health 13 percent increase in revenue from 2011 to $3.4 million in 2012. The company’s adjusted EBITDA jumped 26 percent from its 2011 mark of $731 million to $920 million in 2012.

   Sirius XM CEO Jim Meyer, who recently took over for Mel Karmazin, said the company capped an excellent 2012 with a strong fourth quarter, adding more than 500,000 net new subscribers and attaining outstanding financial metrics.

   “We also returned capital to shareholders for the first time in the history of satellite radio through a $327 million special cash dividend in December,” Meyer said in a statement. “We are confident in our guidance for growth in 2013 and continue to be sharply focused on enhancing shareholder value, including through our recently announced common stock repurchase program that we are initiating this year.”

   The latest report also includes record post-merger subscriber growth for Sirius XM. Its net subscriber additions of 2.0 million in 2012 were higher than in any year since 2007, before the 2008 merger of Sirius and XM. Self-pay net subscriber additions improved 36 percent year-over-year to nearly 1.7 million, resulting in an all-time high self-pay subscriber base of nearly 19.6 million.  The total paid subscriber base rose to a record high 23.9 million. Total paid and unpaid trials were 6.1 million at year-end 2012.

   Self-pay net subscriber additions improved by 41 percent to approximately 529,000 in the fourth quarter of 2012 from approximately 374,000 in the fourth quarter of 2011.

   “We continue to broaden our Internet capabilities to expand the user experience and strengthen our in-vehicle technologies,” said Meyer. “We are thrilled to announce that our personalized radio feature, MySXM, is now in public beta testing and will be available to our Internet subscribers in the near future.  We are committed to ensuring SiriusXM’s long-term leadership in audio and data services, particularly in vehicles, and we will do that by continuing to innovate and improve our technology, programming, and customer care.”

Both Sirius XM churn and conversion remained stable. Its self-pay monthly churn was 1.9 percent in 2012 – unchanged from 2011. New vehicle consumer conversion rate was 45 percent in 2012, also unchanged from the previous year. Free cash flow was $709 million in 2012 – an increase of 71 percent from $416 million in 2011, representing the highest annual free cash flow attained in the history of the company.

   Sirius XM’s fourth quarter revenue was up 14 percent year-over-year to $892 million, while its quarterly net income grew to $156 million from $71 million in 2011.

   “In 2012, we took significant steps to strengthen SiriusXM’s balance sheet,” Sirius XM Vice President and CEO David Frear said in the report. “We paid down more than $1 billion of short maturity, high-coupon debt and replaced it with $400 million of 10 year, 5.25% debt and a $1.25 billion undrawn revolving credit facility.  We ended the year with more than $520 million of cash after paying a special cash dividend in December that totaled $327 million.  With debt to adjusted EBITDA falling from 4.1x at December 2011 to under 2.7x at December 2012, we are below our leverage target and have ample liquidity to pursue strategic opportunities and return capital to stockholders through our $2 billion stock buyback program.”