Sirius XM Q3 Tops Estimates; Shrs Rally

Sirius XM (SIRI) shares are trading higher this morning on better-than-expected Q3 results.

For the quarter, the company posted revenue of $630 million, up 3% from a year ago, and ahead of the Street consensus at $608.7 million. The company posted an adjusted loss of $11 million for the quarter, or about break even on a per-share basis, which beat the Street consensus estimate of a loss of two cents a share.

ARPU in the quarter improved to $10.87 from $10.51 a year ago. The company’s subscriber count of 18.5 million was down about 2% year over year, but rose 102,295 sequentially.

Sirius repeated its previous guidance for 2009 adjusted income from operations of over $400 million.

For 2010, the company sees adjusted income up about 20% from 2009, with positive subscriber growth and revenues up in the mid-to-high single digital range, and higher free cash flow than in 2008. The current Street forecast is for 2010 revenue of $2.7 billion, up 9% from the current 2009 consensus of $2.46 billion.

SIRI in early trading today is up 4 cents, or 7%, to 65 cents.